“Camp Fire Girls ahoy!” yelled Jack, as he and his chums came a little nearer.
“However did you find us?” demanded Natalie, as the three came running along the path through the halo of misty light caused by the refraction of the Guardian’s electric torch on the raindrops.
“By the process of deduction!” said Phil, as he gave his sister’s hand a quick pressure, and then—pressed that of some one else. No, there’s no use in asking whose it was. Besides Phil often changed—as did Jack and Blake, for all the girls had hands that were temptations to hold.
“I don’t see how you knew we were here,” went on Mabel, as, after some hysterical laughter they resumed their way.
“Old Hanson told us he saw you coming over this direction in boats,” explained Blake, “and we put two and three together and got six. Then, by subtracting one we knew you five were over here and we came.”
“Oh, how glad we are!” exclaimed Natalie.
“And is it far to the lake?” inquired Alice. “It seems as if we must have walked ten miles.”
“The cove where you left your boats is about a quarter of a mile away,” explained Jack. “You’d have been there in about five minutes if you had kept on.”
“We were about to give up,” declared Natalie.
“We can never row back,” added Mabel.