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“Natalie, in her Camp Fire suit.”

THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS

OR

THE SECRET OF AN OLD MILL

BY

MARION DAVIDSON

MADE IN U. S. A.

M · A · DONOHUE · & · COMPANY

CHICAGO NEW YORK

DEDICATION

TO THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS OF AMERICA

Who are doing so much to glorify, not only the life of the great out-doors, but also the more humble life of the home, this volume is gratefully dedicated.

MARION DAVIDSON

CONTENTS

THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS

OR

THE SECRET OF AN OLD MILL

CHAPTER I

THE CHALLENGE

“Oh, girls, isn’t it just splendid?”

“And the rings are too sweet for anything; aren’t they, really?”

“But what are they for—those seven marks, I mean? I heard Mrs. Bonnell mention it, but there was so much going on that I’ve forgotten.”

“Oh, Alice! Don’t you recall that those seven ‘marks’, as you call them, are the seven points of the law of the Camp Fire Girls?”

“To which delightful organization we now belong,” added another of the quartette.

“Oh, Natalie!” exclaimed Alice Lathrop, “you’re a dear, but you always did have the most remarkable remembrancer,” and, with a laugh she put her arms around her chum, whose dark, olive-tinted complexion, with that calm brow, and eyes, in the depths of which woodland pools seemed to lie, gave her the appearance of an Indian maid, especially when she plaited her hair in two, long black braids.

“It’s quite symbolic,” went on Mabel Anderson, as she looked at the silver ring on one of the slim fingers of her pretty hand, a hand of which she was perhaps a trifle vain—excusably so, in the opinion of some of her friends.

“And now we are really ‘Wood Gatherers,’” spoke Marie Pendleton. “It’s the first step. I wonder if we will take the others?”

“I intend to,” declared Alice. “It only takes three months to become a ‘Fire Maker,’ and three more to be a ‘Torch Bearer.’”

“Oh, but there are lots of things to do in that time,” sighed Mabel Anderson. “Think of the test of getting two meals for—for you girls!” and she looked with pretended dismay at her three pretty chums. “I—I don’t even know how to peel potatoes!” and she covered her face with her hands.

“It’s time you learned,” declared Marie, who, since the death of her mother kept house, with the assistance of a maid, for her father, and her brother Jack.

“I can see all sorts of jolly times ahead of us!” exclaimed Alice. “We will get to know ever so many nice girls—really we four are too much by ourselves.”

“We always have been,” said Mabel. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t continue to go together. Just because we have joined the Camp Fire Girls doesn’t mean that we’re going to separate, I hope. Shall we make new friends and lose our old ones?”

“Not at all,” went on Alice. “But we are too—too—what was it Professor Battell said in class to-day—too inscribed—no, that wasn’t it——”

“Circumscribed,” put in Natalie.

“That’s it. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have you for a memo. pad, Nat!” and once more Alice embraced her chum.

“Why so pensive?” asked Marie, as, to give entrance for her friends she opened the door of the little cottage, over which she presided as mistress. “Has anything happened, Natalie? Did you miss in Latin to-day?” and Marie, dropping her books on a chair in the hall ushered her chums into the little library. The girls were on their way home from the Academy and from class had gone to a meeting of the Camp Fire Girls Association, which had recently been started in their town. They had been initiated as “Wood Gatherers” of the Dogwood Camp Fire, which name Mrs. Pierce Bonnell, the Guardian, had chosen for the group.

“No, nothing has happened,” said Natalie slowly. “I was just thinking what delightful fun we would have this summer if we could really gather around a camp fire of our own, out in the open.”

“Well, why couldn’t we?” asked Marie. “Let’s think about it, anyhow. I’m going to ask Nellie to make tea. It’s real chilly, even if the bluebirds are here and the flowers almost out. Oh, I have it, I’m going to choose the name Bluebird—I wonder what that is in Indian?”

“Che-no-sag-ak!” exclaimed a guttural voice, as Marie opened the door of the dining room. “Che-no-sag-ak! Wah! Pale face maiden heap talk much. Ugh!”

“Oh Jack! How you startled me!” cried Marie, shrinking back, with her hands to her breast, as she beheld her brother and his two intimate chums, Phil Anderson and Blake Lathrop, calmly seated at the dining room table, luxuriously regaling themselves on water crackers and old cheese, with some ginger ale which they had evidently smuggled in from the corner grocery.

“What is it?” echoed the voice of Mabel, as she and the other two girls crowded to the portal. “Phil!” she went on, “and Blake! Have you been listening to what we were saying?” she demanded as she marched out and stood half-threateningly over her brother.

“How could we help it—the way you talked?” he inquired, defensively.

“And so Marie is going to be a bluebird; is she?” went on Jack with a grin. “Fine! That’s the Indian for it that I was reciting—‘Che-no-sag-ak!’ Little bluebird of the wildwood, come and let me have thy feathers—have thy feathers for my new hat, for my new hat made of satin. Little——”

His voice died off into a gurgle for Alice, with the intimacy of a chum of Jack’s sister, had clapped her hands over his mouth, to the destruction of a cracker he had been about to munch.

“Look out for that cheese!” warned Phil.

“And the carpet!” added Blake.

“Well, let him stop making fun!” snapped Alice, as she glided away before Jack could take a fair revenge.

“What’s it all about, anyhow?” asked Blake, when quiet had been somewhat restored. “Why all this Indian hocus-pocus? Has a medicine show come to town?”

“It’s the Camp Fire Girls,” declared Jack, trying to get up from the carpet some of the cracker crumbs before Nellie, the maid came in, for Jack and his chums were only in the dining room on sufferance. “Sis has been mooning around the house about it for the last three weeks.”

“I have not, Jack Pendleton!”

“Gibbering about Wood-gatherers, Fire-makers, and what not,” went on the irrepressible brother. “She’s been looking in the back of the dictionary for something or other—I thought she had fallen down on her Latin, and was trying to work off a condition.”

“I was looking for Indian words,” declared Marie, “only I couldn’t find any. You know we can each choose an Indian name,” she went on to her girl chums, ignoring the three boys. “It may be anything, only it ought to mean something in English. But my dictionary doesn’t have any Indian information in it.”

“I have an Indian book at home,” said Blake Lathrop quietly, speaking to all, but looking rather more intently at Natalie. “I think it has a lot of names such as ‘bluebird’ in it. If you girls want to pick out titles for yourselves I’ll bring it over.”

“Oh, will you, really?” cried Mabel. “I want an Indian name, too, if the rest are going to have them.”

“Say, what is this Camp Fire Girls’ racket, anyhow?” asked Phil. “I’ve heard you talking about it, Mabel, but I thought it was one of the Academy societies.”

“It’s nothing of the sort,” declared Alice, while Natalie went to the piano and softly played a weird Indian song, in a haunting minor key.

“Well, what is it?” asked Jack, finishing the last of his crackers and cheese, and gallantly offering Alice what was left of the ginger ale.

“No, thank you,” interposed his sister. “I’m going to ask Nellie to make us some tea. We’re all shivering.”

“The Camp Fire Girls is an organization something like the Boy Scouts,” went on Alice.

“I used to belong,” remarked Blake, as he walked over ostensibly to look at the picture on the wall—the said picture being very close to the piano at which Natalie was softly playing.

“Well, the Camp Fire Girls are like the Scouts,” continued Alice, “only different. It isn’t so military. The camp fire is our symbol, and our seven laws are—‘seek beauty’——”

“None of you have to!” declared Jack gallantly, bowing with his hand on his heart.

“Thank you!” chorused the trio, Marie being out in the kitchen interviewing the maid.

“Go on, Alice,” urged Natalie.

“‘Seek beauty,’” resumed the girl, “‘give service—pursue knowledge—be trustworthy—hold on to health—glorify work—be happy.’ There, I think I’ve said them right.”

“You have,” murmured Mabel.

“Very nice,” asserted Phil.

“And there are three degrees,” proceeded Alice. “We have just joined, so we are humble wood-gatherers, may it please your gracious highnesses,” and she dropped a pretty courtesy to the boys. “After three months’ service as such, we may become fire-makers, and that’s a lot harder. And then the next is torch-bearer, which is harder still. But we’re not worrying about that. See our rings—aren’t they dears?” and she held out her hand which Jack promptly captured, to the discomfiture of Phil, who had also made an attempt at the slim fingers.

Then from the piano, which had suddenly ceased its melody there came a voice:

“No, Blake, you mustn’t take off my ring—really. Oh, stop—there, you’ve dropped it!”

“Shame on you Blake!” mocked Phil, “to treat a poor girl so. Let me see your ring, Marie,” he went on, as the pretty hostess came into the room again.

“I’m too busy,” she called to him. “You may help me get out the cups and saucers if you will, though,” she added.

“Let me be a wood-gatherer,” pleaded Jack.

“Me for the fire-maker!” declared Blake.

“You’ve got enough to do right there,” mocked Jack. “We will call you the Greek chorus.”

And thus the merry quips and gibes went on until tea was served, the boys stoically remaining, and, perforce requiring to be fed, though Marie remarked to Jack sotto-voice that she thought he had had one lunch since school.

“I am always open for more,” he replied.

“And so you girls are really going to be members of the Camp Fire club,” spoke Phil, when the rattle of teacups had ceased.

“Of Dogwood Camp,” added Natalie, daintily removing a bit of butter from the tip of her finger encircled by the new silver ring.

“Well, it may all be very nice and romantic, and that sort of thing,” began Jack, “but——”

“It isn’t romantic at all,” interrupted Alice. “It’s practical—at least I think that’s the proper word,” and she looked rather doubtfully at Natalie.

“Oh, say, we’re forgetting all about our Indian names,” exclaimed Marie. “I wonder what signified bluebird?”

“Wash-ton-su-goo!” gurgled her brother.

“Jack!” she cried. “If you don’t stop I’ll never let you stay in when we have tea again. You’re too——”

“All right, sis!” he laughed. “I’ll be good. Only it’s such a joke.”

“We’re really in earnest,” explained Natalie. “You should see our rules, and learn how we can acquire merit——”

“Like the Hindoo Yogis,” declared Phil. “Natalie, the dreamer, talking of acquiring merit. Say, if you girls get to have any more merit you’ll be too good for this earth.”

“Be quiet!” begged Mabel. “Blake, did you say you had an Indian book at home?”

“I have. Shall I get it?”

“Listen, girls!” called Mabel. “Why can’t you all come over to my house this evening, and we’ll select our names. Blake only lives around the corner. He can leave the book, and——”

“Leave it!” exclaimed Blake, with peculiar emphasis. “Perhaps I had better mail it, or send it parcels post, or call a messenger from the telegraph office. Only there’s none there after supper. However——”

“Oh, I suppose you can bring it—and stay—if you want to,” conceded Mabel.

“Not a pressing invitation, but—shall we take it, fellows?” and Blake looked quizzically at his chums.

“We can tell them how to make a camp fire, anyhow,” declared Jack.

“Thank you, we’re going to learn by practical experience, Jack,” spoke his sister.

“Then all come to my house this evening,” went on Mabel. “And, Blake, please bring the Indian book. Phil can entertain you and Jack while we look up some names.”

“And who will entertain you?” inquired Jack.

“Thank you—we don’t need it,” spoke Natalie.

“Well, I’m willing to wager my new hat against a hair ribbon,” declared Phil, “that with all you girls talking about wood-gathering and camp fires, not one of your crowd would dare go camping and build a real camp fire—I mean a party of you. It’s all very well to talk about being like the boy scouts, but when it comes down to the real thing, you’ll be so afraid of an ant crawling on a stick of wood that you’ll want an oil stove to cook on. Camp fire girls may be——”

“Stop!” commanded Mabel. “In the first place, Phil, the Camp Fire Girls’ organization wasn’t formed to go out in the woods, though lots of them do. We can have just as good a time at home. But, for all that, we do intend to go camping, and to make our own camp fires, too!”

“Mabel!” gasped Natalie.

“Oh, Mabel!” whispered Marie.

“Who ever said that?” demanded Alice.

There was a momentous pause.

“We seem to have stirred up trouble,” said Blake softly.

“They’ll never go camping!” came from Jack. “Here, I’ll offer a challenge—we all will. If you girls go to a genuine, bonafide camp, live by yourselves in tents, make the camp fire, cook your own meals, the same as we fellows do—why we’ll come up and see you once in a while. How’s that?”

“And bring you each a two-pound box of the best candy in town,” added Phil.

“And take back all we’ve said,” went on Blake.

“Boys,” began Mabel, somewhat solemnly, “we never gave this consideration until now. That is the others didn’t. But it has been in my mind since we thought of becoming Camp Fire Girls. I don’t see why we can’t go off in the woods this summer. It would be jolly,—I think.”

“Lovely,” breathed Natalie.

“I’ll go if the others do,” conceded Alice.

“We’d have to have a chaperone,” remarked Marie.

“Mrs. Bonnell, our Guardian, would come, I think,” suggested Mabel.

“Then let’s accept the boys’ challenge!” exclaimed Natalie. “I don’t see why we can’t make a fire as well as they. As for cooking, there is so much that comes canned now that it’s really no trouble at all. We always live on canned things when our girl leaves.”

“Then it’s decided!” echoed Mabel, clapping her hands. “We’ll become real Camp Fire Girls. Now I must be going. Don’t forget—come over this evening. And, Phil, bring that Indian book.”

“I will,” he promised.

“Say, do you think they will go camping?” asked Jack, as his two chums took their leave, while his sister led her girl friends to her room to show a new dress she had bought.

“Never!” cried Blake. “They’re just bluffing.”

“It wouldn’t be a bad plan for us to go camping ourselves this summer,” remarked Phil.

“I’ll go you!” cried Jack.

“I’ll think about it,” agreed Blake.

“He means he’ll go if the girls do,” put in Jack. “Well, I’ll see you this eve.,” and with that he pretended to dig into some of his Academy studies, for he and his friends, as did the girls, went to the same institution in the little semi-country town of Middleford.

“Did you really mean what you said, Mabel, about going camping?” asked Natalie, as the three walked away from Marie’s house, some time later, having in the interim found many matters about which to chat.

“I didn’t at first—but when I saw how the boys took me up I did. I don’t see why we can’t do it—and be real Camp Fire Girls.”

“We can,” declared Alice with decision.

“There goes a real Camp Fire Girl now,” added Natalie in a low voice, as she indicated, walking slowly down the village street ahead of them, a figure clad in rather a gaudy skirt, a Zouave jacket, and a sash of oriental hues.

“A Gypsy,” murmured Alice.

“Yes, there is an encampment of them just outside of town,” went on Natalie. “One came to our house the other day, wanting to tell fortunes. It’s romantic, in a way, I suppose, but she didn’t tell our girl anything that I couldn’t have told her myself.”

“It’s the out-door life that appeals to me!” declared Alice. “That’s why I like the Camp Fire Girls. We can make our organization an excuse for all sorts of adventures.”

“Well, we certainly may have some if we go camping,” suggested Natalie, as they separated at a corner. “Good-bye.”

“Until to-night,” suggested Mabel.

“Until to-night,” echoed Alice.

And little did the girls realize what the events of that night were to bring forth; nor how they were to exert an influence on their lives. For that Gypsy played a strange part in the experience of the Camp Fire Girls.

CHAPTER II

A MISSING RING

“Here come the boys!”

“Oh, I do hope they won’t cut-up too much!”

“They’re sure to make a lot of fun!”

“I hope Blake brings that Indian book he promised.”

Four girls, gathered about a table in the library of the Anderson home, listened as the tramp of feet was heard on the porch that May evening. There were whispers, and then a weird whoop echoed.

“Horrid things!” pouted Mabel. “I told Phil if he didn’t behave he couldn’t come in.”

“Ha-nah-do-see-dah—kam-chat-kah!” called a voice. “Little maidens of the camp fire!”

“Oh, behave yourselves!” ordered Mabel, going to the door, but she could not smother the laughter out of her voice, and it broke into a merry peal as she beheld her brother and his two chums.

They stood on the steps, wrapped in old blankets, their faces outlined with colored chalk, and parts of a feather duster tied in their hair.

“How!” gutturally mumbled Phil, as he stalked into the hall, followed by Jack and Blake.

“How! How!” echoed the others.

“We come for heap big peace-talk,” went on Phil.

“Oh, don’t be silly!” admonished his sister, but the boys preserved their gravity, even if she did not, and her half-hysterical laughter brought her friends from the library.

“Aren’t they funny!” exclaimed Natalie, who, having no brother of her own, might be expected to take more than a casual interest in those of other girls.

“Thank you, pale-faced maiden,” spoke Blake. “You are as the breath of the pine tree, and——”

“Oh, what a lovely name,” murmured Natalie. “I wish I could have it for mine. Are there any Indian words for that, Blake?”

“It is written in the book, pale-faced maiden—Chee-ne-Sagoo—breath of the pine tree.”

“Isn’t it beautiful—the name I mean,” she said, as she accepted the volume the blanketed Blake held out.

“It is like thyself, pale-faced maiden,” and he bowed.

“Oh, that’s enough of this silliness!” exclaimed Mabel, breaking away from her brother who had tried to rub off some of the chalk from his cheeks to hers.

“Wow!” yelled Jack, as he threw off his covering, his almost too-realistic war-whoop giving the girls starts of fright. “Come on to the council fire. It is chilly, even if it is May,” and, followed by the others they filed into the pleasant library.

“First of all, let’s choose names,” suggested Mabel. “Did you look up any, Blake?”

“There are quite a number in the book,” he explained. “I marked some. They’re not all in the same Indian language, but that won’t matter I guess.”

“Not as long as they sound er—what’s that word we had in the lit. class the other day?” and Alice appealed to her chums.

“Euphonious,” suggested Natalie.

“That’s it! As long as they sound nice, and have some meaning, I don’t care whether mine is Chocktaw or Sioux.”

“Say my name over again, Blake,” appealed Natalie. “Whisper of the pine tree—was that it?”

“Very nearly. Chee-ne-Sagoo—breath of the pine tree—and it becomes you,” he added in a whisper.

“Silly,” she remarked, in the same tone.

“Did you find a word for bluebird?” asked Marie.

“The nearest I could get to it was bluebird of the mountain,” replied Blake, leafing over the book. “Here it is in Indian—wah-tu-go-mo.”

“Not so bad,” commented Marie. “That will be my name.”

“Here are two more I picked out, though if you don’t like them I dare say I can find more,” and Blake read from a slip of paper:

“Wep-da-se-nah—maiden of the green corn, and no-moh-te-nah—sweeper of the tepee. The last isn’t very romantic,” he apologized, “but it sounds nice—in Indian.”

“I guess that fits me,” laughed Alice. “Father says I’m always sweeping and dusting. I’ll take it, unless you want it, Mabel.”

“You may have it. I like maiden of the green corn.”

“Even though you can’t boil water without burning it,” mocked Phil. “Go ahead—the more different the merrier.”

“Is that a riddle?” asked Natalie.

“No, it’s the truth.”

“I think those names are just lovely!” declared Marie. “Let’s see now: chee-ne-sagoo—breath of the pine tree; that’s Natalie, and it just fits her,” and she blew a kiss from her finger tips, which salutation Blake pretended to catch as it fluttered by, saving it from a fall, and, more or less gracefully conveying it by proxy to its destination—also by blowing it from his hand. Natalie blushed slightly.

“Then there’s no-moh—no-moh—Oh, I can’t remember it, Blake,” and Marie appealed to him.

“No-moh-te-nah—sweeper of the tepee.”

“Yes, that’s Alice. Mabel is wep-da-se-nah—maiden of the green corn, and I’m wah-tu-go-mo—bluebird of the mountain. All of them charming, I think—much too nice for me, mine is.”

“They all become you,” declared Jack, with an exaggerated bow.

“We’ll have to write them down or we’ll forget them,” suggested Natalie, as she twirled the silver ring on her finger.

“And now let’s talk about camping,” suggested Alice. “You boys—where can they go, Mabel?” and she appealed to the young hostess.

“Well, I like that!” cried Phil. “After all our work—togging up like ‘Lo, the poor Indian,’ and bringing you those names—to calmly tell us we can leave. I guess not. We’re going to stay, and help you arrange about your camp.”

“Oh, we can do it ourselves,” declared his sister. “We are going to be very practical Camp Fire Girls.”

“Yes, they’ll throw a whole pound of butter away because an ant happens to get in it, and they’ll wash dishes through two waters,” commented Jack.

“Why, don’t you always wash dishes through two waters, when you boys go camping?” asked Marie in surprise.

“Never! When we finish a meal we put the dishes to soak in the lake, and when we come back the fish have them clean for us!” declared Phil.

“Oh, you boys are hopeless!” laughed Natalie. “You must promise to reform, or you can never come to our camp.”

“Then you are really going to try life in the woods?” asked Jack.

“Of course!” exclaimed Marie. “Didn’t you think we meant it?”

The shaking of three heads told the story of doubt.

“Well, we are!” insisted Alice. “Where would be a good place to go?”

“Green Lake!” answered the trio of youths as one.

“That’s because you boys have been there two or three times,” remarked Marie.

“No, but really it is,” went on Blake, who, having signaled to his chums by a series of winks, took the leadership in the argument he hoped would be convincing. “Green Lake is handy to get to, there are fine woods, there is good water to drink, plenty of camping sites, and the lake can’t be surpassed. There are boats to hire—motors and others—and supplies are easy to get. It’s the best place around here to camp. We boys are going there this summer——”

“Are you?” interrupted Natalie.

“We are!” declared Jack. “And, if you like, when we go up to make arrangements we’ll hire a place for you.”

“Shall we let them, girls?” and Alice appealed to her chums.

The girls looked at each other. Their eyes were sparkling with the light of new resolves. They had never gone camping though the three who had brothers had spent a day in the latters’ tents on the shores of Green Lake, about fifty miles away, where the boys had, once or twice, enjoyed their summer vacations. But for some years past, woodland life seemed to have lost its charms. Now, with the advent of the Camp Fire Girls organization, it seemed likely to be revived.

“Shall we?” repeated Alice.

There came a tap on the door, and Mabel, going to answer it found the maid there.

“Excuse me, Miss Mabel,” she said, “but do any of you want your fortunes told?”

“Our fortunes told?” echoed Mabel. “Why, Jennie, what do you mean?”

“There’s a Gypsy girl at the back door. She’s from that encampment over near Wilson’s woods, I guess. She asked me to inquire if there was any one who wanted their fortune told, and as I knew you had visitors, I thought——”

“Me for the Gypsy maiden!” sang out Blake.

“I’m first!” cried Phil.

“No, I’m going to see what the fateful future holds for me,” asserted Jack. “I want to see if I’m going to pass my exams.”

“Boys, be quiet!” commanded Mabel. “Girls, shall we do it—just for fun?” and she appealed to her chums. “Of course I don’t believe anything in it, but she may make a little diversion for us.”

“Just as if we didn’t try,” complained Blake. “Come on, fellows, we’ll leave ’em to their own destruction.”

“If they’re going to have a fair Gypsy maiden in I want to hear what she says,” declared Jack.

“As if we would let you!” exclaimed Natalie.

“Do have her, Mabel,” urged Alice. “That is if your mother won’t object.”

“I don’t believe she will. I’ll ask her. Tell the Gypsy girl to wait, Jennie,” and Mabel hurried up to the sitting room where Mrs. Anderson was reading.

“What a lark!” exclaimed Jack. “I wonder if she’s pretty?”

“All Gypsy girls are,” declared Phil, “some more than others.”

“I admire your taste,” mocked his sister.

“Mother says it’s all right,” announced Mabel, hurrying back. “We’ll have her in here, and you boys will have to behave.”

“Did we ever do otherwise?” demanded Phil, pretending indignation.

At the sight of the Gypsy, who followed the maid into the library, Natalie and Mabel exchanged glances. She was the same girl they had seen on the street that afternoon.

“Do you tell fortunes?” asked Mabel.

“Yes, lady,” and the Nomad made a bow. Then she looked calmly at the faces of those surrounding her. She seemed clean and neat, and even the half-admiring, if a little too bold glances of the boys, did not disconcert her. She was really pretty, a fact which Marie whispered to Natalie.

“Aren’t you afraid to be out so late?” went on Mabel.

“It is hardly dark yet—and who would harm a Gypsy maiden?” was the somewhat enigmatical answer.

“What do you charge for fortunes?” asked Mabel.

“Only twenty-five cents when I go from house to house. Though at our camp Neezar, our Queen, charges fifty and sometimes a dollar, for a very long fortune.”

“Have you really a Queen?” asked Alice.

“Certainly, lady,” spoke the Gypsy, and though her tones were a trifle coarse, her language was more correct than that of some school girls.

“I guess we’ll try the twenty-five cent fortunes,” suggested Alice. “What is your name?”

“I am called Hadee,” was the answer.

“I’ll go a dollar’s worth of fortune, Hadee,” whispered Jack.

“Be quiet,” ordered his sister.

“Will you tell them out here—where we all can listen?” asked Marie.

“No indeed—I don’t want any one to hear mine!” exclaimed Natalie, quickly.

“It is not done so,” explained the Gypsy. “Each one has her own fortune—it is for herself alone. I will not tell them in public,” and she seemed determined.

“I guess that would be better,” agreed Mabel. “We can go, one at a time, into this little room off the library. Who’ll be first.”

“Let me!” begged each of the boys.

“This is only for us girls,” rebuked Alice, “you may go practice bridge, whist, or chess.”

“Will you tell us your fortunes afterward?” asked Blake.

“Never—not until they come true!” laughed Natalie.

“I will tell yours first,” spoke the Gypsy, looking at Natalie with what the others thought a strange glance. “I can see you have much of a fortune in your hand—and—in your face.”

“Oh, how romantic! Well, I’m ready,” and Natalie went into a small room, opening off the library, with the Gypsy maiden.

Then, through the closed door, came a murmur of voices, but they were drowned in the excited comments of the other three girls, while the boys added their share.

Natalie came out a little later looking rather pale under her olive skin, but when quizzed about it, she laughingly declared there was no cause for it, since she had been promised a most glorious future.

“You’re going to cross water, meet a dark stranger, have a light complexioned enemy and all that, aren’t you?” demanded Jack, banteringly.

“Something like that,” laughed Natalie.

In turn the other girls went in and came out, making merry over what they heard in secret.

“Now for us!” exclaimed Blake, when Marie, the last of the quartette, had been told of the past, present and future.

“I tell no more!” announced the Gypsy, coming from the room. “I am tired. If they like the gentlemen may come to our camp to-morrow. I thank you, ladies, but it is late, and I must be getting back.”

“You may go out the front way,” suggested Mabel gently, for, somehow, they had all taken a liking to the pretty Gypsy stranger.

“Good-night,” she said, and standing on the front steps they all watched the Gypsy girl hurry down the street.

“Not half bad looking!” commented Jack. “Ahem!”

“She was rather a gentle little creature,” commented his sister.

“I wonder how they can stand such a life—in wagons traveling all over?” questioned Mabel.

“Well, she made a pretty good thing out of you girls,” declared Phil. “Now tell us what she said.”

“Never!” came firmly from Natalie, and the others echoed her words.

As they went back into the library they saw Mrs. Anderson standing at the door. Her face wore rather a worried look.

“What is it, momsey?” asked Phil. “Did you want your fortune told?”

“I just happened to think,” she answered, “that I had left my diamond ring on the table in the little room off the library. I came down to get it, but it isn’t there. Have you seen it, Mabel?”

“Mother! your diamond ring?”

“Yes.”

“And it was in that room that the Gypsy girl told our fortunes.”

“With the light turned low,” added Natalie.

Phil brushed past his sister, and, turning up the gas, looked carefully on the table in the little room.

“No ring here, mother,” he announced. “Are you sure you left it here?”

“Yes, I was putting away some seldom-used books, and I took it off so I would not knock it against the shelves. Perhaps it is on the floor.”

Then ensued a hurried search. It was unavailing. The girls and boys looked at one another.

“It—it’s gone!” murmured Mabel.

“And so is that Gypsy girl!” echoed Phil. “I’ll wager she has it! That’s why she didn’t want to stop to tell us fellows our fortunes. She wanted to get away! She had every chance in the world to slip that ring in her pocket when she was in the half-darkness here, telling fortunes. Fellows, come on to that Gypsy camp, and we’ll make her give it up!”

CHAPTER III

THE DESERTED ENCAMPMENT

“Hadn’t we better stop and get one of the policemen?” asked Jack, as he and his two chums sped onward in the now full darkness of the May evening.

“No, we can do what we have to do ourselves,” declared Phil. “If they’ve got mother’s ring I’ll take it away myself.”

“And she was such a pretty girl too—for a Gypsy,” murmured Blake.

“They’ll always take a trinket if they get their hands on one,” declared Phil. “I suppose she saw it glittering there on the table, and while she was holding the girls’ hands, and telling them all sorts of rubbish, she just slipped it away when they were thinking about a dark stranger or crossing unknown water. Bah! It makes me mad!”

“And she was such a pretty girl,” murmured Blake. “I wouldn’t have believed it!”

“Oh, drop that kind of talk and get a move on!” exclaimed Phil. “It’s quite a ways out to that Gypsy encampment, and she has a good start of us.”

“Not so much,” declared Jack. “We came as soon as your mother missed her ring.”

“Yes, but we wasted five minutes talking about where it might have strayed to, and another five looking for our hats. That’s ten, and those Gypsies travel light—they’re always ready to make a forced march. Hurry up!”

“I still maintain that we’d better take one of our faithful and efficient cops with us,” declared Jack. “Those dark-skinned horse traders are ugly customers, I’ve heard.”

“Not when you’ve got ’em where we have these,” declared Phil. “They’ll wilt when we tell them what we want, and give up.”

“The worst of it is that we haven’t any proof,” suggested Blake.

“No proof! I’d like to know what you call it? Mother left her ring on the table in that little room. The only one in it, besides our girls, was the Gypsy. The ring is gone—the Gypsy is gone—what else can you get from that? Things that are equal to the same thing are equal to each other.”

“Well, I, myself, think she might have taken it,” went on Blake, “in spite of the fact that she had a nice face. But that isn’t proof. Suppose they say they haven’t it—that she hasn’t it—what are you going to do?”

Phil stopped short in his quick walk toward the outskirts of the town where the Gypsy wagons had been drawn up for the last week.

“Why—er—why,” he began, “I suppose perhaps maybe we had better take a policeman with us. He’ll be sort of impressive, you see. Yes, I guess we will. Wish I’d thought of it at first. That’s more time we’re going to lose.”

The boys turned back toward the more thickly populated part of the town, in search of a guardian of the law, of whom there were half a dozen, or more, in Middleford.

Meanwhile there was plenty of excitement at the Anderson home. Mrs. Anderson and the girls went carefully over the room in which the fortunes had been told, but only to confirm the first suspicion—the ring was gone.

“Couldn’t you have left it on your dresser, mother?” asked Mabel, with tears in her eyes.

“I’ve looked there. No, I distinctly remember laying it on the table when I put away some books,” for the little room was used as a sort of storeroom. “Jennie called me for something or other. I meant to come back and get my ring. But I never gave it another thought until you asked me about the fortune telling. Then I happened to recall that you might go in that room, to be private, and I came down. But the prophetess had gone,” she finished rather pathetically.

“And also your lovely diamond ring!” sobbed Mabel. “The one papa gave you for the wedding anniversary. Oh, it’s all my fault!”

“Not at all, Mabel!” exclaimed Mrs. Anderson. “How could you know I had left my ring there?”

“And how could we know that Gypsy was a—thief?” burst out Marie.

“Oh, I do hope the boys catch her!” murmured Alice.

“Will—will they be in any danger?” asked Natalie timidly.

“What! Three of them to one little Gypsy girl? I guess you don’t know our brothers!” exclaimed Mabel.

“No, I never had any, you see,” responded Natalie with a smile. “But I was thinking she might get to where her people are, and those Gypsy men aren’t the most gentle individuals, I’ve heard.”

“That’s so!” cried Alice. “Oh, I hope——”

“I wish father were home,” put in Mabel.

“I have it!” burst out Marie. “The police! We can telephone to them, and ask them to go and protect the boys.”

“Perhaps it would be a good idea,” suggested Mrs. Anderson. “I don’t like the fuss and notoriety, but I do want my ring back, and I wouldn’t like the boys to run into any danger. You had better telephone, Mabel.”

Soon the wire to the police station was in use, with Mabel on one end and the somewhat venerable chief on the other.

“Oh!” gasped Mabel. “There’s been a robbery here, Chief. Mother’s diamond ring, that father gave her for a wedding present. It was a lovely ring, and——”

“Skip all those details,” urged Alice in a low voice. Alice could be very practical at times.

“Yes, a robbery,” went on Mabel’s voice. “At our house. A Gypsy came to tell our fortunes—no it’s nothing about the porch—I said fortunes—f-o-r-t-u-n-e-s—” and she spelled it out. “A Gypsy girl—mother’s ring was on a table. Now it is gone—no, not the table—the ring. Oh, please do hurry and get the boys! What? No, boys didn’t take the ring. A Gypsy girl took it, and the boys—my brother, and Jack Pendleton and Blake Lathrop. We’re so afraid the Gypsy men may attack them. You’ll send at once? Oh, thank you!”

The instrument clicked as Mabel hung up the receiver, and turned her still tearful eyes on her mother and her chums.

“There, at least the boys will be safe,” she whispered. “But if they can only get your ring, momsey.”

“Never mind, dear. It might be worse. Don’t distress yourself over it. We’ll just wait until the boys come back. Perhaps you had better make some coffee and sandwiches. They’ll be cold, for it’s chilly, even if it is nearly June.”

“And time to go camping,” added Natalie.

Mrs. Anderson looked at her daughter in some surprise.

“I haven’t told you yet, momsey,” Mabel said, “but we Camp Fire Girls have been challenged by the boys to go off to the woods at Green Lake, and be real camp fire maidens. We are thinking of doing it. Do you think we might?”

“I’ll see. We’ll talk it over later. But now if you’ll light the fire perhaps being busy will make you forget this little trouble.”

“It isn’t a little trouble,” declared Mabel. “I shall always feel that it was my fault if mother’s ring is not recovered.”

“But you mustn’t, dear,” said Mrs. Anderson gently, putting her arms around her daughter. Mabel sobbed a little, and then, remembering her guests, she regained her composure.

“It won’t be as easy as this—getting a meal in camp,” remarked Alice, as she put a match to the gas stove.

“But it will be ever so much more fun!” declared Natalie. “Think of sitting beside the sky-blue water, with the birds singing overhead, and eating a meal beside a glowing camp fire.”

“Beautiful breath-of-the-pine-tree!” exclaimed Marie. “That is if the camp fire doesn’t smoke.”

“They almost always do—at least those I’ve seen always did,” declared Mabel.

Phil, Blake and Jack had no trouble in persuading one of the policemen to accompany them to the Gypsy encampment. On the way, as they hurried on, they told of what had occurred.

“It’s about time something was done to them Gypsies,” declared the officer. “They pretend to tell fortunes—the women folks do—but it’s only an excuse to get around to places and size ’em up, so the men folks can come later, and pick up anything that’s lying around loose. As for horse-trading, they’d stick the wisest white man that ever cinched a saddle. They can doctor old, worn-out nags so they’ll look like racers, but the first time you drive ’em the color runs in the rain, and their manes and tails come unglued. I know Gypsies! I’ll be glad of a chance to help run these out of town!”

The boys and officer hurried on. They had left the lighted streets of the town, and were out on a country road leading to the next village.

“It isn’t far now,” remarked Phil.

“They always have lots of curs around,” suggested Jack. “I hope they don’t nip us in the dark.”

“Just go right on boldly,” advised the officer. “If a dog bites you kick it. I’ve got my club.”

“It’s too late after a dog bites you,” murmured Blake. “And she was such a pretty girl,” he added.

“Say, you’ve got her on the brain!” complained Phil.

“Well, she had a pretty face—for a Gypsy,” declared his chum.

“I don’t hear any dogs barking,” said Jack a little later.

“No, and I don’t see any lights of their encampment,” added Blake. “Fellows, I guess it’s farther than we thought it was.”

“No it isn’t!” cried Phil. “It was right near the bridge we just crossed. But I can tell you what has happened!” he exclaimed, coming to a halt in the dark road.

“What?” asked his chums. “What’s happened?”

“Those Gypsies have skipped. See, there are the embers of one of their camp fires, though they use stoves when they want to do any real cooking. Boys, they’ve skipped. We’re just too late. That Gypsy girl, and her tribe, have vanished with mother’s diamond ring!”

CHAPTER IV

THE CALL OF THE CAMP

“How long the boys are.”

“Yes, it seems an hour since they rushed out, but it isn’t really more than half that.”

“Oh, I do hope nothing has happened.”

Thus spoke Marie, Alice and Natalie in turn, as they sat with Mabel and her mother, anxiously waiting.

“I—I suppose you’ll have to tell father,” ventured Mabel, after a pause, a catch manifesting itself in her voice.

“Yes, dear,” replied Mrs. Anderson. “But don’t distress yourself. It is no one’s fault. Father would want to know.”

“Perhaps he can do something,” suggested Natalie.

“The police ought to be able to,” asserted Mabel with rather fierce energy. “Oh, if I were a man I’d get right after those thieving Gypsies, and make them give up the ring! Why weren’t we boys?”

“It’s so much nicer to be girls,” murmured Natalie.

“I don’t see why, even if we are girls, that we can’t do something,” declared Alice with conviction. Alice always loved to undertake strenuous matters, though not always carrying them out. Still, she meant well.

“What do you mean?” asked Marie.

“I mean why can’t we get on the trail of those Gypsies, providing they have gone and left a trail. I think trail is the right word,” she added, doubtfully.

“Very proper,” admitted Natalie. “One always has a ‘trail’ to camp.”

“What is this I hear about you girls going camping?” asked Mrs. Anderson, probably to furnish a new topic of conversation, and relieve the strain of waiting.

“Oh, it’s just a notion,” answered Natalie. “The boys laughed at our Camp Fire Association, and we vowed that we could live in a tent in the woods as well as they. It sounds nice, but—I don’t know,” and she leaned dreamily back in her chair.

“Oh, Natalie!” exclaimed Marie. “And you were so anxious to go!”

“Well, I am yet. Only I don’t know whether my people will consent. It’s delightful to think about, anyhow.”

“It’s this way, mother,” began Mabel, and she briefly explained how the camping idea had germinated. Then, probably to forget the unpleasant episode of the ring, they all talked woodland lore.

“Well,” remarked Phil, as he and his chums stood with the officer, looking at the dying embers of the Gypsy fire on the deserted site of the encampment, “there’s nothing doing here, as Mr. Shakespeare would say. What’s to be done?”

“I vote we take after ’em!” exclaimed Jack. “They can’t have gotten far in this time. They didn’t have the chance.”

“That’s right,” chimed in Blake. “Come on, fellows.”

“Wait a minute, boys,” advised the officer. “It’s a dark night, and there are several roads branching off this one. The Gypsies could take either one.”

“But we could inquire,” exclaimed Phil. “A Gypsy caravan of that size couldn’t go along without attracting attention, even from sleepy farmers. They could tell if it had passed by, and if we got on some wrong branch road, we could easily get back on the main one, and pick up the trail.”

“That sounds good to me!” declared Blake. “I’m ready for a fracas.”

“Same here,” came from Jack. “Say, I’m glad I didn’t let her tell my fortune. She might have taken my watch while she told me a pretty girl across the water was waiting for me to write to her.”

“Oh, what do you think you are—a lady-killer?” demanded Phil. “If we’re going to do anything let’s do it.”

“How one can be deceived,” murmured Blake. “And she such a pretty girl. She looked something like Natalie.”

“Dry up!” commanded Jack shortly. “You’ve got Natalie on the brain. Come on!”

“I wouldn’t, boys,” advised the officer. “It’s dark, there are any number of roads the tribe could have taken, not to say of slipping off into the woods.”

“That’s right,” agreed Blake. “We didn’t think of that.”

“And making inquiries, and then doubling back in case you’re on the wrong road, all takes time,” went on the policeman. “You had much better wait until morning.”

“I guess that’s right,” assented Phil. “Poor momsey will be wild about her ring, though. Well, back home it is,” and he turned away from the deserted encampment.

They had not gone far on the backward trail ere they heard the tramp of approaching feet on the hard highway, for they were not yet in the district of sidewalks.

“Some one’s coming!” exclaimed Phil.

“It walks like the Chief,” commented Officer Brady.

“Who’s there?” demanded a sharp voice from the darkness.

“It is the Chief!” the policeman asserted. “It’s Brady, sir,” he added, in answer to a question. “I’ve been out chasin’ after a band of Gypsies.”

“Ha! I’m after the same tribe I guess. Have you seen anything of young Anderson—Blake Lathrop or Jack Pendleton, Brady?” asked the head of the police force.

“They’re here with me, sir.”

“Ah! Their folks just telephoned to me about them. Got worried I guess.”

“That’s some of the girls’ work,” was Jack’s whispered opinion.

“Did you get the ring?” demanded the Chief.

“No, sir. They’d skipped out.”

“I thought so. Well, it’s too late to do anything to-night. Come back to the station, and we’ll send out a telephone alarm. Anderson!”

“Yes, Chief.”

“Can you describe your mother’s ring?”

“Sure.”

“Then come along with me and I’ll write it down so as to have it when I send out the alarm.”

“Then we’ll get back to your house, Phil,” suggested Blake. “We’ll tell your mother and sister about it.”

“All right. I’ll come as soon as I can.”

It needed but a look at the faces of the two lads, as they entered the house a little later, to tell the four girls, and Mrs. Anderson, that their errand had been fruitless.

“Oh mother!” cried Mabel. “It’s all my fault!”

“Nonsense!” declared her mother, though there was a dull ache in her heart at the loss of her beautiful ring.

“We’re going to get on their trail the first thing in the morning!” declared Jack fiercely. “They can’t get far away—a Gypsy tribe is too conspicuous to hide away very long.”

The boys told of their chase, and explained Phil’s absence, though before they had finished he came in. Then it all had to be gone over with again, so that it was quite late when the five left Mabel’s house.

“Wo-he-lo!” chorused Alice, Natalie and Marie, as they waved good-night to Mabel and Phil. “Wo-he-lo!”

“What’s that?” demanded Jack, rather surprised at the musical intonation of his sister and her two chums.

“The call of our camp,” explained Natalie. “It is made up of the first two letters of the words—work—health—love. Isn’t it pretty?”

“Love?” asked Blake mischievously.

“Silly!” murmured Natalie.

“Say it again,” demanded Jack.

“Wo-he-lo!

Wo-he-lo!

Dogwood! Dogwood Camp!

Ho! Ho!”

Thus chanted Marie.

“Bravo!” complimented Jack. “That will do as a war-whoop to scare the Gypsies—when we find them,” he added more soberly.

“See you at the Academy to-morrow,” called Mabel, as she and her mother and brother went off the steps.

“Wo-he-lo!” gurgled Natalie deep in her throat. She was half Indian, some of her friends used to say, and they often called her Pocahontas. “Wo-he-lo!”

“The call of the camp,” murmured Jack. “I wonder if they really will go off to the woods?”

“We’d have no end of good times if they did,” replied his chum in a low voice. “We could camp near them, go on picnics, off rowing, in a motor——”

“Don’t count too much,” interrupted Jack. “Girls are finicky creatures. They may change their minds half a dozen times before vacation.”

As Natalie’s home was not much out of their way, Jack and Marie went in that direction with her, Blake and Alice going part of the distance.

“We’ll get on the trail of the false but beautiful Gypsy girl after class to-morrow,” called Blake to Jack, as they parted.

“Sure thing. Good-night!”

CHAPTER V

OFF TO THE WOODS

“Aren’t they just too dear for anything?”

“And such an artistic color!”

“That olive brown is so becoming to you, Natalie.”

“Oh, I think it suits all of you as well!”

“Do let your hair down in those two long braids, Natalie, and be Pocahontas,” urged Mabel. “It is so becoming to you.”

“But it’s so hard to arrange afterward,” laughed breath-of-the-pine-tree.

“Oh, it hardly seems possible that we really can go off to the woods!” sighed Marie.

“And camp—just as the boys do—in a tent and not in a stupid hotel, or boarding house,” added Alice.

“And do our own cooking,” came from Mabel. “I do hope the oil stove won’t explode—or do whatever oil stoves ought not to do.”

“Don’t suggest it!” cried Natalie. “We don’t want to think of the unpleasant features. Think of the birds, and the green trees, and the land of the sky-blue water and——”

“Natalie doesn’t like to think of unpleasant things,” mocked Marie.

“Why should one, when there is so much that is beautiful and pleasant in the world?” demanded the olive-tinted one.

“Spoken like a true Camp Fire Girl!” exclaimed Alice. “Say, I do believe my middy-blouse is too small for me,” and she tried to get a view of her back in the glass, by twisting her neck around much after the manner of an ostrich.

“And they’re sure to shrink when they’re washed,” declared Marie.

“Don’t speak of it,” begged Marie. “Mine is tight under the arms, too.”

“Then let’s not wash them!” suggested Natalie with a brilliant thought. “There won’t be much chance in camp, anyhow.”

The four girls were at Marie’s house, where they seemed to assemble more often than any other place. The semi-Indian suits, consisting of khaki skirts and middy-blouses of the same material had just been received from the headquarters of the Camp Fire Girls, and our friends were trying them on with varying degrees of satisfaction. Truly the costumes, simple and serviceable as they were, seemed becoming in the extreme.

“We won’t be afraid of climbing over rocks, stumps and tree trunks with these boots,” went on Marie, as she inspected the shoes that had come with the outfits.

“And we can sit down on the grass without a qualm,” added Mabel. “Oh, I wish we could always dress like this.”

“Even at a dance?” asked Natalie.

“Well, maybe not at a dance,” conceded Mabel, thinking of a “perfect dream” of a dress she had.

“Isn’t it too bad Cora and Gertrude can’t go with us?” spoke Marie, as she daintily powdered her nose.

“Yes, and Margaret, Sadie and Edna were wild to be with us when they heard about it, but they could not manage,” went on Alice referring to other members of the Camp Fire organization.

It was about two weeks after the loss of Mrs. Anderson’s ring. In the meanwhile, though a careful search had been made, no trace of it, nor of the Gypsy band had been found. The tribe seemed to have disappeared, which was not strange, as that region consisted of many little-explored patches of woodland, in which many bands might have hidden. The police of several towns could not trace the nomads.

True a tribe had been located soon after the dramatic episode of the fortune-telling, but they asserted they had not been near Middleford on the night in question, and neither the boys nor girls could pick out from amid the members of the band, Hadee, the pretty girl who had visited Mabel’s house.

“None of these Gypsy maidens were as pretty as she was,” declared Blake.

“You seem to have lost your heart to her,” commented Natalie.

“Not yet,” he said in a low voice.

And so Mrs. Anderson’s ring was given up—though the boys said the tribe was sure to return the next spring, since the Gypsies always made the same rounds year after year.

“And when they do come here we’ll have them pinched!” declared Phil.

“Oh, such slang!” gasped his sister.

“They’ll never come back here if they really have that ring,” was Blake’s opinion—one that was shared by others.

But the matter of going camping to Green Lake had, in a measure, taken the edge off the sorrow felt over Mrs. Anderson’s loss—at least on the part of the four girls.

They had arranged, through the Camp Fire Guardian, Mrs. Bonnell, to get their suits, and then they seriously began to consider the matter of going camping. After some consideration the respective parents of the pretty quartette had consented, especially since Mrs. Bonnell was to be with them, and she had often gone to the woods with her late husband, though she frankly admitted that she knew very little about practical woodlore.

“Oh, but that’s all the better!” exclaimed Natalie. “We can learn for ourselves, and if we do make mistakes, we won’t repeat them. It will be jolly fun!”

“And if we get into real difficulties the boys won’t be so very far away,” added practical Alice, for Jack and his chums had followed up the idea, casually expressed, and had decided to spend their vacation on the shores of Green Lake. Perhaps this is one reason why the parents of the girls had consented to the young ladies roughing it for a time, since three well-developed brothers might well look after three sisters, and a brotherless girl into the bargain.

“We’ll each share a third of a brother with you, Nat,” offered Mabel.

“Which is very kind of you, maiden-of-the-green-corn,” replied the breath-of-the-pine-tree, with a laugh that showed her white, even teeth.

There was much to do. Fortunately the academy where the boys and girls attended, closed two weeks earlier that term to allow of extensive repairs to be made to the building, so that it was possible to spend part of the rare month of June in the woods.

For the boys, who had often gone camping, it was not so difficult, but to the girls the work of arranging for tents, cots, a camping site, the necessary cooking utensils, an oil stove, and seeing about other matters came rather hard.

“A camp fire is all right,” declared Jack, when he had been appealed to, “and probably you’ll want one every night, to sit about and talk, but for cooking, unless you have to—nix! The smoke gets into your eyes, no matter which side of it you get on, and in rainy weather it’s out of the question.

“I know it can be used, and I’ve gotten up a dinner of six courses on an open fire, with two stones for the sides and a sheet of iron for the top, but if you don’t want to spend all your time feeling and smelling like a smoked ham, take an oil stove. It’s not so romantic, but you’ll have time for more real romance with it for you’ll have more time for the woods and water.”

And the girls had followed his advice, in which the other boys concurred. Then came the matter of arranging for the camping-site, which they hired from a man who owned considerable property on the shores of the lake—the same man from whom the boys engaged their location.

The two camps would be about a quarter of a mile apart, and, as the lake shore curved, and as the boys had a small dock built out on a point of land, they could view the girls’ tents from that vantage-place—or they would be able to when the tents were erected.

The task of arranging for tents for the girls, one to cook in and another as sleeping quarters had been rendered more easy from the fact that a party of young people who made a practice of going to the lake did not intend to do so this season. They advertised their outfit for hire, and, on the advice of the boys, Natalie and her chums took it.

“We know that camp,” declared Jack. “There’s a good board floor for both tents, and, though you may want a few things, you will find almost everything you need. It’s a rare chance.”

“And we’ll help you put up the tents,” added Blake. “We’ll go up the same day you do.”

“Thank you, but please let us do all we can for ourselves,” suggested Mabel. “We want to be real Camp Fire Girls, and put up our own tents. It isn’t so hard; is it?”

“Not when you get the knack of it.”

“Then we’ll read about it in some book. I wonder if the encyclopædia has anything about tents in it,” mused Alice, for, as usual the young people had gathered at Marie’s house.

“I can show you in two minutes, better than any book,” declared Phil. “This is how you want to start,” and then, with a napkin, some string and a couple of knives and forks he proceeded to illustrate the not always easy task of setting a wall tent.

The girls thought they understood it. Then came other advice about settling the camp, how to arrange the stores, what to buy, how to put up the cots, distribute the blankets, put up the fly, to keep out both sun and rain, and many other details.

In the days that followed—and busy ones they were—the girls completed their arrangements. They wrote on ahead for a supply of food that could be kept in stock, and were glad to learn that a not too distant lake-shore village would supply them when needed, a butcher and grocer coming around in a boat to take orders, for Green Lake was a favorite camping-site for many.

“And we start to-morrow!” exclaimed Mabel, as she and her chums had gathered at her house for a last consultation.

“Yes, isn’t it glorious!” cried Natalie. “I’m just dying to roam through the woods in that Indian costume.”

“Be careful some modern brave doesn’t run away with you,” cautioned Alice.

“I’d like to see him,” asserted Natalie.

“You won’t; he’ll probably capture you after dark,” challenged Mabel.

“I wonder where I put it!” suddenly exclaimed Alice, as she began searching among a miscellaneous collection of articles on the bureau, where the girls had piled a number of purchases.

“What are you looking for?” asked Mabel.

“I’m obeying the first law of the Camp Fire Girls,” was the answer.

“What’s that?” inquired Natalie.

“Seeking beauty—I bought a tube of cold cream, and now I can’t find it. I do burn so terribly when first I go out in the summer sun. Where is that cold cream?”

“Vanity of vanities!” quoted Mabel.

“Didn’t you get some yourself—hypocrite!” declaimed Alice.

“I did,” confessed her accuser.

“So did I,” admitted Marie.

“Natalie doesn’t need it,” went on Alice, as she found her tube, besides a little vanity box containing a tiny pad of wool and—well they all carried the same thing. Rice powder they asserted the box contained.

“I suppose the boys will be there waiting for us,” suggested Marie.

“Yes,” assented Alice. “But I do wish they’d let us do all we can for ourselves. It’s no fun to have everything done for you.”

“Again the true Camp Fire Girl speaketh!” murmured Natalie. “I rather imagine we’ll find enough to do.”

“Did you ask the man to have all our things at the place where the tent is to go up?” asked Mabel.

“Yes,” asserted Alice, “and he promised. Also to see that our ‘grub’ as I believe the camp-term for dinner is, was on hand. He said the tent platforms would be laid, and all we would have to do would be to put up the tents and cots. I guess it will be easy.”

“Easy is as easy does,” misquoted Marie. “Oh, we must make sure that Mrs. Bonnell has everything she wants. Let’s go over and talk with her now. There is always so much to do at the last minute.”

Behold then, the next morning, four eager Camp Fire Girls with the pink tint of excitement in their cheeks, assembled at the station of the railroad that was to take them to Green Lake. They had their suit cases, trunks having been sent on ahead with bed clothing and other necessities. They also had a miscellaneous collection of boxes and bundles—things that they had forgotten until the last minute.

“But isn’t it a glorious day!” cried Natalie, as she waltzed around the platform with Marie as a partner.

“Most glorious!” agreed Alice. “Oh, here comes our train, and I know I’ve forgotten to put in my tennis slippers to use in the canoe!”

“Too late now,” decided the Guardian. “You can write for them. Now, girls, we’ll try to get seats together.”

Then the train steamed in, they hurried aboard, amid many admiring glances from other passengers, and soon they were on their way to the camp in the woods.

“Wo-he-lo!” sang Natalie softly, as the train gathered speed. “Wo-he-lo!”

CHAPTER VI

THE OLD MAN

“That rope should go the other way!”

“No, I remember Jack saying you should fasten the other rope first.”

“Are you sure the pegs are driven in tightly enough?”

“There! I knew something would be missing. We haven’t a hammer to drive in the pegs with.”

“But where are the tent pegs?”

Thus the girls questioned and commented as they had gathered about an indiscriminate collection of canvas, boards, ropes and other things at the campsite on Green Lake. They had made a quick trip in the train, and the little lake steamer had landed them at Crystal Springs, as their camping-ground was called.

“There are the pegs,” said Alice, after a look about, and she indicated some articles that looked like exaggerated clothes pins, save for the slot.

“That’s so, we must decide where they are to go, and drive them in, so we’ll have something to fasten the ropes to,” declared Natalie. “I remember Blake saying that.”

“But no hammer!” cried Marie.

“Use a stone, girls,” suggested Mrs. Bonnell. “There are plenty hereabouts. Then we must set up the oil stove and make tea. I’m famished for some.”

“I hope the man left oil,” murmured Alice.

“Yes, here’s some in a can,” called Mabel, who was looking about. “And the stove is just like one we have.”

“Girls!” called the Guardian, “just slip your middy-blouses over your waists, and put on the skirts too. You can work so much better then, and not be afraid of soiling anything.”

The change was quickly made, the girls having brought in their suit cases their Camp Fire garments. Then they began once more to try to solve the problem of the tent. But it was not so easy as they had supposed, even with the help of a diagram Marie had made from Jack’s vivid description.

“Oh, dear!” sighed Alice. “I wish the boys were here after all. One never knows how much one needs them until they are not on hand.”

“Oh, we can do it!” asserted Mabel. “Let’s try the small cooking tent first. That will be easier.”

“Why didn’t we think of that?” asked Alice. “We can use it as a sort of model. Come, girls. Wo-he-lo!”

“If you shout like that some will surely hear, and come to help us,” said Marie. “I wonder where the boys are?” and she looked toward the point of land, where a waving flag denoted the presence of the camp of their brothers. But the boys were not in evidence.

“Probably they did not know just when we would arrive,” suggested Mrs. Bonnell, as she helped Natalie lay out the smaller tent.

“It’s just as well—if we can get the tent up alone,” spoke Mabel. “So much the more credit for us. But it does look like one of those Chinese puzzles,” she went on rather hopelessly. By dint of much changing and shifting, trying first one rope then another, turning the pile of canvas first this way and that the girls finally, with the help of Mrs. Bonnell, got it in such a position that, after a sort of council of war they decided that they could erect it.

“Now, all together!” called the Guardian of the Camp Fire Girls. “Raise it up, Mabel and Marie, while Natalie and Alice fasten the ropes to the pegs.”

The three of them raised, while two excited girls, on either side, took the trailing side ropes and began to catch them around the notched pegs, that had, with much labor, been driven into the earth with stones.

“Now let go!” ordered Mrs. Bonnell.

The girls stepped back.

The tent came down with a dismal flop.

“Oh, dear!” sighed Natalie.

“Isn’t it a shame! Just when we had it nearly up?” spoke Alice.

“Well, we’ll have to do it all over again,” decided the Guardian. “But we have the right idea now.”

“I don’t believe Natalie and Alice put the ropes on the pegs quickly enough,” declared Mabel.

“Oh, we did so!” chorused the two.

“Then why should it come down?” demanded Marie, as if the question was unanswerable.

“I don’t know,” declared Natalie. “I know I bruised my knuckles on that one peg. Where is your cold cream, Alice? I left mine in my suit case, and it’s so hard to open.”

“This is no time for cold cream—nor ice cream, either!” declared Alice. “Let’s try once more.”

“’Twon’t do you a bit of good ladies!” suddenly exclaimed a voice from the lake shore. “You can work ’till doomsday tryin’ t’ git a tent up that way, but lessen you puts th’ ridge pole on top of th’ end poles, an’ raises them fust, you won’t never git no tent up.”

They looked whence the voice came and saw an old man, in a clumsy rowboat, regarding them with half-quizzical, half-amused glances.

“The poles!” murmured Natalie.

“That’s why the tent wouldn’t stay up!” added Marie.

“How silly of us!” chorused Alice and Mabel.

“Goin’ t’ camp here?” asked the old man.

“We—we hoped to,” answered Mrs. Bonnell. “But if we don’t know enough to put up a small tent I don’t see——”

“I’ll help you,” volunteered the visitor. “I often help camping parties that don’t know much about the game. I’ll help you.”

“We’re Camp Fire Girls!” declared Mabel with dignity.

“Ha! Ha!” chuckled the old man. “I have seen folks what could git up a good meal over a camp fire, but they was mighty few. I see you’ve brought an oil stove. That’s what they mostly does up here. There’s some fellows over on Stony Point that have got their camp going in good shape.”

“They are our brothers,” said Mabel.

“So! Wa’al, now let’s see about your tent,” and he lumbered up from his boat which he tied to a stump on shore. “Have you got poles?” he asked.

“They are over there,” replied Mrs. Bonnell, rather put out at her own inability to recall that her husband had, several times, had her help him erect their tent.

“That’s good. Now I’ll show you. I guess between us we can manage to raise the tents.”

As he spoke he came face to face with Natalie who had gone for some cold cream to apply to her bruised knuckles. At the sight of breath-of-the-pine-tree the old man started back, and a queer look came over his face. Staring at Natalie he exclaimed in a whisper:

“Who—who are you? Have—have you come back to me?”

CHAPTER VII

A NIGHT ALARM

Instinctively the four girls, and Mrs. Bonnell, drew nearer together, shrinking away from the old man who had come up out of his boat to help them erect the tents. On his part he remained staring at Natalie, as though she were some ghost from the past. She paled a little beneath her clear, olive skin, but she did not seem afraid:

“Who are you?” repeated the man. “Surely you are not her come back to me after all these years. No, no! It can’t be, and yet you have her face—Speak—tell me!”

“What do you mean?” demanded Mrs. Bonnell, gathering her wits that had been a bit scattered by the suddenness of the change of manner in the man. “Who are you?”

“Everybody about here knows me,” he answered, not taking his eyes off Natalie, yet advancing no farther toward her. “But she—who is she?”

“One of the Camp Fire Girls, to be sure!” broke in Alice, with an attempt at gaiety. “What is this all about? It’s like amateur theatricals.”

“He seems to have taken quite a fancy to Natalie,” remarked Mabel, in a low voice.

“You can’t blame him,” whispered Marie. “She’s the dearest girl!”

“I am afraid you have made a mistake,” said careful Mrs. Bonnell, somewhat stiffly. “None of us ever saw you before, as far as we know. We have never been here before, and, though you may be well known here, we haven’t the honor of your acquaintance. Please don’t annoy my girls.”

“I beg pardon,” the man mumbled. “I didn’t go for to make any trouble, that’s sure. I’m Hanson Rossmore—Old Hanson they mostly calls me hereabouts. I ask your pardon, ladies, but she did look wondrous like—well, what’s the use of mentioning it now. It’s past and gone years ago—years ago. Only—with her hair down her back like an Indian maid she fair did remind me of—Oh, well, will you let me help you put up your tents?” he finished rather gruffly, and he seemed ashamed of the emotion he had displayed.

Natalie, whose exertion in trying to help with the tents had brought her glorious hair, in the two heavy braids, drooping down her back, looked relieved, and gazed somewhat wonderingly at the old fellow, as, indeed, did the others.

He, however, seemed to have forgotten his queer words, and, striding to the jumbled pile of canvas, he began straightening it out, muttering the while to himself.

“What do you suppose he meant?” whispered Marie to Mrs. Bonnell.

“I think he mistook Natalie for some one he knew, or thought he knew,” the Guardian replied. “He looks to me as though he were not quite right mentally.”

“Oh, don’t say that, Mrs. Bonnell!” exclaimed Mabel in a hoarse whisper.

“Hush! He’ll hear you,” cautioned Alice. “Besides I think he looks harmless, and we do need some one to help us, or we’ll have to sleep under a tree to-night.”

“Never!” breathed Natalie. “I’ll go back home first.”

“Can’t!” declared Mabel sententiously. “The last train is gone. It’s Green Lake for ours to-night anyhow.”

“Oh, we’ll be all right as soon as we get up the tent,” declared Alice. “I never knew a tent could tangle so. I don’t see where the boys are. They ought to be here to help us.”

“I believe we did mention something about being independent, and wanting to do things without their help, just to show them that we could,” murmured Natalie softly.

“I wonder, oh, I wonder if that be sarcasm?” whispered Marie, and they all joined in the laugh that followed.

Old Hanson looked up with a grin on his weather-wrinkled face.

“That laughter sounds good,” he muttered. “Everybody feels happier when they come to Green Lake.”

He seemed himself again, a simple countryman, though the others noticed that he glanced at Natalie furtively from time to time, as he straightened out the tangle of the tent ropes.

“I’m sure we’ll all feel better when we get our shelter up, and have a camp fire built,” said Alice.

“Oh, girls, but it’s going to be lovely here when we do get straightened out!” declared Mabel, as she gazed up into the tangle of green in the trees overhead.

“Wo-he-lo—Dogwood Camp Fire!” echoed Natalie, with a trill to her deep, rich contralto voice.

“Is that your college yell?” asked Old Hanson.

“Yes,” replied Mrs. Bonnell, not wishing him to get too familiar with her pretty charges. “Can we help you raise the tent now?”

“In jest a minute, lady. As soon as I lay out the poles and spread the canvas over ’em.”

“Oh, those poles!” exclaimed Alice. “Wasn’t it stupid of us not to remember that a tent had to have poles?”

They watched the old man take the ridge pole and fit the holes in either end of it, over the pins on the tops of the two end poles. Then he spread the canvas over the ridge pole, bringing the central seam of it along the stick. Next he laid out the two side walls of the tent, with the guy ropes trailing off, the middle one on each side being placed near stakes that had been temporarily driven in the ground. Old Hanson then drove a stake in front and one to the rear of the tent, trailing the ropes from the end poles off toward them.

“Now, ladies,” he said, in rather brisk business-like tones, “if some of you will manage one end pole, I’ll tackle the other. Then two of you mind the pole ropes, one to each, and pull them as tight as you can around the stakes. I’ll tighten ’em more later.”

Mrs. Bonnell, Alice and Marie, stationed themselves at the front pole, while Old Hanson looked after the other. Natalie took the front rope, and Mabel the rear.

“All ready!” called the volunteer helper. “Raise!”

Lifting the end poles raised the top or ridge one, and the tent went with it, hanging down, as Marie said, “like a sheet on a line.”

“Now fasten the end ropes!” called Mr. Rossmore. “Any way so’s they’ll hold.”

Natalie and Mabel did their best, and soon the tent was partly stayed. Then, while the end poles were still held from toppling over sideways, under the direction of Old Hanson they secured the two middle side ropes to the pegs.

“There!” cried their helper, letting go of the pole. “She’ll hold until we can peg her down. It will be easy now.”

Rapidly the other side pegs were put in, the ropes tauted on them, and the tent was up. It only remained to further stretch the front and rear guy ropes, and fasten the sides of the canvas down to the wooden platform. It took some time to do this, and longer to put up the other tent, but finally it was accomplished.

“Now I’ll help you put your trunks in,” offered Mr. Rossmore. “We can put up the flies on to-morrow.”

“Flies!” exclaimed Natalie. “I guess he means fly paper; doesn’t he? Though I hoped we wouldn’t be bothered with insects up here.”

“The ‘fly’ of a tent is a piece of extra canvas that goes over the top like a roof,” explained Mrs. Bonnell. “It keeps out hard rain. The boys will help us put them on,” she added to the old man. “But we will be glad to have you help us lift in the trunks,” for the girls’ baggage had been left at a dock near their camp by an early morning steamer, previous to their arrival.

“Oh, to get off some of my things!” cried Alice, when they were in the privacy of the dressing tent, and Old Hanson had been thankfully dismissed with a dollar, handed him by Mrs. Bonnell, to pay him for his work. “I’m nearly dead with this Camp Fire outfit on over my other clothes.”

“So am I!” confessed Natalie. “Oh, isn’t it lovely to be free, and not to have to primp before a glass.”

“Speaking of glasses, I wonder if we brought one,” asked Mabel.

“I did!” came in a chorus from the other three girls.

“And to a camp!” reproached Mrs. Bonnell with a laugh.

“Rule number one—seek beauty!” quoted Natalie.

“She who needs it least,” murmured Alice.

“No compliments—leave them for the boys—if we ever see them again,” warned Marie.

“I’m famished!” declared Mabel. “Can’t we have a cup of tea?”

“I’ll light the oil stove and make it,” volunteered the practical Marie. “But some one ought to look after the cots.”

“We’ll do that—only give us tea!” begged Natalie, and soon five cots, with the accompanying bedclothes, stood neatly arranged about the walls of the larger tent, while all around were the trunks and suit cases, with a more or less indiscriminate collection of garments leading into and out of them.

“Never mind!” consoled Mrs. Bonnell, as she saw the girls’ looks of dismay at the upset condition, “we can take all day to-morrow to straighten out. To-night we must get some supper and rest, and it’s getting late.”

“Oh, for the glorious camp fire!” cried Alice. “We must have a big one in honor of our arrival!”

“Not too large,” remarked the cautious Guardian. “We must remember that we are in the woods, and there isn’t an alarm box on every tree.”

Merrily they sat about the table—some boards over saw horses, the same that the former campers had used.

“We’ll put oilcloth on to-morrow,” promised Marie, as she “poured” while the others acted as “floaters”, as Natalie laughingly expressed it.

Fortunately for the girls, who had never gone camping before, there were no hitches after that one about the tents. All their baggage had arrived, which is not always the case in summer outings, the camp paraphernalia was on hand, including the food-stuff they had ordered. The outfit they had hired was particularly well equipped as to cooking utensils, and the man who brought them from the place where they had been stored, seemed to have forgotten nothing. There was even condensed milk for the tea, and sugar for those who wished it. The oil stove burned well, and this was a blessing.

“No dish-washing to-night!” exclaimed Marie, when some one proposed it. “We’re all too dead tired. We’ll have enough for breakfast. After that we’ll make out a schedule, and get down to a system.”

It was now drawing on toward dusk, but the June evenings were so long, that even after the sun was out of sight it would be light enough to see to go about.

“Wood gatherers this way!” called Natalie, when they arose from the dining table, which had been set under a canvas shelter between the two tents. “Ho, wood-gatherers! Let us see if we are worthy of the name!”

“Wo-he-lo!” warbled Marie.

“Dogwood Camp Fire!” echoed Mabel.

“Remember, not too big a blaze,” cautioned Mrs. Bonnell, as the four set about gathering fagots and bits of dry bark for the fire.

“We ought to have a camp kettle boiling on a tripod over the flames, as the Gypsies do,” suggested Marie, when they had collected a pile of fuel.

“Don’t say Gypsy to me!” cried Mabel. “Every time I hear the word I nearly cry, thinking of poor mother’s ring.”

“Perhaps you’ll get it back some day,” suggested Alice.

“Never!” declared Mabel. “But don’t think about it. I wonder where the boys are?”

“Who’ll light the fire?” asked Natalie, when the pile was ready for the match.

“Let Mrs. Bonnell have the honor,” suggested Marie, and to the Guardian it went.

The girls did not speak as the tiny flame caught the wood, and began mounting upward until the yellow tongues were playing in and out among the fagots. Silently the Camp Fire Girls sat on the mossy ground about their vestal flame, thinking of many things.

“Isn’t it beautiful,” whispered Natalie.

“So peaceful,” added Marie.

“And such a sweet odor—like incense,” murmured Mabel.

“It’s just lovely,” came from Alice. “It’s too beautiful to go to bed, and there’s going to be a moon, too. I can see it—a new moon.”

“Look at it over your left shoulder and wish,” advised Marie.

“For the boys,” added Mabel.

“I don’t see—” began Natalie, when the woods echoed to a weird yell.

“Oh!” screamed all the girls at once, and even Mrs. Bonnell clutched the arm of Mabel who was next to her.

“The boys are here, O maidens of the camp fire!” came in hollow tones from the ring of darkness surrounding the blaze. “Answer to your names!”

And some one called:

“Wa-tu-go-mo!”

“Here,” answered Marie, with a sigh of relief.

“Wep-da-se-nah!”

“Present,” murmured Mabel.

“No-moh-te-nah!”

“Dead tired,” laughed Alice.

“Chee-ne-sagoo!”

“The breath of the pine tree calls me to slumber,” answered Natalie.

“Quite poetical,” complimented the voice of Blake Lathrop.

“And, last but not least, ‘Guardian-of-the-pretty-maidens’!” went on the voice calling the roll.

“Guilty!” answered Mrs. Bonnell, with a laugh. “Come on out, boys, and explain why you weren’t here when you were most needed. We came near never getting our tents up, because we forgot to put the poles under, and couldn’t understand why they toppled down.”

“That’s a good one!” cried Jack, as he and the others emerged from the shadows into the light of the first camp fire.

“Where were you?” demanded Alice of her brother.

“We went down to meet you,” he replied. “We couldn’t understand why you didn’t come. We waited until the last boat, and then gave you up.”

“And we here all the while!” cried Marie. “Oh, you boys! Didn’t I tell you we would come on the first afternoon boat?” she demanded of Jack.

“If you did I guess I lost the letter,” he confessed. “We’ve had a time getting our own camp in shape. Those fellows forgot half the stuff I told them to order.”

“We didn’t forget any more than you did,” retorted Phil.

“Let us have peace,” urged Blake. “At last we are here, and the girls are safe.”

“No thanks to you, though,” remarked Alice a trifle sharply. “We had help, however.”

“Who?”

“A man?”

“I demand his name!” cried Blake, in mock heroics.

“I think he called himself Mr. Rossmore,” answered Natalie.

“Oh, Old Hanson,” said Jack. “Yes, he’s quite a character around here.”

“What is his secret?” asked Mrs. Bonnell. “He stared at Natalie in the queerest way, and asked her if she had come back to him after all these years, and all sorts of nonsense like that.”

“Scared you; did he?” inquired Phil.

“A little, yes,” admitted Alice. “What is the matter with him?”

“Oh, disappointed in love when he was young—same as I’ve been half a dozen times,” put in Blake. “His sweetheart died, or ran away with some one else I believe. He lives all alone in a haunted mill not far away, and——”

“Rats!” cried Jack. “Nothing of the sort.”

“It’s getting shivery,” murmured Alice. “Haunted mills—and hermits——”

“Do tell us about it!” begged Natalie.

“Blake has it all twisted,” declared Phil. “Old Hanson does live in a deserted mill somewhere back of here, but it was his daughter who ran away—not his sweetheart. And it was years ago. He’s a little crazy I guess, and sometimes he imagines strangers do look like her. But he’s harmless.”

“Perfectly so,” chimed in Jack. “He often helps us around camp, when we’re too lazy to work. And he’s the best fisherman for miles around. Knows where all the big bass are.”

“But is the mill really haunted?” demanded Natalie.

“Stop, Nat!” commanded Alice. “Do you want us all to have bad dreams to-night?”

“It looks old enough, and deserted enough, to be haunted,” went on Blake, “though of course it isn’t. We’ll go over and see it sometime.”

“In broad daylight,” stipulated Marie, and the boys laughed.

Then the girls told of how they had been helped by the aged man, and how they had made camp after a fashion. In turn the boys related how they had gone to the end of the lake, where the trains came in, to meet their sisters, but had evidently made a mistake in the time.

“But we’re all here now, and ready for glorious fun,” added Mrs. Bonnell. “We expect you young gentlemen to give whatever aid is needed in time of trouble.”

“Call on us whenever you need us,” urged Blake. “Give your camp cry, or fire three shots from a revolver——”

“Oh!” screamed Marie. “Don’t mention those horrid pistols again!”

“What! Haven’t you a gun?” asked Blake, and he seemed in earnest.

“Look!” cried Mrs. Bonnell dramatically, and she held out something on which the firelight gleamed.

“Put it away! Put it away!” murmured Alice, covering her face with her hands.

“It’s only an ammonia squirt-gun,” explained the Guardian, with a merry laugh. “I saw them advertised and bought one. They are good for man or beast, the paper said. It’s just a rubber bulb on a sort of hollow lead tube. You press the bulb and the ammonia spurts out.”

“Good!” exclaimed Jack. “I don’t know that you could have anything better. Still, if you do need us, a loud call will carry to our camp, and we can get here in three minutes coming by the lake-shore path.”

Then they sat about the fire, talking of many things, until the blaze died down for lack of fuel. And when Natalie would have replenished it, the other girls voted against it.

“Let’s go to bed,” proposed Alice. “Boys, we don’t want to be inhospitable, but really you must go. We are very tired.”

“Will you go for a trip on the lake to-morrow?” asked Blake. “We have hired a little launch.”

“Will it run?” asked practical Marie.

“Sometimes,” answered truthful Jack, and there was another laugh.

Good-nights were said, and soon, with the flaps of their tent tightly drawn the girls prepared for their first night in the woods. They had thoughtfully filled a lantern that had been among their camp-stuff, and its gleam through the white sides of their tent could be seen amid the trees even as far as the canvas shelter of the boys.

“Last one under the covers put out the light,” called Alice, as she made herself comfortable on her cot.

“Let’s burn it all night,” suggested Mabel.

“I can’t sleep with a light,” declared Marie.

“You are just like Cora Janet,” complained Mabel, “she doesn’t like a light either.”

“Wouldn’t it be nice if Gertrude, Sadie, Margaret, Edna and Cora were with us?” murmured Alice.

“Fine!” agreed Mabel. “But Cora never would have a light.”

“Nor I,” said Marie.

“I’ll put something before it, so it won’t shine in your eyes,” promised Mabel. “But really—the first night you know—it’s so dark, and we don’t know exactly where to find things——”

“What do you want to find things in your sleep for?” demanded Natalie.

“I don’t know as I will, but if I do awaken I like to see a light—especially in a strange place,” replied Mabel.

“Perhaps it will be a good plan to let it burn low,” suggested Mrs. Bonnell, and they did.

At first there was so much laughter and talk that even sleepy Alice declared she felt wide awake. They joked about every happening of the day, from the young man who had tried to flirt with Natalie on the boat, to the strange actions of Old Hanson. Then the laughter became less frequent, and the jokes seemed to lose their point.

The Camp Fire Girls were asleep.

It was Natalie who awakened. There seemed to be some one scratching at the side of the tent near the head of her cot. She sat up, not knowing, for a moment or two, where she was. Then as she saw the gleam of the white walls of their shelter it came back to her. The others were calmly sleeping, as their deep breathing indicated.

The scratching was repeated. Then came an unmistakable sneeze, and Natalie saw the wall of the tent shake.

“Oh!” she screamed. “Some one is trying to get in! Oh, Alice—Mabel—Marie—Mrs. Bonnell! Some one is trying to get in!”

CHAPTER VIII

THE OLD MILL

Cots creaked as four forms rose to sitting positions on them. There were gasping intakes of breath. Natalie, cowering amid the coverings pointed with a shaking finger toward the tent wall near her.

“There—there!” she hoarsely whispered.

“Boys! Boys!” screamed Marie. “Oh, Jack—Blake!”

“Where’s that am—am—ammonia gun?” demanded Mabel, in shivering accents.

“I—oh, where did I put it—under my pillow? No, here it is,” and from an upturned box near her cot—a box that served as bureau and chiffonier, Mrs. Bonnell caught up her weapon.

“Where is he?” she demanded of Natalie.

“There—there—he was trying to crawl under the tent! Oh, shoot!”

Something spurted from the muzzle of the odd little revolver, and a moment later there were other kinds of screams.

“Oh, my eyes!”

“My nose!”

“Oh, what awful stuff!”

“A-ker-choo” some one sneezed.

“Will it explode from the flame of the lantern?”

“Oh, Mrs. Bonnell! You aimed it right at me!”

“Did I, my dear? I guess my hand must have shaken. Oh, but it is powerful; isn’t it?”

And they all covered their streaming eyes from the fumes of the ammonia, which, confined by the closed tent, played havoc with them. Choking and gasping Mrs. Bonnell jumped up to open one of the tent flaps to let in air.

“Did—did you hit—him?” gasped Mabel.

“I—I didn’t see any one,” confessed the Guardian. “Natalie did, though.”

“I—I didn’t really see him,” murmured breath-of-the-pine-tree. “I—I heard him. Oh, please some one hand me my cold cream. I can’t see—those fumes from the ammonia are in my eyes.”

“Didn’t you see him?” demanded Marie, as she tossed a tube of the cream over on Natalie’s cot.

“No-o-o-o. There was a scratching sound, and I woke up, and—and——”

“I shot!” declared Mrs. Bonnell.

“You needn’t tell us that!” laughed Marie. “We all know it.”

“I couldn’t find the pistol at first,” went on the Guardian, “for I had it in mind to put it under my pillow, and then I was afraid it might leak, so I laid it on my ‘bureau,’” and she smilingly indicated the upturned soap box. “But I found it,” she went on.

“I’m sure whoever it was won’t come back,” spoke Alice. “Suppose we take a look.”

“Never!” cried Marie.

“Hark! What’s that?” demanded Natalie, as there sounded from without a trampling in the bushes.

“He’s coming back!” murmured Mabel. “Shoot again, Mrs. Bonnell.”

“Cover your heads, girls!” advised Marie.

“What’s the matter in there?” demanded a voice they all recognized as Jack’s. “What has happened?”

“Shall we come in?” asked Blake.

“Don’t you dare!” cried Natalie. “Wait a minute!”

Taking warning the Camp Fire Girls draped themselves more or less picturesquely in their robes.

“Look around outside, and see if you can find any one mortally wounded, Jack,” begged Marie of her brother. “Then you may just peek in, and tell us about it.”

There was a flash of a lantern outside the tent, and the voices of the three lads as they walked about the shelter.

“There he is!” Blake was heard to cry.

“Oh—oh, is he—is he—dead?” faltered Mrs. Bonnell.

“He seems just to be having a fit,” answered Phil with a chuckle.

The girls heard a commotion amid the dead leaves.

“That ammonia was very strong,” murmured Alice.

“Behold your victim!” cried Jack, parting the tent flaps, that had been allowed to fall back after the fumes had been somewhat blown away. “Behold your victim!” and by the tail, he held up to view a small fox, the hapless animal appearing to be in a sort of fit or stupor.

“Take him away! Take him away!” screamed Alice. “He’ll bite!”

“Not for some time,” replied Jack grimly. “You did for him good and proper. Some of that liquid ammonia must have gotten on him, Mrs. Bonnell.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “I didn’t mean to.”

“It will be a good lesson,” went on Phil, while Jack tossed the fox into the bushes, the skin not being in good condition, and also too small to use. “He’ll be all right in a little while, and probably he won’t come prowling about the tent after dark again.”

“There used to be lots of ’em, and—er—other animals of the forest about our tent in other years,” went on Phil, “until we found that leaving scraps of food brought them. After that we buried all our refuse and they didn’t come.”

“Girls, we’ll dig a deep hole the first thing in the morning!” declared the Guardian.

“We’ll do it for you,” offered Blake. “Can we do anything more?”

“No, thank you,” murmured Natalie. “It was good of you to come.”

“Why wouldn’t we; with all that yelling?” asked Jack.

“We thought the ghost of the old mill was carrying you off,” explained Blake.

“Ugh! Don’t speak of it—we’ll never get another wink of sleep,” declared Mabel.

The boys departed, laughing and joking, and the girls tried to compose themselves to slumber, but it was not easy. However even a little rest in that glorious balsam-laden air was enough, and they awoke in the morning much refreshed.

Water had been brought from the spring the night before, and after simple toilets, simple perforce, they arranged for breakfast. The boys had brought them eggs from their supply, pending arrangements the girls would make with a near-by farmer, and with crisp bacon and coffee there was a meal that even a jaded epicure might have partaken of with delight.

All about was a freshness; the trees with their green leaves, the sparkling lake within a stone’s throw of their dining canopy and the birds flitting about overhead.

“Glorious—glorious—most glorious!” murmured Natalie. “I feel like writing a poem.”

“Compose it while you wash the dishes,” advised Marie with a laugh.

“Oh, see the flowers, growing right back of our tent!” exclaimed Mabel, as she arose from the table to gather a clump of fern and some blue blossoms, which she arranged in a cracked pitcher. “Isn’t that artistic?” she demanded.

“There’s condensed milk in that vase—pronounced vaase,” murmured Alice with a chuckle, and then a piece of bacon went down her “wrong throat,” and Mabel declared that it served her right.

“Now to get our camp in order,” called Mrs. Bonnell after the simple meal. “We must decide who will be the hewers of wood and the drawers of water,” she went on. “We will take turns in doing the dishes, and cooking—in fact all the camp duties ought to run in a sort of rotation, for the work must be done.”

“Law of the Camp Fire number two,” murmured Marie. “Give service.”

“Exactly,” laughed the Guardian.

The girls had donned their comfortable bloomer suits, for there was to be much activity.

Then began a busy time, which was hardly ended when from the path along the lake shore came a hail:

“Wo-he-lo ahoy!”

“It’s the boys!” exclaimed Mabel.

“Dogwood camp!” answered Marie.

“‘Come into my garden, Maude!’” invited Blake.

“He means come for a ride,” added Phil.

“We’re too busy,” declared Mrs. Bonnell.

“We’ll help you,” offered Jack. “Come! It’s too fine a day to stay around camp. We’ll take you to the haunted mill.”

“It doesn’t sound so scary in daylight,” spoke Natalie, as the three lads came up the path from the water.

“Any more foxes?” asked Blake.

“Thank goodness no.”

“Come on, boys. Wood and water; and help fill the lanterns and oil stove!” suggested Jack. “Then they’ll come with us,” and soon they had completed the harder tasks of the camp. Then they helped the girls arrange their cots and trunks differently so as to give more room, put up some boxes to serve as cupboards and storage places, and did other small services that were much appreciated.

“Will you trust yourselves in the launch?” asked Jack, when they were ready to set out.

“Will it blow up?” asked Marie.

“No, but it may stop in the middle of the lake. But we can paddle back.”

“I’ll go,” offered Natalie. “I want to see the ancient mill and the hermit thereof.”

“Old Hanson may not be in,” suggested Phil. “He’s always tramping off around the country. But we can look over his shack.”

Soon the merry party was in the launch, which, though it was a bit wheezy, like some old man with the asthma, still went along at good speed. They talked, laughed and sang, and finally reached a small dock, near which, according to the boys, was located the old mill.

“It used to grind the grist for the country round about here,” explained Phil, as they took a woodland path, so narrow that they had to walk Indian file. “Then it was on a stream that used to run into the lake. But the stream seems to have dried up to a mere ditch, and the old mill is in ruins.”

“Why didn’t I bring my camera!” exclaimed Natalie. “I love to snap old ruins.”

“You’ll have plenty of chances,” said Blake. “We’ll be here all summer, as we hope you will.”

“We may, if the foxes leave us alone,” answered Mrs. Bonnell. “Though I have plenty more of ammonia.”

“Put some talcum powder in next time,” urged Marie with a laugh.

They tramped on for some little time longer, gradually ascending from the level of the lake, until they turned from a dense patch of woodland into a little glade. Then the ruined mill confronted them.

“Oh, isn’t it lovely!” exclaimed Marie.

“A perfect dream,” declared Mabel.

“So romantic,” was Natalie’s opinion. “Oh, why did I leave my camera in the tent? I must have a picture of that!”

Truly it was a picturesque scene—a tumbled-down, old mill, the ancient wheel mossy-green with the growth of many years. The roof, in many places, had fallen into decay, and the flapping shutters, half-hanging on rusty hinges seemed like the closing eyelids of a very old man. The doors creaked dismally to and fro in the gentle wind, and the crumbling steps which had been worn by many tramping feet, were tumbling stone from stone.

“And this is the haunted mill?” asked Natalie.

“It is,” said Blake, simply. “A dark tragedy is hidden behind its crumbling walls.”

“What is it?” asked Marie eagerly.

“It is a fearsome tale, gentle ladies, a tale for the flickering camp fire rather than for the garish light of day, but such as it is it shall e’en be told unto you.”

“Cut out the romantic slush, and give ’em the facts,” broke in Jack. “It’s a mill that was built somewhere around the Revolutionary time,” he went on, “and the story goes that some women and children who took refuge here during an Indian attack were killed by the savages.”

“Oh!” murmured the girls.

“Really, Jack?” asked his sister, who knew him well.

“That’s a fact,” declared Blake, “only he puts it so crudely. He might add that on the anniversary of the massacre the moans of the—er—of those who were cut down in the flower of their youth—echo through the old mill.”

“Stop it!” demanded Natalie. “Even in daylight that’s bad enough. If you try to tell that after dark we—we’ll——”

“Use the ammonia gun on him!” threatened Mrs. Bonnell.

“Well, I’m only telling you the story,” declared Blake. “You don’t have to believe it.”

“And does that old man who helped us live here?” asked Alice.

“In a little shack around in the back,” said Phil. “Come on, we’ll look at it, and then we’ll go in the mill.”

“And does he live in there?” came a chorus from the girls, as they viewed the little shack which the boys pointed out to them. It was a mere hut, consisting of but a single room, into which they looked through not too clean a window.

“There is where he lives, moves and has his being,” declaimed Blake. “I guess he isn’t in,” he went on, as he rattled at the rickety door.

“Blake!” remonstrated his sister. “He may not like it.”

“Oh, we stand in good with Hanson,” declared Jack. “We keep him in tobacco money.”

“Horrid!” murmured Natalie.

“Let’s go in the mill,” suggested Jack. “There is some curious old-fashioned machinery there that’s worth seeing. This is an historical place.”

“I love old places,” murmured Natalie. “But, oh! My camera!”

A musty, old, and damp odor greeted them as they crossed the rotting threshold of the ancient mill.

“Mind the holes in the floor,” cautioned Jack. “It’s no fun to step into one!”

They advanced into the old structure and for a moment stood in the middle of the sagging floor. Overhead were cobwebbed beams and rafters, and from somewhere below came the faint gurgle of the former mill stream that had been wont, in years past, to turn the big wheel.

“It gives me the shivers!” confessed Mabel. “Let’s go——”

She did not finish the sentence. Through the hollow stillness that seemed to weigh down her words sounded a mournful groan.

CHAPTER IX

AN EXCITED CONSTABLE

“What was that?” whispered Marie.

“Some one is hurt!” murmured Natalie.

Mrs. Bonnell began a search for her useful little ammonia gun, but found she had left it in camp.

“Where was that noise, fellows?” demanded practical Jack. Before any of them could answer him the groan sounded again, louder than before. With a bound Marie was out of the door narrowly missing a fall on the rickety steps. Mabel followed, but Natalie and Alice stood their ground, perhaps because Mrs. Bonnell had grasped each of them by an arm.

“Don’t be silly,” exclaimed Phil. “Probably it’s only a tramp who’s talking in his sleep.”

“A tramp!” gasped Natalie.

“Come out of here!” demanded Alice, getting, ready for a retreat.

“It was upstairs,” said Blake, indicating a flight of rotting steps. “Some one is up there.”

Again the groan sounded, and there was no mistaking it. It did come from above their heads. Then a voice called:

“Is any one there? Help me! I’ve had a fall!”

“It’s old man Hanson!” exclaimed Jack. “He’s up there. Come on, boys!”

He sprang forward. Blake called after him:

“Be careful of those stairs. They look as if they’d come down if you blew on ’em.”

“If they held him to go up, they’ll stand for me,” declared Jack. “Come on!”

“Let’s go outside,” suggested Mrs. Bonnell. “If you need us, boys, you can call us,” she added. “If he is hurt, I know something about first-aid work.”

“We’ll call you if we need you,” replied Blake. “Now let’s have a look.”

Cautiously they went up the shaky stairs, one at a time so as not to put too much of a strain on them. At first it was so dark in the second story that they could see nothing. Then Jack called:

“What’s the matter? Who is it? Are you hurt?”

“It’s me—Hanson Rossmore,” was the halting answer. “I tripped in a hole and sprained my ankle I guess. Can you help me down?”

“I guess so,” answered Jack. “Let’s get a little light on the subject though,” and he opened one of the old solid-wood shutters, that covered the glassless window.

They saw the old hermit, for such he was, lying in the corner of what had evidently been a storeroom of the old mill. He seemed in pain, and one leg was doubled under him.

“How did it happen?” asked Jack, as the boys raised him up.

“Ouch! Oh, my!” he cried, as the weight came on the injured foot. “I can’t step on it.”

“Wait, I’ll get you a stick,” volunteered Blake, hurrying outside.

“Is he—is he dead?” asked Mabel.

“Dead! And him groaning the way he did? Not much!” cried the lad. “It’s only a sprained ankle or something like that. We’ll get him to his shack and he’ll be all right.”

“Poor old man,” murmured Natalie.

With the help of the improvised cane, and with a lad on either side of him, they managed to get Old Hanson down the stairs, though they were in fear lest every step would bring the whole flight down about them, so rickety was it.

“What were you doing up there?” asked Blake, as they led him out of the door, and toward his own little shack.

“Oh, just looking around—looking around,” he murmured. “I used to work in this mill when I was a boy, and it has memories for me—memories—yes memories. Some happy and some sad. I’m an old man!”

They got him to his hut, and then took off his shoe. His left ankle was much swollen, though it appeared to be more of a cut than a sprain that had caused the injury. Under the direction of Mrs. Bonnell they bandaged it with rags they found, wringing them out of hot water, for Blake made a fire in the old stove.

“It’s kind of you—right kind—to bother with an old hulk like me,” went on Old Hanson. “That feels a lot better. I had a daughter once,” he said, looking fixedly at Natalie. “She was like you, in a way. That’s why I was so startled by your face the first time I saw you. But she’s gone—gone.”

“Where?” asked Jack.

“How should I know?” came the rather angry retort. “I don’t know. I only go up in the old mill when I want to think about her. I was there to-day. I stepped in a hole—the old mill is falling apart, just as I am—it’s getting old like me, only I’ll never be as old as that.

“It’s older than the Indians. The Indians were here once. They killed some settlers in the mill. Sometimes in the night I hear cries—cries of——”

“That’ll do!” interrupted Blake a bit sternly, seeing that the old chap was getting on the nerves of the girls who stood outside the shack. “You’ll work into a fever if you’re not careful. Never mind about the past.”

“It’s all I live in,” said the hermit simply. “But I won’t say anything more. I wonder how I’m to get about?”

“It will be all right in a day or so,” said Mrs. Bonnell who had looked at it. “It isn’t a bad cut. Just keep your weight off it. We’ll bring you some food so you won’t have to go out.”

“Thanks,” he murmured, as he lay back in an old chair.

The boys did what they could for him, and then left with the girls in the launch, promising to come back later with food enough to last for several days.

This they did, the Camp Fire Girls insisting on providing their share, for they felt kindly toward the old man, and, as Mabel said, they were pledged to give service, and here was a chance to do it.

With the boys, they also paid him another visit, finding him much improved. He could hobble about, and inside of a week he was able to resume his odd tasks about the lake, for he was hired by a number of the cottagers and campers to look after their places.

Green Lake was beginning to assume life. Many new camps were opened, as well as a number of summer residences. The Camp Fire Girls were delighted with their new life. They got into the swing of living in the open, sleeping in a tent, and dining as they pleased.

“It’s the ideal of the simple life,” declared Marie. “I wonder we never thought of it before.”

“And we all feel so much better,” added Mabel.

They had established a sort of routine, for Mrs. Bonnell realized the necessity of this, and the work, well divided, was not a task at all. Breakfast over they made the camp “slick,” as the boys expressed it, though the lads did not always follow that injunction themselves. Then came a row or a paddle on the lake, for they had hired a canoe, and a row boat. Or perhaps they went out with the boys.

There was the trip to the nearest post-office for mail, or to drop letters home and to friends. Then there was the buying of supplies, though the butcher and grocer, now that the lake shores were better populated, came every day.

Followed next the mid-day meal. Then more pleasures of the woods or water, receiving visitors, or making calls on new acquaintances.

They did not lack for enjoyment in the evenings. Either they went to their brothers’ camp, or the boys, their forces augmented by such of their friends as they condescended to ask, called. Then there were dances over to the “Point”, the place where a cluster of stores were located. Then to bed, with the assurance of a sound sleep in that healthful air. It was an ideal sort of existence.

On occasions they held the regular Council Camp Fires, with all the prescribed ceremonies. There was the lighting of the fire, the singing of the songs and the Indian music;—the song of the “Sky-blue Water.”

Sometimes it rained, and they could only sit in the tent, though when it did not pour too hard they put on their bathing costumes, and went out in the canoe.

“Who’s turn to get dinner to-day?” asked Marie one morning, as they came back from a launch ride, bringing some dainties to supplement the regular camp-fare.

“Mine, I think,” spoke Natalie. “What would you like?”

There were four different kinds of meals ordered, and each one insisted on something different until breath-of-the-pine-tree exclaimed:

“Now I shall have to make up my own bill of fare. All of you go off in the woods, and when it’s ready I’ll give our call.”

“All right, Natalie,” they assented and off they trooped.

Natalie, in her Camp Fire suit, which wonderfully became her, with her dark braids down her back, and with a golden bandeau confining the locks over her broad forehead set about her task.

She was setting the table, giving attention the while to the oil stove, which evinced a propensity to smoke, when she heard the crunch of gravel at the lake shore.

Looking up, expecting to see one of the boys, she beheld a grizzled, stoop-shouldered little man approaching. On the breast of his coat was a shiny nickel star, and as he saw Natalie, looking more than ever like an Indian maid with her coat of tan, he exclaimed:

“I want you!”

“Wh—what?” she gasped, looking about in dismay for a sight of her friends.

“I want you. No foolin’ now. I know you! You’re dressed jest as they said you was. Now you come along with me or it’ll be th’ wuss fer ye! I’m Constable Jackson, I be, an’ I know my duty. I’ve got th’ law with me!” he added, excitedly tapping the star on his coat. “This is th’ law, an’ I want you.”

Natalie shrank back frightened as the man advanced. She thought she had to do with some over-bold tramp, and was about to call for help. Before she could flee, the man sprang to her side. He was about to grasp her by the arm, when he was suddenly whirled to one side, and the welcome voice of Blake Lathrop exclaimed:

“That’ll do you! What do you want, anyhow?” and he stepped in front of Natalie.

CHAPTER X

OVERBOARD

For a moment Constable Jackson, as he had called himself, staggered to retain his footing, for Blake had used no gentleness in thrusting him to one side.

“Ah—ha!” the man finally managed to gasp, as he steadied himself by seizing a slender sapling. “What do you mean, young man? How dare you lay hands on me? I represent the law, I do!”

“Then I’m sorry for the law,” was Blake’s cool response. “What are you doing here, anyhow? Don’t you know that this is private property? These young ladies rent this camping-ground, and you’re as much a trespasser as if they owned it. What are you doing here, anyhow?” and Blake’s voice was stern.

“I’m not going to answer your questions, young man, unless I want to,” the constable fired back. “And you’re doing a mighty risky thing in interfering with the majesty of the law. I am it!”

“Glad you told me,” murmured the lad, “otherwise I might not have known it,” and he laughed.

“Be careful!” warned the constable. “I can arrest you too, if I like!”

“Arrest!” gasped Natalie, who had somewhat recovered her composure at the advent of Blake. The other boys and girls were not in sight.

“Yes, arrest! I thought I’d make you take back-water.”

“I’m not taking back-water, as you call it, at all,” said Blake sharply, “I am merely curious. What do you mean? Once more I ask why you are here? And if you don’t give an account of yourself, I’ll run you off the place,” and Blake looked very much able to do it, a fact, which even gentle Natalie was gladly aware of at that moment.

“Be careful,” needlessly warned Constable Jackson. “I’m here on account of this—it’s my authority,” and again he tapped the nickel star on his coat.

“Authority for what?” snapped Blake.

“For taking her. I’ve got a warrant!” and he pointed a stubby finger at Natalie. “It calls for the arrest of one Hadee, a Gypsy girl for the ‘feloniously taking, carrying away and converting the same to her own use of one pocket-book, said to contain the sum of fourteen dollars and thirteen cents, the property of Mrs. Josiah Applebaum, with force and arms, contrary to the statutes in such cases made and provided,’” and he drew from his pocket a paper, from which he appeared to have quoted the last few words with great satisfaction. “That’s why I’m here,” the constable went on, “and when I go away I’m going to take her with me!” and he took a step toward Natalie.

“No! No!” she gasped. “There’s some mistake. Oh, Blake!” and she stepped toward the youth.

“There now,” he soothed her. “Don’t you be a bit alarmed. Of course there’s a mistake. You sha’n’t stir a step!”

“Oh, she won’t; eh?” jeered the representative of the law.

“No!” declared Blake. “As she says there has been a mistake, and it’s you who are making it. So you take her for some Gypsy girl; eh?”

“I sure do. The description fits perfect. Dressed like some Indian girl—hair down her back, ribbon around it and all. Of course she’s the one I want!”

“And you say she is Hadee?” asked Blake curiously, making a sign to Natalie not to show that she recognized the name.

“Yes; but that don’t matter. Names is easy made up. Now will you come along peaceable, or not?” and he glared at Natalie.

“I—I—” she began.

“Wait,” spoke Blake, “I’ll answer him. In the first place,” he went on, “this is Miss Natalie Fuller, a friend of mine. With two boy friends, I am camping over at Stony Point. Miss Fuller and four chums are camping here. I can give you their names. I can also refer you to Mr. Henderson, the storekeeper, who knows us all. We might know this Gypsy Hadee you speak of, for some of the girls have had their fortunes told, but I’m positive Miss Fuller has taken no pocket-book. Her costume is that of the Camp Fire Girls’ Association, as we can show you in the official book. Now what do you say?”

“Well, all I’ve got to say that I’ve got a warrant for Hadee,” declared the constable sullenly.

“But not for Miss Fuller,” insisted Blake. “If you’ll use your eyes you’ll see that she isn’t at all like a Gypsy girl, though she does wear her hair that way,” and at this Natalie smiled a little.

“Well, maybe they did make a mistake,” admitted Constable Jackson. Evidently the array of facts that Blake shot at him rather staggered the representative of the law.

“They!” exclaimed Blake. “I think you did.”

“I didn’t mean to,” the man went on. “After I got the warrant I made some inquiries. Some one told me there was Gypsy girls camping over here, and I come.”

“So they take us for Gypsies!” exclaimed Natalie. “Oh, what will the Camp Fire Girls say to this?”

“What about this pocket-book?” asked Blake. “Did a Gypsy really take it?”

“Here’s all I know,” said the constable. “Josiah Applebaum, he lives over on the Woodport road, come to town yist’day and complained to Squire Grover that a Gypsy had visited his wife, told her fortune, and, when she left, the pocket-book that was on the table went too!”

“Oh!” exclaimed Natalie.

“What’d you say?” demanded the constable.

“Nothing,” answered Blake for her, giving his friend a warning look. “Go on.”

“That’s all there is to it. The squire made out the warrant for the girl, who give the name Hadee, though whether it’s her right one or not I don’t know—it’s a heathen name, anyhow.”

“And you came here after her?” questioned Blake.

“Yes, havin’ heard there was Gypsies here.”

“And now you see you’re wrong?”

“Well, you say so. And it don’t exactly look like a Gypsy camp, either,” Mr. Jackson admitted. “Do you know where I can find ’em?”

“Not in the least,” Blake replied. “You’ll have to use your detective abilities. But I advise you to be a little more sure next time, before you make accusations. If I had not come along you might have frightened Miss Fuller.”

“I didn’t mean to,” murmured the man. “Well, I’ll go looking for this Hadee, though I don’t believe there’ll be much money left in th’ pocket-book when I git it,” and he started off, looking rather suspiciously at Natalie.

The voices of the other girls, and Mrs. Bonnell approaching through the woods, were heard now, and as they saw Natalie and Blake and the retreating constable Marie cried:

“Oh, what has happened? Is anything wrong?”

“This man is the only one in wrong,” said Blake grimly. “He came to arrest Natalie as a Gypsy pocket-book embezzler.”

“Oh, Natalie!” came in a chorus.

If there had been any doubt in the mind of the constable, it vanished at the sight of the others. Putting his warrant back in his pocket, and murmuring some indistinguishable words he slowly rowed away in his boat, as Jack and Phil came along the lake-shore path to the girls’ camp.

“What’s the row?” demanded Jack. “What did old Jackson want? Has some one been cutting down trees again?”

Blake explained, and his two chums were waxing very indignant until Natalie informed them that, after all it was a very natural mistake, and that no harm had been done.

“If you will look so much like a charming Indian maid, I suppose you must put up with the consequences, breath-of-the-pine-tree,” said Mabel. “It is the penalty of—well, notoriety.”

“Yes, your fame must have spread,” remarked Alice.

“Well, I wish some bread was spread,” declared Marie. “I’m as hungry as—well, as the hungriest animal in the woods. Is dinner ready, Nat?”

“I was getting it when I came near going to prison,” laughed Natalie. “If you’ll all help it will soon be on the table.”

“We’ll help!” exclaimed Jack eagerly. “We haven’t anything much in the grub line at our camp. Ask us, won’t you?”

“Shall we, girls?” inquired Mabel.

“In view of Blake’s rescue, I think we might,” suggested Mrs. Bonnell, and soon a merry little party was gathered under the dining canvas.

“And, Oh, girls!” cried Natalie. “Do you know what I was thinking of when that constable was telling why he thought he wanted me?”

“Probably wondering how you’d like to live on bread and water,” suggested Alice. “I believe that is what prisoners receive.”

“Nothing of the sort!” exclaimed Natalie. “But when he told how this Hadee—which may be Gypsy for Hattie—when he said how she told the farmer’s wife fortune, and then left with the pocket-book, I was thinking of Mabel’s mother’s ring. That girl gave the same name, you know.”

“That’s so!” exclaimed Mabel. “The two cases are just alike. This Hadee may be a professional larcerner, to speak in polite language. Oh, boys! Can’t you locate her camp, and make her give back mother’s ring?”

“I never thought of that,” spoke Blake. “There may be something in it. Fellows, shall we have a try?”

“Where is the camp?” asked Jack.

“I don’t know, but if Jackson can get on the trail, I should think we could,” went on Natalie’s champion. “Let’s think about it, anyhow.”

“And if you boys don’t find it, maybe we can,” put in Alice.

“You girls! You’d never dare go off in the woods alone, looking for a Gypsy camp; you’d get lost!” declared Phil.

“That shows how little he knows about the Camp Fire Girls!” exclaimed Marie. “Know then, rash youth, that we are instructed in the following of trails—Gypsy as well as Indian—that we know how to ‘blaze’ our way as well as do your boy scouts, and that, while we may not be adepts, still we can read some signs of woodlore. Can’t we, girls?”

“We can!” came in a chorus.

“I know that moss grows on the South—no, the East side of a tree!” said Alice. “At least I think it does. And the East star——”

“North star—moss on the North side, too!” broke in Mabel. “How forgetful you are, Alice.”

“I know I am. Anyhow, do you think we could find this Gypsy camp?”

“We’ll find it for you,” promised Jack. “What do you say to a trip on the water this afternoon?”

“In the launch?” asked Mrs. Bonnell.

“Unfortunately the launch is out of commission,” explained Blake. “Jack was trying to fix the carburettor and he got it out of adjustment.”

“I did not. It was broke before I touched it!” declared Jack indignantly.

“Anyhow the boat’s gasolene circulation seems to be wrong,” went on Blake. “It runs backwards like a crab, instead of forward. So I guess we shall have to take to the oars. We have sent for a boat-doctor.”

“I’d like to row,” ventured Natalie.

“My canoe holds two very nicely,” put in Blake, quickly.

“And it’s as wabbley as a fellow just learning to skate,” declared Jack. “Come with me, Nat, in my good old tub.”

“After the gallant manner in which I saved her from the clutches of the law? I guess not,” exclaimed Blake. “You’ll come canoeing, won’t you, Natalie?”

“I think so—for a little while,” she promised.

The others paired off somehow, and soon a little flotilla of boats was slowly moving along the shady side of the lake. The occupants talked of many things, chiefly of the visit of the constable.

“Where do you suppose the Gypsy camp could be?” asked Mabel, calling to Blake, near whose canoe she and Jack were, in a rowboat.

“It might be almost anywhere,” he answered. “We’ll see Jackson to-morrow, and ask if he has learned anything.”

“Do you think this Hadee could possibly be the same one?” went on the girl whose mother’s ring had been taken.

“From—er—from the method of operation I should think it very likely,” said Blake. “Look out!” he called suddenly to Phil who was rowing with Marie. “Pull over!”

But he was too late. Phil’s boat struck the frail canoe, tilted it sharply, and the next moment Blake and Natalie were in the waters of the lake.

“Overboard!” yelled Jack. “Steady! We’ll get you!”

The other girls screamed, until a stern command from Mrs. Bonnell quieted them. Jack and Phil, keeping their wits about them rowed toward the overturned canoe. An instant later Blake came up, gasping. With a shake of his head he cleared his eyes of water, and then looked around for Natalie. She had sunk out of sight.

CHAPTER XI

OFF TO THE GYPSY CAMP

“Let—let me get her!” gasped Blake, as he whirled about in the water, seeking the tell-tale train of bubbles that might indicate the presence of the girl.

“No!” cried Jack. “You get in the boat. Your wet clothes are too heavy. I’ll dive for her. I saw where she went down!”

There was wisdom in this, as Blake well knew, and, though he would have dared anything to make the rescue, he realized that Jack’s plan was best. The latter had already thrown off his coat, and kicked loose his rubber-soled low shoes. Clad in a pair of light-weight trousers, and a sleeveless shirt, he poised for a moment on the bow of the boat, and then dived.

He cut the water cleanly, and Blake, swimming to Phil’s boat, managed to get in over the stem, Phil with an agonized look on his face holding it steady. Mrs. Bonnell, who with Mabel and Alice was in Jack’s boat, looked to see the result of his dive.

“It wasn’t your fault, Phil,” said the Guardian gently. “It wasn’t a very hard bump. The canoe is a very tippy one.”

“That’s right!” gasped Blake.

It seemed an age ere Jack came shooting up out of the water. With a shake of his head he cleared his eyes and mouth, and cried:

“I saw her—on the—bottom!” he gasped. “But—she was too far over. I’ll dive again. I can get her—stay here!” he called to Phil, and Blake, who seemed about to leap overboard.

Filling his lungs with air, Jack again dived. They could watch him by the commotion in the water, and when he presently appeared, bearing the unconscious form of Natalie to the surface, Phil gave a spasmodic yell, the others joining in.

“Get her into your boat, Phil—it’s larger,” commanded Mrs. Bonnell. “Then row to shore as fast as you can. We’ll have to practice first aid work, just as we did in class, girls,” she added, for the Camp Fire rules called for a girl knowing how to resuscitate an apparently drowned person.

It did not take long to get Natalie into the boat, and then with feverishly rapid strokes Phil rowed to shore, the others following.

“Make a little pillow of your coats, boys,” commanded Mrs. Bonnell. “We’ll place that under her, as she lies face down. That will help to drain the water out of her lungs.”

The inert form of Natalie was rolled over, until some water did come from her lips. Then, directing the efforts of Jack and Phil, Mrs. Bonnell had them raise the girl’s arms above her head, while she pressed on the diaphragm to facilitate the getting of air into the lungs.

Natalie had only been a short time in the water, and, as it developed later, her head had struck on the gunwale of the canoe, rendering her unconscious, so that she had swallowed only a little water. The blow, in a measure, was lucky for her, since it made her rescue easier. She had not struggled in Jack’s grip.

“There!” exclaimed Mrs. Bonnell, as a tremor of the white eyelids, and a gentle sigh, told that consciousness was returning. “She’s coming to!”

“Ah!” breathed Phil in relief. He had been under a great strain.

Natalie opened her eyes.

“What happened? Did I— Oh, I remember,” she gasped. “I fell out of the boat. How silly!”

“Not at all!” exclaimed Marie. “How do you feel?”

“Rather—rather weak,” was the answer.

“She ought to have a warm drink,” exclaimed Mabel. “Oh, if we could only make a fire, and heat some coffee!”

“We can make a fire,” said Phil, “but the coffee is out of the question. We’d better get back to camp. It was all my fault. I should have looked where I rowed.”

“No, I got in the way,” declared Blake. “I should have told Nat to sit down on the bottom of the canoe, instead of on the seat, but she wanted to improve her paddle stroke.”

Natalie shivered as she sat up. A little color was beginning to show in her cheeks.