“What about the extra girls?” she whispered, for no extra girls were to be seen.
“The fellows are going after them now,” explained Tom. “This was a dance——” Tom had to leave, and finished on the next round, “for the Camp Fire. The others didn’t come first, naturally.”
And sure enough, by the time the first dance was over, the extra boys were back, bringing partners with them—girls Camp Karonya knew, and who were presently going to form a second Camp Fire—for Camp Karonya’s membership list was almost full now. The newcomers had evidently been asked to wear fancy costume, and the effect of the Indian dresses that the Camp Fire Girls wore, and the boys’ military clothes, was lighted up and made more beautiful by the dash of color made by an occasional gypsy or Oriental lady.
The hall had been decorated in a half-military, half-woodland fashion, with tents draped against the walls, crossed rifles, green boughs and lighted lanterns. It was a warm night, so they had filled the big fireplace at the side of the room with boughs. The entrance to the kitchen, where the cooking-classes were held in the school every Friday, was covered by a tent. Behind that tent, the exciting rumor spread, was a real colored caterer who was going to serve refreshments of unparalleled splendor at the proper time.
But at about ten o’clock a frenzied rapping was heard from the place which was supposed to hold the mysterious caterer. It rose above the music. Mr. Gedney hurried to the door to see what had happened. An irate negro appeared—the city caterer who had been imported to lend grandeur to the scene.
“Mr. Gedney,” he said in what he may have thought was a tragic whisper, but which echoed through half the hall, “I’se been a-caperin’ fo’ nineteen yeahs, an’ ah nevah had anything as shockin’ happen to me as dis heah befo’.”
“Why, what’s the matter, Thomas?” Mr. Gedney asked, while the more curious of the dancers marked time gently within earshot.
“Dey done stole mah ’freshments!” wailed the darky, forgetting, in his emotion, to lower his voice. “Ah had de ice-cream an’ de san-wiches an’ de fruit-punch an’ de fancy-cake”—a soft moan went up unconsciously over the room as the hungry dancers heard of these vanished glories—“an’ Ah put dem out on de side poach till Ah wanted dem. Ah didn’t know Ah was comin’ to no thief-town. An dey’s gone!”
Mr. Gedney rose to the occasion nobly.
“We’ll find some of them, Thomas,” he said.