In an open space on a little rise of ground half within, half without the forest, lay the summer camp of the Girl Scouts of the Eagle’s Wing.
A little brown house built of logs was almost entirely covered with vines, a tangle of woodbine and honeysuckle and wistaria. Only from the windows and the door had the vines been cut away. The house looked extremely ancient, older than the slender beeches that formed a semicircle to the rear and left. Beyond the door, thick with deep green shade on this midsummer morning, towered a single giant beech which appeared to have moved out a few yards from its forest shelter to act as a sentinel for the log cabin.
The cabin had been erected so many years before that no one in the vicinity remembered its origin. Finding the location an ideal one for their camp, the little house had been restored, the chimney to the single fireplace made over, the glass added to the window frames, open spaces between the logs replastered.
The log house formed the center of the camp.
On each side at irregular distances were three tents, one row advancing from the forest, the other receding into it.
To-day there was an unusual stillness about the camp itself at an hour of the morning ordinarily a busy and active one.
Now and then some one appeared, hastily accomplished whatever the task and vanished.
Even the little group on the shore of the lake continued unusually quiet. When any one did speak it was with a lowered voice.
Five of the six girls were occupied. Only Tory Drew’s hands were idle. They moved frequently with unconscious gestures characteristic of her temperament and the fact that she had lived a number of years in the Latin countries where the hands are used to communicate one’s meaning as well as speech.
She made a sweeping movement of her hand at this instant, appearing to include the lake, forest, hillside and the small group of tents about the evergreen cabin.