“Silly!” she cried. “Nothing but a piece of a blackberry bush that slipped down inside your shoe. Your lace is loosened.”
“Oh!” gasped Alice contritely. “I—I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Once more they trudged on in the rain and darkness. But to the eternal credit of the Camp Fire Girls be it said that no one murmured. They all recognized it as something that could not be helped or bettered by complaining, and they were Spartan-like in their sufferings, of which nerves played no small part.
“Let me carry the light for a while,” suggested Marie to the Guardian.
“All right, if you’d like to. Come up front,” invited Mrs. Bonnell, who realized the need of letting the girls do things for themselves.
“Oh—Oh! Oh, dear!” gasped Marie as she darted forward.
“What is it now?” some one asked.
“I stepped in a puddle—over my shoe! Oh, isn’t it wet!”
“Water generally is,” said Natalie dryly.
But Marie took the lead, and increased the pace, which Mrs. Bonnell had been thinking of doing, but from which she had refrained from suggesting as she thought the girls were tired. But they responded well to the quick-step that Marie led them.