“Some one is mocking us!” added another listener.
“Oh, nonsense,” laughed Helen, whose ear for music was not keen, “that’s an echo!”
But it proved to be no echo, for as the girls started in again to sing they found that if they stopped suddenly, the voices, which they now recognized as coming from the other shore, would continue with the song. This created no end of laughter among the girls, and their surprise and amusement increased as they recognized that their friends on the other side of the Lake laughed when they laughed, as if in mockery.
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” suggested Kitty, “let’s give the Pioneer yell and see if they answer.” This was no sooner suggested than it was done, but not a sound was heard, no, not even an echo in reply.
“Well, they can’t be scouts,” said an Oriole, “or they would answer in some way.”
“Let’s sing, ‘We’re Pioneers,’ and then they’ll know who we are, anyway,” some one proposed, a little more cheerily.
This proposition met with favor, and the girls were soon singing with a zest and verve that deserved a reward, but as before a dead silence greeted their efforts.
The campers felt inconsolable, for some of them had already begun to dream of the fun they would have if there were some jolly scouts about, especially if they proved as chivalrous and as manly as the scouts at Westport. As the girls discussed ways and means of making these strange neighbors reveal who they were, suddenly from the other shore came in stentorian tones, evidently through a megaphone, “Be prepared!” This startling announcement was immediately followed by a chorus of male voices singing with hearty gusto, “Zing-a-Zing! Bom! Bom!” to the accompaniment of a loud sound, as if every one was pounding on a tin pan.
The girls sat stunned with surprise for a moment and then Edith cried, “Why, they can’t be scouts after all, for that is not the salute used by the Westport Scouts.”
“Huh! but that is just what they are—scouts,” cried one of the Orioles quickly, “for that is the national salute. My brother has a Scout book and I have seen their call.”