CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE [I. The Winter Manitou] 7 [II. “Sunrise Cabin”] 22 [III. “A Rose of the World”] 38 [IV. “The Reason o’ It”] 50 [V. Mollie’s Suggestion] 61 [VI. A Black Sheep] 69 [VII. Turning the Tables] 81 [VIII. Possibilities] 98 [IX. Christmas Eve at the Cabin] 110 [X. Esther’s Old Home] 123 [XI. Gifts] 129 [XII. The Camp Fire Play] 137 [XIII. An Indian Love Song] 149 [XIV. Mollie’s Confidant] 156 [XV. A Boomerang] 168 [XVI. The Apology] 183 [XVII. General News] 190 [XVIII. Donna and Her Don] 202 [XIX. Memories] 212 [XX. The Explanation] 223 [XXI. Misfortune] 234 [XXII. Saying Farewell to the Cabin] 242 [XXIII. Future Plans] 253
ILLUSTRATIONS
[“Ach Gnädiges Fräuleins, It Ist Not Possible”] Frontispiece PAGE [“Turn That Box Over to Me”] 85 [The Song Had a Plaintive Cadence] 152 [“Do As I Tell You, Princess, Please”] 218
The Camp Fire Girls Amid the Snows
CHAPTER I
The Winter Manitou
The snow was falling in heavy slashing sheets, and a December snowstorm in the New Hampshire hills means something more serious than a storm in city streets or even an equal downfall upon more level meadows and plains.
Yet on this winter afternoon, about an hour before twilight and along the base of a hill where a rough road wandered between tall cedar and pine trees and low bushes and shrubs, there sounded continually above the snow’s silencing two voices, sometimes laughing, occasionally singing a brief line or so, but more often talking. Accompanying them always was a steady jingling of bells.
“We simply can’t get there to-night, Princess,” one of the voices protested, still with a questioning note as though hardly believing in its own assertion.
“We simply can’t do anything else, my child” the other answered teasingly. “Have you ever thought how much harder it is to travel backward in this world than forward, otherwise I suppose we should have had eyes placed in the back of our heads and our feet would have turned around the other way? Don’t be frightened, there really isn’t the least danger.”