CHAPTER X
SUMMONED TO THE COUNCIL
"They're saved! They're saved!" shouted fifty voices, their owners almost wild with delight. With one common impulse they gathered up Tommy and Harriet and started to carry them into camp. Tommy offered no resistance. She submitted willingly. With Harriet it was different. She struggled, freed herself from the detaining arms, and sprang away from her rejoicing companions, laughing softly.
"I am perfectly able to take care of myself, thank you," she said.
"You certainly do not look it," declared the Chief Guardian. Harriet's face was pale, her eyes sunken, with dark rings underneath them, but in other ways she appeared to be her old self. "We shall both be as well as ever after we have had something warm to eat and drink."
"Tell us, oh, tell us about it," cried several girls in chorus.
"Not a word until after the girls have had something to eat and drink. They are completely exhausted." Mrs. Livingston gazed wonderingly at Harriet Burrell, knowing full well that the latter had borne the greater share of the burden in the battle that she must have had to fight through the long, dark night.
The cook girls were already making coffee and warming up food left over from their own breakfast, as being the quickest way to prepare something for the returned Meadow-Brook Girls. That meal strengthened and cheered them wonderfully. Tommy began to chatter after having drunk her first cup of coffee. Their companions sat about in a semi-circle watching them, scarcely able to restrain their curiosity as to what had happened during the night. Jane opened the recital by a question.
"Did you really mean that you wished fish for breakfast, Tommy?" she asked.
Grace regarded her with a frowning squint.