"Say, girls! I just felt a drop of rain from that inky cloud!" Betty Lee warned. She was Julie's sister, and they were two who had first suggested a scout organization.
Mrs. Vernon slowed down and turned to the scouts. "Shall we stop to put on the rain-curtains?"
"Mercy, no! It's only a sprinkle, and we're not sugar," exclaimed Joan, glancing at the sky.
The other girls followed her gaze, and Julie said: "See all the blue sky! Enough to make the proverbial 'night-cap'."
In case the reader has not yet met the four girls who had such a thrilling time while at camp the previous summer, it will be best to make their acquaintance now.
As stated before, Juliet and Elizabeth Lee were the two sisters who planned having a scout troop for girls in Elmertown. Joan Allison and Ruth Bentley, both schoolmates of the Lee girls, eagerly agreed to add their efforts to the others' and secure the interest of enough girls for them to be able to apply for a charter from the Girl Scout Headquarters in New York City.
Before they closed their camp on "Verny's Mountain" that summer, five other girls had been admitted to membership in the young Patrol, namely: Hester Wynant, fourteen; Anne Bailey, fourteen; Judith Blake, thirteen; her sister, Edith Blake, twelve; and Amy Ward, thirteen.
Then during the winter, other girls who had heard of the good times the scouts had had in camp that past summer became so insistent to mothers at home that permission to join the organization was granted them.
Having nine girls in their original Patrol, with Julie as Leader, and Joan for Corporal, the scouts now felt experienced enough to pass all the tests required to apply for a Troop Charter. The young scouts were an active group and when the Charter arrived from National Headquarters the same day the girls had planned to start for camp, there was great rejoicing.
True to his promise given the Girl Scouts the summer previous, Mr. Gilroy had sent word to Mrs. Vernon when the camp in the Adirondacks was ready for them. When the girls found that Mrs. Vernon planned to use her large touring car for half of the number in the Troop to go in, and Ruth Bentley's father had offered his car for the other half, thus saving them great expense for railroad tickets, and giving them the pleasure of autoing the whole long distance, the excitement rose and would not be calmed down again.