“Good,” said Betty, patting Amy’s hand encouragingly. “That’s the way to talk. And now will you put some more wood on the fire, Gracie? I feel like telling some stories.”
“All right,” agreed Grace, with a glance into the black shadows of the woodland beyond the dancing light of the fire. “Tell as many as you like, as long as they’re not ghost stories.”
And so, after this, the Outdoor Girls did really make a determined effort to forget all about the possibility of tramps lurking in the neighborhood and set about, as only they knew how, to crowd each day to the brim with fun.
They made several trips through the woods to a near-by farmhouse for supplies, and on one of these trips they decided not to stop at the farmhouse but to hike a little further on, up into the hills.
They had never been so far away from camp before, and it was with a feeling of adventure that they started to climb a miniature mountain into the denser woodland beyond.
“Oh, it’s lovely up here,” said the Little Captain. “The higher up you get the better the air becomes.”
“Fine,” agreed Grace, adding as she came abreast of Betty: “What’s that over there, Little Captain? Doesn’t it look like smoke?”
The girls gazed in the direction of her pointing finger and saw that, sure enough, right above the rise of the hill, a thin line of smoke was curling.
“Somebody’s camp, maybe,” said Mollie, instinctively lowering her voice. “Funny thing, away out here in the wilds.”
“About the only place you’d expect to find a camp, I suppose,” drawled Grace, but Betty interrupted, cautiously pushing them a little further back down the hill.