"They certainly seem to be looking for trouble," said Margery, "But let's try not to pay any attention to them, girls."
Margery knew that Eleanor Mercer expected her, so far as she could, to help her on the rare occasions when it was necessary to keep the girls in order, and she realized that she was facing a test of her temper and of her ability to control others: She was anxious to become a Guardian herself, and she now sternly fought down her inclination to agree with Dolly that something should be done to take down the arrogant girls from the next camp, who were so determined to drive them away.
"I shall have to speak to whoever is in charge of those girls," said Eleanor. "I'm quite sure that no teacher would permit such behavior, but I can imagine that anyone who tried to control those girls would have her hands full, too."
"You bet she would!" said Dolly. "Miss Eleanor, isn't there some way we can get even?"
Eleanor ignored the question. All her sympathies were with Dolly, but she really wanted to avoid trouble, although it was easy to see that unless the other girls changed their tactics, trouble there was bound to be. So she tried to think of what to say to Dolly.
"Try to be patient, Dolly," she said, finally. "Did you ever hear the old saying that pride goes before a fall? I've never known people to act the way those girls are doing without being punished for it in some fashion. If we give them the chance, they'll do something sooner or later that will get them into trouble. And what we want to do, if we can, is to remember that two wrongs don't make a right, and that for us to let ourselves become revengeful won't help matters at all."
But for once Dolly did not seem disposed to take Miss Eleanor's advice as she usually did. Stealing a look at her chum's face, Bessie knew that Dolly would not rest until she had worked some scheme of revenge, and she felt that she couldn't blame Dolly, either. She could never remember being as angry as these rich, snobbish girls had made her.
Time and again,—every time, in fact, that any of the Camp Fire Girls ventured into the water—the motor boat returned to the charge. Their afternoon's sport in the water, to which all the girls had looked forward so eagerly, was completely spoiled, and the tormentors did not refrain even when Miss Eleanor, who had intended to sit on the float without swimming at all, challenged two or three of the girls to a race. She did that in the hope that the other girls might respect her, but her hope was vain.
To be sure, Gladys Cooper seemed to be a little frightened at the idea of bothering Miss Eleanor.
"Let's keep off until she's through," Bessie heard Gladys saying. "That's Miss Mercer—she knows my mother. We oughtn't to bother her. She comes from one of the best families in town."