A Campfire Girl's Happiness

by Jane L. Stewart

Then he followed the men he had sent out in search of Bessie.

And all the time Bessie herself had heard every word, and seen every action of the scene that followed the discovery of her escape. While Holmes was talking to Eleanor she had seized the chance to slip over to a heavily curtained window, which, she guessed, must open right on the ground.

She took the chance of it being open, and fortune favored her. Concealed by the curtain, she was able to slip out, and then, instead of running as fast and as far as she could, as nine people out of ten would have done, she stayed where she was. She reasoned that there, so close to the house, was the last place where search would be made.

And she was right. She saw Holmes dash from the room; she saw Eleanor and the other girls being led upstairs. And then she not only heard, but saw the pursuit of her that was begun. Men with lanterns searched the grounds; they looked behind every bush. But, though a single glance, almost, would have revealed her had anything like a careful search of the flower beds close to the house been made, no one came near her hiding-place. Between her and the open garden was only a flimsy screen of rose bushes, but it proved enough.

She stayed there, scarcely daring to breathe, while the men searched the grounds and the beach. And she was still there, more than an hour later, when they returned, tired and discouraged, to report the failure of their search to Holmes, who was back in the room from which she had escaped.

“Fury!” cried Holmes. “She must be on the island! There’s no way that she can have got away! Well, watch the boats! That will have to do for to-night. She can’t get away without a boat–and they are all in the boat-house. If she wanders down to the other end, to the fort, we can catch her in the morning. They won’t believe any story she can tell them, if she should happen to get there. And I don’t want to disturb them to-night–I’d rather wait until morning, when they will be over with the papers. I haven’t any real right to hold them to-night, except the right of force.”

Bessie thrilled at the information those few words gave her. She remembered now that there was a fort, manned by United States soldiers, on Humber Island. It was one of the chain of forts that guarded the approaches to Rock Haven. And Bessie had an idea that she would be able to find someone at the fort to believe her story, wild and improbable as she knew it must sound. The great problem now was to get out of the grounds unseen.

And that problem, of course, her cleverness in hiding so close to the house had made much easier to solve. No one would suspect now that she was there; if she waited until the house was quiet, and the men who were to watch the boats had gone to their post, she should be able to steal out of the garden and in the direction of the fort.

To be on the safe side, she waited nearly an hour longer. Then, as quietly as she could, she began her solitary walk. Fortune, and her own ability to move quietly, favored her. In five minutes she was out of the grounds, and in woods where, though the walking was difficult, and she stumbled more than once, she at least felt safe from the danger of pursuit.

Soon the woods began to thin; then they grew thicker again. But, after she had been walking, as she guessed, for more than an hour, it grew lighter and she saw ahead of her the outlines of dark buildings–Fort Humber, she was sure. And a minute later the sharp hail of a sentry halted her, and at the same time made her sure that she had not lost her way.