The Outdoor Girls Around the Campfire by Laura Lee Hope (free novel 24 txt) 📖

It was decided not to let the campfire go out entirely. In the first place, they had brought no mosquito netting and a fire was necessary to keep off insects.

And then, though this they did not acknowledge even to themselves, they felt a wee bit lonesome, away out here far from everybody, and the fire would give them just the sense of security that they needed.

And so they banked it, with the agreement that whoever woke in the night was to put more wood on it and stir it up generally.

They had great sport crawling into their sleeping bags.

“Oh, dear, all the rocks in the place are under my spine!” cried Grace, as she strove in vain to shift to a comfortable position. “I’ll be all holes in the morning, if I last that long, I know I shall.”

“Quick! Who has Grace’s hair mattress?” cried Mollie, urgently. “Hurry up and hand it over, Betty Nelson. I know you’re lying on it.”

“I’d hate to tell you what I’m lying on,” chuckled Betty, lifting up a corner of the blanket and uprooting a broken-off twig. “I’ll exchange my place for Grace’s in a moment.”

“No, you don’t,” retorted Grace. “This place is bad but it might be worse.”

A chuckle in the darkness. Then the sound of a tremendous yawn.

“Oh,” said Amy, “I wish you’d stop talking and let me go to sleep. I’m nearly dead.”

And then there was silence while the girls, despite their uncomfortable beds, slept heavily. Outside the tent the fire sputtered sleepily while in the distance a night owl sent its mournful cry echoing through the still woods. After a while the moon, fighting its way through the film of clouds, flung its soft radiance down through the trees, filling the woods with silvery magic. And still the girls slept on.

When they awakened moonlight had fled before the merciless onslaught of the sun. Where the fire had been the night before were a few smoldering ashes, for no one had wakened to attend to it.

Having scrambled from the discomfort of their beds out into the brilliant sunshine, the girls regarded the spot where the fire had been with considerable amazement.

“Well, who would have thought we’d sleep like that?” said Mollie, rubbing a bruised shin which had reposed in too close proximity to a sharp stone during the night. “We might have been visited by any number of wild animals and tramps and we’d never have known it.”

“What we don’t know will never hurt us,” said Grace sententiously. “I only hope the Gem’s all right.”

But Betty had already seen to that and, coming back at that precise minute, announced that the motor boat was “feeling fine.”

“And now for breakfast,” she said, briskly. “We’ve got a lot to do to-day and we can’t afford to lose any time.”

Not till later when they were hungrily devouring rolls and coffee did they stop to ask her what she meant.

“I suppose you have some plans,” said Mollie. “So you might as well tell us about them.”

“All right, only hand me another roll first,” returned Betty. “Thanks. Well, it’s like this. Of course we all know we can’t go on like this forever.”

“Tell us something we don’t know,” commanded Mollie, flippantly, and the Little Captain eyed her severely.

“If you’re going to interrupt——” she began, whereupon Mollie became becomingly humble.

“I didn’t mean to start anything, honest,” she said. “Proceed, fair damsel, proceed.”

“Well,” Betty began again, “I thought the best thing we could do would be to get back to Deepdale——”

“Betty Nelson, you’re never going to give up the trip!” cried Mollie, horrified, and Betty broke in impatiently.

“You do get the wildest ideas, Mollie,” she said. “Who said anything about giving up anything, I’d like to know! I was going to remark that a couple of us might return to Deepdale where we can get a regular tent. The boys had several tents, you know——”

“And Will said the other day,” Amy broke in eagerly, “that he had had a chance to lay in a lot of air mattresses cheap. He thought we might need them sometime——”

“Lovely,” said Mollie, adding with a chuckle: “Now Grace can take her comfort.”

“Funny Will didn’t say anything to me about buying air mattresses,” said Grace, resentfully. Worshiping her brother as she did, Grace had always been a little jealous of his affection for quiet Amy. “He might have told me,” she added.

“They’ll be just the thing, anyway,” said Betty, enthusiastically. “I’ve heard those air mattresses are as soft as down.”

“Anything would be better than what we had last night,” agreed Mollie. “But go on, Betty. You and Amy, say, go back to Deepdale for a tent; and then what do Grace and I do?”

“Nothing, I guess,” dimpled Betty, “except see that the lake doesn’t run away while we’re gone. We may be away over night,” she added, more soberly. “If we can’t get in touch with the boys right away, we might be too late to make camp again before dark. You wouldn’t be scared?” she asked.

“Scared!” Mollie hooted the idea scornfully. “What’s there to be scared of? You go ahead, Betty. You needn’t worry about us.”

“Better leave us that fake gun of yours,” Grace suggested as, a little while later, Betty and Amy started off toward the Gem. “We might need it.”

Betty laughed and, taking the weapon from her pocket where it had reposed all night, flung it toward Grace.

“Here’s good luck to you,” she cried. “And I hope you won’t need it.”

“Ditto,” cried Grace, as she pocketed the realistic looking toy.

“You don’t really expect that thing to protect us, do you?” asked Mollie, regarding her incredulously.

“Why not?” asked Grace, unabashed. “It did good work once; why should it not again?”

“Why, indeed?” echoed Mollie, sarcastically, but she said no more about it.

Yet, strange as it may seem, the inadequate little toy gave Grace the comfortable, satisfied feeling of being well protected.

She and Mollie had been gathering up the breakfast dishes when the latter suddenly dropped a sauce pan with a clatter that made Grace jump nervously.

“For goodness’ sake——” began the latter, but Mollie did not wait for her to finish.

“What geese we mortals be, Grace Ford,” she said. “How does Betty expect to get back to Deepdale when the Gem’s engine is out of fix?”

And without waiting for a reply if, in fact, she had expected any, she took to her heels in the direction where the motor boat lay, Grace following more slowly behind her.

But before they could reach the water’s edge a familiar putt-putt came to them and they were just in time to see Betty triumphantly steer the little boat away from shore.

“What on earth did you do to it?” called Mollie, and Betty made a face at her.

“Ask the Gem,” she shouted above the noise of the motor. “I was fussing with the engine and I accidentally touched a wire. You see the result! Good-by, we’ll see you again as soon as we can.”

Mollie and Grace stood on the shore waving as long as the motor boat was in sight, then, feeling rather lonely and forlorn, they turned back to camp.

“How quiet everything seems without the Little Captain,” sighed Grace, as they went to the familiar work of cleaning up. “I wish she was coming back to-day.”

“So do I,” answered Mollie, and then stopped suddenly, cocking her head to listen. “Did you hear that?” she asked. “It sounded—Oh, Grace, I’m getting as bad as Amy!”