“Wait a minute, Bab!” pleaded Ruth. It was second nature with Ruth to be ready for emergencies. Rapidly she tore from a pad in her leather knapsack a sheet of paper and wrote on it: “Bab and I are going into the woods at the left. Follow the trail of the paper I shall drop as we walk.”
Like a flash she pulled off her white petticoat, and tied it to a bush near the place where she and Bab had been sitting. The skirt fluttered and swung in the breeze. Beneath it, under a small stone, Ruth placed her note.
“Come on, Bab!” she cried. “Let’s be off!”
Barbara bounded ahead; Ruth closely followed, leaving behind her a trail of white paper which she tore into bits as she ran.
The light ahead of the two girls beckoned them deeper and deeper into the forests. They must have followed it for more than a mile. Ruth’s paper was giving out. Suddenly the light dipped to the ground and was gone!
At the same moment, Ruth and Barbara heard a sizzling crackling noise. A tongue of flame darted up between two distant trees, and a warm glow like that of a camp fire lit up the shadows of the forest.
Ruth and Bab rushed to the spot. In the center of a small open space some one had lighted a fire. Sitting on a bank of autumn leaves, slowly rubbing her eyes was a girl. A scarlet coat caught Bab’s eyes; then a tangle of yellow curls.
“It’s my Mollie!” she cried, springing toward her and gathering her in her arms.
“Why, Bab,” asked Mollie sleepily, “when did you and Ruth find me? I must have been dreaming. I did not hear you make the fire. How did you happen to light a fire before you awakened me?”
The girls stared at Mollie. “Build a fire?” they queried in amazement. “Surely, Mollie, you made the fire yourself.”