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+Project Gutenberg's The Girl Scouts at Camp Comalong, by Lillian Garis
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Girl Scouts at Camp Comalong
+       Peg of Tamarack Hills
+
+Author: Lillian Garis
+
+Release Date: November 16, 2011 [EBook #38030]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL SCOUTS AT CAMP COMALONG ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was
+produced from images made available by the HathiTrust
+Digital Library.)
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "LOOK, GIRLS! UP ON THE ROCK! THERE'S PEG!"]
+
+
+
+
+The Girl Scouts at Camp Comalong
+
+Lilian Garis
+
+1921
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS:
+    CHAPTER I--THE ACORN
+    CHAPTER II--PETE'S PROLOGUE
+    CHAPTER III--SHIPSHAPING
+    CHAPTER IV--AN ANGEL UNAWARES
+    CHAPTER V--A STOLEN LOOK AROUND
+    CHAPTER VI--OPENING DAY
+    CHAPTER VII--THE LOVING BANDIT
+    CHAPTER VIII--GLOW OF THE CAMPFIRE'S GLEAM
+    CHAPTER IX--A DAY WITH THE BOBBIES
+    CHAPTER X--MEET BUZZ AND FUSS
+    CHAPTER XI--THE FOOD SHOWER
+    CHAPTER XII--A RECORD BREAKER
+    CHAPTER XIII--DANGER SIGNALS
+    CHAPTER XIV--THE ALGONQUIN EPISODE
+    CHAPTER XV--A PADDLE, A SWIM AND A SUN DIAL
+    CHAPTER XVI--A DARING INTRUDER
+    CHAPTER XVII--THE GRANITE STAR CLUE
+    CHAPTER XVIII--A CALL IN THE NIGHT
+    CHAPTER XIX--SHAG: THE ALARM CLOCK
+    CHAPTER XX--THE ROOM OF MYSTERY
+    CHAPTER XXI--A SURPRISE INDEED
+    CHAPTER XXII--PEG OF TAMARACK HILLS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE ACORN
+
+
+It was Corene's idea. She had just returned from a glorious two weeks
+spent in a real Girl Scouts' Camp, and the brief time acted like a
+whiff of something good, and it tasted like more and Corene wanted it.
+
+"Two weeks!" she repeated moodily.
+
+"What can you expect?" queried Louise. "Everyone must have a turn."
+
+"And two weeks make a real vacation for many girls," insisted Cleo.
+
+"Two weeks spent right in one spot--in the ocean, for instance, would
+seem an awful long time to me," said fun-making Grace.
+
+"Besides all that, you went away to camp early on account of having
+finished your school work," Cleo reminded her, "and consequently those
+very two weeks are so much extra. We haven't gone away at all yet."
+
+"I know," agreed the abused one, "and please don't slap me, or do
+anything like that, girls. I have just been thinking of those
+wonderful days----" She slid down and thrust her feet out so suddenly
+and determinedly that she upset a harmless little vase, water, flowers
+and all, right on the floor of the recreation room.
+
+It was one of the many "last days" of school. The group of girls in
+the Essveay School made the usual vacation plans, remade them and then
+amiably agreed to those made by home and mother; but all this in no
+way affected the present outburst of enthusiasm.
+
+By rare good fortune many of the girls were privileged to spend their
+summers along the Jersey coast, or in the mountains between New York,
+New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and the intimacy of their school days was
+thus uninterrupted.
+
+"Then, Corene," returned Cleo, "what do you intend to do about it? You
+can't hope to go back again to the big camp?"
+
+"Oh, no; I suppose not. But everything will seem so tame," lamented
+the bobbed-haired girl.
+
+"Tame!" repeated Louise. "You always have a livelier time out in
+Llynardo than we do at Sea Crest. At least you don't have to change
+your costume three or four times a day."
+
+"I wouldn't do it," returned Corene. "What's the sense in going away
+for a good time and spending it amusing other folks?"
+
+"How so, amusing other folks?" repeated Julia.
+
+"Surely no one dresses to amuse herself," retorted the practical
+Corene. "I like pretty things, and all that, but I hate summer
+simping. Buddie calls it 'simping,' although he probably means
+primping."
+
+"When we put on our Scout uniform last year we saved a lot of that,"
+reflected Cleo.
+
+"Which was it, Scout uniform or riding-habit, Cleo? It seems to me you
+spent a lot of time on horseback," Julia reminded her.
+
+"And I intend to do the same this year as well," declared Cleo.
+"That's the reason we are going to the mountains."
+
+"Same here," agreed Louise. "We had a good time riding last year, but
+there were days when the sun was too hot. Now, under the trees in the
+mountains----" A sudden breeze blew in and sent layers of papers flying
+about.
+
+"There you are!" commented Corene. "There's your mountain breeze,
+girls. No use bothering going any further."
+
+"Oh, h-h--!" sighed a chorus.
+
+"If it would only stay," continued Cleo. "What is so hot as a day in
+June?" she misquoted.
+
+"The first hot day in September, after school opens," answered Louise,
+fanning her flushed cheeks with Julia's latest story. "At any rate,
+let's go into classroom and try that science puzzle again. I'm not
+sure whether I made a bug or a bird for the seven-year locust."
+
+It was that evening, when these girls as neighbors had gathered on
+Julia's porch, that the subject of a summer camp was taken up with
+added interest.
+
+"I've been talking to mother about it," said Julia, "and she agrees we
+could have a much healthier and even happier time if we went to the
+mountains. We might miss the bathing----"
+
+"But we will have the lake--the wonderful, pretty, friendly old Lake
+Hocomo!" enthused Cleo. "The ocean is lovely, of course, but don't you
+think it's awfully samey?"
+
+"Samey? Oh, you mean similarly," joked Louise.
+
+"No, she means monotonously," ventured Grace.
+
+"Or synonymously," added Corene.
+
+"Say, girls!" asked Cleo, "were we talking about the ocean or false
+syntax? I've sort of strayed off a little. I think I recall, however,
+that the lake was said to be lovely, and I'm willing to stick to that.
+Who votes for the lake?"
+
+"I do!"
+
+"I do!"
+
+"I do!" everyone voted for it, so it was agreed again that all would
+go to the lake, if their folks went with them, of course. And then
+Corene returned to her story of the wonders of camp life.
+
+"But didn't you have to wash a lot of horrid dishes?" asked Grace.
+
+"We washed dishes, certainly," replied the favored one, "but it was
+fun doing it. We had races at it and prizes, and when one does things
+that way it's fun, you know."
+
+"I'm going to try that with Benny," declared Grace. "Our folks are
+again maidless, so Benny and I help. I'll race Benny and offer my
+class pin as prize," she decided.
+
+"Your class pin for Benny? Why, Grace! You dishonor the Essveays. Make
+it a buckle or a barrette. Either would be just as useful to Benny.
+He's sure to win, we all know that, for boys always win at anything
+they try out," declared Julia.
+
+"Yes, by dumping dishes in, and dumping them out, and putting them
+over the gas oven to dry," retorted Grace. "That's the way a boy is so
+sure to win in a dish-washing contest. But never mind that. Tell us,
+Corey, what do you propose for camp?"
+
+"Make one, build one, run one," she proposed simply.
+
+"Just like that!" added Cleo, with a chuckle. "Do you mean on paper or
+in the woods, Corey?"
+
+"In the woods, certainly," again came the measured reply, and it
+didn't measure very much at that.
+
+"Oh, be a dear and tell us how," begged Louise, settling herself in
+the cushions of the porch swing for a real story. "I want to dream
+about something other than school to-night, and I'd just love it to be
+camp."
+
+"A nice, wild, grizzly bear camp," added Grace. She skidded over to
+the swing and squirmed in beside Louise.
+
+"There are no bears at Lake Hocomo," said Cleo, "that is, there are
+none there now; although to hear dad talk of his boyhood vacations
+there, one might think the zoo was originally stocked from that
+region. At any rate, Corey, splutter along with the plan, but don't
+make me wash dishes. Leave them to the prize contestants," with a shot
+of rose-ball at Grace.
+
+"Very well," decided Corene, "and this is my idea." They all settled
+back comfortably now, for Corene did not usually give out her "ideas"
+until they had been very carefully formulated. She was the
+acknowledged leader in athletics among her group, she would rather go
+to the gym than to a party, she took toe dancing long after her
+friends gave up the "childish art," and she had aspirations towards
+physical culture as a profession, to be adopted by her after she had
+acquired a thorough knowledge of everything pertaining to it. That was
+Corene's way.
+
+"We are all to go to Lake Hocomo this year," she began in preliminary
+argument for the camp idea.
+
+"Yes'm," chirped Julia.
+
+"And we are going to have our own riding club," suggested Cleo, who
+would agree to anything that included horseback riding.
+
+"All right, Cleo, that can be arranged, of course," said Corene. "But
+it is not a--what do you call it?"
+
+"Fundamental!" offered Louise.
+
+"That's it. We will decide first on our fundamentals. The very first
+is a camp. For that we must organize a patrol consisting of eight
+girls," said the capable Corene.
+
+"We can have those we had last year, and all of them have been
+attending Scout meetings this winter," put in Julia.
+
+"Yes, we won't have any trouble with our eight, but we may have
+trouble not making it eighteen," said Cleo. "We always have a lot of
+calls from girls who want to come in, you know."
+
+"Yes, but we must be efficient," insisted the logical leader. "We
+couldn't take in girls and let them call themselves Scouts if they had
+not gone through all the tests."
+
+"Of course not," agreed Louise. She was always apt to agree on
+limitations. Louise was a bit conservative that way.
+
+"But we may find other girls at the lake who are qualified--who are
+regular Scouts, you know," put in Cleo the democrat.
+
+"A patrol should be composed of eight," insisted Corene, "and when a
+rule of that kind is decided by the organization we may be sure it is
+the best. So let it be eight."
+
+"Remember those famous lines, 'We Are Seven'?" recalled Cleo. "We may
+transpose them to 'We Are Eight' and I'll get brother Jerry to put a
+tune to them. Oh, really, girls, I can see the camp all ready. Shall
+we have to build it, Corey?"
+
+"If you don't run over me in the telling I may get something told,
+bye-and-bye," complained Corene. "We may have to build our camp if we
+want one far enough away from the cottages, and I don't think any
+other kind is worth while."
+
+"No, of course it isn't," agreed Julia. "We don't want to put up a few
+curtains in a garage and pay ten dollars to have an artistic sign made
+for it, then call that combination a camp."
+
+This brought out the rollicking spirits for which the little group was
+justly famous, and the cushion fight that followed was a spasm of pure
+mirth. Little girls they were, indeed; although each of them had
+earned a grammar grade certificate that opened to her the doors of
+"High," yet the spirit of care-free little-girlishness was still
+happily theirs, and it was a matter of complete congeniality that
+bound them together, year after year, from Primary to Grammar, and now
+from Grammar to High.
+
+"If we are always going to end up with some silly nonsense," said
+Julia sagely, although she was personally more responsible for pillow
+tossing than were the others, "I don't see how we will ever get
+anything planned."
+
+"We don't really have to make plans now," Grace qualified. "All we
+have to do is just to talk about them."
+
+"That's about all we can do," said Corene, "but we have all voted for
+a camp, haven't we?"
+
+A shout of enthusiastic assent followed the question.
+
+"Then, just remember you have all promised to do your part toward
+making and keeping that camp," warned the instigator.
+
+"Do we take guns for big woozy wolves?" asked Grace, growling
+descriptively.
+
+"And axes to cut down our timber with?" put in Cleo.
+
+"Remember Buddie's sling shot? I'll be sure to take that for hooty
+owls," added Louise.
+
+"Please don't get the idea that we may shoot things, or injure birds,
+or do any such cruel things," counselled Corene. "Of course I know you
+wouldn't hurt a spider, Louise," she hurried to explain, "but I am
+still so filled with real camp rules I sort of blow them off now and
+again."
+
+"We will give you plenty of time and opportunity to apply your rules,
+Corey," said Julia, "and just think, only three days more!"
+
+"Oh, h--h--h!" came the chorus common to every school grade that
+actually faces the final "three days."
+
+But they were too care-free to even anticipate what the camp prospect
+might hold for them.
+
+Not all the adventures of the woods are limited to "woozy bears and
+hooty owls."
+
+Which recalls something of their experiences as told in the other
+volumes of this series. It was in "The Girl Scout Pioneers, or Winning
+The First B. C." that this same group of girls went through some
+interesting Scouting in a Pennsylvania mill town. Two foreign girls,
+Dagmar and Tessie, "wandered far afield" but were finally brought
+under the influence of the Scout movement through a most dramatic
+climax. The second volume, "The Girl Scouts at Bellaire," is the story
+of the lost orchid. The precious bulb was brought from Central America
+but lost _en route_, and when Maid Mary, the queer little flower girl,
+was eventually won over to trust the Scouts, they came upon the
+priceless orchid as it struggled to grow through the arm of a saw-dust
+doll.
+
+"The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest" has a very queer girl, Kitty Scuttle,
+for its heroine. This girl lives on a mysterious island upon which no
+one is allowed to land. But the Girl Scouts find a way, and when they
+do so they also find out how to rescue Kitty and the millionaire
+child, Royal. This little Peter Panish boy has been hidden on Looney
+Island by an unscrupulous nurse.
+
+So it happens that the summer opening and for which the girls are
+planning must indeed be a time replete with adventure, if the
+reputation of this group of Girl Scouts is to be maintained.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+PETE'S PROLOGUE
+
+
+Into Lake Hocomo a setting sun was emptying its paint pots of every
+color left over from the day's journey around the world, or the
+world's journey around the sun; spilling out into the safe waters its
+blazing hues and sending streams of colored fires adrift into the
+lake's helpless basin, in the final hour's work of a day full of
+worlds and worlds of heat and color.
+
+Along the banks of the lake and from many favorably situated cottages,
+an admiring audience was wont to view "the wonderful sunset," although
+the season furnished the same sort of spectacle from March to October,
+varied only in degrees of beauty and more beauty.
+
+The Girl Scouts, they who were already planning a real camp for the
+summer, were among those seated out on the landing, a pier that
+extended far enough into the water to give depth for the "steamers"
+that carried passengers up and down the eight mile stretch of water.
+
+These girls looked at the sunset and made remarks somewhat
+intelligent, but being just normal girls they could hardly have been
+expected to "take a fit" over it, as some others were accused of
+doing.
+
+"There she goes!" exclaimed Grace, irrelevantly. "Just see how she
+rides!"
+
+The girls turned quickly from their position of facing the lake to
+that of facing the road that ran parallel, but in spite of their
+promptness they almost missed seeing a girl dash by on horseback; in
+fact the blue roan pony she rode looked like some wild black animal of
+the forest, as it plunged into the grove of thick trees that skirted
+the lake at this curve; and the rider appeared nothing more than a
+brown spot on the roan's back as he galloped away.
+
+"I wonder who she can be?" queried Cleo.
+
+"Jealous?" teased Grace, for Cleo was fond of horses and their sports.
+
+"No, indeed," replied the other. "But that girl can ride. I saw her go
+over the hills this afternoon and her horse stumbled in a hole, but
+she just hugged him for it. Bare-back, too."
+
+"I think we may all be jealous of her," added Louise. "The old
+boatman, Pete, told me to-day she is regarded as the original Scout
+around here."
+
+"Then she better be jealous of us," commented Corene, "for we are
+going to be the real Scouts now. What's her name?"
+
+"Peg," replied Julia. "I just heard someone say 'there goes Peg.'"
+
+"Nice little name," commented Cleo, "but when Margaret comes she may
+also claim it. I wonder why this Peg wears that outfit? She looks like
+a cow-boy girl."
+
+"I haven't seen her close by; she is always going like the wind when I
+happen to get a glimpse of her," followed Julia. "But you may be sure
+she is someone very interesting. Her mere make-up proclaims that."
+
+"Proclaims!" taunted Grace. "Has your diploma done that to you, Jule?
+I would say her make-up gives her away."
+
+"Gives what away?" challenged Julia.
+
+"The fact that she's queer."
+
+"How queer?"
+
+"Very queer." Grace was not easily conquered.
+
+"Please don't quarrel over her, girls; she may be nothing of the
+sort," intervened Louise. "Any girl fond of horses is apt to look
+queer."
+
+This brought Cleo to her feet, but Louise was too quick for her, and
+the playful race ended in the usual slumping down on a stump, with a
+heartily sighed "Oh, dear!" from the breathless Louise.
+
+"There's Pete coming in with the launch now," remarked Julia, pointing
+to the graceful little bark that brushed so lightly over the waters
+toward the dock. "Let's ask him about Peg."
+
+"And sit in his launch while he waits for passengers," suggested
+Grace. "Come on, Clee and Weasy!" she called to the racers. "Come over
+here!"
+
+Quickly the little flock gathered and swooped down upon Pete's pretty
+launch. The boatman was not opposed to entertaining attractive
+passengers, even if they didn't "go out." They looked nice in the boat
+and old Pete had an eye for appearances.
+
+"Oh, say, Pete," began Grace in her direct way. "Who's that girl they
+call Peg?"
+
+"Peg?" repeated the captain. "You mean the gallopin' girl that scares
+all the chickens and runs down all the auto-mo-beels?"
+
+"Yes, the one that's always on horseback," agreed Grace.
+
+"That's Peg--hasn't got no other name as I know of, but they allus
+calls her 'Peg of Tamarack Hills,' 'count o' the place she lives, over
+in yon hills."
+
+"Is she queer?" put in Julia, making sure of another cushion. (What
+would summer be without cushions?)
+
+"Depends upon what you mean by queer," returned the boatman, and the
+girls laughed at the trouble that little word seemed prone to make.
+
+"She's so fly-away," ventured Louise.
+
+"Yes, she's that, all of it," answered Pete. "But she's a right smart
+girl, I'll tell ye. She does many a good turn for us men who have to
+stick by our boats. Why, I've known the day last winter----"
+
+"Does she stay here all winter?" inquired Cleo.
+
+"Sure does, every day o' the year finds Peg over in them hills. An'
+she rides away to school like a girl in a picture book," described the
+man. He was obviously a good friend of Peg's.
+
+"Who does she live with?" put in Grace.
+
+"An aunt; a nice old lady, too. Miss Ramsdell. She takes care of Peg
+so far as Peg'll let her; but looks like more times than enough, Peg
+takes care of Aunt Carrie. I was goin' to tell you about last winter,"
+he resumed. "Wait a minute till I pull up that canvas. There, we'll
+have more light now." He gave a furtive glance about the dock for
+prospective passengers, and seeing none heading toward his landing he
+continued:
+
+"We was runnin' ice boats last winter, when the boys was cuttin' the
+ice, and folks came out from the city with an idea we had airoplanes
+on runners out here. Well, one day came a sudden thaw and the ice
+melted quick. The cutters was all down there along the canal, and this
+lake is mighty deep, you know. Well, without warning nor nauthin', not
+even a crack to give the fellers a signal, the ice split up, and Marx
+Hoppler went under before he could get away."
+
+"Oh, was he drowned?" exclaimed Grace.
+
+"He went under so quick--and you can guess what it would be to slide
+under the ice on this lake. Well, finally," Pete touched the button
+that lighted his headlight, "we got Marx out, and he just seemed to be
+froze stiff. It happened Peg was along o' the dock. There was lots of
+folks gathered 'round in a hurry but no wagons, and would you believe
+it that little Scout had someone lift Marx on her horse, stiff and
+dead-like, and she got away down to the doctor's with him before the
+rest of us realized what she was about!"
+
+"Good Scouting!" exclaimed Corene.
+
+"You betcha!" agreed Pete; "and the doc said it was just in the nick
+o' time and saved Marx's life. I tell you, folks around here'll stand
+by Peg, but of course, strangers is apt to be critical," he finished.
+
+"We will have to call on her, we're Scouts too, you know, Pete," said
+Julia.
+
+"Yes, I know. You look real smart in them natty little suits, too. I
+like the looks of them first rate," admired Pete. "But as for callin'
+on Peg, it can't be done."
+
+"Why?" came a chorus.
+
+"She won't have any callers. Her place is barred and locked and pretty
+near has dynamite planted around it." He chuckled merrily at the idea.
+"Yes, sir-ree! Peg don't want no one to bother her and she won't allow
+anyone to do it. Too bad, too, a little girl like her had ought ta
+have girl friends."
+
+"I knew she was queer," insisted Grace.
+
+"Well, you might call it that----" Pete stopped to take an order for a
+ride to the other end of the lake, and the girls hopped out to stay
+ashore.
+
+"There, you see," said Louise, "we can't possibly ask her to join our
+troop."
+
+"Or _get_ her to join it, you mean, Weasy. It seems to me that a girl
+who can do as big a thing as carry a half frozen man on her horse has
+a good right to be called the original Scout, and I am going to do all
+I can to find out more about her," declared Corene.
+
+"Look out for the dynamite," cautioned Julia.
+
+"That makes it more interesting," commented Cleo. "Louise, let's get
+horses to-morrow and ride over Tamarack Hills?"
+
+"Maybe," replied Louise. "Will you go, Corey?"
+
+"Can't possibly," replied Corene, "and I doubt that you two should. I
+thought we all agreed to get right down to camp work?"
+
+"Oh, all right," and Cleo's voice hinted an apology for her proposed
+breaking away from the camp work. "It will be best to get the camp
+settled before the other temptations tempt us too strongly. But the
+water, and the woods and the birds! A ride over the hills with Peg
+would be my idea of real fun, Corey, but you're boss--patrol leader I
+mean--and I am always willing to obey!"
+
+"Yes--you are!" drawled Grace.
+
+"At any rate, I'm crazy about the camp idea, and I am willing to get
+it going," insisted Cleo.
+
+"Very well, let's see you prove it," retorted Corene, "for the things
+are in the freight station now, and to-morrow we will have to set
+about getting them delivered."
+
+Then the strains of uncertain music that floated down from the Inn
+announced the call of summer time entertainment at the little hotel.
+
+"Come on up and watch them dance, for a while," proposed Grace.
+
+And they ran, even up a hill, for running seemed to be as important as
+breathing itself to those jolly little Scout girls.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+SHIPSHAPING
+
+
+Just to show that grown folks, when they are home-grown, appreciate
+children's aspirations and often delight in promoting them, the
+equipment for Camp Comalong when it "camalong" was a big surprise
+indeed. Parents of the little troop, the "Junior Bobolinks" as they
+decided to call themselves, united in procuring a regulation outfit
+for the girls; and the site finally chosen was on a hill overlooking
+the lake, near enough other camps and especially near to one camp in
+which was "housed" a club of Normal School young women, secretly
+pledged to "have an eye" on Camp Comalong.
+
+The girls could scarcely believe that all the freight consignment
+piled up on the small floor of that office could really be for them.
+Corene "fell to" immediately and took charge. She ordered the others
+about as if she were a qualified directress, indeed, and sent each on
+a different errand somewhere: to get a couple of express men to cart
+the stuff to the grounds, to get a carpenter to cut some strong tent
+pegs, to get the hammers, the saws, the hatchets and so many necessary
+implements that it seemed the Bobolinks were not going to follow out
+the primitive living system of their namesakes, the little birds that
+sing as they fly, and seem to need the songs to propel the wings, as
+each fluttering movement is accompanied by its fluttering song.
+
+But speed was the important issue with the "Bobbies," so whatever they
+may have overlooked in the way of real Scout endurance and personal
+labor for the establishment of the camp, they surely made up for with
+their enthusiasm and direct energy.
+
+The ownership of a horse and wagon, or of anything that would run (at
+times) by motor, was all that a man at the lake needed to qualify him
+as an "expressman," hence the necessity of looking for more than one
+of such conveyances to get the equipment out to the woods in time to
+begin work that day.
+
+"If we leave it all to old Sam it will get there by the end of the
+week," reasoned Corene, "and we must get things moving. Louise, ask
+the grocer if he will take these boxes for us."
+
+"But why not take one of our cars?" suggested Julia. "You may have
+ours this morning, I'm sure."
+
+"No, thank you, Julie. This stuff is rough and scratchy, and there's
+no use starting out to damage things. But isn't it too wonderful?
+These are real army tents and there's a----"
+
+"Flagpole!" sang out Cleo. "I should think we might have found a dead
+tree for that purpose."
+
+"I believe our family made that contribution," said Grace. "Mother was
+afraid we would start out wrong and not have the colors right away, so
+she ordered a flag and pole."
+
+"Oh, how lovely!" exclaimed Cleo. "Of course a handsome flag should
+fly from a proper standard bearer. I never suspected we were going to
+have such a complete outfit."
+
+"The flag is at our cottage," added Grace. "Benny will bring it over
+as soon as we are ready. It's a perfect beauty--size six by four."
+
+"Oh, and we can raise and lower the colors and all that!" enthused
+Julia. "Now we know how much better fun all this is than just dressing
+up at some fashionable summer place."
+
+"Heaps," agreed Corene. "But I say, girls, we don't really have to
+stand around here waiting to see all this put on the wagons----"
+
+"I would never trust those indifferent men to get it sent out to-day
+if we didn't just stay here and superintend," declared Cleo. "I have
+two promises for two men with light trucks. Let's see if either will
+come."
+
+So the real work began. But it was all so novel, and the woods smelled
+so of the pines and cedars and larches--no wonder that spot had been
+given the name Tamarack Hills.
+
+By night fall the camp site had been cleared; the girls raised a
+pretty crop of blisters in their frantic efforts to get things cut
+down. The tent pegs were all driven in, Benny and his Boy Scout
+friends helped with the driving, but the hoisting of the tent was
+considered too important a task to be left to "such little girls," so
+much against the ambition of Corene that piece of work was actually
+done by a corps of real Scouts--to wit--three very interested fathers,
+who came to the camp site in the autos that brought them from the
+early evening train.
+
+For the sake of identification we will call these gentlemen after
+their daughters, so it was Mr. Cleo who ran the ridge pole under the
+center of the tent, while Messrs. Julia and Louise, at the signal,
+raised the tent by lifting the poles and carrying them to their
+places. It took some little time to get the big canvas house properly
+adjusted, but it was worth all the trouble.
+
+"Hurrah!" shouted the Bobbies as their headquarters was finally in
+evidence.
+
+"How can we ever go home and leave it to-night?" bewailed Grace.
+
+"Folks at home are worrying lest you have worked too hard to-day,"
+declared the man with the big gray car. "You must come along,
+kiddies."
+
+"But we didn't, daddy, really," protested Corene. "We loafed more than
+we worked. There was so much to see and so many things to distract us.
+I'm not one bit tired."
+
+"Oh, h-h-h!" groaned Louise, almost falling into Cleo's arms. "She
+isn't a bit tired! I'm dead!"
+
+"But Corey is always in such good form," said Julia. "This is where
+all her exercising comes in."
+
+They were gathering up such tools and accessories as could not be left
+around on the grounds over night, and incidentally gathering up
+themselves, when the clap-clap-clippity-clap of horse's hoofs was
+heard coming over the hills.
+
+The road was narrow, merely a way driven into a road by the campers'
+use, and as the car with the Bobbies' fathers and the newly organized
+camp troop carefully picked their way out into the broader
+thoroughfare, Peg, the girl rider, came into sight.
+
+"There she is!" Grace gave the usual announcement, and this time the
+girls had opportunity for a close-up view of the interesting, original
+Girl Scout of Tamarack Hills.
+
+She pulled her horse up to allow the cars to pass, and it seemed to
+the Scouts that she deliberately tossed her head up in a defiant pose
+that turned her face away from them. But in spite of this they
+obtained a good view of the rider.
+
+She wore a suit, the origin of which would be at once proclaimed
+"Western." The divided skirt was of brown leather with that
+picturesque fringe slashed in, so markedly popular in pictures of
+Mexican or Southwestern girl riders, her blouse "matched horribly," as
+Cleo put it, for while it was Indian in design, and also carried the
+slashed fringe, the material was common khaki, well washed out and
+deplorably faded. It might have been part of a boy's play suit, for it
+seemed in no way related either to the girl or to her leather riding
+skirt.
+
+Her hat was broad brimmed and of tan felt--still another shade of the
+various browns, and again suggesting another inception. It looked a
+"whole lot like the Boy Scouts' hat," whispered Grace.
+
+Surprising to relate, this girl had neither the popularly featured
+"bronze, red nor sunny hair," and it was dark, black actually; nor did
+it curl the least bit, for what fell over the ears (it was cropped
+very short) glistened even in the twilight.
+
+All this was observable because in the narrow road the cars were
+almost stopped, and Peg's horse nosed right up to Cleo, with a very
+friendly whinnie.
+
+"Dads might think we are looking for that sort of thing," whispered
+the conservative Louise. And if to be camp Scouts should mean "that
+sort of thing," her caution, just then, seemed warranted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+AN ANGEL UNAWARES
+
+
+Between settling the camp and agreeing with one another on details,
+the "Bobbies" were a busy little band for days after the canvas had
+been stretched and the ropes pegged down. It seemed so simple to wish
+for a camp and get it, but now that simplicity assumed complex
+proportions, and while it was all fascinating to the very point of
+thrills, yet the details were very exacting.
+
+The tent was just large enough to take in the eight cots and to
+shelter such equipment as should be protected from the elements; but
+it now appeared there was so much to be "sheltered" and so many
+"luxuries" to be provided for, at the suggestion of the girls who had
+not learned real Scout camping as Corene had done, that the adjuncts
+in the way of "lean-tos" and annexes being made or proposed to be made
+by any or all members of the squad, threatened presently to be bigger
+and more important than the tent itself.
+
+Every girl came daily armed with her Scout books, if for no other
+purpose than to offset Corene's objections to "cluttering things up."
+
+It was first arranged to have a heavy matting put over the sod for
+flooring, and a rug had been promptly donated, but again the grown-ups
+had a say, and real flooring was ordered and put on a high foundation,
+so that there would be less danger of colds from dampness.
+
+If Cleo could be kept from stringing up strips of cretonne "to give
+color" she might have done something useful; while Julia's joy in
+building the stone oven outside, threatened to keep her busy for the
+entire vacation. Louise ran to "table fixin's." She was responsible
+for a rustic "sideboard" made from the empty barrels and discarded
+freight boards, curtained effectively with the water-proof burlap, and
+gaily flaunting a real wood fern in a red nail keg right in the center
+of the top shelf. Standing off and viewing these artistic achievements
+took a lot of time, and incidentally left a lot of more important work
+unfinished.
+
+"Where are we going to put the food?" demanded dainty Julia. "Not out
+there for the flies, Weasy!"
+
+"No, certainly not," said Louise. "I don't have anything to do with
+the food. That goes with the kitchen work."
+
+"And whose work is that?" Corene laid down her hammer to ask.
+
+"Whose?" asked the others.
+
+"Everyone's," came back Corene. "We must take turns at that, but we
+must make arrangements for the 'eats' right away. Who has been down to
+the spring?"
+
+Everyone had.
+
+"Could we hang our butter and meat in pails in the water?" asked
+Corey. She had seen this done in a real Scout camp.
+
+"We might, but what about the animals?" inquired Cleo.
+
+"Oh, we can get real strong pails and stake them down so that small
+animals can't touch the food," said the leader.
+
+"And have horrid, old scaly snakes sniffing it!" protested Grace.
+
+"We wouldn't eat the sniffs," retorted Corene. "At any rate we must
+have a cool place for food and can't think of ice. I wonder what the
+Norms do?"
+
+"Oh, the Normal camp girls," explained Cleo. "I think they have grub
+traps set in the spring, but it runs directly past their door."
+
+"It's right over by that rock, isn't it?" asked Corene.
+
+"Yes, there's a nice little puddley basin in that big stone," replied
+Julia.
+
+"Then it's easy to fix. We can run it right along here," Corene was
+drawing a very crooked line in the trampled earth, with her homemade
+broom handle.
+
+"How can we bring the spring over here?" scoffed Louise. "It goes
+straight down the other way."
+
+"We'll dig a little ditch, of course," insisted Corene. "Or if we're
+too busy to do it, and we probably will be for days to come, we'll get
+the boys to make one for us. The earth isn't rooty here, see, it's
+nice and soft," she poked up a ditch in illustration. "And it will be
+splendid to have running water at the door for other purposes."
+
+"Corey, you ought to be a plumber!" roared Grace, precipitating one of
+those unwarranted outbursts of mirth that always ended work for the
+time being. The girls were just like that, and they couldn't seem to
+help it.
+
+The appearance of a surprised bunny on a stump checked the hilarity,
+and the inexperienced ones wanted to throw cracker crumbs to the
+stubby-tailed, long-eared little animal.
+
+"And make a house pet of it!" exclaimed Corene. "Can you imagine that
+bunny stealing your fudge, Louise? He wouldn't know it was stealing if
+you made him 'to home' like that."
+
+"Seems to me," Louise frowned, "knowledge always makes one snippy. I
+don't mean that you are snippy, Corey dear, but to turn away a nice,
+little, gray bunny, because we know he will come again if we treat him
+decently. Doesn't it seem a lot nicer to be sociable and take the
+consequences?"
+
+"It does not!" exclaimed Cleo. "Because animals are made to be subject
+to man, not to be his equal. Here, Master Sammy Littletail, take
+yourself off. Shoo!" and Cleo tossed a harmless little pine cone after
+the scurrying bunny.
+
+"Oh, all right. If that's the way you feel about it I suppose we will
+have to shoo everything. But just the same, I left a nice square hole
+in the back of my outdoor buffet, for a bird sanctuary!" Louise
+confessed naively.
+
+"Someone's coming!" announced Grace. "Let me straighten my doormat."
+
+A young woman in camp uniform--the service suit of skirt and
+blouse--came up from the roadway. She was smiling broadly and sent that
+greeting on ahead to the Scouts.
+
+"Welcome!" she called out. "We have all been wondering why no Girl
+Scouts came up to our hills, and now our wonder is answered. Here you
+are!"
+
+"Yes," admitted Corene, trying to straighten out a very badly wrinkled
+blouse. "We are just a junior troop, we organized ourselves, you
+know," she finished frankly.
+
+"How could you do that?" questioned the young lady, seating herself on
+the biggest and flattest camp-stump. It was regarded as a regular
+seat, of course.
+
+"Oh, we are all Scouts at home, you know, and we understand all
+the--qualifications," Corene hesitated at this word, fearful of an
+accusing glance from someone who might call it a bit big for a junior
+to use.
+
+"But have you no leader? No director nor counsellor?" queried the
+stranger.
+
+"I have just come from a big camp," said the little Corene, a bit
+uncertainly.
+
+A rather critical look was swept over the Bobbie at that statement.
+
+"Yet you are too young to be a leader," pressed the tall girl.
+
+"I'm fifteen, but we hadn't quite finished all our plans yet,"
+admitted the spokesman.
+
+"We have grown up sisters," tossed in Grace.
+
+"Do they understand Scouting?" These questions were not asked in any
+but the most friendly tone. "I am Marge Mackin of Norm Camp, over
+there, and I have been a Scout leader in the city. I called to say I
+would be glad to help you in any way----"
+
+"Oh, could you come over to our camp?" asked Julia, impulsively. "We
+have plenty of room."
+
+Miss Mackin rippled a girlish laugh. "That's lovely!" she exclaimed.
+"I'm sure I never thought of thrusting myself on you this way, but if
+I can really be of service----"
+
+"Indeed you can," declared Corene. "We have just gone ahead planning
+camp and expecting something would turn up to help us out of the
+director difficulty. Of course, our mothers would have sent an older
+sister, perhaps changing the force each week, but it is so much better
+to have a real camp leader. If you can come we have saved a
+counsellor's cot," she finished.
+
+"Have you, really? What wise little girls," Miss Mackin was glancing
+around with unhidden admiration.
+
+"Won't you come in and inspect?" invited Corene.
+
+"How splendid!" enthused the caller, passing in under the tent. "And
+how very practically ship-shape! You do show you are familiar with
+real camping. And where did you get such splendid equipment?"
+
+The camp's history was outlined and its prospects forecast, while Miss
+Mackin listened approvingly.
+
+"And you really want a resident manager?" she asked finally.
+
+"We do, indeed," declared the spokesman Corene, who, more than the
+others, realized the value of the unexpected offer.
+
+"Then suppose I accept, conditionally, of course, and we write our
+application to headquarters? All being Scouts we might better come
+under direct authority, don't you think so?"
+
+"Certainly," chorused the Bobbies.
+
+"But we won't have to change our name or anything, will we?" rather
+anxiously asked Grace.
+
+"Oh, no, even if there is another Bobolink troop your affix of
+'junior' will, I think, make that all right. Also you may be called
+the Bobbies, that's a handy little name for an emergency summer troop.
+I think I'm just as crazy about all this as you are. I dearly love
+Scout camping, and try to get our young ladies to adhere to it. But
+you see, they are not little girls, and cannot always see the fun in
+good team work."
+
+Miss Mackin was unmistakably attractive and very girlish herself. She
+had the smile called "wide," and it lit up her whole face with rare
+flashes of dormant humor. The girls knew instantly she would be the
+very leader for them, and they felt like hugging the prospect.
+
+"Now, it's all settled!" proclaimed Julia. She had been fighting
+visions of black nights under that canvas tent with no Yale locks nor
+other safety contrivances or erstwhile doors, and here was some one
+actually able and willing to "take charge."
+
+"We are doing some research work up here," Miss Mackin explained, "and
+parts of my days must be given to that. You are so capable I would be
+in the way, really, if around all the time; but nights----"
+
+"Oh, we would need you every night," insisted Corene sincerely.
+
+"And in my own tent I am almost crowded out, so the plan seems
+inspirational," said Miss Mackin. She was surveying Louise's sideboard
+while Louise tried to get behind Grace. The compliment given, however,
+did not warrant hiding away from it.
+
+"We intend to move in to-morrow afternoon," said Corene, "if we can
+get everything moved up here by that time. Could you come to-morrow
+night?"
+
+"Easily. The girls will be delighted to have my cot for a visitor. I
+really don't have a whole cot, but I managed to get room to sleep in
+it," she smilingly admitted. "Yet, I hope I have not influenced you to
+take pity on me," she hurried to protest.
+
+"You are a real blessing," said Cleo. She was going to say "angel,"
+but a look from Grace forbade that extreme.
+
+"We are going exploring this afternoon," announced Julia, as the
+visitor prepared to leave.
+
+"Oh, yes! Don't mind the danger-signs you find stuck around," said
+Miss Mackin. "We have seen many of them, but not yet scented any real
+danger. Good-bye for a while!" she finished. "I'll be here in time to
+take charge of the banner-raising." She hesitated in front of the new
+flagpole, her eyes alight with admiration for the girls' spirit of
+loyalty to their Scout principles. Then Miss Mackin hurried off toward
+Camp Norm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+A STOLEN LOOK AROUND
+
+
+It was dawn on Lake Hocomo, and the sun that disappeared behind the
+hills last night after spilling his colorful paint-pots into the
+surprised waters, tried to make amends now by softening the deadened
+mixture into a haze of amethyst mists.
+
+Gray, purple, rosy, and all so velvety, like the essence of color-life
+itself, the day dawned; welcomed by glad birds from every bush, tree
+or meadow spot for miles around.
+
+Were the Bobbies up now they might have learned something from their
+namesake. On a soft patch of velvet grass, jeweled with dew-blessed
+buttercups, and that tiniest of flowers, the pale blue forget-me-not,
+the bobolinks fluttered, their song as reckless as the riot of early
+day, as they paddled along on wingtips to the gay rhythm of rippling,
+reckless aria; for a happy little songster is the bobolink, shooting
+up and diving down into the wet grasses for his bath of sweetness,
+then swaying on the slenderest of stems, not unlike the little girl
+who stands perched on her springboard in the first joys of
+water-diving.
+
+It was because this rollicking bird sings as he flies that the vote of
+the Scouts resulted in his name being chosen, and on the dawn recorded
+the brown-gray streaked little songster left his meadow for a glimpse
+of that new camp in the woods. Soon he must go South for his rice
+feast, for early in summer the birds of his clan descend upon the rice
+fields and lo----!
+
+The bobolink perched himself on the top of that new flagpole, and
+perhaps his trilled notes were a co-mingling of praise and good
+wishes. But the Bobbies were sleeping in their mothers' cottages and
+dreaming of the first night in camp.
+
+Dick Porter, the night-watchman on the grounds around Tamarack Hills,
+rubbed his eyes and heaved the sigh of another task completed. Then he
+took a last look at Camp Comalong, for the Scouts had already stored
+in the tent goods of value, straightened his shoulders to suit the
+daytime needs, and sauntered off for his breakfast at the Nipanneck.
+
+Quickly as he turned away from the camp grounds a girl stole down from
+the highest hilltop. Peg, the mysterious, without hat and in simple
+skirt and blouse, frightened away the chipmunks and bunnies as she
+skipped, light as a fawn, over the path invisible to less familiar
+eyes, then she too stopped in front of that dignified flagpole. She
+looked up and down the length of it and brushed her hand quizzically
+over its smooth surface.
+
+"Humph!" she jerked. "Going to have everything first class, I guess."
+
+Cautiously she stepped up to the rustic "sideboard." This brought from
+her lips no caustic comment, but at once claimed her wrapt attention.
+She touched the burlap curtain and peeked under it. She gingerly
+fingered the rustic basket that held a bunch of wild flowers and hid
+the glass jar of water, she smiled real approval at the wood's fern in
+the rugged nail-keg that offset the center, and a little sigh escaped
+Peg as she turned to the tent.
+
+The new wood floor was fragrant as the pines, and as it was raised to
+make it safe from dampness the two "carpentered" steps with the
+doormat at top seemed very inviting indeed.
+
+The girl ventured under the canvas and stood as if spellbound.
+
+"Scouts!" she was thinking. "And I was the only Scout here till they
+came with all this."
+
+The cots were still covered with burlap, and the little foot rugs were
+rolled in a bundle with some of Cleo's precious cretonnes. Peg just
+touched all this with her brown fingers, and in a girl's way smiled at
+this or frowned at that, as the fancy struck her.
+
+A shrill whistle from the first lake steamer startled Peg as if she
+had been detected in her stolen inspection, and poking her head out of
+the tent to make sure the coast was clear, she jumped down the two
+white steps and made for the path, safe and unseen even by the girls
+from Camp Norm, who were just starting out for their nature hike. Peg
+quickly lost herself in the elderbrush lane that wound through the
+woods leading up to her own bungalow.
+
+A big shaggy collie ran out to meet her. She patted him fondly and he
+"wagged her" along to the door, where a woman stood waiting. She was
+related to the girl, that was obvious, for she had the same high toss
+to her head, and the same snapping black eyes, also the pure white
+hair showed the original color must have been black to have changed to
+white so early.
+
+"Peggie, dear, where have you been?" asked the woman. Her voice was
+low and well-modulated.
+
+"Just down to see the new camp," replied the girl. "Had your
+breakfast?"
+
+"No, I waited for you. I do hope, Peggie," there was a note of
+entreaty in her words, "that you are not doing anything--risky."
+
+"Ramrods and toothpicks!" exclaimed the girl. "Anything risky! Why,
+Carrie, I went down to see the new camp--the Girl Scouts, you know."
+
+"Oh yes. Those little girls who wear the uniform?"
+
+"Uh--ha: the girls who wear a perpetual smile and several dollars'
+worth of necktie," replied Peg, a bit sarcastically.
+
+"I am sure they look very neat and tidy, and I hope you are going to
+make friends with them," ventured Aunt Carrie, vindictively.
+
+"Now, please don't start pestering me with that sort of thing,"
+protested the girl. "You know I don't want to make friends with any
+girls."
+
+"You are so foolish, dear, and I fear sometimes you are going to
+extremes with----"
+
+"Now, Carrie! Don't be cross, please. Just let me have my way for this
+one little summer and the time will be up. Then, if you want me to,
+I'll curl my hair if I have to sleep on the rolling-pin with the ends
+wound round it." She laughed gaily at this prospect.
+
+"Come in to breakfast. Shag has had his and we have such lovely
+berries. Come along, girlie," directed the aunt, and she wound an arm
+over the shoulder that pressed up to her affectionately.
+
+Shag, the big collie, took up his post at the door. The bungalow was
+unique in type, if bungalows are ever alike, and the pine trees that
+sheltered and brushed its roof with a sibilant swish, hummed now a
+pretty tuneless whisper. The place was hidden against a rocky ledge
+and not until one stood squarely in front of the unpainted log cabin
+was the building really visible, in its nest of trees and brush.
+
+Some few years before a man with his little daughter and his sister
+came up to the hills. He stayed at the Tippiturn House while he built
+this bungalow. Then he took his daughter Peggie and his sister
+Caroline to the house in the hills, where he lived apart from all the
+natives and cottagers. This was Horace Ramsdell, Peggie's father, but
+few people had cause to remember the name, for the owner lived aloof
+from others and made few friends even in the village.
+
+With all this he was a very pleasant man, fond of animals, kind to
+youngsters and generous in payment for any service. He died suddenly
+the year before the Scouts found their way into Tamarack Hills, where
+they crossed the path of Peg, the now fifteen-year-old daughter.
+
+She followed her father's footsteps in living alone, and in the matter
+of shunning companions, but she could not avoid making friends, as
+Pete the boatman had already assured the Girl Scouts.
+
+Her queer ways, defiance of dress codes, and above all her fondness
+for horseback riding, naturally stirred up criticism, but Peg was as
+oblivious of this as she was of the taunts so often flung at her by
+school girls, whose companionship she seemed to ignore.
+
+"Fly-away Peg," they called her, and the way she "flew to school" on
+her blue roan might easily have merited the caption. But to Morton
+School from Tamarack Hills was a long distance, mostly covered by
+woodlands, and when others came in autos or by wagon, why shouldn't
+Peg come on horseback?
+
+She should and she did, with a smile for the Fly-away Peg, and some
+fruit, winter and summer, for the old janitor who took care of her
+horse during the school session.
+
+There was something incongruous in her attitude. She was so lively and
+rollicking with anyone who would not follow up the familiarity, but
+just as soon as one would threaten to call at her bungalow, or would
+ask her to call at theirs, Peg seemed to take fright and would scurry
+off like some woodland thing jealous of its hiding place.
+
+No tradesman ever got past the door of her cabin; not even good old
+Doctor Rowan was brought inside when once he called to pay a
+professional visit on Aunt Carrie.
+
+On that occasion the lady, being ill, was very comfortably propped in
+the big steamer-chair on the porch, Peg declaring she felt better out
+in the air, and that she preferred sleeping out there when the weather
+was mild enough.
+
+So Peg of Tamarack Hills was a queer girl in many ways, and the
+mystery surrounding her home life always served to excite the
+curiosity of strangers, but had not, as yet, been explained.
+
+Perhaps a half-hour after she entered the bungalow for breakfast she
+appeared again in the familiar roughrider's outfit, adjusting the
+leather-fringed skirt over her breeches as she stood in the doorway.
+
+"I'll take Shag if that will make you feel any better, Aunt Carrie,"
+said the girl, pulling her hat firmly on the cropped head. "Also, I'll
+ride slowly enough to talk to him, and I'll surely be back by noon.
+Now promise you are not going to worry."
+
+"I can't promise, my dear; but I'll try not to. You are growing up
+now, Peggie, and summer folks are so critical, you know."
+
+"Toothpicks for summer folks!" retorted the girl scornfully. "We don't
+owe them anything, Carrie, and if that's all you have got to worry
+about----"
+
+"I wish it were, dear," sighed the woman, but the girl was hurrying to
+the log-built barn where "Whirlwind," her blue roan, impatiently
+awaited her coming.
+
+Then she was off "like a piece of scenery," as Pete put it. But Peggie
+Ramsdell had no thought of the picturesque effect she created, nor did
+she care for less friendly criticism that followed in her dust-blown
+path.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+OPENING DAY
+
+
+"Everything is ready. Miss Mackin has sent our application to
+headquarters so that we may go on record, and now all we have to do
+is----"
+
+Louise interrupted Corene. "I've got to move all the dishes for my
+precious dining-room, and who can spare a car to lug them out?"
+
+"We'll pick you up and your tin pans on our way out this afternoon,"
+replied Grace, quite breathless from the excitement. "And I've got to
+press out my uniform for the celebration."
+
+"Come along, I guess we have everything for this trip," said Corene,
+gathering up a few more "odds and ends." What wouldn't that camp
+contain?
+
+"Come along!" repeated Cleo. "I'm so glad we named it that, for I can
+just fancy we will make that our slogan. 'Come-a-long,'" she mimicked
+again, "and don't spill the eats, whatever you do."
+
+Out at the fork in the roadway they were met by the rest of the
+Bobbies, and the camp on this, the opening day, was to receive a full
+patrol of eight members. Miss Mackin had been made official director,
+Corene was leader, and the other members were Louise, Grace, Julia,
+Cleo, Margaret, and Madaline, the last two being visitors, but also
+regular Scouts in the home troop.
+
+Miss Mackin had already taken up her place in the camp and was now
+fully responsible, according to the best standards of the general
+organization; but in spite of that she allowed the girls to make the
+camp as they thought best, realizing that their plans were affording
+them a splendid chance to express individuality, and it was their
+proud boast that Camp Comalong was entirely theirs, from flagpole to
+the spring ditch, and from tent roof to the pine-needle pillows which
+Julia insisted should be used.
+
+And they were really moving in!
+
+A little gasp of anticipation sort of choked Cleo as she realized she
+was going to sleep with that oft-mentioned thin "rag of canvas twixt
+her and the stars." She wondered what they would do when it rained,
+and was glad the good, strong board floor was raised high enough to
+crawl under should a storm get too furious.
+
+Benny called this the cyclone-cellar, and it was stored with enough
+furniture which could not be utilized "just now" to give it a rather
+cyclonic appearance.
+
+The blankets on the eight nicely arranged cots had not been folded
+just as Corene had directed, so this detail was the first thing
+attended to now.
+
+"You see," she explained, "an awful lot depends upon the beds. They
+are our chief decoration, you might say," as she proceeded to make
+each bed very pretty indeed, with a diamond-shaped blanket in gay
+colors throwing its brilliancy clear up to the brown canvas ceiling.
+
+Bits of waste paper seemed to come from nowhere and settle everywhere,
+and these kept the Scouts busy, for this was to be a model camp and
+fit for inspection "always."
+
+"Now we'll all go home and take a bathtub bath," suggested Miss
+Mackin, "and be back promptly at two-thirty for the flag-raising."
+
+If anyone doubts girls' ability to make life ideal in the open, such a
+one has surely a limited experience with life's loveliest creatures,
+for girls are naturally "little animals," and who-ever tried to teach
+a bunny how to dig its burrow?
+
+At two o'clock Benny rounded up the Boy Scouts, and when these came
+together they formed quite a company, in which were five fifes, three
+were tin horns, several drums, a few being homemade and of recent
+production, besides mouth-organs and other varieties of noise-making
+instruments. Benny himself, being brother to Grace, was chosen
+color-bearer, and he started his company off for Tamarack Hills with
+many compliments following in the wake of the trusty, valiant Boy
+Scouts.
+
+Friends and relations of the girls had gathered also, and it was a
+distinguished line of autos that parked down at the foot of the hill
+when the girls themselves, hiking now and disdaining car-rides,
+marched along to take formal possession of Camp Comalong.
+
+The inspection came first and everyone took part in it Mothers were
+enthusiastic and even craved "camps like this" for the whole family.
+Those fathers who could do so also attended the opening, and manlike
+talked proudly of their girls being the real thing in the Scout line.
+
+The boys "drummed and fifed" madly, and of course drew a crowd.
+
+"After this one afternoon," said Corene to Cleo's mother, "we are
+going to be strictly Girl Scouts, and we will only have visitors on
+regular days."
+
+Miss Mackin was conducting one of the visiting school-teachers all
+over the grounds, for the fame of this girl-made camp had spread
+beyond its limits. Then the signal was given, and Grace pulled the
+rope that raised Old Glory over Tamarack Hills!
+
+That moment was reverently solemn.
+
+Every Girl and Boy Scout stood at attention, while the other
+spectators evinced their respect for the country's glorious emblem.
+Then the salute was given and the strains of "Star-Spangled Banner"
+stole out, first timidly, then assuringly, over the hills to the soft
+accompaniment of the lake's gentle swish against the rocky shore.
+
+The hours that followed were too well-filled with excitement and
+interest to bear commonplace reporting, but the capable director, Miss
+Mackin, or "Mackey," as she had already been affectionately dubbed by
+the Scouts, managed to get the grounds fairly well cleared of visitors
+in time for supper preparations to be begun before sunset, and
+presently the girls found themselves alone with their beloved scheme,
+"Camping in the Woods."
+
+"We will have a cold supper to-night," said Mackey, "and we have two
+quarts of lovely fresh milk--a donation from the Boy Scouts."
+
+"We might have treated them," said Grace. "They did so much for us,
+and their music was really splendid!"
+
+"Indeed it was," agreed the director, "and some afternoon we will give
+them all a treat. But to-night we have to try things out, so we will
+keep to schedule. I think everything went beautifully, and I want to
+congratulate you all. My friends from Camp Norm were very much
+impressed, and envied me my comfortable quarters," she added
+considerately.
+
+"They don't know the squad," laughed Corene, "and we had on our best
+behavior to-day. Wait, just wait until things get going."
+
+"We'll get the water," volunteered Cleo, taking the nice, shiny new
+pail from its peg in the tree closet. There was a row of these tree
+closets, being small wooden boxes nailed low enough to reach easily,
+and holding all the kitchen pans and pots. No one claimed these, and
+as Corene announced early in the plans, each should take turns, just
+like the K. P., or Kitchen Police, in military parlance.
+
+Up the hill to the spring now romped Cleo and Grace. It was joyous to
+begin, really, to start this first meal in camp. Fleet-footed were the
+happy Scouts on the initial errand, and if Grace stumbled and Cleo
+tripped it was small wonder, considering their excited state of mind.
+
+They were within a few feet, or bushes, of the spring when they saw a
+figure leaning over it.
+
+"Look!" whispered Cleo. "It's Peg!"
+
+"Come on and let's speak to her," suggested Grace sociably.
+
+"She might not like it," demurred Cleo.
+
+"Let's try, anyhow," insisted Grace, quickening her pace.
+
+The girl leaning over the spring must have heard the steps, for she
+jumped up quickly and snatched her hat from the big stone.
+
+"Hello!" called out Grace cheerily. "Did you come down to our camp
+exercises?"
+
+The brown felt hat was pulled down very suddenly and firmly on the
+black hair, and for an instant the face under it flashed defiance. The
+next, a frank smile brought the answer.
+
+"I did not exactly come to them, but I heard from the hill. It
+seemed--very nice."
+
+"Oh, it was. I'm sorry you didn't come," pressed Grace. "Let us
+introduce ourselves." She waved her pail nervously. "This is Cleo and
+I'm Grace of the Bobolinks. You may call us the Bobbies if you will."
+
+Peg smiled again and scratched her heavy shoes quite like an
+embarrassed youth might do. She hesitated quite a while before
+answering:
+
+"And I'm Peg--you may, if you will" (she pleasantly imitated the voice
+Grace had used), "just call me Peg," she finished rather shyly.
+
+It was such an agreeable surprise to find her approachable.
+Immediately both Scouts fell to talking of their camp prospects, and
+very naturally asked Peg to call.
+
+"We know you are the original Scout of these hills," Grace
+complimented, "and I hope you don't mind our trespassing."
+
+"Oh, no," replied Peg, but the voice was a little guarded. "The hills
+are big enough for us all," she added, "and I don't think you could
+have found a prettier spot. You can see clear across the lake from
+your front door," and she smiled at the classification.
+
+But she did not reply to the invitation. Both girls noticed the
+omission.
+
+Cleo dipped her pail in the spring pool and brought it out filled. She
+wanted to rinse the new tin, although Corene had boiled it before
+bringing it out to camp, but to rinse it would cool it, and now Cleo
+looked about for a spot to throw the waste water.
+
+"Toss it over this way," suggested Peg, who was moving away. "There's
+a water-cress bed here. Don't forget to try them when you want a
+salad," and before the Scouts could thank her she was racing over the
+next hill and waving good-bye.
+
+"So we met Peg!" said Cleo, her pail of water spilling over her new
+sneaks.
+
+"And she's a dear," announced Grace emphatically.
+
+Then they carried a newly dipped pail of fresh spring water back to
+camp, for their first supper under the tamarack trees.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE LOVING BANDIT
+
+
+When the girls went down to the lake with Mackey that evening, they
+were, somehow, a source of curiosity to those friends not members of
+the charmed circle of Scouts. To be away from home, living in a tent
+out in the woods, while even the Boy Scouts had to go back to their
+family cottage at night, seemed highly exciting. But the Bobbies were
+now a unit, and under the capable direction of Miss Mackin they
+started immediately to do things as they are done by units, and not by
+individuals.
+
+"We will go for a sail this evening," planned the director. "I see you
+have all passed in the swimming tests and therefore are permitted to
+go in canoes."
+
+"Oh, yes," Corene replied; "swimming is our chiefest joy, and canoeing
+on this lake, what we have had of it, is simply ideal."
+
+"I am sure folks will be curious about us for a while at least,"
+continued Miss Mackin, "so I have asked Camp Norm to let us take the
+big canoe this evening, the one we teachers practice in, you know."
+
+"The big green Pedagogue!" exclaimed Cleo. "Oh, how splendid! I have
+just longed for a ride in the war canoe," and she hurried to do her
+part in clearing away the supper things.
+
+"Cleo," interfered Corene aside, so that Mackey would not overhear,
+"you know there is a real Scout way of doing dishes, and----"
+
+"All right, Corey; but let's do them any way to-night, so that they
+get done," replied the little girl in the big gingham apron. "I just
+want to get down to the lake and out on the water before the sunset
+fades. Daddy and all the folks will be there----"
+
+"Show-off!" taunted Madaline, the baby of the patrol. "Cleo thinks
+that canoe-riding is next best to horseback riding," and she made a
+juggler's pass to catch the plate that slipped through her dish-towel.
+
+A half-hour later the Bobolink girls were down at the dock, the center
+of an admiring party which included some Camp Fire Girls, some girls
+from the Hikers Club, besides the usual scattering of summer girls,
+all piling on compliments for the day's achievement in the opening of
+Camp Comalong. Miss Mackin wore her regular uniform, which she had
+with her, fortunately, and all together the patrol made a very
+creditable showing, as they took their places in the war canoe.
+
+After some instructions from Miss Mackin, who, among other things,
+insisted upon "good form rather than speed," they pulled out
+gracefully, the "Down Paddle" start having been executed by the eight
+doubles as precisely as if done by a simple stroke.
+
+And wonder of wonders! There was a moving-picture man on shore,
+grinding his machine as if each grind depended on speed and not upon
+form, for only in a sudden burst of strong sunset light did the camera
+operator hope to get a picture of the Girl Scouts on Lake Hocomo.
+
+"In the movies!" breathed Julia, dipping her paddle with such awe as
+might have been occasioned had some perfume stream sprung up through
+the many springs beneath the water's surface. It was sweet, indeed, to
+be pictured thus, and not a Bobbie among them but felt a little tinge
+of pride when the boys shouted after them:
+
+"You'll be in the movies, girls!"
+
+"Queer how much more important we are to-day than we were yesterday,"
+remarked Cleo analytically.
+
+"Because yesterday we were girls, while to-day we are Scouts,"
+explained Mackey. "That's the value of team play, you know. Now we
+will paddle in to the Point, and see that we make a perfect landing.
+That's one thing we have to learn in good canoeing."
+
+Dip after dip took them gracefully down the lake to where the Point
+landing jutted out among all sorts of craft, the motor-boating being
+easily as common at the lakeside as is the "motor-caring" at any
+inland parkside.
+
+"I hope we don't jam them," whispered Grace to Cleo, who was her canoe
+partner.
+
+"If we have to jam anyone, I hope it's that 'streak'--you know, Grace,
+that queer bug-boat those girls from the hotel always ride in."
+
+"Why?" asked Grace, leaning closer.
+
+"Because they're snippy and call us 'candy kids,'" replied Cleo. "It
+seems to me they look more like candy themselves, with their taffy
+hair and peppermint-striped bathing-suits."
+
+Grace silently agreed, and soon all the paddlers bent their interest
+and energy on making a perfect landing.
+
+At the director's signal they stopped paddling some little distance
+out, then steered past the flock of motor boats into the side of the
+dock, where as pretty a landing was made as the big Pedagogue ever had
+to her credit.
+
+Miss Mackin and Corene sprang ashore first, and held the boat while
+the others quickly and alertly followed.
+
+Again they were the center of an admiring throng, and again the
+Bobbies felt suffused with a pardonable pride. They were really the
+first group of Girl Scouts to be seen about the lake, and it was not
+surprising that they should attract some attention.
+
+Some provisions for the next day were purchased, as the Point was the
+center of supplies for the colonists, then, after a half hour spent in
+recreation about the pier, the party embarked again and paddled back
+toward the camp landing.
+
+The evening "had ripened" as Louise expressed it, and a calm
+mellowness seemed to settle over everything about the water and its
+shores.
+
+"Let us try a song," suggested Miss Mackin. "Who can lead?"
+
+"Weasy!" came the chorus; and presently the newest version of popular
+songs, adjusted to the Girl Scout needs, with clever words that just
+fitted the tunes, were "tried" and rather successfully executed. The
+clear, true voice of Weasy carried along the more uncertain tones of
+Grace and Cleo, like chips of sound on the crest of a song wave, and
+once started the "sing" went merrily on until the home dock was
+finally reached.
+
+A sigh of satisfaction ended the chorus. The Pedagogue was docked and
+stored for the night, although the interested Benny and his clan
+crawled under the big canoe "just for sport," the Bobbies said
+good-night and turned back to the hills for their first night under
+the stars.
+
+It was almost dark as they hurried along under the trees, and it was
+not by accident that each little girl clutched the arm of her
+companion. They needed the nearness on this first night, at any rate,
+and Cleo more than once cast a surreptitious glance back over the lake
+to Chipmunk cottage, where she knew, at that very moment, Daddy was
+looking campward and thinking of his little girl who had flown from
+the home nest for the first time.
+
+But she trudged along eager for the big experience, even if conscious
+of its sentimental cost.
+
+"One lantern will answer for us, I think," said the director. "Shall
+we have a campfire and story to-night?"
+
+"Oh, yes, surely!" replied Corene, who managed to frame first the same
+answer the others attempted.
+
+The two big logs, between which the fire was to be built, were already
+in place, and it was now time for Julia to shine in her especial
+department. She undertook to build the stone oven for the cooking
+purposes, so she also included the responsibility of making place and
+arrangements for the campfire.
+
+Following the camp manual "no paper nor excelsior nor other artificial
+means" were to be employed in the fire making, but instead the "punk"
+wood, gouged from the heart of a dry log, was placed in the "V" of the
+two big green logs; then the tiny twigs and light material were first
+piled up so that the "light with one match only" was successfully
+accomplished, and a merry blaze burst out to greet Julia and cheer her
+companions, almost before the others realized the fire was really
+started.
+
+Every member of the little patrol stood looking on--spellbound. What is
+more inspiring than a campfire in the clearance, with the tent "hard
+by" and the sheltering trees overlooking?
+
+"Oh, if only we could get the girl Peg, you know, to come down and
+join us," sighed Grace.
+
+"Let's try," suggested Cleo. "She seemed friendly and it won't do any
+harm to try. I'll go over the hill with you?"
+
+"If Mackey will let us," followed Grace. The other girls were finding
+seats on the big logs arranged at a safe distance from the fire, and
+when the director heard the request of Grace and Cleo, she agreed they
+might go over the hill to the cabin, if they kept to the path in front
+of the other camps and came directly back.
+
+It was not yet dark and the two Bobbies started off on a merry chase,
+as usual. Near the cabin they met Shag, the big collie, and he made
+friends promptly, perhaps because they wore the same sort of brownish
+outfit his own mistress was usually dressed in.
+
+"Shall we go right up and knock?" deliberated Cleo. Now that they
+faced the cabin they faced also its restrictions.
+
+"No," reflected Grace. "We had better call."
+
+Suiting the words to action she cupped her hands and "Whoo-hooed" once
+or twice; then waited.
+
+No answer.
+
+"Call, use her name," suggested Cleo, leaving the duty to Grace.
+
+"Peg! Peg-gee!" called Grace. "Hey--oh! Peg!" she trilled in a curly
+sort of call.
+
+Shag seemed restless now and his manner was less confident. He didn't
+wag so enthusiastically, but instead sniffed with suspicion.
+
+Finally the cabin door opened and Peg appeared. She hurried down and
+met the girls where they waited.
+
+"We came to bring you over to our first campfire," Grace almost
+spluttered. She was excited and in a hurry to return to camp before
+the night should overtake them.
+
+"Oh, I really couldn't go!" protested Peg, but her voice was toned
+with a hint of regret.
+
+"You've just got to," said Cleo. "We are bandits and we're going to
+kidnap you!" and quite as if the play had not been all planned, each
+Scout slipped her arm into the arms of Peg and urged her forward.
+
+A ripple of girlish laughter answered the challenge, but Shag didn't
+like it and he growled threateningly.
+
+The girls stepped back for a moment, fearing the dog might attempt to
+interfere, when another figure appeared in the doorway. It was Aunt
+Carrie, and she very quickly and decidedly ordered Shag to "come here,
+sir," which he did, by that time realizing his very natural mistake.
+
+"Really, girls," said Peg. "I do thank you for being so friendly, but
+I can't go."
+
+"And this our first night on the grounds and you the original Scout!"
+sulked Cleo. "At any rate it is getting so dark I don't see how we
+will dare go back alone."
+
+"You _are_ a bandit," laughed the stranger, "and I suppose----"
+
+"That you must come," Grace finished happily. "Hurry, do please! The
+fire is going high, just see it! And we may miss the story."
+
+"You stay here then," ordered Peg rather shyly, "while I get my cape
+from Aunt Carrie. Shag will be sure to call for me later."
+
+Grace and Cleo danced a few steps while waiting, but in a very few
+moments Peg was back with her cape over her arm.
+
+"I can't tell you how surprised I am," she admitted. "I so very seldom
+go calling."
+
+"But you are a Scout and you wouldn't be unfriendly," almost charged
+Cleo.
+
+"Maybe that's it," returned Peg; and arm in arm the trio stumbled back
+to the campfire, for it was quite impossible to walk without stumbling
+when retarded by darkness from taking the jumps and jerks necessary to
+the ordeal.
+
+When they reached Camp Comalong Mackey was just starting her story.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+GLOW OF THE CAMPFIRE'S GLEAM
+
+
+"And so the mystery of the 'Pocket In Black Rock' was finally cleared
+up," ended the story teller, as the big smoldering log fell into the
+blaze and sent up a "fire-works" of spluttering embers.
+
+The Bobbies hugged the line of waists that sat squat in front of the
+campfire. Peg had been accorded a seat of honor directly in front of
+the biggest blaze, and it was not possible to escape her sighs and
+gasps of rapt attention, as the thrills of the story were unwound, and
+she jumped up now and smiled so frankly into the face of the director
+that no shadow of doubt remained as to this strange girl's sincerity.
+
+"I have never had such a lovely time!" she declared with something of
+the social habit, "and I'm ever--so thankful to you and the girls."
+
+The Bobbies were all delighted. Somehow this little woods-girl was so
+picturesque and fitted in the scene so perfectly now, when the blaze
+lit up her entire form, as she stood outlined against the night--it was
+hard to imagine she was in any way queer!
+
+But the next moment she had flung her cape over her shoulders, thrust
+her fingers into her mouth to make shriller the whistle she emitted,
+and when Shag leaped "into the ring" she said good-night, repeated it
+to each section of the group, and then was off with her dog, before
+the others could offer "to go with her over the hill" or even to ask
+her to come again.
+
+Her abrupt departure left a sort of "hole in the group." While she was
+there the others felt a fascination, that usually accorded to mystery,
+and perhaps she as much as Miss Mackin's thrilling story had furnished
+the evening's interest. But during all the time she exchanged no word
+even of comment, and some of the girls suspected that the "kidnapping"
+perpetrated by Grace and Cleo had been more real than imagined.
+
+"What joy!" enthused Margaret, looking up to see if she could find the
+stars blinking after having her eyes glare-shot by the fire. "To think
+we are going to sleep out here in the woods!"
+
+"And we must make our inspection now," announced the careful director.
+"Corene, you are leader; get the lantern, please."
+
+Willingly the Scout mentioned sprang to obey, when the
+"plink-plink-plink" of Ukes, and a soft hum of voices stole down to
+their grounds.
+
+"A serenade!" exclaimed Louise.
+
+"Oh, goody! We will have more campfire!"
+
+Presently the music filled the clearance, and, as suspected, the
+serenaders were upon the scene.
+
+"The girls from Norm!" cried Julia. "Isn't this just too lovely!"
+
+Then sang the singers:
+
+    "There are girls that make us happy,
+    There are girls who make us sad,
+    There are girls who never can stop gig'ling
+    And they're girls who make you awful mad!
+    But the girls we serenade this evening
+    With this ukeleled sing-a-song,
+    Are the Bobbies with our stolen Mackey,
+    In the lovely new Camp Comalong!'
+
+The tune was borrowed from "Smiles" and the words, though a little
+rough on the edges, fitted in pretty well. And this was the beginning
+of the campfire concert. Two ukes and two mandolins, besides a real
+melodious banjo, composed the orchestra, and the Norms sang everything
+campy and collegiate, until Mackey declared she would simply have to
+put her Bobbies to bed.
+
+Regret as real and keen as that usually expressed in a nursery at the
+same order, answered the summons, but the director was inexorable, and
+the Norms finally left in a path of complimentary protestations.
+
+The inspection finished (nothing was found out of order on this, the
+very first night), the little campers presently found themselves in
+their "bunks."
+
+Such tittering, giggling and whispering!
+
+Someone's bed "sagged like a hammock" while another someone's "humped
+like a hill."
+
+"I'm going to try to grow tall," whispered Louise to Julia, her
+nearest neighbor. "Do you suppose the pines and tamaracks can stretch
+one out?" and she thrust her feet beyond the blanket confines.
+
+Julia didn't care if she shrank, and she whispered that secret; and so
+it went around from cot to cot until Miss Mackin called a final
+warning. Then things settled down at last, and only the trusty lantern
+that hung behind a screen in a sheltered spot outside the door, stood
+sentinel over the sleepers.
+
+And they slept. Little gasps and sighs told of girlish dreams, and if
+Louise kicked her feet down too decidedly perhaps she was trying to
+grow; also when Julia humped up her knees and spoiled the entire
+effect of her pretty blanket, perhaps she was trying to shrink.
+
+Then the inevitable happened. As it couldn't be avoided it has to be
+told, in spite of the usual first night scare banality.
+
+Cleo had just said something unintelligible and Corene answered with
+an alto groan, when there was a scream! It came from the end cot where
+Margaret slept.
+
+Every one sat up as if a spring had been touched.
+
+"Oh, mercy, look!" yelled a chorus.
+
+They looked, and between the curtain blazed two immense eyes! Also
+there was a snorting sound!
+
+"A bear!" cried Madaline. "See how tall he is!"
+
+"Yes, look!" exclaimed Cleo, "his head is in--the trees!"
+
+Miss Mackin's flashlight had slipped from her hand, and it was while
+she fumbled in the dark for it that this dialogue was snapped off.
+
+"Just wait a minute, and don't get excited," she begged so
+inadequately that Corene repeated:
+
+"Excited!"
+
+Her light recovered, she quickly turned the flash on the thing that
+was somehow fixed in the joining of the rear flaps of the tent.
+
+"Oh, h-h-h!" screamed the chorus again.
+
+"Nothing--but--a----" Miss Mackin stopped.
+
+She was not sure just what it was, for an immense animal head was
+framed in the curtains it had poked itself between.
+
+There was a continued volley of subdued shrieks from everyone until
+Cleo took aim with her shoe. She proved a first rate shot, for the
+animal blinked once and promptly withdrew.
+
+"A cow! I heard him chew!" declared the little fat Madaline.
+
+"But he has no horns," argued Julia, trembling still, and trying to
+talk with a head covered in the blankets.
+
+"It is a cow," declared Miss Mackin. She was on her feet now, and had
+the tent flaps open. She had taken down the pole light from the front
+door, and now swung the lantern through the curtains in the rear.
+"See, there she goes! Poor Bossy just wanted to pay us a call. I
+didn't know we had any cows around here."
+
+"All right there?" called a man's voice, next.
+
+"The officer!" declared Cleo not without a little squeak of joy.
+"That's Dick Porter's voice."
+
+"Yes, that's the watchman," agreed Miss Mackin, who had slipped on her
+heavy robe.
+
+"All right, officer!" she called back. "But please drive the cow
+away."
+
+"Certainly," came the reply through the night's silence. "That cow has
+a habit of walking in her sleep," and he laughed so good-naturedly
+that the Bobbies took the cue and laughed heartily themselves.
+
+The director feared she would not get them quiet again in time to have
+even a reasonable amount of sleep, for what one didn't think of the
+other suggested, until night was turned into a medley of utter
+nonsense, set off by such laughter as can only be enjoyed when she who
+laughs knows it's against the rules to do so.
+
+"Now, girls, no campfire to-morrow night if you do not stop within
+five minutes," threatened Miss Mackin in desperation.
+
+"All right, Mackey dear," replied Cleo. "I'll throw my other shoe at
+the first one that laughs."
+
+Then she yelled again. It was such a sudden outburst no one could
+question the humor that provoked it.
+
+"Oh, Mackey dear," she gulped between her spasms. "Do you think Bossie
+swallowed my new shoe?"
+
+"We'll chip in and buy you a new pair if you only will go to sleep,
+Bobbie dear," begged the distracted director, and this time her appeal
+bore results.
+
+But over the bend on Tamarack Hill another girl slept fitfully. Peg
+had broken her resolution to remain alone, and for that one beautiful
+evening she had been just like the others--a girl among girls!
+
+And how overjoyed Aunt Carrie was! To have Peg run off and spend a
+happy evening with the Girl Scouts. Upon her return to the cabin no
+little queen could have received more loving attention.
+
+"Now at last, Peggie dear, you have found friends," the white-haired
+woman had declared. But Peg shook her bobbed head and refused to
+promise that she would keep up the friendship so auspiciously begun.
+
+"You know, Carrie dear, I must not bring folks here yet," Peg had
+protested, "and I shall never accept things nor friendship that I
+cannot fully return."
+
+So now Peg slept, dreaming of that magic campfire: hearing the story
+again of the pocket in the big black rock: now she felt Grace grasp
+her hands in delight and ecstasy with a little squeal of joy, and
+after it all she was alone again, with Shag sleeping at her door, with
+Aunt Carrie's faithful night lamp making a little shaded starlight
+beneath the beam ceiling.
+
+And she had cried a little and laughed a little, but at last it was
+all over, and now she would take Whirlwind out over the hills in the
+early morning and forget, if she could, the Bobbies and their magic
+campfire.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A DAY WITH THE BOBBIES
+
+
+A shrill whistle shocked the girls back to consciousness.
+
+"What's that?" asked Cleo.
+
+"Our 'get-up' call," replied Corene. "Mackey's whistle. At the big
+camp we always heard the bugles next."
+
+Whether woodnymphs were listening in that tent, or whether Corene's
+remark provoked an uncanny echo, at that very moment a bugle blast
+sounded somewhere!
+
+"Another serenade!" exclaimed Julia, settling into her new comfort,
+quite as if the bugle-blow were permission to defer rising time.
+
+Miss Mackey was already dressed for the ten minute exercise drill.
+"The girls at Norm have no bugles, so we cannot be indebted to them
+this time," she said.
+
+"Maybe it's friend cow bringing back my shoe," chuckled Cleo.
+
+Came the uncertain notes of the bugle again:
+
+"We can't get 'em up--up--up!" it stuttered frantically, unable to
+return to the first notes to repeat the strain.
+
+The girls shuffled into slippers and bathrobes, the regular drill
+costumes, and Grace ventured to poke her head outside the tent.
+
+"The boys!" she exclaimed. "There they go scamping off. Just gave us
+our first call, to tease, of course. Well, I'm glad something got
+Benny up. I wouldn't wonder if the bugler blew him out first."
+
+"They're gone," repeated Miss Mackin good-naturedly, "and I suppose
+they think it was a great joke. Grace, couldn't we borrow that bugle?"
+
+"I'll see; I think Clee could blow it; she does so well with a bicycle
+pump."
+
+Presently the Bobbies were outside; having reverently raised their
+colors, they raced off to the "drill field," a little place cleared of
+brush and safe from the eyes even of Benny's bugle squad. There, in
+bathing suits, they went through the setting up exercises, warranted
+to do everything in the way of providing health and beauty for Girl
+Scouts.
+
+From that they raced off to the little cove in the lake, took a dip,
+which they would loved to have prolonged into a swim had Mackey not
+blown that police whistle; then back to camp, then washed and dressed
+and jumped out to their benches set around the new boarded table.
+
+Washing between the trees, where twin cedars or other saplings were
+used to hold the basin bench, proved novel to those little girls, used
+to the white enamelled bathrooms at home; but it was fun, even if
+Julia did spill "every drop of the pitcher full of fresh water" and
+have to borrow from Margaret; and although Grace found her soap so
+slippery, it would roll off into the pine needles and when rescued
+look like a new sort of fuzzy-wuzzy chestnut. Altogether it was fun
+and frolic, and "good for what ails you," as Cleo commented, when
+Madaline took to preaching about the wrongs of civilization.
+
+"It's all nonsense and mummy says so, for us to want hot and cold
+water all the time," she declaimed from her perch on a stump where the
+towel was clear of the ground. "And this is good for us. Will make----"
+
+"Men of us," finished Cleo, who always loved to tease chubby, baby
+Madaline.
+
+Corene had charge of breakfast, Julia was fireman, this picturesque
+duty appealing to her imaginative nature, and as she poked the embers
+in the stone furnace (of her own building) and sang, "Boil and bubble,
+toil and trouble," she must have imagined the witches in Macbeth were
+stirring things up with their forked wands.
+
+"Hungry! I'm starved!" declared Margaret. "Can't seem to remember when
+I ate last. Please send me down that dish of apples."
+
+"Let us adhere to something of our regular table manners, girls," said
+Miss Mackin from her place at the head of the board. "We don't want
+the home folk to be blaming us for lost manners, when we go back. I
+know it does seem like fun to be free from most restrictions, but
+habits are so easily formed, and we can't blame the home people for
+wanting us to go back to them better in every way." Miss Mackin never
+dictated, she just "put things up to the girls" in a very pleasant
+manner.
+
+Corene was serving the cereal while Julia kept things hot over the
+picturesque stone furnace.
+
+"If you have enough cooked now we will all eat together, Corey," said
+the director. "Just bring your coffee pot over here. I'll pour!" She
+smiled broadly at that use of the social term.
+
+"Let me cook the bacon," begged Cleo. "I've heard daddy talk so often
+of camp bacon." Her request was granted, and presently the bacon was
+sizzling from its wire string that ran from one end to the other of
+the furnace, each end being hooked on the iron poles, little gas pipes
+set up in the stones, with homemade hooks of tightly wound wire, the
+entire contrivance representing Julia's idea of a camp "skillet" or
+"dangling spider."
+
+The bacon broiled very quickly, for the embers had reached a point of
+concentrated heat, and when Cleo forked her bacon off the wire its
+aroma might easily have attracted envious comments from the girls at
+Camp Norm.
+
+"Did anything ever taste so good?" exclaimed Margaret.
+
+"Shall we have baked potatoes for lunch?" asked Madaline, sending her
+cup down to Louise to have it refilled with milk.
+
+"I'm to cook lunch," replied Cleo, "and you may help, Madie. I know
+you always did love to bake things. Remember the day you burned the
+big angel cake?"
+
+Madie remembered, but claimed a broader knowledge of the culinary art
+now.
+
+The day's programme provided something for every hour, and after
+breakfast it was to be a swim. The weather was ideal for this, their
+first experience in the "wide open," so that a swim was eagerly
+anticipated now.
+
+"Fix your bunks; inspection first, you know," ordered the leader.
+
+How jolly it was! And how worth while to do things this way, which was
+the right way for this particular occasion?
+
+The beds and their surroundings passed the director's inspection, and
+then came the swim.
+
+"We are all good swimmers," Julia insisted. "I don't really think we
+need have Mackey with us, if she should want to do something else."
+
+"Oh, I go with you," replied Mackey. "The water is a matter of
+particular responsibility, and being good swimmers would not excuse me
+in case of accident."
+
+"Mother always feels that way and insists on being along with us,"
+added Louise reflectively.
+
+The dock was crowded when they reached the "bathing grounds." They
+might have "gone in" at their own beach in the cove, but the rocks
+around that corner were jagged, and Mackey decided it would be better
+to take the dives from the regular springboard off the landing.
+
+"I wish we would see Peg," Grace said to Cleo. "I wonder where she
+goes in?"
+
+"Never saw her in a bathing suit," replied Cleo, "but I'm sure she's a
+regular fish in the water. We'll ask her to come with us next time we
+see her."
+
+"Do you suppose she works at anything?" Grace asked again.
+
+"Why! How queer that you should think she works?" charged Cleo.
+
+"Well, she does something. She wouldn't ride away so early every
+morning just for pleasure; and Benny says he has seen her so often."
+
+A call to line up for a running dive interrupted the conversation, and
+presently the Bobbies quite forgot Peg, in their joy of a real swim in
+Lake Hocomo.
+
+"Lots better than the ocean," chugged Louise, just coming in from a
+long pull. "I never could try this stroke in the big waves," and she
+dove back again to try the "crawl" in the smooth yet pleasantly warmed
+waters; for the lake was never very cold at the big open basin that
+surrounded this point.
+
+"And no tide to worry about," added Margaret.
+
+However dear was the ocean when at the ocean they tarried, the Scouts
+had a happy faculty of shifting their affection, and now it was the
+"wonderful lake!"
+
+Miss Mackin was watching the swimmers and she quickly observed those
+most proficient.
+
+"Madaline, don't go outside the float," she cautioned. "That's a
+pretty good swim for a little girl, I think."
+
+The smallest Bobbie turned to obey when those nearest her saw her give
+a sudden jerk and then she screamed!
+
+"Oh, something has got me! Quick!"
+
+Miss Mackin only had to put her hand out to reach the frightened
+child, but Madaline's face showed pain and the director could not at
+once seem to assist her.
+
+"My foot! Something's got my foot!" she cried.
+
+"A crab!" exclaimed Grace, swimming quickly to Madaline's aid.
+
+"Not in the lake!" protested Cleo.
+
+By this time Miss Mackin had succeeded in freeing the very much
+frightened little Scout, and she was now leading her ashore. Madaline
+had drawn her foot between two rocks that came together so closely
+they formed a very formidable trap, and the only way a victim could
+get out was to back out of the wider end of the opening. There were
+rocks only on the lake bottom near shore, and most bathers soon became
+familiar with their location.
+
+As if that trifling incident opened the way for further "frowns of
+Fate" the girls in the water presently had reason to scamper.
+
+The criticized blondes, they who ran the "Bug," that deformed motor
+boat, now deliberately turned the craft into the line of the swimmers.
+At first it seemed accidental, but when Grace and Julia turned in
+another direction and the "Bug" cut after them, they realized that the
+girls in the hideous striped bathing suits were giving them a chase.
+
+Miss Mackin saw this from ashore and ran along the dock to the end of
+the pier. She called from there, and the girls in the queer squat boat
+seemed to take heed, for presently the boat made a complete circle and
+shot out again into the open lake.
+
+"Come in, girls," called the director. "Time's up!"
+
+"Oh, not one more swim?" begged Grace. But Corene said "no," and
+everyone realized Corene's experience with a director qualified her to
+dictate, so reluctantly they waded in and were soon back in camp,
+dressing for dinner.
+
+"What do you think of those girls racing after us with their old motor
+boat?" Louise asked. They were looking rosy and feeling "frisky" after
+their swim, and the preparations for dinner (they had decided to have
+the main meal at noon), were aggravating in their appetizing lure.
+
+"I think," replied Julia, "we will have to look out for those ladies,"
+she wanted to say something more "descriptive," but let it go at
+"ladies."
+
+"Why look out for them?" pressed Grace. She may have scented danger
+and "warmed to it," for Grace had the reputation of daring and
+courage.
+
+"Well, they didn't seem to be 'cutting up' exactly, and they did steer
+their old bug-boat straight after us," reasoned Julia. "Wonder where
+they stop?"
+
+"I saw them on the grounds of the Fayette the other day," said
+Madaline, "and one was in a hammock, with her feet sticking out and
+you could see her green silk stockings all the way from the corner."
+
+"Must have terrible long----" The dinner gong interrupted Grace's
+sentence, for Corene was hammering her bread knife on the big tin tray
+with such startling results, that the very birds took fright and left
+the grounds before gathering the crumbs that might come to them from
+the table of the Bobbies.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+MEET BUZZ AND FUSS
+
+
+"Company!" called Madaline. "Someone is coming down our path."
+
+"But we don't own the woods," replied Grace.
+
+"They are surely coming here," insisted Cleo.
+
+"And Bobbs! Listen!" exclaimed Louise. "It's the girls who wear
+long-legged green silk stockings! Just look!"
+
+The intruders were almost upon them and the order Louise gave seemed
+entirely uncalled for. Everyone looked! In fact they stared at the two
+conspicuous blondes, who were recognized as the drivers of the
+bug-boat, and who seemed rudeness itself to the Scouts.
+
+"Quick! Drop the tent flap, don't let them snoop!" whispered Cleo to
+Madaline who was nearest the pull rope.
+
+Madaline picked herself up from her camp stool and with a great show
+of indifference sauntered into the tent and dropped the curtain as she
+went. The other girls exchanged glances of satisfaction.
+
+"Good afternoon," chirped one of the callers. "May we come in?"
+
+"Certainly," replied Corene. She had risen but did not offer her seat
+to the strangers.
+
+"What a perfectly dear nook!" exclaimed the shorter girl. Her remark
+almost gave Louise a spasm of some kind, for she choked, and coughed,
+and finally ran off to get a drink.
+
+"And do you stay here all the time?" asked the girl with the long
+black earrings.
+
+"We're camping," replied Corene. At the moment everyone wished Mackey
+had not gone hunting new wild flowers.
+
+"How perfectly lovely!" gasped Number One.
+
+This threatened a spasm to Julia, but she kept her eyes on the sweater
+she started the year before, and thus offset serious consequences.
+
+"We are at the Fayette," volunteered Number Two, "and we perfectly
+hate it." She dropped down on the grass and propped her useless
+parasol over her head in an obvious pose. The other followed suit. "I
+wish we might camp for a while, don't you, Buzz?"
+
+The name brought Madaline out from the tent with a laugh in her eyes,
+but she closed the "door" after her, and carefully arranged the
+curtains.
+
+"Buzz!" she whispered to Cleo.
+
+"Could you possibly take us in?" asked the other caller.
+
+This surprising question almost precipitated something worse than a
+choking spell all around. After the way those bold girls ran the
+Scouts out of the lake with their old yellow boat!
+
+"We don't take boarders," replied Corene cruelly, grinding out the
+word "boarders" with vicious satisfaction.
+
+"Oh, we know that. But Fuss meant could we come as Girl Scouts?"
+
+"Girl Scouts!" repeated Cleo, incredulously.
+
+"Why, yes, I think those togs are perfectly stunning and shouldn't
+mind at all wearing them," condescended Fuss. "Can you get those
+uniforms around here?"
+
+A look akin to disgust crossed the face of Corene. How she longed to
+"speak the truth for once," but politeness forbade the experiment.
+
+"You can't wear the uniform unless you are a Scout, and you can't be a
+Scout unless you qualify," she snapped.
+
+"And what do you do to qualify?"
+
+"Fuss and Buzz" had both seated themselves without invitation, and now
+their line of questions indicated rather a stay.
+
+Corene sank back and sighed. She picked up her book and toyed with it
+significantly. But no one replied. There was danger of a general laugh
+breaking out if someone didn't say something quickly, so Louise, just
+coming back from the water pail, offered an excuse.
+
+"All right Louie?" asked Grace. She had never called Louise Louie
+before.
+
+"Oh, yes, I just choked," replied Louise, "and went for a drink."
+
+"A drink!" repeated the Buzzer. "Oh, could we have a lovely, cool
+drink? We are so warm from walking."
+
+What could the Bobbies do?
+
+"Certainly," said Julia. "I'll fetch it."
+
+"I'll help you," offered Cleo, glad to escape for a moment.
+
+A brand new tin pie pan with two glasses of spring water was fetched.
+There was no doily, either paper or otherwise, although the usual tray
+was so covered.
+
+The strangers drank heartily, however, and it seemed now they surely
+must go. But they didn't.
+
+"And you couldn't take us for just a teeny-weeny while?" cooed Fuss.
+
+"Oh, if you only could, we would be so good! We would do all the
+work--do you have to do all the work?" came another silly question.
+
+"We don't _have_ to but we _choose_ to," snapped Corene again. Her
+companions seemed to have no pity, for rarely did one of them offer to
+help her out. Why didn't Mackey come and rescue them? Each was
+wondering.
+
+"Do you know that queer girl on the hilltop?" asked Fussy,
+unexpectedly.
+
+"Who do you mean?" Grace challenged.
+
+"'Fly-away Peg,' they call her. She's so queer, and so--so sort of
+heathenish," said Buzzy.
+
+"We are acquainted with Peggie Ramsdell," replied Grace, glad that she
+remembered the name, "but we don't consider her queer."
+
+"You don't, really! Then you don't know her. She is very queer, and if
+I were you--so young and trusting--I'd keep away from her," offered the
+second intruder.
+
+"Why should we do that?" Corene shot the question defiantly.
+
+"Well," a titter, "she won't get you any place, that's all," went on
+the informer. "No one will take you up if you tag around with her."
+
+"We don't want to be taken up," flung back Corene. "And I'm afraid you
+will have to excuse us. It is almost time for class."
+
+"Class! And do you go to school here, too?"
+
+No one answered, but all had risen. They would take Corene's cue and
+go in the tent; if only those rude girls would take themselves off.
+
+"Oh, could we have just one peek in your tent? We are dying to!" came
+the daring question which was put by both, one tagging the end on the
+other's introduction.
+
+This brought out Corene's "fighting fury," as the girls were
+accustomed to characterize her aggressiveness, and now she faced the
+strangers squarely.
+
+"Aren't you the two young ladies who tried to run us out of the lake
+this morning?" she demanded. Her face took on a tone of red she tried
+hard to keep down.
+
+"Oh, did you mind?" simpered one. "Why, we were only fooling. You were
+having such a lovely time we thought it would be fun to--to chase you."
+
+"You did it to show off and it wasn't funny a bit," declared Corene,
+her companions applauding with glances. "We don't feel like being
+friendly but we have tried to be polite," pursued Corene, "but now I
+guess we had better----"
+
+"Close the interview," mocked Buzz. "Of course we'll go. We never
+intended to stay. We were only trying to have some fun with you," and
+her voice fairly hissed her rudeness. "Such babes in the woods! And no
+mammas! Better call nursie to shoo horrid, big things away. Come
+along, Toots. They don't want and evidently won't take any advice. But
+if they tag after Fly-away Peg maybe they'll be sorry they didn't
+listen."
+
+Then they went, their glaring satin skirts--one was gold and the other
+mahogany--showing through the heavy brush as they wound in and out the
+path, their twin-made sweaters of bright pink being last to fade from
+view, over the little rustic bridge that spanned the creek.
+
+The Scouts stood, too surprised to give expression to their feelings.
+
+"Of all the cheek----" began Grace.
+
+"Why didn't you hit them, Corey? I saw you stoop for a stick," said
+Cleo.
+
+"I felt like doing something desperate," replied Corene. "I never in
+all my life saw such nerve."
+
+"Do you think they were really fooling about wanting to come to camp?"
+queried Julia.
+
+"They would be glad enough to come indeed if they saw any chance,"
+declared Margaret, promptly.
+
+"Can you imagine Buzz and Fuss in our uniforms?" Grace went into
+perfect kinks at the idea.
+
+"They would love them," drawled Julia, imitating the tone of voice
+used by the strangers.
+
+"And wouldn't they look cute in the kilties?" mocked Madaline.
+
+"With the green silk stockings and all!" howled Cleo.
+
+Only the approach of Miss Mackin saved the Bobbies from wilder
+expression of joy--joy that the callers had gone, and joy for the trail
+of humor they left behind.
+
+Her arms filled with iron weed and late daisies, Mackey looked very
+pretty as she came along through the soft green setting, so different
+from the last figures that travelled the same path.
+
+The girls ran to meet her and eagerly told the exciting story.
+
+"You see, I shouldn't leave you very long," commented the director
+when the account was finished. "You are so attractive, even the
+frivolous stop to admire. And I have a lovely surprise for you."
+
+They took the flowers from her and "sat her down," as if she were not
+really a girl but a queen among them.
+
+"What's the surprise?" cooed Madaline.
+
+"The Norms are going to start a class in basketry; who wants to join?"
+
+"Oh, baskets, the Indian kind, and the pretty raffia kind, and the----"
+
+"Lunch basket kind," Julia interrupted Grace. "We will join you,
+Mackey, won't we, girls?"
+
+Everyone agreed eagerly, and the first session was arranged to be held
+at Camp Comalong on the following afternoon.
+
+"I thought after a few days things might get sort of samey," said
+Cleo, "but as it looks now I wonder how we are going to get everything
+in? We must go riding soon, Louise."
+
+"We surely must, Clee. Let us keep the next afternoon after to-morrow
+free for that. I am just longing for a ride through those wonderful,
+green woods."
+
+"Maybe we will meet Buzzie and Fussie, and if we do----" threatened
+Cleo.
+
+"We'll make them run harder than they did us, with their old
+buggy-boat in the lake," finished Louise, well out of hearing of the
+director.
+
+But a new cause for questions had crossed their wonderful path.
+
+Why did those girls speak with such marked disapproval of Peg, the
+exclusive neighbor?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE FOOD SHOWER
+
+
+As someone had said events were crowding at camp, and it now seemed
+difficult to keep schedule and not break the "rest rule." This last
+obligated the director to see that the girls rested for a time after
+the noon-day meal. As the Bobbies were such active little animals, and
+so eager to crowd each moment with an event--big enough to occupy an
+hour--Mackey had to be very decided in this order for an hour's rest
+every afternoon.
+
+It was that particular period that the unwelcome callers had so
+completely dissipated the day before, so to-day Mackey decided to stay
+at camp and write up her notes, rather than scour woods for new
+material. Thus she could keep tabs on that relaxation period.
+
+"We're so glad to have you, but hope we are not spoiling all your real
+vacation," said Louise considerately, when the patrol finished dinner,
+had cleaned up things and were now out under the trees resting.
+"Honestly, Mackey, tell us! Didn't you plan to come and be our
+guardian angel, or did you just happen along that day?"
+
+The director laughed merrily. It seemed to her girls that she could
+laugh more heartily than any sort of teacher they had ever come in
+contact with. Her big brown eyes would roll so comically, and she had
+a way of tossing her head up in such a frank fit of mirth, that her
+manner was really an inspiration to those about her.
+
+"Don't guardies always come that way?" she replied to Louise's
+question. "And do you want to 'sack' me for someone else? I'm sure
+anyone at Camp Norm would be glad to try for the place."
+
+Conservative Louise could not stand that, and she almost upset Mackey
+and her camp stool in objecting.
+
+"Did the mothers have anything to do with it?" pressed Grace.
+
+"Or headquarters?" went on Julia.
+
+"Well," evaded Mackey. "I came, I saw and I conquered. So why worry?"
+and the Bobbies were obliged to be satisfied with that reply.
+
+"Has anyone seen Peg, lately?" was the next question. It came from
+Cleo.
+
+"'Has anybody here seen Kelly,'" chirped Grace, falling into the funny
+old tune. "'Kelly with the gre--heen necktie!'" she persisted, in spite
+of a shower of leaves and twigs that struck at her defiant head.
+
+"We can't call this rest," remonstrated Mackey. "Julia, I wouldn't
+pull up those little roots, you will have mud puddles there if it
+should rain to-night."
+
+"Oh, that's so!" exclaimed Julia. "How will we arrange when the rain
+comes? What about my fire?"
+
+"We will have to use up some of the dry boxes," suggested Madaline.
+
+"Or get an oil stove," proposed Margaret.
+
+"Or we could make a shack--build one over our camp kettle," added Cleo.
+
+Mackey waited to try out their resources before interfering. Then she
+said:
+
+"It's lots of fun to build fires in the rain; that is if you don't
+have to dry out too quickly after a long hike. We can always find dry
+wood inside of the old logs, and by scooping out some shavings we can
+easily start some of your nice, little cord pieces, that you have
+stocked under the tent. No, you can't use artificial wood, boxes nor
+oil stoves. All that is against the camp system."
+
+"Then I think," said Julia, the good housekeeper, "we had better add
+to our woodpile. We have had such splendid weather, rain must be about
+due."
+
+"We can go out wood hunting when the sun goes down, or cools off, late
+this afternoon," agreed Mackey. "I think Corene had such a plan
+already fixed."
+
+"Indeed I did," spoke up Corene. "I know what a time we had once at
+the big camp when the wood pile went low and the storm ran high.
+Unkink your muscles, girls; there's a heap of chopping ahead."
+
+"And do you remember last year at the beach? We were donning our
+dimities about this time daily," recalled Louise, with a well meaning
+sigh.
+
+"I'm gaining pounds," announced the willowy Julia. "I was weighed this
+morning."
+
+"Have I grown any?" joked Louise, giving one of her inimitable
+stretches.
+
+"You do all seem to be taking to camp life like squirrels to nuts,"
+interrupted the director. "I shall have quite a record to my credit if
+you keep it up."
+
+Time passed so quickly that the call for their class in basketry
+seemed almost to overlap the rest hour.
+
+"To make souvenirs!" This was the attraction that roused the Bobbies
+even from their own joys in camp routine, for now that they were "away
+from home," each girl longed to bring back a token to mother, father,
+sister or brother; and with more than one of them the entire family
+was promptly put down on the list to receive a handmade souvenir from
+Camp Comalong.
+
+"Undertake simple things so you will be sure to finish them," warned
+Mackey, for girl-like they planned the most attractive articles held
+out in the display catalogues.
+
+Bags, baskets and little matted trays were finally decided upon, and
+Miss Freeland, the manual training teacher who stopped at Norm, found
+an enthusiastic class ready for her dictation.
+
+They sat squat on the ground like Indians when the lesson started, but
+before its finish the squatters had squirmed and crawled from one
+position to another, fitting each new attempt with a new move, until
+at the end there seemed to be a heap of girls all piled around the
+amiable Miss Freeland.
+
+"Don't forget we are to receive callers to-day," warned Mackey. "I
+think the home folks have been very considerate to leave us alone so
+long."
+
+Reluctantly the new task was laid aside, for, as usual, being new, it
+was also attractive, and at the thought of company everyone stirred
+around to make things look pretty.
+
+Fresh flowers, straightening the burlap curtains on Louise's
+sideboard, arranging the tent with an eye to absolute order--all this
+was attended to with skill acquired in the short practice, and Miss
+Mackin had little to fear from the critical eye of any possible
+visitor.
+
+Honking of auto horns soon warned the Bobbies that their company was
+coming, and when the honking swelled into a concert, and the concert
+swelled into a volley, the campers realized they were due to enjoy a
+surprise.
+
+No less than eight cars were finally driven up, and each carried a
+capacity load of passengers--the whole company representing a surprise
+party on the Bobolinks.
+
+"Surprise! Surprise!" called out the visiting girls, quite like the
+old time gayety, when country folks came to a party and brought the
+refreshments with them.
+
+So many friends entirely unexpected!
+
+It seemed the home folks had sent out the invitations and managed to
+corral friends for every single Bobbie, not forgetting Mackey, who was
+so glad to welcome Molly Burbank, a friend of her high school days.
+
+And the boxes and the bundles!
+
+"A regular picnic!" sang out Louise. "Let's put everything on the big
+table."
+
+"And Helen!" chuckled Cleo. "I am so glad to see you! When did you
+come back to the lake?"
+
+"Isabel, dear, ducky Izzy!" chirped Grace. "We have been talking about
+you a lot. Can you stay?"
+
+Then there was Mary, Carol, Annette, and so many other school and
+home-town friends that for a little time the mothers seemed neglected,
+but presently Louise was "hanging on her folks" with such enthusiasm
+she threatened to do damage to something, while Cleo hugged her mother
+and her big coz Alem, and Grace almost strangled her mother, so that
+it all looked like a new version of Mother's Day.
+
+The inspection was punctuated with constant exclamations of wonder and
+applause, and that the Bobbies would find themselves expected to
+shoulder added responsibilities when they should return home was very
+evident.
+
+"If they can do so well in camp we may hope for great things at home,"
+remarked more than one delighted visitor, but the Scouts shook their
+heads and refused to promise.
+
+Miss Mackin was arranging "the treat." She and her friends had taken
+over all the tasks so that the younger girls might more fully enjoy
+the company. The long table, with its dainty paper table cover, was
+arranged with paper plates (for company only), and the bunches of
+rarest wild flowers Miss Mackin had gathered the day before gave a
+real festive look to "the board."
+
+"I know I'm going to have my favorite cake," crowed Cleo. "Did you
+ever see such a perfectly scrumbunctious food shower?"
+
+"Never," agreed Grace, "and I do hope there's something to keep in my
+box, for we can't be sure of our own cooking all the time, you know."
+
+"Don't you like it?" defied Corene. She was not willing to have the
+commissary department thus suspected.
+
+"Oh, yes, Corey, and your codfish made with condensed milk is so--new,
+and sweetish----"
+
+Corene threw a paper box cover at the head of her tormentor but Miss
+Mackin did not see the deprecation.
+
+Then the spread was ready, and the company sat down to a camp table
+laden with home made goodies.
+
+"This is one real joy of the small camp," Miss Mackin explained. "In
+the larger camps they do not generally permit the importing of food;
+but for Comalong it's a real blessing. You see, we have just been
+experimenting with our little furnace, and there's the camp kettle,"
+she pointed out the inclined pole with its kettle on end, that hung
+over one of Julia's furnaces. "And we haven't tried baking cakes since
+we came," she admitted with an explanatory laugh.
+
+"But the pan cakes? Aren't they all right, Mackey?" asked Cleo. She
+had "tried" pan cakes once or twice.
+
+"Yes, indeed, Cleo. You did very well with those," praised the
+director, "but for real chocolate cake----"
+
+"And fudge cake!" exclaimed Louise.
+
+"And angel cake!" added Grace.
+
+So it went along the table, each Scout acknowledging her particular
+gift with a special exclamation.
+
+There was so much to talk about. And what a buzz and hum of voices
+surprised the little wood creatures! Not even the pet bunny ventured
+out from his hollow stump while all that party talked and talked.
+
+"If only we could have company?" proposed Julia. "I mean overnight
+company."
+
+"Perhaps we can," whispered Cleo.
+
+"Where would they sleep?" Grace queried.
+
+"We have hammocks, and maybe we could make room between the cots, by
+pushing them up together."
+
+"Oh, Cleo," Grace broke out. "How could we make room between the cots
+unless you mean to put someone on the floor?" and she howled at the
+idea.
+
+"Of course, I don't mean that," protested Cleo, between her cake
+bites. "I mean to tie two cots together and put blankets between the
+edges, I mean over the edges. There would be room for Helen in that
+space."
+
+"But fancy Izzy sleeping on the rail!" Grace was bound to ridicule the
+idea.
+
+"At any rate I'm going to ask Mackey!" declared Cleo. "Helen would
+love to stay, and we would love to have her. We could put hammocks up
+if it didn't rain."
+
+At this juncture Grace was asked to refill the water pail, so she and
+Madaline raced off to the spring. Both cast furtive glances over the
+hill to Peg's cottage, but not even Shag was in sight to indicate life
+around the log cabin.
+
+"Queer where she keeps herself," remarked Grace, "but I'm going to
+fetch her some cake, anyhow."
+
+"I would too," agreed Madaline. "She doesn't seem like a girl who
+could bake a good cake."
+
+"No," added Grace, "but she surely can ride horseback. I just wonder
+where she goes every day."
+
+"The girls are going riding to-morrow. Perhaps they'll find out."
+
+"Maybe. But aren't we having a lovely picnic?"
+
+"Wonderful. We'll have enough cake for all week."
+
+"I never thought sandwiches could taste so good. I suppose it's
+because we haven't had any homemade bread since we came."
+
+"And Cleo's mother brought jam; Cleo hid it in her box back of the
+cupboard," said Madaline.
+
+"Hurry, they may want the water; at any rate we can treat them to
+that," declared Grace, and the water bearers made all possible haste
+over the trail back to camp, spilling just enough of the fresh fluid
+to tickle the spangle-weed along the way.
+
+"They're going to stay! They're going to stay!" Cleo ran to meet Grace
+with the good news, for lovely as camp had seemed with the patrol as
+its sole occupants, the prospects of company "to stay," and that the
+guests should be "Dare-to-do-Izzy" as Isabel was popularly called, and
+jolly little Helen would could "see a joke half a mile off"; no wonder
+there was new joy apparent in camp.
+
+"Everyone is going," chirped Julia, "and I hope they all saw how much
+we have improved."
+
+"Your pounds, do you mean, Jule? Maybe they couldn't see them. You
+should have pointed them out," teased Louise.
+
+"Now, Weasy, maybe you think they all saw your inches," returned
+Julia. "There's mother's handkerchief, I know she didn't intend to
+leave that to me," and she hurried to the big gray car, with the
+dainty speck of lace and linen.
+
+"Give them a cheer," prompted Miss Mackin.
+
+"Hurrah for the home folks," led Corene.
+
+"Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!" boomed the lusty cheer, until the hills
+echoed and the lake repeated the hail.
+
+Then the picnic and shower were over, and the Bobbies were so excited
+they hardly knew whether to show Izzy the spring or Helen the
+woodpile.
+
+The colors were lowered by Louise and Julia, and then clouds gathering
+beyond the rim of trees glowered ominously, and that reminded them
+that they must hurry to gather more wood before the rain would come.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A RECORD BREAKER
+
+
+"More showers than those of cakes and cookies," said Miss Mackin from
+the depths of her pine needle pillow. "Just hear that!"
+
+Thunder rolled and the rain was finding its way through the trees.
+
+"Whew!" Louise almost whistled. "Just hear the wild roar!"
+
+Like a concrete body the "roar" rolled down the mountain, and with a
+terrific rip and tear it hit the tent.
+
+"Oh, mercy!" cried Cleo.
+
+"Hold on to your bunks!" cautioned Grace.
+
+This they actually did, for the wind had struck with such cyclonic
+force it seemed the canvas would be torn from its moorings.
+
+"We have good shelter here," Miss Mackin assured the anxious ones.
+"There is no need for alarm."
+
+If they agreed with her no one said so, for the tent flapped and
+flapped and tried its best to follow the dare of that wind, until it
+seemed surely something must give way.
+
+The night light had been brought inside, as Mackey secretly expected a
+big storm, and now just the faintest glimmer shown from its peg where
+it hung by the front door.
+
+To accommodate the company, three cots had been run together and the
+beds arranged crosswise, blankets and cushions covered the rims, so
+that it was considered possible, if not probable, that four girls
+could thus sleep on the three beds. Over in a corner Helen and
+Madaline shared quarters with Margaret, so that any sort of sleep for
+that night was rather uncertain even before the storm broke loose, and
+tried to break everything else loose with it.
+
+Another blast and again Isabel called:
+
+"Hold fast!"
+
+Then there was a slam of something!
+
+"What was that?" asked Miss Mackin quickly.
+
+Heads were under blankets now and gave no answer.
+
+"Did anyone fall out of bed?" she asked, a trifle anxiously.
+
+"We're all right," came a muffled reply from the "buckboard" party on
+the crosswise bed.
+
+There was another queer slamming sound!
+
+This brought the director to her feet, and having already pulled on
+her slippers she quickly proceeded to take inventory and count heads.
+
+With the lantern in hand she made sure each bed was where it might be
+expected to be, although she did have to pull down blankets to
+inspect, but when she got over in the corner to Helen's quarters----
+
+"Where's Madaline?" she asked.
+
+Helen ventured to poke her head from its hiding place and then felt
+around beside her.
+
+"She isn't--here!" came the surprising reply.
+
+"Where is she? Could she have fallen out?" Miss Mackin gathered the
+blanket ends to look carefully under the cots, but no Madaline was
+discovered.
+
+"Oh!" shrieked a chorus, as a terrific gust of wind somehow succeeded
+in blowing out their only light!
+
+Such confusion as followed!
+
+The girls screamed and howled. Corene begged them to keep quiet, and
+after a moment or two that seemed like an hour, the wind was again
+roaring in solo, while the girls at last listened to the entreaties of
+their director.
+
+"Please be quiet," she begged. "I turned the lantern suddenly and with
+the wind it blew out. There, it is lighted again," and the welcome
+glow returned. "But where is Madaline?"
+
+Another and more careful survey of the entire tent was made, and could
+the girls have seen Miss Mackin's face now, they might have guessed
+how intense was her alarm, for really, the little fat Madaline was
+nowhere to be found!
+
+Realizing this everyone jumped up and quickly slipped into emergency
+covering.
+
+"Could she have blown out the door?" asked Cleo.
+
+Miss Mackin had herself wondered at that far-fetched contingency, and
+she attempted to thrust the lantern between the curtains, but a sheet
+of rain drove her back into the tent.
+
+"Where can the child be?" she murmured.
+
+"She simply must have blown away!" wailed Corene. "Girls, come along!
+We must get her. She might blow into the lake!"
+
+Storm and danger were forgotten now, for anxiety was too real to admit
+of anything merely probable.
+
+Without being directed to do so each little Scout was getting into
+some clothing, with the khaki storm coats on top and the chin strapped
+hats crushed firmly on the tousled heads.
+
+"Look under every bed again," ordered Miss Mackin. It seemed
+impossible the child could actually have left the tent.
+
+"Not here!" came the melancholy report, as bed clothing and pillows
+were tossed aside.
+
+There was a moment of such suspense as might have frozen that storm
+and thus subdued its fury.
+
+"We will have to go out and look for her," said Miss Mackin. "Button
+your coats tight and don't leave each other. Each two take a lantern"
+(these had been quickly lighted and taken from their emergency line),
+"we must surely find her very near. She can't really have blown away."
+
+They were down the steps, breathing hard and--yes--praying!
+
+Darling little chubby Madaline! What could have happened to her?
+
+The last girl had scarcely stepped down from the uncertain shelter of
+the tent when there was a call from within.
+
+"Girls! Girls! Looking for me?"
+
+It was Madaline's voice and she was in that tent!
+
+"Where have--you been?"
+
+"Oh, Madie, we were almost dead!"
+
+"Madaline, Madaline! We thought you were gone!" The chorus was
+hysterical.
+
+"Child!" gasped Miss Mackin. "Where were you?" She held her by both
+shoulders as if fearful she would disappear again.
+
+"Under the tent," replied Madaline, still gasping for breath. "The
+little trap door was open, you know, and I got so scared of that awful
+storm I just dropped down. I never thought you would miss me."
+
+"And didn't you hear us?" demanded the excited Grace.
+
+"Couldn't hear anything but the storm. Wasn't it dreadful?"
+
+"Not half as bad as you hiding away like that," Isabel was almost
+crying. "Why ever did you do it?"
+
+"Why----"
+
+"Never mind, children," soothed the director. "She didn't think we
+would miss her and I suppose she was terrified, but it isn't wise to
+drop out of sight, especially at night. Get out of your clothes now.
+The storm is almost over, and to-morrow you will all have something
+interesting to write in your journals."
+
+"I heard something slam," Corene recalled.
+
+"That was the door. It hit me on the head," said the innocent
+Madaline.
+
+"Was it your head that made the bang?" Even in the present excitement
+Grace could not resist the joke.
+
+But the girls were not sleepy. They declared they didn't care if they
+never slept again so long as Madaline was all right, and when they
+finally did turn into bunks they placed the adventuress safely and
+snugly in the buckboard, between the two largest girls, Corene and
+Isabel.
+
+"You won't drop down any more cracks this time," declared Corene.
+
+"Wasn't it awful woozy down there?" asked Julia.
+
+"Not a bit. Just nice and tight and you couldn't even hear the rain,"
+said Madaline.
+
+"I hope you didn't upset my woodpile," called out Julia.
+
+"And I had a pretty fern growing in a tomato can. I'll bet you smashed
+it," charged Louise.
+
+"Children, dear, try to quiet down," entreated the director. She could
+not be severe, for indeed she had been a very badly frightened young
+woman in the hour just passing.
+
+"Tell us a story?" begged Julia.
+
+"Yes, do, and then maybe we'll doze off," bribed Margaret.
+
+"Very well, if you promise to keep quiet and try to get to sleep, I
+will," agreed Miss Mackin.
+
+Of course they promised, and she began; but hardly had she warmed up
+to her subject when a loud calling, shouting and yelling sounded
+through the slash of the retreating storm.
+
+"What--now!"
+
+"Mackey! Mackey!" came the call.
+
+"The girls from Norm!" exclaimed someone.
+
+"Yes, surely that's they. What can have happened?" gasped Miss Mackin.
+
+By now the voices were near the tent and it was evident the cries were
+not fraught with terror, instead there was laughter, shouts and gales
+of it defying the winds and rain.
+
+"Let us in! Let us in!" cried the victims, and quickly as the tent
+flap was loosed in came such a looking flock!
+
+"Our tent blew away!" gasped Bubbles, she who so often indulged in
+that popular song.
+
+"Blew away!"
+
+"Yes, from over our very heads!" The five young women--they were
+actually five of them--dripped water and laughter in equal proportions,
+for the rain they brought in with them was now running in healthy
+little puddles all over the nice, new floor.
+
+There wasn't much room to stir around without getting the beds wet,
+but as soon as the Norms could control their unseeming joy, Miss
+Mackin tried to find a few spots. This was done by pushing the beds
+into still more compact quarters, until Corene suggested they stand
+them on end and sleep standing up.
+
+"Do you mean to tell us your tent is gone?" demanded Miss Mackey, when
+her third shower--the drenched Norms--squatted down to "rip off some
+water-soaked garments."
+
+"We do. Exactly that. It blew away and we didn't even have time to
+blow a kiss to it," declared Bubbles.
+
+"Where are the others?"
+
+"At the bungalow. They ventured in, we hope they'll get out all right,
+but we wouldn't try it. Imagine that prim old couple having such a
+delightful surprise."
+
+"I'm so tired I can sleep beautifully on the floor," declared another
+of the storm victims. "And please don't let us demoralize your squad,
+Mackey. They'll be all cross babies in the morning." Their own scare
+was then recounted and the surprise party made doubly welcome, when
+everyone insisted they could "get to sleep now," that there was so
+much "lovely company around."
+
+Blankets were easily spared from the cots as the night had not cooled
+off too suddenly, and the Norms, being all around sportswomen, didn't
+find the pine boards and good blankets such a poor sort of bunk after
+all, so sleep was wooed and won finally.
+
+They must have realized the morning would bring to them some strenuous
+duties, for what about reclaiming Camp Norm?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+DANGER SIGNALS
+
+
+Daylight showed what havoc the storm had wrought. The lake front was
+strewn with craft washed in by the swelled waters; there were
+sailboats bottom side up, canvas carried from one end of the lake to
+the other, rowboats torn from their docks where strong ropes over
+stronger posts were thought to hold them securely; in fact the storm
+had been a record-breaker and the new record was one of considerable
+devastation.
+
+Crowds of curious gathered early, and in general terms business was
+suspended in favor of sight-seeing. But it was among the campers that
+the greatest damage had been done, and Camp Norm was not alone in
+blowing away in the tempest.
+
+Those who sought shelter in Camp Comalong were up and out early, and
+the Bobbies were not long in following.
+
+"Poor old Norm," sighed Bubbles. "We will now be sure to fall to
+sub-norm, for never again can we claim to be normal."
+
+A camp untented after a downpour of rain is about as forlorn a sight
+as can be imagined, and it was such a spectacle as this that
+confronted the Norms on the bleakish early morning.
+
+Wet! Wetter! Wettest!
+
+The trees still rained; the grass emitted a hissing moisture, the air
+was as wet as if the rain had anchored in it, and never was there a
+more unhappy looking crowd than the unroofed campers of Lake Hocomo.
+
+"Weren't we lucky?" said Julia. "Just see how everyone has had
+something damaged and we never lost a thing but a couple of tree
+boxes."
+
+"And the curtains off the sideboard," added Grace. "But they were
+going anyhow, I caught my heel in one yesterday."
+
+Everyone helped everyone get things back where they belonged, and by
+noon the Norm girls had succeeded in reclaiming the truant canvas and
+stretching it again over their summer belongings. Many things were
+irreparably damaged, for even good, strong boxes could not stand the
+elements when they "elemented" at last night's pace.
+
+But the excitement added zest to their spirit, and hither and thither
+went the Bobbies like a little band of rescuers, carrying and toting
+for the victims quite like the workers in more seriously stricken
+zones.
+
+A holiday was declared in the afternoon, however, and it was then that
+Cleo, Louise and Julia went for their long, looked forward to ride.
+
+Being assured they had permission from home (it was talked of on the
+visit with mothers the day before), also assured that a woman
+instructor would ride with the girls, they left camp directly after
+dinner, hurried to the home cottages to don their riding togs, and
+when the sky was bluest, the trees greenest, and everything nicely
+dried up, the three Scouts, with Mrs. Broadbent the instructor,
+cantered off through the curling roads of Hocomo.
+
+Getting acquainted with their horses took some little time, but they
+were gentle animals and seemed to enjoy either trotting or cantering
+as their little riders willed.
+
+Out on the turnpike road there were so many motors that Mrs. Broadbent
+suggested they go cross field and come out along the old mining
+regions.
+
+"Is that where the powder mills are?" asked Cleo.
+
+"Yes, there are some big powder works in this district," replied the
+horsewoman. "We had many soldier boys out here doing guard duty a few
+years ago."
+
+The girls remembered the remark about dynamite signs, more than one
+person having warned them that the signs might be found but were
+really harmless, and when their horses smelled the fresh clover on the
+slope between two hills, Mrs. Broadbent suggested the riders dismount
+and rest awhile, allowing the horses to "nose around" and enjoy
+themselves for a half hour.
+
+"'Pep' expects a treat when he gets up here," she said, "and Baldy
+likes this tall grass, he doesn't have to stoop so low to get it."
+
+The riders assented gladly. It was delightful to "browse" in such a
+spot, for the hill afforded a rare view of the lake and surrounding
+bungalows and tent district.
+
+Freely the three Scouts roamed about, searching for odd flowers and
+pretty stones, although just how the stones were going to be carried
+without spoiling riding-habit pockets, was not quite clear. The
+horsewoman stretched herself in the grass and called orders to the
+horses, should they wander too far from safety.
+
+Hunting about, Louise found a pretty little mountain bell in between
+rocks, where it must have expected security, while Cleo and Julia were
+soon applying their newest botanical knowledge on the Jack-in-pulpit
+and companion wild orchids.
+
+Glittering bits of stone, the sparkling mica-schist, that looks like
+pebbly crystals spread on too thick, afforded another line of
+investigation, and following such a trail into a little ravine, Julia
+discovered the dynamite sign.
+
+At first she was inclined to heed its warning literally, and with a
+little squeal she dropped one of her prettiest stones and scraped her
+riding boot in hurrying away; but Cleo was more daring.
+
+"Just one of those make-believe signs," she suggested. "Perhaps the
+boys gathered them from around the old powder works and set them up to
+scare people away."
+
+"Maybe the boys have a hidden cave somewhere and the signs are to keep
+folks away," Louise amplified the idea so barely outlined by Cleo.
+
+"But we had better not follow the trail," demurred Julia. "The rocks
+are awfully rough anyhow, and we will skin our boots to pieces if we
+try to climb higher."
+
+All three stood looking at the sign but no one ventured to touch the
+tin square, which stood on its iron peg firmly planted in the ground
+and mutely gave forth its "Danger" warning.
+
+Cleo bent over to look all around the little signal.
+
+"There doesn't seem to be a pipe, or a wire, or anything near it," she
+reported. "I can't see how there can be any danger without something
+dangerous."
+
+"Don't you dare touch it," warned Julia. "It is certainly planted
+there for some purpose."
+
+"Boys, I'm just sure," insisted Louise. "I've often read of their
+caves in the mountains and how they store things away in them. Boys'
+books are packed full of that sort of thing."
+
+"But real robbers have mountain caves also." Julia was determined to
+make a good story out of the plot. "How would you like to run into a
+genuine bandit, with a black handkerchief over his face and two
+hideous pistols in his hand?"
+
+"One in each hand, Jule," corrected Cleo. "That's the regular way,"
+and she stalked forward in the "regulation way," with two pretty
+innocent Jack-in-pulpits doing service in lieu of the dangerous bandit
+weapons.
+
+"Come along, desperadoes, there's our horses calling us," Julia
+proposed.
+
+"I'd just like to kick over that sign," Cleo whispered to Louise.
+
+"Let's get that long stick over there and turn it over," suggested
+Louise.
+
+"Suppose we blow up the hills," laughed Cleo. But Louise had already
+obtained the stick, and although Julia was headed for the waiting
+horses her two companions were still fascinated by that danger signal.
+
+"Look out!" warned Louise, going a little closer.
+
+"Let me do it, Weasy, if there's a blow I can run faster than you."
+
+Both giggled and chuckled, becoming more reckless as they joked.
+Finally both held the stick and attempted to poke.
+
+Only girls of their charmed age can do a thing like that in the way
+they did it, for had the innocent tin sign been a perfectly obvious
+bomb, the Bobbies could not possibly have made greater show and fuss
+over their attempt to displace it.
+
+"Care--ful!" whispered Cleo, but one thrust of the white birch pole and
+the sign was uprooted!
+
+As it fell from its peg the girls squealed and jumped, but there it
+lay, like a sign "keep off the grass" or "please wipe your feet," and
+nothing happened.
+
+"I knew it!" snapped Cleo.
+
+"Of course," insisted Louise. "Just boys' pranks."
+
+"But there could be danger further on," argued Cleo, loathe to give up
+a perfectly good sensation without even a shiver.
+
+"Yes, there's Julia calling; come along," finished Louise.
+
+Racing back they stumbled over another danger sign. It was almost
+hidden in some underbrush, and without stick or precaution Cleo gaily
+kicked it over, emitting a triumphant "whoo--pee" as she did so.
+
+"Guess they grow up here," she told her companion. "Quite a crop of
+them."
+
+"They would be splendid to stick up around the camp 'eats box,'"
+suggested Louise. "I wish I had brought one along."
+
+"Grand idea, and we could put one up in front of our new supply of
+cake," Cleo added. "I need something like that to protect mine, for
+the prize chocolate layer is going down very rapidly."
+
+There was no time to tell Julia of their adventure. The horses were
+reclaimed from their pasture, and presently all were mounted again and
+going on a gentle little trot down the rather steep incline.
+
+Where two paths forked and the road was barely wide enough even to be
+called single, they drew rein to wait for some other riders whose
+horses could be heard but not seen through the trees.
+
+Presently a familiar pony pranced around the curve and on it--sat Peg.
+
+"Oh, there's Peg!" exclaimed all three Scouts.
+
+"Hello, Peg!" they called cheerily. They were, indeed, delighted to
+meet her on the road.
+
+"Hel--lo!" she answered. There was no joy in her voice, however,
+although she pulled the blue roan up short--she glanced backward, then
+the girls saw she was looking for another rider.
+
+Mrs. Broadbent realized the time allowed the Scouts with their horses
+was almost up, so she urged her little company to hurry along. Rather
+slowly they obeyed, and the second rider was beside Peg now and it
+proved to be her aunt, Miss Ramsdell.
+
+"Aunt Carrie on horseback!" said one girl to another. They were
+naturally surprised to see the rather elderly and white haired woman
+mounted. But she sat well, and looked well, although her habit was of
+the full divided skirt pattern, and she sat sidewise as women did
+twenty years ago.
+
+"Have a nice ride?" Peg called after them when there could be no
+possibility of more intimate conversation.
+
+"Lovely!" called back the Scouts.
+
+"Why don't you come around?" shouted Cleo.
+
+"Busy!" floated back the answer.
+
+"She looks it," Louise remarked, when again they rode slowly, trying
+to prolong the minutes.
+
+"Doesn't she? I wonder what keeps her so busy?" This was Julia's
+query.
+
+"Well, we can't spy, that's a sure thing," reasoned Cleo, "but I
+wouldn't mind knowing what brings her out riding all the time."
+
+"Perhaps she teaches riding over at some of the millionaire places,"
+surmised Julia, always prone to be on the safe side.
+
+"Too young," returned Cleo. "Fancy Weasy teaching someone how to
+mount!"
+
+"As if I couldn't!"
+
+"Certainly you could, Weasy, but would you? That's the question. Peg
+would be about as patient as a chipmunk at giving instructions. And
+she seems too practical to go riding so often just for a good time,"
+reasoned Cleo.
+
+Campers and "bungalowers" still moving and removing to overcome the
+difficulties thrust upon them by the night's storm were now tramping
+along the country road, lugging, it seemed, everything from bedding to
+ballast, and among the fugitives the riders met a number with whom
+they were acquainted.
+
+Hailing to these and offering words of sympathy precluded further
+private conversation, so Peg and her riding proclivities were
+forgotten for the time.
+
+"I'll take you to your cottages," offered Mrs. Broadbent. "These
+horses will trail along obediently when I lead with Baldy."
+
+This offer was eagerly accepted, for the plan would eliminate a walk
+from the riding school, and when all had patted their horses and
+promised another ride very soon, the afternoon's particular delight
+remained only in its joyous memories.
+
+"I would rather ride than do any other single thing," declared Cleo,
+watching her pretty horse canter off riderless.
+
+"I love it too," agreed Louise. "But do you know we have to get back
+to camp? And I have a suitcase to carry. There's the car! Goody! We'll
+all have a ride back."
+
+"Rides and more rides," mused Julia. "I'll be ready in a jiff."
+
+In Cozy Colony all three girls claimed their home ties, and the
+cottages were grouped in one prettily wooded territory, where trees
+were only sacrificed to make room for a cottage or garage, and where
+the rustic beauty of the lake resort was otherwise carefully
+preserved.
+
+In the "jiff" specified by Julia the girls again appeared, their linen
+riding habits exchanged for fresh Scout uniforms, and while Louise
+lugged a suitcase Julia carried a laundry bag, and Cleo was armed with
+a rather miscellaneous collection of appurtenances.
+
+Five minutes later they were in camp gushing over the wonderful ride.
+
+"And I took a cake over to Peg," Grace was forced to interrupt to make
+known.
+
+Then it was that Peg again became the pivot of their interest and
+speculation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE ALGONQUIN EPISODE
+
+
+"We were so surprised to see her aunt along with her," Julia was
+recounting. "They seem awfully chummy, don't they?"
+
+"Yes, it is plain to see they are not--just ordinary folks," added
+Cleo. "But even at that I don't see why she should be so standoffish."
+
+"I hope she likes my cake. I left it under a turned upside box, put a
+couple of big stones on it and told Shag not to let anyone touch it,"
+Grace explained.
+
+"Suppose she wouldn't care to accept a cake? She said something that
+night around the campfire, about not accepting things she couldn't
+return." This was Cleo's contribution.
+
+"If she doesn't like my cake she can easily return that," Grace was
+very emphatic now, "and then perhaps we will desist. No use trying to
+make friends with folks who insist on snubbing us."
+
+"But she hasn't snubbed us yet," Louise reminded the first speaker.
+
+"Oh, no, I know that. I was only saying if she _didn't_ take the
+cake."
+
+"No danger of anyone giving up that lovely mound of sweetness. I wish
+you saved that, Grace, and gave away the marshmallow; I just love
+tutti-frutti," declared Cleo.
+
+"Didn't you think Peg acted rather queer when she met us?" inquired
+Louise presently.
+
+"She was surprised, that's all. We were surprised ourselves to meet
+her," explained Julia. "And perhaps too, she fancied we were fixed up
+and she looked sort of mussy. No one wants to feel that way, you
+know."
+
+"That may have been it," Cleo accepted, but her voice lacked
+assurance. "And say, Julie, we didn't tell you we tore down the
+dynamite sign."
+
+"Not really!"
+
+"Pos--i--tively!"
+
+"And you didn't find the danger?"
+
+"Only in the black letters on a piece of red tin. But those signs
+don't grow there, although at first we had our suspicions," Cleo
+stated facetiously.
+
+"And we also suspect caves and bandits," Louise knew exactly the
+effect this would have on Grace, the adventuress.
+
+"Caves! Bandits! Bears and Deadeyed Dicks!" came the prompt string of
+exclamations from Grace. "Oh, let's go out there to-morrow and
+explore!"
+
+"We knew it; but it is interesting, Grace, and we'll plan our hike for
+Big Nose Rock if Mackey will agree," Cleo proposed. "Now we must help
+Madaline and Margaret gather their souvenirs. It's too bad they have
+to go, but we knew when they came it would only be a few days' visit."
+
+"Good thing we can keep Isabel and Helen. It's such fun to have
+company," Louise insisted.
+
+"It was real fun last night," Grace reminded her companions. "I
+thought we really would have to prop our beds on end and sleep
+standing up. Wasn't it too funny!"
+
+"Not for the poor Norms, although they wouldn't admit it. Bubbles and
+Struggles had more kinds of fun than I have ever seen even new school
+teachers fall into," said Cleo.
+
+"Such names! Bubbles and Struggles!" repeated Julia.
+
+"About like Fuss and Buzz," recalled Grace. "By the way, I wonder what
+has 'happed' to those heavenly twins?"
+
+"Wouldn't wonder but they are calling on other campers," suggested
+Louise. "They seem so apt to call."
+
+This provoked the inevitable mimicry, and if Fuss and Buzz hadn't
+inflamed red hot ears at that moment, the old saying must indeed have
+lost its potency.
+
+The visitors who were leaving, jolly Madaline and capable Margaret,
+were being helped pack their bags by Corene, who in spite of offers
+from the other Bobbies still held to the responsibilities of
+leadership.
+
+It may have been that Corene was anxious to qualify, or it may have
+been that she really enjoyed the satisfaction she experienced, at any
+rate it was easy to guess she would be sure to receive "awards" when
+the camp season would be over, for Corene was almost daily adding to
+her efficiency laurels.
+
+"If only we could have Elizabeth up here for a week, wouldn't she show
+us a thing or two about housekeeping?" Julia remarked, when in spite
+of protestations the cupboard was being "finished" by Julia although
+Corene had "commenced" it.
+
+"I can imagine Elizabeth's joy at baking cake in your stove oven,
+Julia," returned Corene.
+
+"She could bake good cake in a camp kettle, I do believe. You know,
+Corey, Lizbeth is a wizard on bakes."
+
+"Yes, she's headed straight for Pratt's and the youngest of our entire
+class," reflected Corene, flicking a bit of paper napkin from the
+clock shelf. "I do wonder what makes some girls have such a lot of
+brains?"
+
+"And some girls have a lot of hair, too," reasoned Julia. "I guess
+it's just natural."
+
+"There comes the steamer Madaline's sisters are coming on!" exclaimed
+Corene, as a tooting and blowing announced the arrival of the "Black
+Hawk." The captain signalled either for folks to land or for folks to
+embark, and as the "Hawk" flag now flew from the dock near Camp
+Comalong he would know passengers there awaited his arrival.
+
+Dropping their work Julia and Corene hurried to join those already
+waiting to see the visitors off, for the coming and going, the landing
+and embarking, was ever a source of excitement at the lake. Not that
+company could be definitely expected always, but just as a letter
+carrier _may_ have good news, so anyone of those many steamers coming
+up from the depot eight miles away _might_ have company for any of the
+many campers.
+
+Madaline and Margaret were steamed away, amid a wild flutter of waving
+and good-byes, and back to camp again the Bobbies hurried to prepare
+for the evening meal.
+
+"We are going to have all the Norms down," announced Miss Mackey, who
+had been up in the devastated region all the afternoon. "They simply
+couldn't get things dried out, and I insisted they eat with us
+to-night."
+
+"Goody!" chirped Grace. "I think company is the best fun of all.
+Especially Bubbles and Giggles."
+
+"Giggles?" queried the director.
+
+"Oh, I mean Struggles. She seems to be always struggling to keep from
+giggling, so I got her name mixed," admitted Grace.
+
+"Perhaps we should ask them to stay to-night," ventured Corene.
+
+"Where would we put them?" demanded Louise, impulsively.
+
+"All bunk on the floor. It's nice and clean. Lots better than we get
+on a hike when we sleep like ground hogs in holes," said Corene.
+
+"We could house them and I proposed it," said Miss Mackey, "but they
+wouldn't hear of it and they are going to sleep in the hotel to-night.
+They want you all to come over and spend the evening there."
+
+"Joy!" shouted Isabel. "I just want to see what they do at a mountain
+hotel in the evenings."
+
+"Same as they do at the seashore, Izzy, and you know that isn't
+particularly exciting," Cleo reminded her visitor.
+
+"It was last year when the baby choked on the button. Don't you
+remember?"
+
+This recalled an incident told of in the "Girl Scouts at Sea Crest,"
+and its mention was enough to send the girls off into their easily
+acquired kinks. But even fun has its limitations, and the time was
+racing toward supper with the Norms, and then to the evening to be
+spent at Hocomo's biggest hotel, the Algonquin.
+
+"Glad I fetched a clean white frock this very day," remarked Louise,
+and her companions seemed none the less glad that they too had
+"fatigue uniforms," a simple white dress used by these Scouts on just
+such occasions as that they were now dressing for.
+
+The storm had driven more than one camp to seek refuge in the hotel
+that evening, and arriving there the Bobbies were overjoyed to meet a
+number of their acquaintances from among the summer colonists.
+
+Dancing was of the desultory order, but what was lacking in vigor was
+made up in continuity, for it seemed there was never rest, stop, nor
+intermission to the programme. It was just one long, languid,
+continuous dance.
+
+Around the edge of the "ball room" the Bobbies danced and capered, not
+venturing out to take the place possibly claimed by the grown-ups. The
+so-called ball room was merely the largest room the hotel boasted of,
+and evidently its festive claims were based upon the faded crepe paper
+that still clung reluctantly to chandeliers and other conveniently set
+out points.
+
+But the music was "pretty fair," as more than one guest agreed, and it
+was pleasant to be indoors on this cool summer's evening.
+
+Just after Miss Mackin sent around the whisper that there remained
+only "a few minutes more," the Bobolinks were attracted by a rather
+familiar drawl stealing in from a window opened on the porch.
+
+"Sounds like----"
+
+"It is," interrupted Cleo. "Here they come!"
+
+"Our dear friends, Buzz and Fuss," finished Julia. "And please
+observe!"
+
+This was whispered and actually reached only those ears very close to
+her, but it seemed as if some magic announcement had been made, for
+the entrance of those two young women immediately brought a charge of
+eyes focussed directly at them.
+
+"It may be a masquerade," hinted Louise in an undertone. "Perhaps we
+have only seen the first act."
+
+Their costumes might indeed have answered for a mask, they were so
+ridiculously extreme. The most brilliant striped satins that suggested
+clown effects, flowing sashes of colors by no means contrasting, then
+the hair dressing: such ear puffs, terracing up to a tower on top,
+"like the jumps to the Essveay fire-escape," whispered Cleo. Really it
+was no wonder Buzz and Fuss were late if they had to build that effect
+all at one sitting.
+
+The young men with them matched up fairly well, considering the
+handicap young men must dress under; but their flannels and their
+patent leather shoes, topped off with purple socks and vivid neckties,
+did all that reasonably could be done to liven up the male attire.
+
+Not a detail was lost on a Bobbie. They sat there fascinated, saving
+up their laughs for the wild time they would have going back to camp.
+
+The dancers drifted around and the conspicuous ones came close to the
+row of Girl Scouts. As they did so the blondest blonde caught sight of
+Grace and recognized her.
+
+"Oh, the babes!" she cooed, loud enough to be overheard. "The Bobbie
+babes from the woodsy camp."
+
+This was too much for the Scouts, and only a sudden jumping up to the
+answer of the beckoning gesture from Miss Mackin, who was waiting for
+the home hike, saved an actual upheaval. As it was, Grace gagged and
+squawked audibly, Cleo hummed a foolish tune as she always did to
+invoke sorrow, Louise danced a few steps automatically, and by that
+time the buzzers had buzzed along.
+
+But not finally. At the door the Bobbies stood for a few minutes
+throwing on scarfs and capes, and while they did so along came the
+unpleasant ones again. Miss Mackin's attention had been drawn to them
+by Corene, and she stepped out and stood squarely in front of her
+little charges like a shield. But that attitude had no deterring
+effect on the intruders.
+
+"How's every little thing over in Camp Comalong?" asked one in a voice
+that attracted unpleasant attention.
+
+No one answered; Miss Mackin shifted her shoulders and sort of urged
+the girls outside. The Norms were just beyond the door, waiting on the
+porch.
+
+A taunting, high pitched, audacious laugh followed.
+
+"Take the babies home and put them to bed," mocked one of the pair.
+"Too late for little Bobbokins to be out."
+
+"Of all the rude creatures!" gasped Miss Mackin. "One would think we
+were acquainted with them."
+
+"They think we are," retorted Corene, quite as indignant as the
+director. "But I guess everyone else knows them, so perhaps their
+remarks will not seem--so strange to others."
+
+"They ought not to be allowed to insult guests that way," stormed
+Louise. Even her "canned laugh" was lost track of now.
+
+"Did you see those two freaks?" asked Bubbles Norm when the party
+united on the porch.
+
+"And did you hear them?" added Miss Mackin.
+
+"They are the two blandest creatures," went on Bubbles. "But I believe
+their daddy is supposed to be some pumpkins, a magnate of some kind or
+other."
+
+"Pity he doesn't put his daughters in the trust, then," retorted Cleo.
+"They need something; maybe it's that."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+A PADDLE, A SWIM AND A SUN DIAL
+
+
+Getting the mail for Camp Comalong was one of the duties that brought
+joy to the Scouts, for each morning, tent obligations attended to and
+before the hike, swim or other scheduled activity was entered upon, a
+group of the girls either rowed in Mud Lark, the boat loaned them by
+an admiring neighbor, or they paddled off in their bright red canoe,
+the Flash, down the lake to the Post Office Bend, there to receive
+their allotment from Uncle Sam's mailing service.
+
+Usually those girls whose duty it was to raise and lower the
+colors--when the beautiful flag contributed by Grace's family would be
+raised to breeze at morning and lowered into loving hands at
+sundown--this squad also took care of the mail, on their flag week.
+
+So it happened that to-day Julia and Grace were due to paddle down
+stream for the mail.
+
+"I think," began Julia in her meditative way, for Julia was something
+of a literary aspirant, "that we have very vigorous weather in a place
+like this. When it storms it storms furiously, and when it's lovely
+it's just perfect, as it is to-day."
+
+"Uh--huh!" assented Grace, waving frantically at a canoe across the
+lake in which she recognized a brace of sweaters--one orange, the other
+jade--worn respectively by Camille and Cynthia, without a doubt.
+
+"Grace, I don't believe you notice the weather very closely," came
+back Julia, disappointed that her discourse should fall upon deaf
+ears.
+
+"'Deed I does, honey. I noticed it plenty the other night, and am not
+keen on another spell like that. But when we have really good weather
+I don't believe in tempting it or spoiling it with flattery. You can't
+tell about such things, Julie dear."
+
+The blonde girl laughed merrily. Who could resist Grace and her
+unanswerable arguments?
+
+There was a satisfying amount of mail to take back to camp, and among
+the letters was one addressed to Grace and postmarked "Town."
+
+"A new friend," remarked Julia, handing this over to Grace, "or
+perhaps an invitation to a picnic."
+
+"No; it's from Peg," returned her companion, already scanning the
+paper in her hand. Her brows were drawn into a serious line and her
+full red lips puckered as she scrutinized the page.
+
+"Anything wrong?" Julia asked.
+
+"Not wrong, but--here read it----" Grace handed over the letter, and her
+companion read the lines.
+
+"Well, that's all right," said Julia, glancing up. They were seated in
+the canoe and delaying to read their personal mail. "If she doesn't
+want any companions I don't see why we should force ourselves upon
+her."
+
+"But don't you see, Jule, she says she does appreciate our friendship,
+but that just now she is not free to follow her own pleasure? Can't
+you easily see that the girl is worried about something and afraid to
+even have friends?"
+
+"Yet, Gracie, why should we intrude?"
+
+"Because if ever a girl needed friends she does, and I need not remind
+you of our Scout pledge," replied Grace. "I don't usually look for
+trouble, Bobbs, but I think I see it in that page, and I would like to
+help Peg to some little bit of summer happiness. You know how much
+attention we give to making city children happy at Christmas; and here
+is a girl all alone in a mountain cabin, with no playmates except Shag
+and her pony Whirlwind, and she says plainly how much she enjoyed our
+campfire on that one, stingy little night. Now Julie, I couldn't let
+her slip out of our entire summer with one campfire and a chocolate
+cake."
+
+This was so entirely "Gracious" that Julia laughed outright.
+
+"All right, Buddie; just tell me what to do and I'll help you any way
+I can. I believe you are right, of course. Anyone can see that Peg is
+tugging away with some sort of claim holding her down. Do you think
+there can be anyone ill, or perhaps sick mentally and hidden in her
+cabin?"
+
+"Oh, no, I never thought of that. You mean an insane person?"
+
+"They might not be really insane, but you know when a person's mind
+becomes unbalanced their folks always hate to have them sent away from
+home," explained Julia.
+
+"I don't believe that's it. But there is some sort of mystery there.
+The thing that I resent most is the mean remarks those snippy girls
+make about her. I just can't stand it, to hear two such silly things
+as those Buzzys, say such slurring things about a girl who never seems
+to trouble anyone, or in any way invite criticism."
+
+"Yes, it is cowardly. But what can you expect of that type? Didn't
+they try hard enough to get us into a dispute the other night?"
+
+"Yes, and I think Mackey was very calm not to say something back to
+them."
+
+"That would really have attracted attention. She was wise to ignore
+them," declared Julia. "Well, let's bring the girls their mail and
+don't worry about Peg. I can't imagine there is anything seriously
+wrong, and, perhaps, if we just agree with her suggestion something
+will happen to explain it all."
+
+"Perhaps," said Grace doubtfully. She dipped her paddle and they
+started back, but her usually radiant face wore a look of perplexity.
+
+The lake was alive with craft now, many bathers taking to their boats
+before "going in," as the swim was popularly termed. Canoes, rowboats,
+launches and every sort of water vehicle was in evidence, ingenuity
+outdoing itself in the samples of boyish workmanship displayed.
+
+There was the "Captain Kidd," a big, flat-bottomed rowboat with sails
+striped in black and red. This was the property of Benny and his
+friends, and perhaps attracted as much and more favorable attention
+than the glistening mahogany "Amerik" that cost its owner a fabulous
+sum, and was known as a masterpiece in its line.
+
+"There really is a lot more to see on a lake than on the ocean,"
+remarked Julia, in spite of the inattention of Grace. "I like it so
+much better up here than down at the shore."
+
+"I do, too," agreed Grace, giving a mighty tug to pull the "Flash" up
+on shore. "But there's one thing we miss--we can't come in on a
+surfboard here. I just love that sport."
+
+"But we couldn't canoe on the ocean, either," Julia qualified.
+
+"Oh, yes, we could. I did--once in a while, and it was simply
+wonderful. Here are the girls! They couldn't wait for their mail."
+
+In bathing suits, ready and waiting for Miss Mackin, the Bobbies were
+now at the swimming pier.
+
+"Mail?" they cried out.
+
+"Bushels," called back Grace.
+
+"But we ought not to open it here," said Julia, hiding Corene's pet
+letter behind her. "You know the hotels positively refuse to allow
+anyone to take mail until it is sorted in the office."
+
+"Bunk," declared Isabel, more forcibly than elegantly. "Guve me that
+mailsky!"
+
+"Here it is," agreed Grace, "and please wait for us. You got ahead of
+us in your suits but we will make up for it in the swims. Come along,
+Julia. Let's try out some of that perfect day stuff you have been
+preaching about."
+
+And it proved all that had been forecast for it. So ideal were
+conditions that Miss Mackin agreed to having her girls try out some of
+the tests for Water Sport Day, an event planned to take place later in
+the season, and looked forward to with keenest anticipation.
+
+The Norms were with the Bobbies, and together they practiced, and
+invented stroke variations, eager to show skill in the water sports
+and to win awards for that line of efficiency.
+
+Isabel proved to be the best long distance "floater" and her weight,
+which was something more than that of her companions, was credited
+with the advantage. Grace was more daring than any of the others, and
+kept the Norms and Miss Mackin busy shouting warnings to her. Louise
+had a very reliable, even, clean-cut stroke, and could cover a
+distance and come out "without a puff," as Cleo described her
+serenity, while Cleo could dash, and sprint, and "get there" on
+"shorts" perhaps a little more surely than the others could.
+
+So it seemed each might find her particular character in the water
+comedy, and the morning was not half long enough to put the popular
+drill through all the paces invented.
+
+Julia and Louise were on shore resting a few moments when the latter
+caught sight of something particularly striking in the way of a
+figure, posed on the springboard.
+
+"Look!" she motioned Julia. "It's the Buzzers."
+
+"Sure enough. Wherever do they get their outfits? Imagine, crocodile
+green?"
+
+"Are they green? Isn't it frogs?" laughed Louise. "At any rate that
+bathing suit is green enough to include all samples."
+
+The figure thus criticised sprang off the board now, and was lost in
+the lake for a few moments. Then it reappeared on the surface and made
+for shore.
+
+"There's the sister," said Grace, who had joined the spectators. "How
+do you like that geranium? The green would go beautifully with it
+under glass."
+
+"Not jealous, are we?" questioned Cleo, glancing at the simple jersey
+suits worn by her companions.
+
+"No, indeed," replied Julia. "I should hate to try to swim under those
+colors. But who is that they are talking to? Looks like Peg!"
+
+"It is. I thought first it was a boy, she has no cap on and her hair
+is so slick. I wonder if they really know her?" queried Grace.
+
+"They don't have to know anyone; we ought to understand that. Now, we
+must pass them on the way up the rock. There's Mackey whistling. Let's
+go."
+
+"It will look as if we walked by them purposely," Louise hesitated.
+
+"Oh, no it won't. We have to take that path, besides, why shouldn't we
+speak to Peg?" asked Cleo. She did not know Grace had received the
+letter with its plea for discontinuing the friendly relationship.
+
+"All right, come along. We may as well have it over with. They are
+sure to say something sarcastic," Julia raced on ahead, so whatever
+might be said would not be aimed directly at her.
+
+But for once the inquisitive two did not heed passersby. Neither did
+Peg appear to see the Scouts, for she and the two flashily dressed
+ones were talking in such an excited manner, their remarks, in part at
+least, could be easily overheard.
+
+"Now, remember, we have warned you," said one, her voice sharp and
+imperative.
+
+"I have no reason to fear anything of the kind," Peg retorted. She
+stood close to the little path leading from the lake to the woodland
+road, and along this the bathers had to pass to reach the camp
+grounds. Her suit was dark blue jersey, she wore no socks but looked
+only a little girl, or even a boy, with her closely cut, straight hair
+and no bathing cap. As they passed along each Scout was conscious
+there was a certain strength and individuality so simply outlined in
+the appearance of the oblivious bather.
+
+"We promised daddy we would speak to you," said the other girl, she in
+the geranium outfit, "otherwise we wouldn't do so. I can tell you we
+are not anxious to be seen----"
+
+These snatches had been heard piecemeal, as the Scouts came and went
+past the spot where the conversation was being held, but when it was
+all put together a short time later the total seemed to imply that
+these girls were somehow threatening Peg.
+
+"Another reason why I am determined to stand by her," insisted Grace.
+She had passed the letter around for inspection and all agreed Peg was
+trying to hide some real trouble, or perhaps some "living sorrow," as
+Corene expressed the possibility.
+
+"But I wouldn't send her any more cake, if I were you, Grace," advised
+Corene. "One doesn't like to have things forced upon them."
+
+"I don't intend to; in fact there isn't any more nor likely to be,
+unless we get another food shower. I took a spoon for the crumbs from
+my box at noon," Grace loved cake, even the crumby kind.
+
+"Why didn't you try a straw?" teased Louise. "Or if you had asked me I
+would have given you a real cookie! I have three left."
+
+"Do you know, Bobbies," asked Isabel suddenly, "we are supposed to
+make a sun dial to-day? And the stake is all ready. See it waiting
+over there?"
+
+"We do, we do, and I have first shot!" Grace sprang up to outline the
+circle in which the shaft was to be erected as a sun dial.
+
+"It must be exactly there," directed Cleo. Grace had it exactly
+somewhere else.
+
+"We have to try it and the sun is just right now for a life-sized
+shadow," insisted Grace. "Here, help me dig the hole, someone. I want
+to catch the two o'clock sun."
+
+Miss Mackin, who had been in the tent, came out to oversee this
+experiment.
+
+Willing hands soon had the shaft erected; then the pegs which were all
+ready laid out to be driven in at the end of the shadow for every
+hour, as that hour came around, were arranged in a relative position.
+
+"Do we have to stay up all night to finish it?" asked Helen,
+innocently.
+
+This brought forth a wild shout.
+
+"The moon doesn't overlap the sun, Nellie dear," answered Cleo. "We
+will probably leave off picket duty when the sun gets behind that
+hill."
+
+Peg number two was driven in at exactly two o'clock, and the shadow
+was so clearly outlined everyone thought this an ideal method of
+keeping time; but later the shadows were shifty, and only an amount of
+patience and much running back and forth put the three most important
+hours of the afternoon in the dial.
+
+"I am going to start again early in the morning," declared Grace. "I
+saw a sun dial in a Chicago park, it was made of those queer tiny
+cabbage flowers, the kind they say keeps the house from getting on
+fire, and I remember how effective it was."
+
+"Did they use them to keep the park from getting on fire?" taunted
+Cleo. But Grace was making sure that nothing unforeseen would happen
+to the pegs left over from the hours already "pegged in."
+
+"Won't have to wind it----" she told the others.
+
+"But I should hate to have to catch the Black Hawk boat by its silent
+system," confessed Julia.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+A DARING INTRUDER
+
+
+Summer was at its height now, and so popular had the camp idea become
+that friend after friend just called, or paid visits to the Bobolinks,
+who in turn were as generous with entertaining as their limited
+quarters permitted.
+
+Almost every pleasant evening was spent around the campfire, this
+entertainment never seeming to lose its fascination. Often the
+resources of Miss Mackin and her friends from Camp Sub Norm, the new
+camp erected after the storm's devastation, were put to the test for a
+new story; but the fire kindled enthusiasm, and the glow inspired
+fancy, so that rarely was an evening closed, and seldom did the embers
+fall upon an empty hour, or a tale lacking thrill.
+
+The sun dial was now "working," although the sun could not be depended
+upon always, but it looked picturesque, and if nothing else it served
+to keep up the girls' sense of observation until not a few even
+claimed to be able to foretell showers by it, although there was no
+barometric attachment to the simple, primitive device.
+
+Hikes were becoming more popular as the season advanced, and it was on
+a glorious August day, when the sky was dyed a deep blue and the sun
+was registering every hour accurately on the garden clock, that Miss
+Mackin proposed a long hike with the noon meal in the woods.
+
+"Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and hike, hike, hike," sang
+the girls as they prepared their lunches.
+
+But the trouble seemed to be not everyone of them had a "Kit bag" nor
+even a pretty good imitation of one. But Corene came to the rescue
+with good stout wrapping paper, which she had providentially tucked
+away in a dry box.
+
+"I'll glue you up some war-time bags," she offered, "if you make the
+sandwiches. I know exactly how to cut the bags, and they'll dry in the
+sun as quickly as you have the grub ready."
+
+So while the others prepared "eats," Corene and Cleo "did the bags,"
+neat little kits they turned out, too, with a good, stout handle of
+strong twine that might easily be slipped on to a strap and carried
+knapsack fashion.
+
+"The real joy of it is," whispered Louise, "we are going over the
+hills where the danger signs grow. Perhaps we'll find the cave, or be
+held up by bandits, or something thrilling like that."
+
+"Lovely!" exclaimed Julia. "But do let us keep close enough together
+to go in pairs, at any rate. I should hate to have to do both the
+cooking and serving for bandits. It's quite bad enough here with the
+serving taken off my hands."
+
+"All right, Jule. Depend upon it, we'll stick around you," declared
+Grace. "We don't want to lose our own fireman right in the height of
+the season."
+
+Miss Mackin was smiling good naturedly. Her hike preparations were
+complete and she sat out in the fresh, early morning, watching her
+young charges flutter around like little brown beetles, always in one
+another's way, yet never seeming to interfere, as they made their
+sandwiches, divided the hard tack, squeezed out lemons and bottled the
+juice; for the hike was to be a real picnic with all the trimmings.
+
+"I do hope, girls," said the director, as they were finally ready to
+start, "that you are not going gunning for some big, exciting
+adventure. You see, I know a little about your exploits of previous
+summers" (she winked knowingly and they wondered how she knew), "and I
+have such a lovely, lady-like report to turn in," again that
+explanatory chuckle, "that it would be really cruel to spoil it now."
+
+"Don't you like adventures?" asked Helen, innocently.
+
+"Love them. But there are so many brands on the market, and we don't,
+any of us, care for the cheap, trashy kind."
+
+The Scouts all agreed on this, and when Camp Comalong was securely
+"put away for the day" they started off with a song that included a
+little good-bye to the flag that was to act sentinel during their
+absence.
+
+"Do you think, by any chance, we might get Peg to come along?" Grace
+asked Cleo.
+
+"We pass by her cottage, we can give a whoo-hoo. It won't do any harm
+to ask her."
+
+"We can say we need a guide. I've heard folks say she has guided
+parties through the mountains. That's one reason they call her 'Peg of
+Tamarack Hills,' I believe," said Grace.
+
+They were nearing the turn that wound past the log cabin.
+
+"Are those tamarack trees, Mackey?" Louise asked. She was pointing to
+the giant green "Christmas trees" that stood in a group near a little
+settling of water, scarcely large enough to be called a pond but
+something more sizable than a basin pool.
+
+"Yes, that's the tamarack," said the director. "See how it runs to a
+perfect pyramid, and not like the other greens of that character, this
+one does lose its green in winter."
+
+"Sort of molts, I guess," said Cleo, "for those branches are covered
+with green pin feathers."
+
+They stopped for a few minutes to study this tree of the larch family.
+It would add to their nature knowledge and give at least one item of
+value to their picnic hike.
+
+"Isn't it very straight and tall?" observed Isabel. This feature was
+so obvious the others had not mentioned it.
+
+"Yes, that's why they make the telephone poles of it, although, I
+believe, it is not so durable as the tall cedars," explained Miss
+Mackin.
+
+"The little tuffs are just like rosettes," commented Julia. She was
+trying to reach the lowest branch with a long stick.
+
+"Like pom-poms, I think," added Grace, who was barely looking at the
+big trees but kept searching past them, to the low log cabin that
+seemed now like a bird house under the trees, and against the big
+hills.
+
+Miss Mackin described to the girls the blossom of these trees, told
+them of the "rosey plummets that shade from pink to purple," and soon
+exhausted her personal knowledge to supply their interest; then they
+journeyed forth again on the next "leg of their hike."
+
+Grace and Cleo tarried behind the others. They were still on the
+lookout for Peg.
+
+Giving the familiar woods call they waited a few minutes but received
+no answer.
+
+"There's Shag," said Cleo, "and he's running around as if someone were
+talking to him. See, there's a light dress moving behind the
+honeysuckle arbor."
+
+"It can't be Peg. I've never seen her wear a white skirt," replied
+Grace. They could easily see the movement of white between the green
+vined lattice. "And it can't be Aunt Carrie--she wouldn't wear white
+either."
+
+"Just let's go up the walk and see," suggested Cleo daringly. "Someone
+might be prowling around."
+
+It was only a few steps out of their way, and wild flowers always
+offered an excuse for leaving the path, so Grace and Cleo had no
+reason to hesitate.
+
+Shag raced out to meet them as they entered the grounds, but the
+figure in white darted farther into the heavy shrubbery.
+
+"That you, Peg?" called Cleo.
+
+No answer.
+
+"Come on," whispered Grace, "let's go in farther."
+
+With Shag close to their heels they followed the wild-grown path, and
+presently came up to the end of it.
+
+"Buzz!" whispered Cleo; for the white skirted one was now forced out
+of the shrubbery and stood facing the girls who had followed her up.
+
+"Oh, we thought you were--that is we were looking for Peg Ramsdell,"
+stammered Cleo.
+
+"She's not home," snapped the intruder. "I'm Leonore Fairbanks. I
+don't think you happen to know my name," said the one who had formerly
+played only silly parts, "and I came here on business." She made this
+very emphatic. "The dog is so vicious he won't let me go near the door
+or I might get what I want even though Peg is away."
+
+How evident was her change of manner! Why?
+
+"Shag is trained to take care of the cottage, I believe," ventured
+Cleo, noticing how faithfully the big collie performed his duty, for
+while Leonore Fairbanks kept down on the path he was friendly enough,
+but each time she attempted to put her foot on a step of the porch he
+growled threateningly.
+
+"We must hurry after our friends," Grace said awkwardly. "We are going
+on an all-day hike."
+
+"Over to Big Nose?" asked Leonore.
+
+"That way," replied Cleo.
+
+"Then you may meet Peg." The girl's face swiftly changed as evidently
+her mind was working as swiftly. "Say," she spoke suddenly, "be good
+sports and don't mention that you've seen me here, will you?"
+
+"Why?" demanded both girls in unison.
+
+"Because you know she's such a crazy kid and does such foolish things
+really. You can believe me it will be all the better for her if she
+doesn't go flying off the reel, as she would if she knew I came up
+here. I came on business for dad, and you know I hate to ask a favor,
+but it would be best if you didn't mention this. If you are a friend
+of Peg's I think you might do that much for her."
+
+"We are as friendly as she will let us be," said Cleo frankly. "But we
+can't really promise anything. We must run. The girls will think we
+are lost," and giving faithful Shag a parting pat they ran off to
+overtake the hiking party.
+
+"Isn't that queer?" exclaimed Grace. She had snatched up a bunch of
+wild flowers for her delay alibi.
+
+"Very suspicious, I should say," returned Cleo. "And of course, if we
+meet Peg we are bound to tell her."
+
+"I think we should," agreed Grace. "There must be some reason for that
+girl's change of manner, and I'm sure it can't be anything that would
+benefit Peg."
+
+"No, and her name is Leonore Fairbanks," said Cleo. "Rather pretty.
+There, the girls are waiting for us."
+
+No explanation for the delay seemed necessary and the interrupted hike
+was presently doing double time over the fragrant by-paths. Of course
+the tardy ones would tell the story quickly as an opportunity came up.
+
+The top of the hill was reached at last, and from that point the view
+of the lake and its surroundings lay like a panorama spread out on a
+silky canvas. It was well worth hiking for, and the Bobbies were
+breathless in admiration. They scampered from one rock to another,
+each claiming a superior view until this feature took on the
+proportions of a new outdoor game.
+
+To the right was a dense evergreen forest; small tiered mountains to
+the left. They stood in a rocky gorge between this and Big Nose Rock.
+Presently the whinnying of a horse startled the little sightseers.
+Then Julia called out from her perch on a big flat stone:
+
+"Look, girls! Up on the rock! There's Peg! What can she be doing away
+up there?"
+
+All eyes turned to the highest point, and there, like some wild thing
+of the mountains, stood Peg. She was hatless, and in the usual brown
+riding outfit. As if the call had reached her, although distance made
+this impossible, she turned suddenly, threw her head up in a listening
+attitude, then with a quick move that had in it the impatience of a
+disappointment, she vanished in the rocks.
+
+"What ever can she be doing away up there?" repeated Isabel.
+
+"Exploring, perhaps," guessed Julia, "but she has to leave her horse
+so far away. See, there he is."
+
+"And look," again indicated Louise, "there is her aunt over under that
+tree, reading. She hasn't seen us yet."
+
+"Perhaps we can get them to join our picnic," exclaimed Grace. She was
+unusually anxious to speak with Peg.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE GRANITE STAR CLUE
+
+
+Sightseeing was forgotten now and general interest centered on Peg and
+her Aunt Carrie. This lady, as usual, was delighted to meet the
+Scouts, and talked freely to Miss Mackin of her hope that Peggie
+should "mingle more" with the campers. Peg, herself, had come down
+from the rock and out of the ravine, disheveled, untidy and plainly
+tired.
+
+"You simply must join our picnic," gushed Louise. "It seems like the
+best of luck that we should have come up here."
+
+Peg smiled and frowned alternately. She noticed her aunt was already
+under the influence of a sandwich. It was a good fat one, with green
+lettuce fringe and it came from Cleo's kit.
+
+"I'll be back in a moment. I must attend to Whirlwind," said Peg. The
+girls saw now she had pockets in that big leather apron, and they
+bulged out--perhaps with some mountain souvenirs.
+
+Grace attempted to follow Peg, going toward the horse under a big
+tamarack tree, but the girl was evidently unconscious of this
+attention, and as she hurried off, Grace, after a few steps of
+uncertainty, turned back and flopped down on the edge of the circle of
+picnic makers.
+
+There was something very charming about Aunt Carrie. Even handling the
+food betrayed her culture, and her solicitation about another's
+comfort, all pointed to a knowledge of the little things acquired in
+good breeding. And she was well cared for in spite of the mountain
+life; her skin though dark was velvety, her hair like white floss, and
+only when she removed her gloves for handling the food did her little
+friends have an opportunity of noticing, besides the care her hands
+received, that she wore a great opal ring, carved with the beetle,
+perhaps.
+
+Peg was coming back, and her pockets had been emptied, for the heavy
+skirt now slinked around her slender form. She held her boyish hat by
+its chin strap and smiled happily as she fell in with the group.
+
+Yes, her eyes were of the same deep, dark cast, and her skin had that
+same olive tint, even her gestures showed what a real relation this
+girl was to the woman in the old-fashioned riding habit.
+
+"You ride a lot, don't you?" said Cleo, carelessly.
+
+"Yes, it's the one thing to do out here," replied Peg. She was trying
+something from a number of tempting food samples offered her.
+
+"And you enjoy riding, Miss Ramsdell?" said Miss Mackin to the aunt.
+
+"I feel more at home on a horse than I do on my feet," replied the
+woman. "But you see, I have always been used to horses."
+
+"And not to feet----" flashed Peg.
+
+"Now, my dear, don't tease an old lady. I have hard work enough to
+keep up with you on foot or in the saddle," replied Aunt Carrie.
+
+Both Cleo and Grace were thinking of the girl Leonore Fairbanks, and
+both were anxious to mention to Peg her presence at the log cabin. It
+came about precipitately, however.
+
+Louise was pouring the lemonade and had just served Aunt Carrie. The
+cup for Peg was filled and being extended when Grace said:
+
+"We saw company at your house as we came along, Peg."
+
+"Company?" She accepted Louise's cup.
+
+"Yes. One of the girls from the hotel. She said she was Leonore
+Fairbanks."
+
+"Leonore Fairbanks? Where was she?" Peg's voice was a signal of alarm.
+
+"Oh, Shag was on guard," put in Cleo. "She was around by the side
+porch, but no danger of anyone making herself too much at home with
+Shag doing picket duty."
+
+Miss Ramsdell lay down her piece of cake. Peg did likewise with her
+lemonade. Each had exchanged code glances.
+
+"I'll run home and see if--if everything is all right," said the girl,
+anxiously. "Auntie, you can follow or stay, I'll be all right. Sorry
+to leave the picnic," she apologized. And the remarks that followed
+her did not all reach her ears, for as quickly as even she, the
+lightfoot, could do it, she was on Whirlwind and galloping away down
+the hills, leaving after her the chagrined Bobbies.
+
+"Why did you tell her?" whispered Helen to Grace.
+
+"Because she should know," replied the latter, emphatically.
+
+Miss Ramsdell was also leaving.
+
+"Peggie is so temperamental," she apologized. "But the Fairbanks
+family are not to be trusted--we have had our own troubles with those
+girls and their unscrupulous father."
+
+"But we are so sorry you couldn't have stayed a little longer," said
+Miss Mackin. "I was just hoping our girls were finally going to get
+acquainted. You see we have so short a time here now, and your place
+has been an attraction from the first," she smiled condescendingly at
+the glowering Scouts.
+
+"Please do not think us rude," begged Miss Ramsdell. "We are not free
+to act as we would always choose. Sometimes I doubt the wisdom of my
+niece's determination; but she is determined to the point of
+desperation, and she keeps offsetting my arguments with the hope of an
+early victory." (This was ambiguous but sounded effective.) "I must go
+right along after her," continued the little lady. "If that Leonore
+should become too aggressive I wouldn't wonder if Peg would just use
+some muscle on her," and she nodded her head insistently.
+
+"We hate to have you go," murmured Cleo. She was going over to the
+shady spot where the black mare waited its rider. Miss Ramsdell drew
+on her gloves while the Scout led her horse up to a stone convenient
+for mounting.
+
+"We are so grateful and have enjoyed our little picnic so much," said
+the woman. "Good-bye, everyone, and perhaps before camp breaks we may
+be able to offer our own humble hospitality." With a slight effort she
+was in the saddle. Yes, it was perfectly evident that Miss Ramsdell
+was very much at home on her horse.
+
+"A one reel act," remarked Louise. "I shouldn't care to keep moving at
+the pace the Ramsdells run."
+
+"They surely fear trouble," said Julia. "What can they be so secretive
+about?"
+
+"Whatever it is I wouldn't like to be playing Leonore's part when Peg
+meets her," remarked Grace. "As her aunt said, she would likely use
+muscle on the intruder," and Grace demonstrated to the loss of a
+perfectly good half cup of lemonade that had been, until that moment,
+in the hand of Julia.
+
+"And was Shag really keeping guard?" questioned Helen, keen on the
+scent of trouble for someone else.
+
+"He was doing picket duty," replied Cleo. "It was too funny to see him
+snoop after Leonore's heels. And she was almost sweet to us. I fancy
+she thought we might take her part with Shag."
+
+"Girls, when you have finished your chow we will take up the trail
+again," suggested Miss Mackin. "There are some ores and metallic veins
+in rocks about here, I believe, and we may make some interesting
+discoveries."
+
+"Look out for the dynamite sign," warned Corene. "I wonder who ever
+planted those signs about?"
+
+"Where are they?" asked Miss Mackin.
+
+"Over by the Big Nose Rock," replied Louise. "We saw them the other
+day when we were riding."
+
+"And we thought the boys might have a bandits' cove under the hills,"
+added Cleo. "Let's go over that way and explore."
+
+Eagerly this suggestion was followed--so eagerly Corene and Miss Mackin
+had difficulty in obliging the girls to get rid of every trace of the
+picnic, thus conforming to a Scout regulation. But when the paper bags
+had all been burned up in a carefully arranged little fire, after
+which every ember and spark were extinguished, then they took up the
+trail for Big Nose Rock.
+
+They had some difficulty in cutting through from one hill to the next,
+as very heavy underbrush, especially the iron fibered mountain laurel,
+hid the rocks and betrayed the hikers' footing; but after a number of
+minor mishaps all disposed of by the process of exclamation, the
+Bobbies finally emerged in the little patch of soft green at the foot
+of the big gray rock.
+
+"I found the first one!" called out Helen. "Here's a dynamite sign!"
+
+"Don't touch it!" cautioned Miss Mackin. "There is a powder mill not
+far from here and there may be magazines about."
+
+"Magazines!" questioned Corene. They were all inspecting the danger
+sign half hidden in the grass.
+
+"Yes. You know they sometimes bury explosives under the ground. Then
+they build a little mound above it and call it a magazine."
+
+"No mounds around here," declared Julia, glancing critically over the
+flat surface between the hill and the springs.
+
+"But here's something," observed Cleo, who had wandered off a short
+distance. "Looks like pieces of gray stone." She stooped to pick up a
+sample and then hesitated. "See how they grow," she remarked, "in a
+sort of star."
+
+Her companions gathered around to observe the curious formation, and
+Miss Mackin came closer.
+
+"Those have been arranged that way," she said. "See, someone has
+placed the little flat stones in the shape of a star. The boys really
+must have been up here," she concluded.
+
+The girls dropped on their knees and peered closely. Brushing back the
+grass it was now quite evident that star had been carefully formed,
+but it was hidden in a little pocket of deep grass, between two slopes
+that curved up to the rocky hills.
+
+"And see how deep the pieces are buried," commented Corene. She was
+prying up a sample with a small sharp stick.
+
+"Some sort of clue, surely," insisted Grace. "What kind of stone is
+it?"
+
+"I wouldn't disturb it," suggested Miss Mackin. "Suppose we just mark
+the spot so we can find it again, if we want to?"
+
+"Yes, let's put one of the dynamite signs here," exclaimed Helen.
+
+"I wouldn't," interposed clever Cleo. "Perhaps the dynamite people
+don't know anything about the star clue. We might lead them to it."
+
+"But it's only a stone star," insisted Helen.
+
+"And it didn't grow there," argued Cleo.
+
+"Look!" exclaimed Corene, who was critically examining the tiny strip
+of stone she had pried loose. "There are some figures or something
+marked on this."
+
+Everyone now crowded around her to see the characters.
+
+"That is not Indian," declared Miss Mackin. "It looks as if it were
+burned in with acid."
+
+She was scrutinizing the little flat mosaic-like block. Yes, there
+seemed to be a mark there, but it might easily have been on the stone
+before the star idea originated.
+
+"I'm going to keep this piece, at any rate," declared Corene. "Maybe
+it's a real carved beetle, like the Egyptian Scarabus," she ventured.
+
+"Hardly," replied the director. "Yet it is interesting and yours,
+Corey, as you dug it up."
+
+"Then I'm going to have one also," cried Cleo, already on her knees
+before the broken star.
+
+"Count the pieces," suggested Louise, "and perhaps we can all have a
+piece."
+
+"Very well," agreed Miss Mackin, "but mark the spot well. It may have
+some significance."
+
+The girls were eagerly digging up the little granite pieces. As they
+turned each over they found it marked with characters similar to that
+found by Corene.
+
+"I know! I know!" exclaimed Julia. "I've read about this sort of
+marking. See, the straight lines. That's the rune."
+
+"Rune!" repeated Grace.
+
+"Yes, don't you know we read of it in our ancient history? A rune is a
+sort of alphabet of sixteen characters and all are formed in straight
+lines."
+
+"I remember," spoke up Cleo. "The letters look exactly like our signal
+code, for wig-wagging. Don't you know there were pictures of funny
+clothes-pins and jumping-jacks?"
+
+Not all were exactly clear in their memory of the runes, but each
+intended to look it up, and Miss Mackin was delighted that her girls
+had stumbled upon so interesting a discovery. Carefully collecting all
+the pieces the Bobbies next proceeded to mark the spot secretly, and
+it was this seemingly trifling detail that eventually led to the
+finding of the granite star clue.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+A CALL IN THE NIGHT
+
+
+Footsore and weary, but satisfied and happy, they finished the day of
+the carnival hike.
+
+"Let's all help with supper," suggested Louise, who was off duty on
+the K. P. (Kitchen Police) for that day. "Then we can all go down to
+the dock and see the excursion boat go out."
+
+"We are not hungry, a bit," replied Cleo, "but I suppose we must try
+to eat. Come on, girls, all join in this chorus. It will be lovely on
+the lake this wonderful evening."
+
+And so it proved to be. Never had the waters of Hocomo taken on a more
+gorgeous costume. Velvets, satins and silks, in every rainbow hue,
+were flung in reckless splendor of draperies over the great, soft
+surface of the water, by a sunset as prodigious as it was profligate.
+
+Among the parties leaving, one little tribe of excursionists stayed
+until the very last steamer insisted, with its thrill whistle, that
+they either come aboard or stay behind indefinitely.
+
+"If only we could stay," murmured one pale-faced girl. She was
+standing near the Bobbies, who were watching the city children embark.
+
+"Do you like it up here?" questioned Louise. She felt guilt in the
+banal query.
+
+"Oh, it's like--Paradise," said the wistful one. "But we'll be glad
+enough if the firemen in the city turn the hose in the gutter
+to-morrow to make a lake for us."
+
+Louise sighed. So many children like this one must stay in the city,
+she knew. Others equally sad and fully as wistful were reluctantly
+measuring each step of the little dock and gang-plank. How they hated
+to go back!
+
+"Oh, girls!" whispered Cleo. "Why don't we try to do something for a
+little band of that sort?"
+
+"What?" asked Grace.
+
+"We could lend them our camp," went on Cleo bravely. "We all have
+cottages here."
+
+"So we could, and there are two weeks yet before the general schools
+open," sang back Grace. "I would just love to let the most needy of a
+group like that have two weeks at Comalong."
+
+"So should I," declared Louise. "Let's try to do it."
+
+"There's the caretaker; get a name and address from her," suggested
+Julia hurriedly.
+
+"Better have Mackey do it," said Corene, who promptly sidled up to the
+director with the proposition.
+
+"I don't know," demurred Miss Mackin in answer, "but it won't do any
+harm to have a name and address." So she in turn stepped up to the
+director of the excursion party.
+
+The children, she learned, were from a tenement district, and were not
+technically sick, but oh, how pitifully near it!
+
+As each little victim passed along, the Bobbies' determination grew.
+
+They would be happy to surrender their beloved camp for such a human
+cause as this.
+
+One short hour later, around a friendly little campfire, the plans
+were made. Everything in the camp and the camp included would be
+turned over to the city troop (they should all be enrolled as Scouts
+before taking possession), and for the two weeks before school opened
+these slum children would come back to Paradise.
+
+"You must realize," explained Miss Mackin, "this will mean at least
+the complete sacrifice of your bedding. You may take these blankets,
+and we will ask headquarters to send us bed covering, but the cots----"
+
+"We will donate them to a mercy camp for next year," spoke up Julia.
+"I am sure the home folks will all be perfectly satisfied."
+
+"And it won't hurt our lovely flag," reasoned Louise. "Of course we
+will turn everything except our personal belongings over to the
+organization, at any rate."
+
+"Did you expect to make Comalong a regular summer Scout camp?" asked
+Miss Mackin.
+
+"Surely," replied Corene. "We were just experimenting at first, but
+now we know it will be a real practical camp for any amount of
+summers."
+
+"In that case," proposed Miss Mackin, "we will notify headquarters and
+have inventory taken at once. Are you perfectly sure you want to give
+up before the end of the month?"
+
+"Positive," insisted Louise. "I couldn't enjoy this a week longer and
+remember that little wistful, woeful-faced girl, who said she hoped
+the firemen would be allowed to make a gutter-lake in the city for
+them to-morrow."
+
+"Indeed, we couldn't," chimed in Corene. "And besides, just think what
+it will mean to give a real fresh air camp donation?"
+
+"Yes, nothing could be better," assented the director happily. "And as
+you all can go to your home cottages it doesn't seem quite so gigantic
+a sacrifice."
+
+"But camp is ideal," murmured Julia, putting one more small log on the
+dying embers; just enough to keep mosquitoes away.
+
+"Perfect," joined in Cleo, her voice dropping or dripping with regret.
+
+"That's the very reason we want to do this--to put a seal of a perfect
+summer on it all," declared Corene, who perhaps more than the others
+felt a really deep responsibility for that camp; from its very
+inception at the Essveay School, to its fullest day, that just closed
+on the carnival hike.
+
+So it was all agreed and settled. Camp Comalong was to be turned over
+to the city children and their Social Service caretakers, by the end
+of the week.
+
+Somehow it was a little saddening, however, and it was very evident
+that the Bobbies did not feel like singing the usual woodland Good
+Night, as they prepared for their sleep in the big canvas cradle under
+the stars.
+
+"Dreaming!" minds dimly awoke with that vague idea.
+
+"No, someone is calling," spoke Isabel, as if anyone had spoken
+before.
+
+They listened. Came a cautious call:
+
+"Girls! Bobbie! Grace!"
+
+"It's Peg," exclaimed a chorus, and with that realization each felt
+just a little bit guilty that the new ideas of the evening before had
+so obliterated the troubles of Peg from their Scout consideration.
+
+Bare feet instantly pattered on the bare boards. The night light was
+reached and turned up and the tent flap "unlocked."
+
+And there was Peg with her Aunt Carrie!
+
+"Oh, do come in," begged Miss Mackin, anxiously. "What has happened?"
+
+"Nothing," replied Peg a trifle cynically, "but we were afraid
+something might happen to these," she indicated a box she carried and
+also an armful of what seemed to be rolled cardboard.
+
+Quickly the girls made the night visitors welcome, and with skill
+acquired from a similar previous experience, they were now preparing
+to "double bunk."
+
+Miss Ramsdell (Aunt Carrie) sighed deeply and sank down with very
+evident relief.
+
+"I insisted that Peggie come down to you," she explained. "Ever since
+we got back from the hills yesterday afternoon, mysterious men have
+been prowling about our cottages," she explained.
+
+"Perhaps just to frighten us," added Peg. "At the same time these
+papers are so precious I was very glad to bring them down, if we don't
+upset you too much?"
+
+"We are simply delighted to have you come," said Corene, sincerely.
+"And we never could have induced you to if something like this had not
+happened."
+
+"But I wanted to come more than you can ever know," said the girl with
+the wonderful black eyes and the glossy crow-black hair. "You see, I
+was guarding daddy's treasures. When he went there was no one left but
+me, and I was to finish his life's work. I have been trying to do it."
+Her voice tapered to a whisper, and no one attempted to intrude upon
+it.
+
+Finally Aunt Carrie, from her grateful quarters, spoke:
+
+"Tell them, dear, about the patent," she said.
+
+"Let us make you comfortable first," suggested Cleo, considerately.
+"Here, Peg, this is where we keep our treasures. Do you want to put
+yours in here?"
+
+She opened a very small door in a packing case that was hidden beneath
+extra blankets and some clothing.
+
+"That's a splendid hiding place," replied Peg. "One would think it
+nothing more than a case of supplies. Yes, if I may, I'll put my
+things in there."
+
+First she lifted in the box, that plainly was heavy; then she placed
+upon it the roll of stiff paper.
+
+"Oh," she sighed wearily. "I believe if it had not been for Shag I
+should have lost these long ago."
+
+"I thought to-night, however," added Aunt Carrie, "that faithful Shag
+was in danger of being shot. That is one reason why I urged Peggie to
+come down."
+
+"Yes, I felt that way too," said the girl. "I heard a sniper's shot
+long after anyone would have been out hunting."
+
+"Where is Shag?" asked Julia.
+
+"Just outside our door here," replied Peg. "He won't leave until we
+do."
+
+"We are glad to have him also," said Miss Mackin. "We have not felt
+the need of a watchman with Officer Porter around, but to-night----"
+
+"We could not have ventured over the hill except for the officer's
+escort," said Aunt Carrie. "It was when we heard his whistle we
+decided to make a dash."
+
+"Yes, we have been having quite a night of it," put in Peg with a
+girlish laugh. "You should have seen us, like a couple of movie
+ladies, armed to the teeth and posted behind our strongest door! If we
+had not been in such serious danger I should have thought it a
+wonderful joke," and she laughed lightly at the memory.
+
+"Armed to the teeth!" repeated Grace hopefully.
+
+"Yes, indeedy; I had the best and biggest revolver, and auntie held to
+a shotgun, and when we made sure we were really in danger of being
+bombed or burglared or something, we just loaded up and stood guard
+until we heard the officer's whistle. It seemed ages," she finished
+seriously.
+
+"And haven't you even been to bed?" asked Julia, anxiously.
+
+"Oh, no, indeed. You see, that Leonore began this attack yesterday,
+after you saw her prowling around," explained Peg. "Her dad claims a
+right--a business right to what my dad discovered. That's why we have
+had to act so mysterious and live behind bolted doors," she added.
+"One glimpse of dad's drawings would spoil everything for us," she
+finished.
+
+"That's why!" exclaimed Grace; for in the simple statement had been
+disclosed the mystery of the hermit life of Peg and her Aunt Carrie.
+
+"Yes, my dear brother, Peggie's father, was confident the machine he
+invented would bring us great wealth, and besides this he had many
+land claims about here that he felt would bring valuable ores."
+
+"And _that's_ why you went to the hills so often," burst out Louise.
+"We wondered and wondered."
+
+"Yes, that's why," agreed Peg.
+
+"You don't think your robbers would follow you down here?" asked
+Isabel, not fearfully but rather confidently.
+
+"No, we have covered our tracks," said Peg. "They might see Shag----"
+
+"Bring him in," begged Cleo, who loved Shag or any other "nice dog"
+right next to her companions.
+
+"There isn't really any danger of them following us," said Peg.
+"Besides, we will have a couple of extra watchmen in the woods between
+now and morning. But I know Shag will just love to come in."
+
+So it happened the Bobbies had a company of three to billet--when
+finally Miss Mackin succeeded in inducing everyone "to quiet down and
+wait until morning" for the telling of the real story of Peg's fight
+to establish the rights her father had left her to struggle with.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+SHAG: THE ALARM CLOCK
+
+
+Daylight was just peeking through the little crack in the tent flap
+when Grace screamed:
+
+"Oh, my! For goodness' sake!" she yelled. "Someone, somebody,
+something, Shag wants to kiss my toesies!"
+
+The self starters sat up and looked around--the other groaned.
+
+Yes, there was Shag trying to make friends with anything that moved,
+and Grace must have unconsciously moved that foot.
+
+"What do you want, Shag?" she asked.
+
+The big, bushy tail whisked things around rather perilously in the
+narrow quarters.
+
+"Shag is an early riser," said Peg, trying to untangle herself from
+the things that held her on the rim of a cot. "He wants to run off and
+see what's going on outdoors." She patted her dog affectionately, then
+allowed him to run out, off over the hills to his own quarters.
+
+But the spell was broken. They were awake, those insatiable girls, and
+ready even now to talk to their visitor.
+
+Grace "whispered," but the sibilant swish of sounds seemed more
+resonant than an outspoken address might have.
+
+"Don't wake Aunt Carrie," she warned, although _she_ was the alarm
+clock going off at that very moment.
+
+"Don't wake Mackey," giggled Louise, after Mackey had thrown a leaky
+pine needle pillow at her head.
+
+"And just look at Izzy," begged Cleo. "She's soundproof--like our music
+room at school."
+
+"Go on, Peg. Tell us about it," implored Julia. "I dreamed of you and
+your shotgun all night."
+
+"I didn't have a shotgun, that was Auntie," replied Peg. "Mine was a
+real up-to-date revolver."
+
+"Oh, do tell us!" begged Helen, sitting up and shaking her
+spaniel-like mop of hair. It was bobbed, and curly, and altogether
+very pretty.
+
+"Did you shoot through the door, or was it through the window?"
+mumbled Cleo, determined to have some shooting in the landscape.
+
+Peg laughed merrily. Then she stretched without warning Corene, and
+the effect was accidental. When both girls got up from the floor, one
+from either side of the extension bed, and when it was finally
+conceded that everyone was awake and therefore the water-fall
+whispering was no longer necessary, "conversation was resumed,"
+according to Grace.
+
+"And we never could have induced you to come, Peg, if something didn't
+happen. Yet, from the first we all planned 'to get you,'" she
+finished, a tragic note taking care of that final ominous phrase.
+
+"I wanted to come more than you could possibly have wanted me to do
+so," said Peg, a trifle seriously. "But you have no idea what a
+complicated thing it is for a girl to try to do anything really worth
+while."
+
+"Oh, yes--we--have!" drawled Julia. "You should see me try to make a
+fire to cook breakfast on damp mornings."
+
+"Not that kind of thing, Julia," warned Grace, fearful that Peg would
+be diverted from her story.
+
+"And did men really try to break in your cottage?" asked Helen,
+sensation seething.
+
+"It's rather a long story," admitted Peg.
+
+"Go on and tell," begged Louise. "I don't think there is anything so
+comfy and cozy as story telling in bed," and she gave the blankets a
+premonitory swish that sent a pair of sneaks flying at her neighbor's
+head.
+
+"Of course, we don't want to intrude--that is, we don't want to appear
+curious about your private business," apologized Cleo, with a painful
+attempt at politeness.
+
+"I am just too glad to tell someone," replied Peg. "If you could ever
+know what it has been to be misjudged by everybody: to have people
+taunting you and to hear all sorts of foolish things said about you----"
+
+"But people up here admire you--very much," insisted Grace. "Old Pete,
+the boatman, told us how you rescued the man from the ice last
+winter."
+
+"Oh, that," replied Peg. "He wasn't really unconscious, and I had help
+to get him on Whirlwind. But you know how fine men are. They are
+generous and good-natured. Not like----"
+
+"Say it, Peg! Not like girls! That is what you are thinking and I just
+agree with you," spoke up Julia. "We saw how contemptible those flashy
+girls were from the very beginning."
+
+"Because they are the daughters of this man who has been claiming
+father's rights," replied Peg.
+
+Miss Mackin and Aunt Carrie were now talking in an undertone over in
+their end of the tent, so that the girls were quite free to carry on
+this disjointed conversation.
+
+"And what happened yesterday after you left the hike picnic?" asked
+Cleo.
+
+"When I got back to the cottage there was Leonore Fairbanks trying to
+make friends with Shag. If she could have gotten in the cottage, you
+see, she hoped to find the drawing and plans for the invention,"
+explained Peg. "Then parts of the machine also are hidden in our
+house, and if she could have obtained any single part of that machine
+the men might have been able to guess at its principle."
+
+"Oh, that was why you kept folks away from your house, was it?" asked
+Grace.
+
+"Yes. Daddy charged me to protect all that work of his until I could
+turn it over to his brother, my Uncle Edward. He has been abroad and I
+expect to hear any day that his steamer is in New York. What a relief
+that will be," she sighed.
+
+"What steamer is he on?" inquired Julia.
+
+"The Tourlander. He was in Egypt when daddy died and could not come
+until he finished his business there."
+
+"The Tourlander is the very steamer my Aunt Marie is on," said Julia,
+"and it was sighted yesterday. Daddy had a message; mother told me
+about it when we went for the mail."
+
+"Sighted! Oh, Aunt Carrie, did you hear? The Tourlander is coming in!
+It has been sighted!" Peg exclaimed gleefully.
+
+"Really, my dear!" and that message had an electrical effect on Miss
+Ramsdell. "If Uncle Edward is coming in we must be stirring. How
+strange it all seems? That I should sleep in a tent again! I have
+always loved camping, and since Peggie's mother died we spent quite a
+lot of time traveling about. You see," she explained to everyone, "my
+brother was a geologist, and at one time was employed by the
+government to sample ores. That was how he came to be interested in
+these hills. He insisted there were valuable zinc veins up here. Come,
+Peggie dear, I feel so anxious now. Won't it be splendid if your Uncle
+Edward comes just now when things seem to be so critical?"
+
+"We need him, Auntie mine," replied the girl, who was partially
+succeeding in freeing herself from the girls who vainly tried to hold
+her for a fuller story.
+
+"I'll tell it all to you, every single bit," she promised. "But we
+really must hurry back to the log cabin. Suppose we have been
+bombarded during the night? Then, what would we do for a house and
+home?"
+
+"Oh, we haven't told you we are going to give up camp," exclaimed
+Grace. "We really haven't had a chance to tell you anything, Peg."
+
+"Not when you insisted that I do all the talking," replied the other.
+"But why are you going to desert camp?"
+
+"In the interest of humanity," said Julia, solemnly. "We are going to
+give it to some children who need it more than we do."
+
+"Am I included?" asked Peg. She was almost dressed, and some of the
+girls were hurrying to be ready before she left for the hills.
+
+"You simply can't go without breakfast," insisted Miss Mackin. "We
+will have coffee ready in less than no time----"
+
+"But here is Shag, back," interrupted Peg. "What is it, boy? What's
+going on up there?"
+
+He wagged his tail and "smiled" and flipped his ears. The big collie
+tried to lead his young mistress to the outdoors, at least he moved
+that way himself and gave Peg a most appealing look from his big,
+soft, brown eyes.
+
+"We're coming," Peg answered him. "Girls, it is perfectly delightful
+for us to be at camp and I have been envying you this joy all summer,
+but if you will excuse us, we are so anxious to get back to our
+abandoned home----"
+
+"Are you going to leave your valuables in our safe?" asked Louise.
+
+"I would like to--if it wouldn't worry you too much----"
+
+"Not the least bit. In fact if you leave them we will feel sure of
+another call, and that's a big consideration," declared Corene.
+
+Peg laughed lightly. It was full bright daylight now, and the odor of
+dewy softness, the breath of things green, permeated camp and grounds
+surrounding.
+
+"Don't you want to be introduced to our bucket-brigade washroom?"
+asked Louise. "Come along; the line forms on this side," and she
+dragged Peg out under the runt oak, where a guest basin, turned upside
+down, made a safe pedestal for a twittering robin. He hopped off
+politely as the girls tip-toed up.
+
+"That's our Bobbie Robin," said Louise. "We have him almost trained to
+eat from a little table Julia erected for him. We place his breakfast
+there, and what bird wouldn't eat a fresh cereal even from a tiny
+table?"
+
+"Here comes our officer!" exclaimed Peg, as a cracking of leaves gave
+warning of approaching footsteps.
+
+"Good morning!" called out the man in blue. "All safe and sound down
+here?"
+
+"Perfectly," replied Peg. "Anything new on the hill?"
+
+"Not just this morning, but we had some trouble last night," said the
+officer. "You were right about the prowlers. We found a couple of
+railroaders hiding behind your barn."
+
+"Are the horses safe?" This query showed Peg's new alarm.
+
+"We made sure of that. I put Tim Morgan right in the cosy little room
+there, and Tim was grateful for the bunk. Also, no one could come near
+those horses with him on the scene."
+
+"I must hurry back," said Peg to Louise. Others of the girls were now
+moving about.
+
+"No need for worry," assured the officer. "These railroad men are the
+sort that walk the tracks, you know. They must have been hired to look
+over your place, but they're busy looking out of a very small window
+about now," and he waved his stick in the direction of Longleigh,
+where the little country lock-up was situated.
+
+Aunt Carrie was now out of the tent and ready to go back to the log
+cabin. She exchanged questions with the night watchman, and presently
+she was saying her thanks and her good-byes, also promising to return
+for a real camp meal just as soon as she and Peg could safely leave
+the cabin.
+
+"If my uncle comes I shall be as free as your Bobbie Robin," said Peg.
+"I intend to turn everything over to him; and what a joy that will
+be!"
+
+"Then you could come down here and help us wind up camp?" asked Cleo
+eagerly.
+
+"I suppose I could if----"
+
+"You must, my dear," insisted Miss Ramsdell. "You really must take a
+holiday."
+
+"But I am somewhat disappointed," said Peg, she was looking over the
+mist-veiled hills. "I hoped to have been able to follow out dear dad's
+advice----" She stopped suddenly, then shook herself free from the
+detaining arms, and promised again to come back to campfire that very
+night.
+
+"And tell us all about your blockade?" said Helen.
+
+"You mean stockade, Nellie," said Cleo. "But it is all the same in the
+glow of the campfire where all good stories get their magic touch."
+
+"Good-bye!"
+
+"Good-bye!"
+
+And then the guests from the hilltop left.
+
+For a few minutes the Bobbies stood, a little disappointed, but still
+expectant.
+
+"I should be afraid to go back to that place," remarked Isabel.
+
+"The officer is going to unlock and search first," said Cleo. "I
+wouldn't mind going along to see the fun."
+
+"Just imagine those two people standing ready with guns!" exclaimed
+Julia.
+
+"I wouldn't care to trust myself with a tempting little gun,"
+confessed Louise. "I have always thought what a temptation it must be
+to pull a trigger."
+
+"Like our Fourth of July pistols; so have I," admitted Isabel.
+
+"Girls, do you realize it is almost time for colors?" asked Miss
+Mackin. "Suppose we sing a cheery 'Good Morning' to get our brains
+cleared up from all the excitement?"
+
+Then the birds in tree and bush flew off, jealous of their woodland
+rights, for the Bobbies really could sing, at least sweetly.
+
+The colors were flying and a scent of coffee floated generously about,
+when two men on horseback came galloping along and drew rein at the
+foot of Comalong hill.
+
+"Hey, there, sissy!" called one, rudely. "Do you know where Peg is?
+The girl from the log cabin?"
+
+"Don't answer," warned Miss Mackin quickly. "If they want information,
+that is not the way to seek it," and she turned the girls back to the
+breakfast table where the "K. P.'s" were already busy serving.
+
+The next moment the riders galloped off, and the Scouts suspected
+correctly that one of the men was Francis Fairbanks.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE ROOM OF MYSTERY
+
+
+How things had changed! The new day stood out independent of its past
+and future. Peg had actually spent the night in the Bobbies' camp, and
+her treasure was now hidden in their packing-case safe.
+
+Also, dear Camp Comalong was fading away, or was it looming up large
+as a proposed Samaritan camp?
+
+Breakfast was not finished when Benny came pumping along on his wheel.
+
+"Folks got word about your aunt, Julia," he began after a very
+informal greeting, "and I came over to tell you your mother wants you
+to come home sure, day after to-morrow."
+
+"I'm going to, Ben," replied Julia. "My Aunt Marie is bringing me
+something from Paris. I'll be on hand to welcome her, never fear,"
+said the blonde girl archly.
+
+"We are going to give up camp, Ben," announced his own sister, Grace.
+"Won't you have a bun, or something else to eat?" she invited the boy,
+who stood with hands in pockets, plainly admiring the camp life
+freedom before him.
+
+"Going to give up?" he almost shouted. "Then can we fellows have it?"
+
+"Oh, Ben, perhaps you boys could have it after the next two weeks, but
+for that time we are going to sacrifice it for some very needy city
+children, who only get a breath of real air when they come up on an
+excursion," explained Grace.
+
+"Oh, a fresh air camp!" Benny's voice fell in disappointment.
+
+"Not just that kind," continued the sister, "but we saw some poor,
+little pale faces the other day, and we just couldn't stand their
+longing for a few days in the real country. So we are all going back
+to our cottages, and going to give up the Comalong for two weeks
+before school opens."
+
+"Then where would we fellows come in? Two weeks before school----"
+
+"Our schools don't open till later," explained Louise, "and you know,
+Benny, September is the most beautiful month to camp," she placated.
+
+"Every month is good enough," insisted the boy, "but of course, if
+you've promised." He was evidently not fired with the same sort of
+philanthropy that inspired the girls.
+
+"Come on, Benny, try our camp-made Johnny-cake," urged Louise. "Just
+think, we bake that right on top of that stone oven."
+
+"I don't want to think of it," growled the real boy. "I know what we
+Boy Scouts could do with this outfit."
+
+"Poor Ben," and Grace threw an arm around the brown-haired little
+fellow. "Never mind. I'm coming home and I'll make you as much fudge
+as every boy in your crowd will want to eat--at one sitting," she
+qualified.
+
+He was finally induced to sample the Johnny-cake, but when he left
+there was a defiance in his manner, akin to recklessness.
+
+"I don't care, anyhow," he prevaricated. "We're going to camp up on
+the hills next week," he flung back, jerking his wheel up in the air
+to start, as if it had been a pony with its bit too tight.
+
+"A busy day approach--eth," warned Corene. "We must have our trial swim
+this morning, you know."
+
+"Yes, and we have to go for the mail. It's my turn and yours, Weasy,"
+said Cleo.
+
+"And I've got to go around to all the cottages and give warning we are
+going to break camp, I suppose," said Julia. "I know the mothers will
+be glad to get the news, although they may not admit it."
+
+"And I'm going to take a run up to Peg's and see if she is all right,"
+declared Corene. "Maybe now that she won't go over the hills looking
+for that lost claim, she may take time to have a civilized swim with
+us."
+
+"She may; but then again she may not," interposed Cleo. "Don't you
+remember she said there was something she was disappointed about not
+being finished?"
+
+"Yes; we couldn't get all the story, there were so many
+interruptions," said Corene. "But wasn't she a wonderful girl to work
+so hard to follow out her father's ambitions?"
+
+"Yes, like a big, strong boy, she has been going up those hills daily.
+She didn't say just what she was looking for, did she?" asked Julia.
+
+"Zinc mine, wasn't it?" suggested Louise.
+
+"Something about ores," added Julia. "You know her Aunt Carrie said
+Mr. Ramsdell used to be a government geologist."
+
+"Yes," agreed Louise, vaguely. Geology meant stones, they all knew,
+and as for the ores--well, it didn't seem to be gold and to the
+indifferent ones no other metal seemed to suggest sensational
+developments just then.
+
+An hour later they were in the lake, trying out their contest stunts.
+Corene did not succeed in inducing Peg to accompany them, as the
+excitement around the log cabin was still in evidence. Even the
+officer sort of "hung 'round," to "keep an eye on things," and when
+Corene made her flying trip up there she found Peg so busy that good
+sense forbade the Scout delaying her.
+
+The swim over, next came the delivery of all those homemade messages.
+Hither and thither scouted the Scouts, until lunch time was pointed
+out by the faithful little sun dial, and that was not a point to be
+overlooked.
+
+Only two days remained now until the week would be closed. Then would
+come the excitement of breaking camp.
+
+Miss Mackin had already notified headquarters of the Bobolinks'
+determination, and to-day a visitor was expected to take inventory.
+
+It was all delightfully thrilling. In spite of the natural regret that
+accompanied this sacrifice, there was also that joy of satisfaction
+that always comes with the doing of a real heroic act. Every
+girl-Bobbie of them felt it her own personal privilege to invite those
+city youngsters out to Lake Hocomo, and likewise each felt the elation
+of "doing a big thing."
+
+"I wonder when Peg will come back for her valuables?" mused Grace.
+They were "slicking" up the grounds for the day's inspection--someone
+always came by and looked in on pleasant mornings.
+
+As if the expressed thought had ticked off a message, scarcely had
+Grace uttered it than Peg and Shag came racing over the hills.
+
+"Here she comes!" sang out the impetuous Helen.
+
+"Oh, say, girls!" Peg called on ahead of herself. "Don't you want to
+come up and see my cabin?"
+
+"Do we?" The enthusiasm of Cleo's tone was pure compliment.
+
+"Just wait until we get these papers in the incinerator," panted
+Julia. "We will all be off duty then and glad to go up to your cabin."
+
+Everyone felt that way, which was evinced by the unusual haste made in
+the slicking-up process.
+
+Peg looked like a different girl! She had discarded the mountaineer's
+costume and wore a simple white dress. The effect was startling. All
+that severity of outline had vanished. Even the slick black hair
+seemed to turn up just a little--perhaps with the heat or was it from
+excitement?
+
+The girls were surprised but hid the fact completely. With a word to
+Miss Mackin--who like the others was hurrying, although her task was to
+finish a very pretty basket for her mother--they all raced off with Peg
+and Shag. The big dog was frantic with delight. It was very evident he
+had taken a real liking to the little Scouts.
+
+"You will have to overlook some things," warned Peg, as they neared
+the bungalow, "for although auntie is a crackerjack housekeeper she
+has me to battle against."
+
+Awe, the concomitant of enthusiasm, possessed the girls as they stood
+on the threshold of that mystery house. As Peg ushered them in,
+however, each expressed surprise.
+
+"What a duck of a room!" cried Grace.
+
+"Isn't it?" agreed Corene.
+
+They were surveying a very quaintly arranged room, indeed. The low
+beamed ceilings were of natural rough cedar, the field-stone fireplace
+stood out like a primitive shrine, and on the floors were the most
+wonderful Indian rugs.
+
+"We brought those rugs from the West," Peg explained, noting the
+girls' admiration. "But I want to show you--my studio."
+
+She unlocked a door and ushered the visitors into a very long darkened
+room. When all were within, she swung the door back, shot a bolt and
+switched on lights.
+
+"Oh, a shop!" exclaimed Isabel.
+
+"That's just what it is," answered Peg. "This was dad's shop and I
+have been tinkering here since he left it to me. I miss him
+dreadfully, for dad and I were great pals," she said bravely.
+
+"And this is the machinery you have been guarding?" said Louise, just
+daring to put one finger on a long piece of steel that did not go off
+following the contact.
+
+"Yes," said Peg. "You see, even now I would not leave that door
+unlocked, and we have never kept a servant since dad started this
+invention. It is a machine for drilling rock; it will pick up certain
+kinds of minerals and is most valuable because it can be worked
+without steam power. Dad had not quite finished it, but he was
+positive of its value, and a single look at the simple mechanism, he
+warned me, would easily betray its principle to any skilled mechanic.
+That is why the windows are boarded. See," she went to a window and
+raised a shade, "I can get light from those slanted boards," she
+explained, "but no one could possibly see into this room. We have a
+tank that makes our own gas. Daddy was very ingenious," she finished,
+coming back to the machine from which she had taken a heavy blanket
+covering.
+
+The Scouts looked about, bewildered. What could a girl do, really,
+with iron and steel, and leather belts!
+
+"And how did your father get these parts made?" asked Julia. She knew
+something of machinery, as her own father was a manufacturer.
+
+"Dad made the patterns, in wood, you know, then he had them cast in
+the city. He assembled the parts himself, of course. I have never
+allowed an eye to rest on this," she declared, "for to me it is all
+something sacred. When Uncle Edward comes he will only have to finish
+the negotiations with the patent office and ship them this model. It
+is not so big--that is one of its great attractions." She seemed to
+fondle the queer-looking machine, which was, as she said, not very
+large; it could all be put in a crate the size of a packing case.
+
+"And men came last night to break in just to see this?" It was
+incredible, Louise thought.
+
+"Yes, but there is more than the machine you see," said Peg. "There
+are the drawings, and samples of ore and--other things. I have those in
+your safe you know," finished Peg.
+
+"It is dear of you to trust us with all this----" began Julia.
+
+"I wanted to do it, you have been so splendid to me," declared the
+black-haired girl. "And I must have seemed so--bitter!"
+
+"No, just mysterious, and that made you fascinating," declared Grace,
+giving Peg a counterfeit hug.
+
+"But how did you do any of this sort of work?" pressed Corene, still
+looking at the formidable machine.
+
+"I have a hand drill, and every single day I spend some time just as
+dad did, collecting specimens. You see, I am looking for zinc."
+
+"What does it look like?" asked Cleo.
+
+"It is a little, bluish white vein. I have pieces in my box. I'll show
+them to you perhaps this evening," offered Peg.
+
+"And two men called up to the tent just after you left this morning,"
+remarked Cleo. "They yelled 'sissy' and we didn't answer them."
+
+"Were they riding?" asked Peg.
+
+"Yes. Two big capitalistic looking gents," said Corene. She was still
+fascinated with the ore drill, for Corene had a manual training turn
+of mind.
+
+"Mr. Fairbanks and his New York partner," explained Peg. "They came up
+here with all sorts of threats, if I didn't let them see dad's papers.
+But when I told them the Tourlander was coming in port--as you told me,
+you know--they didn't seem quite so--fierce. Big men like Fairbanks are
+always cowards," declared Peg, with a pardonable sneer.
+
+"Did they see your guns?" joked Louise, looking about for a possible
+glimpse of the weapons.
+
+"Didn't get a chance. I just met them outside the hedge, and they
+didn't even leave their horses."
+
+A long low bench stood under the window with the inverted blind. One
+by one the girls slid into place on it, like a band of little
+kindergartners.
+
+"I have always longed to see a real factory," ventured Cleo. "I should
+love to hear your buzz, Peg."
+
+The "manager" stepped over to a small machine and pressed her foot
+upon it. The buzz promptly responded.
+
+"Oh, let me try it! What will it do?" exclaimed Corene from the
+admiring group now surrounding the buzzer.
+
+"It will grind anything. See, it is run by a motor," explained Peg.
+
+"Wonder would it cut Corene's hair, nice and even," teased Cleo. "I've
+heard that very self same tune in barber shops."
+
+"But where do you get your electricity from?" pressed Julia, the
+intelligent.
+
+"There are a few poles in the hills and dad had one tapped for his own
+use," replied Peg. "You know the big hotel is wired."
+
+"If we had known it we might have had a pole tapped for Comalong use,"
+put in Grace, facetiously. "I've had an awful time doing my hair at
+the beach-tree dressing table. Just think what a spot-light would have
+done for us."
+
+Corene was grinding the point of her belt buckle on the revolving
+emery wheel; Cleo was examining some outlines and drawings tacked to a
+drawing board, while the attention of Louise was riveted upon a line
+of tools set in graduated order upon a convenient shelf, as neatly
+placed as the kitchen knives, spoons and ladles in her mother's
+orderly pantry at home.
+
+"Peg," said Corene, trying the buckle's point in her blouse, "couldn't
+we open a little factory here and sharpen knives and forks for the
+campers? We might fix umbrellas too. I've seen the grind men do it at
+this sort of buzzer."
+
+Peg laughed happily at the girl's humor. "You don't know how good it
+seems to hear real, human words in this room again," she said after an
+emphatic pause. "Auntie has been so afraid of everything that I
+suppose I've inhaled the air of fear, unconsciously."
+
+"I think Corey's idea perfectly spiffing," added Cleo. She was looking
+for something to sharpen on the wheel.
+
+"You mean spoofing, Clee," insisted Grace. "If you will read trash why
+don't you do it with a pad and pencil?"
+
+"But all joking aside, girls, can't you imagine what all this really
+means? I think Peg is the bravest girl we have ever met," Corene
+declared heartily.
+
+"Oh, much," added Grace, with a side step not indicated in the factory
+recreational programme. "Can't we do something to testify to our
+esteem? You know, the little 'token of' business."
+
+"Kindly keep your skirts away from my wheel," ordered Corene, still
+grinding, "or you may get a most unexpected 'token of' around the
+ankles."
+
+"Your dad was a wonderful draftsman, Peg," commented Cleo, with her
+newly trained eye tracing the intricacies of the drawing board. "I
+never could learn to follow such fine lines and measurements."
+
+"They wouldn't look well on your nut-bowl or your candle-sticks,
+Clee," remarked Louise. "Better stick to the school designs; they're
+simpler."
+
+"This is all very lovely, and more absorbing than the mechanical
+display at the State fair," put in Julia, "but you know, girls, Peg
+hasn't really hired us yet."
+
+A tap at the door interrupted.
+
+"Peg," called Miss Ramsdell. "Here's a message."
+
+Quickly opening the door, the girl accepted from the aunt the yellow
+paper, but there was no need to read its simple statement, for the
+joyous face of Aunt Carrie gave out the good tidings. Still Peg read
+aloud:
+
+  "Arrive to-morrow (Saturday), will go at once to you at Lake Hocomo.
+
+           "Edward Ramsdell."
+
+"Joy! Joy!" Peg cried. "Really coming, oh, girls! Now I can have some
+fun helping you break camp! Isn't it splendid!"
+
+"That's a promise, remember, positively," insisted Julia, as they
+prepared to leave. "Bring Miss Ramsdell and Shag. Remember, we expect
+you pos--i--tive--ly."
+
+Then the door was locked from the outside, on the precious invention
+of Peg's departed father.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+A SURPRISE INDEED
+
+
+The girls were deliciously excited. Uncovering the mystery of Peg's
+cabin lent no end of possibilities, not the least of which was the
+hope of having this girl of the hills unite with their own activities
+at last.
+
+"Will somebody kindly drape that sun dial and hold back on time a
+little?" asked Corene. "However are we going to cram things into a few
+meager hours this fateful day?"
+
+"When things crowd to the point of congestion," declared Julia, "they
+simply have to be omitted. I move to omit everything omittable."
+
+"And I tally the motion," chirped Grace. "It saves time to tally
+instead of adding to."
+
+"If you will all kindly line up for chow," suggested Louise. "I don't
+see any nor scent any, but some should be about. There goes the twelve
+o'clock boat."
+
+"Comes, you mean," corrected Isabel. "It's steaming into our dock."
+
+"Company, and on moving day!" exclaimed Julia, dancing around in
+shameless joy. "There comes the old Hawk soaring in, sure enough."
+
+A couple of toots and a few squawks from the smoke-stack of the Hawk
+(or thereabouts) and the steamer glided in majestically, unmindful of
+the coming bump.
+
+"Kids, Kidlets, and Kiddies!" exclaimed Cleo, as through the trees the
+dock could be seen fairly crawling with youngsters.
+
+Miss Mackin had joined the ranks of the spectators. "Looks like our
+fresh air camp," she gasped.
+
+"Allow me to do the honors," orated Isabel. "That motley throng
+reminds me of my last birthday party. They're all broke out in
+bundles."
+
+"Wait; they may not be coming here," interrupted Julia. "Why couldn't
+some other camp have company?"
+
+"Because it's our last day of surprises," Cleo said, springing to a
+tree stump for a better view of the dock. "That contingent is headed
+this way. Let's prepare."
+
+But surprise akin to astonishment was the only preparation noticeable.
+New gasps and exclamations were plentifully in evidence, and the
+omissions mentioned as within the rules of too full a day were now
+very definitely settled upon, for even the noon-day meal was falling
+in arrears.
+
+"Yep, here they come!" announced Julia solemnly.
+
+"And the leader! Can it be a delegation from some orphanage?" asked
+Helen.
+
+"It can and perhaps is," remarked Cleo. "They all carry the same
+shaped bundles. They're evidently not homemade."
+
+There could be no mistake now; the parade was marching up Comalong
+path. Miss Mackin patted her hair and the others made motions at their
+ear puffs.
+
+"If we only had some grub," whispered Julia.
+
+"There's the cakes of wheat if they haven't grown mossy," replied
+Cleo. "We'll get Corey to toast them."
+
+"Mossy!" repeated Isabel. "That box has whiskers. I looked at it this
+morning."
+
+"Are we right?" came a voice from the advance guard of the procession.
+"Is this Camp Comalong?"
+
+"Yes," replied Miss Mackin with a tempered smile.
+
+"Oh, I'm so glad. The boatman was not sure. And the children hoped
+this was the place; the trees looked so beautifully green."
+
+The speaker was leader of the influx; a prim, middle-aged woman whose
+sincerity of soul shown through two sparkling brown eyes. It was very
+obvious this leader loved her task.
+
+An awkward pause followed her remarks. Even Miss Mackin seemed at a
+loss for a suitable reply.
+
+"You got our message, didn't you?" asked the brown-eyed woman,
+suddenly. Her charges were breaking ranks at all points.
+
+"Why, no," stammered Mackey. "Was there a message?"
+
+"Oh, you didn't really! Then you were not expecting us?"
+
+Her voice wailed disappointment. All those eager little children and
+not expected!
+
+"Messages are uncertain in the camps," spoke Mackey promptly, getting
+herself in hand, as it were, and sensing catastrophe unless prompt
+measures intervened. "But you are welcomed, I'm sure. These are the
+members of Camp Comalong, the Bobolinks," with a wave toward her
+amazed constituents. "We will do all we can to show you around."
+
+Grace choked on a giggle. Show them around when they were probably
+famished for food!
+
+"I am so sorry," murmured the little woman. "You see we heard you were
+giving up camp and going to turn it over to the needy children. We had
+planned an excursion, and the beaches are so rough and crowded, we
+just ventured to take a trip up here. The sail was delightful and--of
+course we have brought our lunches."
+
+The sigh of relief that travelled the rounds of the Bobbies amounted
+to a secret moan of joy.
+
+They had brought their lunches!
+
+Instantly the girls fell to welcoming the excursionists, but the
+children so quickly melted into the scenery that only by the promptest
+of efforts were the Bobbies able to reclaim the merest fringe of the
+disorganized parade. How those children ran and stumbled and fell over
+friendly bushes!
+
+How they called and shouted! Could there really be hidden in the camp
+grounds all the treasures now being simultaneously announced?
+
+"Look-it! I've got a black-berry!"
+
+"I've got a chestnut!" (It was a last year's acorn.)
+
+"I--found--a--mush--a--room!" This last cry reached the ears of Corene, who
+quickly set after the mushroom hunters. There should be no sudden
+deaths from toad-stool poisoning at Camp Comalong.
+
+Cleo and Grace had captured a girl with her chubby little brother. On
+account of the brother and his chubbiness they were more easily
+overtaken than the others. Louise and Isabel were trying to keep a
+party of four from wading in the spring, while Julia was
+panic-stricken at the food famine outlook. Miss Mackin talked to the
+strange leader, who proved to be Miss Rachel Brooks, of the Beacon
+Mission Settlement.
+
+"I shouldn't have come upon you this way for the world," Miss Brooks
+insisted. "But I have been promising my children a picnic all summer,
+and they have to work so hard--those little girls. Vacation usually
+means harder work for such as they, for when school is dismissed the
+home work begins," she declared, with a show of indignation.
+
+"That's quite true," agreed Miss Mackin, "and I often think it is a
+pity that our child-labor laws do not include a continuous home
+survey. But again: what about the tired mothers these little daughters
+help?"
+
+"True, true; just a circle of trouble for them, no matter how we try
+to help. So when I heard that a troop of Girl Scouts were going to
+give up their camp for city children----"
+
+"How did you hear it?"
+
+"At a conference of case workers the other day. You know we meet twice
+weekly to discuss our problems, and to try to keep our families out of
+court. I managed to get clothes from the Emergency Committee, so that
+quite a few children who were promised this trip could come along. But
+they must eat their lunches now. They are surely famished," declared
+Miss Brooks. "Will it be all right for me to take them over to that
+little knoll, and let them open their boxes?"
+
+"We will be glad to fix our camp table for them," offered Miss Mackin
+with qualms of conscience, for were not the Bobbies also starving by
+now?
+
+"I wouldn't hear of taking your table; thank you just the same,"
+replied the stranger. "Besides, you know how they feel about eating in
+the grass, like gypsies. They have been planning that particular joy
+for a long time. Sadie!" she called. "Stella! Margie!" She clapped her
+hands, we might say skillfully, for every clap echoed itself with a
+resonance peculiar to actual skilled practice.
+
+The girls called rounded up promptly. What a flock there was of them,
+and how they grazed like strange cattle in new found, verdant
+pastures!
+
+And it was remarkable how these youngsters clung to their lunch boxes,
+and gathered flowers or treasures at the same time.
+
+"You see," Miss Brooks went on, "we have a cooking class. It's a very
+small and humble attempt, but the children love it and we made most of
+our supplies for to-day's party. At the suggestion of these older
+girls, I think Stella really proposed it, we made an extra supply and
+brought a box to--the Girl Scouts, if they will accept it."
+
+Cleo and Grace were near enough to hear the offer, and that they
+concealed their joy was due as much to good luck as to good manners,
+for how dreadfully hungry they really were? What a big day this was
+growing to be!
+
+"Lovely," said Miss Mackin archly. "Are you sure you can spare all
+this?" The girls were offering box after box, and, like flies
+attracted to the sweeter things, the Bobbies were hemming in.
+
+"Yes'm," said black-eyed Stella slyly. "And Zenta Nogrow has a big box
+of nut cookies."
+
+"Nut cookies!" repeated Corene, unable to comprehend the sudden
+blessing. "How could you go to all that trouble?"
+
+"'Tweren't any trouble. A lady from up town brought the nuts. Edna,
+where is Zenta?"
+
+"I'll get her," offered Edna, a blonde with skin like a flower in
+spite of unfavorable environment.
+
+Miss Brooks was clapping her hands again, and the visitors were
+following "the big girls" over to the little knoll under the pine
+trees. Julia and Isabel were making the Scouts' table ready, while
+Louise and Corene went to introduce the spring, and to offer a good
+supply of extra drinking cups.
+
+Miss Mackin was urging Miss Brooks to take her lunch at the table
+under the trees.
+
+"You won't think me ungrateful," replied the visitor, "but you see,
+the children like to have me with them. They will fairly swamp me with
+questions about the woodland beauties. I would love to have you join
+us, however," she invited Miss Mackin.
+
+"Then _we_ would be without a leader," put in Cleo, swinging a free
+arm around Miss Mackin.
+
+"Exactly, I understand. How good it is to be beloved," said the
+serious little woman with the brown eyes, that sparkled latent
+possibilities.
+
+Healthy hunger was driving all the human animals to food now, and the
+"drive" included the Bobbies, as well as the children from the Beacon
+Settlement.
+
+Quickly boxes and little bundles were untied and unwrapped, and even
+at a distance the excursionists could be seen literally devouring the
+"basket lunch," only there were really no baskets. True, a little
+Italian girl carried her food in a handmade straw bag that might be
+called a basket, while a Russian displayed a quaint braided affair
+from the Homelands; but boxes and bags, American in make, were mostly
+in evidence.
+
+At the Scout table the overdue meal was being greatly relished.
+
+"How long are they going to stay?" ventured Grace. The question shot
+repeaters from all eyes around the festive board, for while the picnic
+interruption was all right as far as it went, it would never do to
+have those babes interfere with the evening's programme. That was to
+feature Peg's story in every last absorbing detail, and they were all
+eager to hear it.
+
+"Yes," repeated Cleo, looking straight at Miss Mackin. "How long are
+they going to stay?"
+
+"I don't know," replied Mackey, evasively.
+
+"Didn't they say, the leader I mean?" pressed Louise, losing a choice
+bit of cookie in her anxiety.
+
+"No, not a mention of it."
+
+"You don't suppose they expect to camp here to-night!" Corene almost
+gasped.
+
+"You see, it is known our camp is to be given over, and these clever
+little people have taken first chance. We have got to be good to
+them," insisted Miss Mackin slyly.
+
+Everyone stopped eating and sat up aggressively.
+
+"But our camp wouldn't hold a picnic, at any rate," spoke Grace
+pertly.
+
+"Oh, these children would be happy under the trees all day and
+satisfied to crawl under cover out of storms," Miss Mackin's eyes were
+dancing now and Cleo caught "their step."
+
+"You're a fraud, Mackey Mackin!" she declared, tossing a bit of
+cracker at the leader. "You are just trying to scare us out of our big
+night. Why, only the most urgent business has kept Peg away from us
+all this time, and as for us--we are compelled to wait," this last in
+tragic tones.
+
+"Just look over at those youngsters rolling down hill," interrupted
+Mackey. "If you'll excuse me, girls, I'll go over and be polite."
+
+"Take care you don't get caught in the avalanche. Just look at the
+tidal wave!" said Julia.
+
+"Rather keep your eyes on this table," ordered Corene. "Don't one of
+you dare bolt for the hill; not even if a couple of kiddies get caught
+in the thickets. I know you girls. Here Clee, carry these things to
+the kitchen. At least we must leave camp in good order."
+
+"And the time draweth near," moaned Louise. "We know now what things
+will look like when we are gon-n-n-ne!"
+
+"We will be gone for a long, long time!" intoned Julia, and the war
+time refrain was promptly executed--all of that!
+
+"Here they come! Mercy on us!" exclaimed Grace. "The children are
+descending from the hillsides!" She grabbed up the food fragments from
+the table and hurried to hide them in their tin boxes.
+
+"We must tell them how we enjoyed their cakes," said Corene. "They are
+after a report, I'm sure."
+
+"We can't tell them!" gasped Cleo, "for their settlement-made cookies
+simply saved our lives." She moaned and groaned at the thought of the
+perilous escape.
+
+"They were good!" declared Louise, raising her voice as the strangers
+came shyly along the little summer-worn path.
+
+"Come and give them a wade," proposed Julia.
+
+"Wade!" almost shrieked Grace. "They would strike right out for the
+West shore. As you value their precious lives don't mention it again,
+Jule." And she didn't.
+
+But there were other joys, many of them for the little party of
+settlement children. They explored the woods, wondered at the big lake
+(Miss Brooks would not allow one to enter a boat), then there was a
+final treat of a good time on the merry-go-round at the Point, and
+finally the Hawk tooted its whistle for them to go back to the
+railroad station.
+
+It was not easy to gather them together for the embarkation, but Miss
+Brooks was so grateful and happy; every Bobolink felt it her special
+duty to help the children get aboard the old-fashioned steamer.
+
+And it must be admitted there was a secret motive in the alacrity so
+evident, for the unexpected picnic had somewhat spoiled the
+afternoon's plans for the Girl Scouts.
+
+"Let's go around by the big log cabin and tell Peg all about it,"
+suggested Isabel. "Then we won't have to spoil our plans for to-night
+with the picnic interruption."
+
+"That's a good idea!" chortled Grace. "Come right along and talk it
+out, every word of it. We did enjoy the youngsters, but oh, boy! for
+that final big story!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+PEG OF TAMARACK HILLS
+
+
+The evening was cool and daylight lingered. True to her promise, Peg
+with Aunt Carrie came again to visit Camp Comalong.
+
+"I have the fire all ready to start," announced Julia, "but it is too
+early yet. Girls, do you realize I have been official fireman all
+summer?"
+
+"But you wouldn't allow us to interfere, wanted to be fireman,
+engineer and all that," said Cleo.
+
+"Yes, you claimed we would waste matches," chimed in Corene.
+
+"Do you notice we are all in uniform to-night?" said Louise. "Peg,
+yours is almost like ours."
+
+"Yes, I have worn a Scout uniform, since--Girls," she said suddenly. "I
+never told you, but I am a Scout myself!"
+
+"You are?" in chorus.
+
+"Yes. I joined in Pittsburg. But when I found myself sort of buried in
+this mineral work it would be useless for me to talk or even think of
+Scouting. That was why I didn't mention it."
+
+"And I wanted the child, so much, to go in for all your lovely times,"
+murmured Miss Ramsdell. "But there was no use. She would stick to her
+work."
+
+"And just think, after all, I never found the clue I searched for!"
+Peg's face now looked more boyish than ever, for it took on that
+seriously determined look usually foreign to the feminine.
+
+"What was it?" asked Louise.
+
+"Wait, I'll get my box and show you," offered Peg; and Cleo went to
+the "safe" with her to get out the square japanned box. They returned
+to the council almost immediately. Then Peg took from the box a number
+of stones.
+
+"See," she said to her audience, "you asked me what zinc looked like.
+Here are some pieces."
+
+The Scouts examined the specimens and passed them from one to another.
+
+"And are they found around here?" asked Miss Mackin.
+
+"Yes; dad found some and I found others. That is what I have been
+searching for with my little hand-drill. Don't you remember you saw me
+on the big rock the day of your picnic?" asked Peg.
+
+"Yes, we thought you were digging gold," joked Corene. "But I suppose
+zinc is quite as valuable."
+
+"Indeed, it is, if we could only find the lost vein," went on Peg.
+"The men you have seen prowling around here are hired by Mr.
+Fairbanks. But if they had discovered the ore on daddy's claim I
+should have fought them for it," declared the plucky girl,
+emphatically.
+
+She was taking out from the box stone after stone.
+
+"See this," she said, holding up a flat, gray piece. "This is the
+clue. See those marks?"
+
+Instantly the same thought flashed through the minds of the Scouts.
+
+The Star Clue!
+
+"We found pieces like that!" gasped Cleo.
+
+"You--found them!"
+
+"Yes, up by the big rock!" Every word spoken now seemed electrically
+charged. It was Grace who said this.
+
+"Wait! Wait!" begged Corene. "I'll get ours," and she dashed into the
+tent to drag from the "safe" the Scout's own treasures. Then she laid
+the granite pieces on Peg's lap.
+
+"Oh!" almost screamed the girl. "Do you know what this means! Auntie,
+they have found the lost star!"
+
+Everyone was talking now, and no one seemed to say anything
+intelligible; exclamations and sudden bursts of half formed sentences
+fairly puncturing the calm evening atmosphere. Peg was almost
+overcome, but being a real girl she was not given to such heroics.
+
+"It all formed the cutest little star," exclaimed Julia, finally. "We
+marked the spot so we can't possibly lose it. We will take you right
+to it to-morrow morning," she offered sincerely.
+
+"I don't know how I shall wait, but I'll have to, of course," said
+Peg. "You see, daddy put that star there the very day he was taken
+ill, and no matter how he tried to direct me I never could locate it."
+
+"But your dear father could hardly tell you anything, darling," said
+Miss Ramsdell. "He was not with us long after that."
+
+"However did you come to discover it?" asked Peg, who was piecing
+together the magic stones that formed the star.
+
+"We were following the danger--dynamite signs," said Cleo. "Have you
+seen them?"
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed," replied the visitor. "They were put there by the
+Fairbanks men to frighten me off. At first I did steer clear of them,
+but after kicking a few over and then watching the men plant them, I
+saw they were perfectly harmless," declared Peg.
+
+"We did that too, kicked them over, I mean," said Julia. "And did they
+do that just to frighten you?"
+
+"That and much more. But was there a sign near the star?"
+
+"No; quite some distance from it," replied Corene, "and it was just
+buried in a little soft pocket."
+
+"That's just what dad said!" exclaimed Peg. "Don't you know, auntie?
+He kept saying 'by Big Nose in a little green pocket.'"
+
+"Yes? Strange that we should happen to use the same expression," put
+in Julia.
+
+"And what does it all mean?" pressed the fascinated Isabel.
+
+"It means that below that mark there is a vein of zinc. It runs from
+the rock, and dad was ready to bore for it just there," declared Peg.
+
+The sunset was pouring out its glory and the streams of color cut
+through the trees to beautify the little council group of Girl Scouts.
+Aunt Carrie told them of the perseverance of her niece, who had
+devoted all her girlish energy to fulfilling her father's cherished
+plans.
+
+"You see, we came up here to follow out my brother's ideas," said the
+little lady. Julia was now slipping away to light her campfire. "We
+have traveled a great deal, and followed many trails, but this one
+discovered in Tamarack Hills offered the biggest prize."
+
+"And just when everything was brightest, daddy had to go," put in Peg.
+"I am sure no one could blame me for seeming queer when I was duty
+bound to take up his unfinished work."
+
+"Only the thoughtless could ever have questioned your purpose," said
+Miss Mackin. "You see how eager our girls were to get acquainted with
+you."
+
+"Yes--_your_ girls," emphasized Peg.
+
+"Those other two fright-freaks were simply jealous," declared Grace
+warmly. "They must have been furious that a girl like you could get
+the best of their big upholstered father."
+
+Everyone laughed at this description. Mr. Fairbanks really was sort of
+tufted and overstuffed.
+
+"But I simply cannot believe you have found that vein mark that I have
+searched months for," repeated Peg. "I don't see how I shall ever wait
+to go up there. And to think Uncle Edward will be here to-morrow."
+
+"And that you will both stay with us again to-night!" broke in Julia.
+
+"You really couldn't separate those stone pieces, you know," said
+Cleo. "You will need all those queer markings to follow out your clue
+with."
+
+"Yes, I could show those selfsame marks on a drawing that stone was
+marked from. The lines are eaten in with acid," explained the visitor
+seriously.
+
+"We thought they were made by acid; that is, Mackey did; don't you
+remember, girls?" asked Louise.
+
+The campfire blazed merrily now and the insistence that Peg and her
+aunt remain overnight finally was agreed to.
+
+"Put the treasures away," suggested Cleo, "and let us sing 'Scouts
+Every One.' We are going to have such a glorious evening!"
+
+"And yet," said Miss Ramsdell, "my niece tells me you are giving up
+camp?"
+
+"Yes, we felt it was so much needed by some city children," replied
+Corene, "and we really have had a lovely summer. You see, we all have
+cottages up here, and can stay till the last boat makes the last trip
+of the season."
+
+"Oh, no, we can't," corrected Isabel. "We all have to be back
+September fifteenth in dear old Essveay, you know."
+
+"Right, Izzy," said Corene. "I was just trying to fool myself. Here's
+Clee, all ready for her song. Get your uke, Louise."
+
+Stars flickered and breezes hummed in with the girls' song; for what
+in life is half so sweet as the joy of a peaceful campfire?
+
+And the very next day the star pieces were traced in their mysterious
+markings, the maps and outlines were matched up and the great zinc
+vein was finally uncovered by trustworthy hands.
+
+All they hoped for was finally fully realized, and Peg's labors were
+not in vain.
+
+Leave our little friends here, content and happy until we meet them
+again in the next volume of this series, to be called "The Girl Scouts
+at Rocky Ledge."
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+THE GIRL SCOUT SERIES
+
+By LILIAN GARIS
+
+Cloth. 12mo. Frontispiece.
+
+    THE GIRL SCOUT PIONEERS,
+      Or, Winning the First B. C.
+
+    THE GIRL SCOUTS AT BELLAIRE,
+      Or, Maid Mary's Awakening
+
+    THE GIRL SCOUTS AT SEA CREST,
+      Or, The Wig Wag Rescue
+
+    THE GIRL SCOUTS AT CAMP COMALONG,
+      Or, Peg of Tamarack Hills
+
+Other volumes in preparation.
+
+CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+THE GIRL SCOUT SERIES
+
+By LILIAN GARIS
+
+12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Jacket in full colors
+
+Price per volume, 80 cents, postpaid
+
+The highest ideals of girlhood as advocated by the foremost
+organizations of America form the background for these stories and
+while unobtrusive there is a message in every volume.
+
+    THE GIRL SCOUT PIONEERS
+        or Winning the First B. C.
+
+A story of the True Tred Troop in a Pennsylvania town where they find
+unlimited opportunity for good scouting. Two runaway girls, who want
+to see the city, are reclaimed through troop influence. The story is
+correct in scout detail, and also furnishes an absorbing narrative.
+
+    THE GIRL SCOUTS AT BELLAIRE
+        or Maid Mary's Awakening
+
+The story of a timid little maid who is afraid to take part in other
+girls' activities, while working nobly alone for high ideals. How she
+was discovered by the Bellaire Troop and came into her own as "Maid
+Mary" makes a fascinating story.
+
+    THE GIRL SCOUTS AT SEA CREST
+        or The Wig Wag Rescue
+
+Luna Land, a little island by the sea, is wrapt in a mysterious
+seclusion, and Kitty Scuttle, a grotesque figure, succeeds in keeping
+all others at bay until the Girl Scouts come. This volume furnishes a
+worth while story.
+
+    THE GIRL SCOUTS AT CAMP COMALONG
+        or Peg of Tamarack Hills
+
+A story of the great outdoors in which the girls of Bobolink Troop
+spend their summer on the shores of Lake Hocomo. Their discovery of
+Peg, the mysterious rider of the blue roan "Whirlwind," and the
+clearing up of her remarkable adventures afford a wholesome and
+vigorous plot.
+
+Send For Our Free Illustrated Catalogue
+
+CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers, New York
+
+
+
+
+THE BETTY GORDON SERIES
+
+By ALICE B. EMERSON
+
+Author of the Famous "Ruth Fielding" Series
+
+12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Jacket in full colors
+
+Price per volume, 80 cents, postpaid
+
+A new series of stories by Alice B. Emerson which are bound to make
+this writer more popular than ever with her host of girl readers.
+Everyone will want to know Betty Gordon and all will love her.
+
+    BETTY GORDON AT BRAMBLE FARM
+        or The Mystery of a Nobody
+
+At the age of twelve Betty is left an orphan in the care of her
+bachelor uncle, who sends her to live on a farm. Betty finds life at
+Bramble Farm exceedingly hard.
+
+    BETTY GORDON IN WASHINGTON
+        or Strange Adventures in a Great City
+
+In this volume Betty goes to the national capitol to find her uncle.
+She falls in with a number of strangers and has several unusual
+adventures.
+
+    BETTY GORDON IN THE LAND OF OIL
+        or The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune
+
+From Washington the scene is shifted to the great oil fields of our
+country. A splendid picture of the oil field operations of to-day.
+
+    BETTY GORDON AT BOARDING SCHOOL
+        or The Treasure of Indian Chasm
+
+An up-to-date tale of school life. Betty made many friends but a
+jealous girl tried to harm her. Seeking the treasure of Indian Chasm
+makes an exceedingly interesting incident.
+
+Send For Our Free Illustrated Catalogue
+
+CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers, New York
+
+
+
+
+About this book:
+
+      Original publication data:
+      Publisher: Cupples & Leon Company, New York
+      Copyright: 1921, by Cupples & Leon Company
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Girl Scouts at Camp Comalong, by Lillian Garis
+
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