“As this is Sunday, we will not do any packing. To-morrow morning we will pack the trunk and also a box of cooking utensils. The blankets can go in on top of them. I will ’phone to Lakeview for an expressman, and have them shipped to Tower. Blue Wolf will be there when they arrive to look after them, and see that they are put with the other equipment. Everything will go ahead on a separate wagon to our camping site, and be there before we arrive.
“My plan is to start at sunrise Wednesday morning and walk to Lakeview. We will take our time, and eat an early luncheon on the way. From there we can take the train to Duluth, spend the night there and go by railway to Tower on Thursday morning. By that time, Blue Wolf will be ready for us. We can lunch at a hotel and start by one o’clock for our camp, reaching it before supper time.”
Miss Drexal’s outline of their journey met with noisy approval. Sunday seemed a long day to the impatient girls. They were not sorry when nine o’clock in the evening came round, and unanimously voted for an early bed-time. Eager as they were to be off to pastures new, the next three days were filled with a delightful stir of preparation that sent them slipping by with incredible swiftness. Under Miss Drexal’s competent direction, they made up the light packs each was to carry. Ruth, Marian and Emmy proved themselves particularly adept at this. Jane, however, packed and unpacked and repacked with much sputtering, while Sarah and Frances looked on with derisive enjoyment.
Wednesday’s sun rose bright and hot on a sturdy little procession that started jauntily down the road to Lakeview, waving frantic farewells to Martha. She had stolidly refused to accompany them, declaring that nothing could hire her to go tramping about through woods and swamps, let alone sleeping on the damp ground. During their absence, she had elected to visit a sister living in Lakeview, who was to come for her with a horse and buggy at noon that day.
Yet, in that merry company, there was one face that did not reflect the radiant happiness that shone from the eyes of her companions. Blanche Shirly took the road to Lakeview, a most unsmiling hiker. Ever since Ruth had so plainly outlined to her her position, she had been racking her brain for some excuse to leave the Heights. After long and gloomy consideration, she had been obliged to give up in despair. She was fairly caught in a trap of her own making. Nor was she resourceful enough to devise a way of release. Then, too, her conscience had begun to trouble her a little. Something in Ruth’s ringing tones had lingered in her ears, and given her a vague sense of her own failings, which was entirely new to her and very disquieting. She had vowed to herself that she would do nothing that might please Ruth, no matter what happened. Ruth would have to learn that there was one person at least whom she could not wind around her finger. Back of her resentment, however, lurked a faint interest in the camping expedition which she could not quite root out. Though she did not know it, she had a girl’s capacity for enjoying the new and the unusual. After years of constant artificiality, she was beginning to wonder dimly if, after all, these girls, whom she scorned as babies, were not really getting more out of life than she.
CHAPTER XV
BLUE WOLF DISTINGUISHES HIMSELF
“There it is! I see it!” rang out Sarah Manning’s triumphant cry, as she pointed excitedly to a glimmer of white among the thick growth of spruce trees. “I saw it first! Hurrah for me!”
Sarah’s modest proposal fell on deaf ears. For the past five minutes, the load of cheery adventurers who packed the big buckboard wagon had been keeping a vigilant watch on the narrow road ahead. Perched in state beside the driver, Sarah had forestalled them by the merest second. Her last words mingled unheard with the gleeful shout that rent the still woodland air. The driver of the buckboard, a long, lean native of Tower, grinned indulgently as the shout assailed his ears. “Ye’ll hev to git out here, lady,” he informed Miss Drexal over one shoulder as he brought his horses to a gradual standstill. “I can’t drive no nearer your camp than this. It ain’t but a step to it.”
“Very well.” Before he had accomplished a leisurely descent from the wagon, his lively freight was already piling out over its sides. After ten miles of travel over a rough corduroy road in a swaying buckboard, the end of the journey was most welcome. Despite the wild beauty of the country through which they had been riding, the thought of reaching camp had overtopped all else. The very fact that they were presently to come upon the forest home already prepared for them by their Indian guide, had kept the whole party in a flutter of eager anticipation from their very start from Tower.