The Outdoor Girls Around the Campfire by Laura Lee Hope (free novel 24 txt) đź“–
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- Author: Laura Lee Hope
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“What do you suppose they want?” whispered Grace, drawing nearer to Mollie as though for protection. “What do they mean by hanging around?”
“Oh, how do I know any better than you do?” snapped Mollie, for her nerves were beginning to show the strain they had been under. “And I don’t see why you speak in the plural, anyway. We saw only one man, didn’t we?”
“Where there’s one, there’s probably more,” remarked Grace, gloomily, at which Mollie gave a little impatient toss of her head.
“We’re probably making altogether too much fuss about a little thing,” she said. “If we don’t happen to be alone on this end of the lake, that doesn’t say that our neighbors are all villains. This—this—prowler may have come simply out of curiosity.”
“Humph!” sniffed Grace. “Then why did he choose night time to satisfy his curiosity and why did he seem scared when he found we had heard him? Curiosity—huh!”
“Well, believe the worst if you want to,” returned Mollie, wearily. “Goodness, but I’m getting s-sleepy——”
“See here,” warned Grace, in a voice that once more startled Mollie’s eyes wide open. “If you think you have a chance of going to sleep and leaving me here to keep watch alone, you were never more mistaken in your life, Mollie Billette. You’ll stay awake if I have to stick pins in you.”
“Oh, all right,” returned Mollie, with a sigh, trying to settle herself in a more comfortable position, “if that’s the way you feel about it—But listen here, Grace, if I keep awake just to suit you, you’ve got to make yourself entertaining.”
“Well, of all the——” Grace began, breaking off to add with real curiosity: “Do you mean to tell me that you aren’t scared any longer?”
“I’m scared to death, but I’m sleepier yet,” returned Mollie, stifling a tremendous yawn. “Better hurry up, Grace. If you don’t start something interesting pretty quick I’m apt to drop off despite all the king’s horses and all the king’s men. Going—going—gone——”
“Hold on there,” broke in Grace desperately. “I have an idea. Why not play checkers?”
“Why not, indeed?” returned Mollie, opening her eyes with what almost seemed interest.
And so it came to pass that two Outdoor Girls spent the short time that still remained to dawn in a very peculiar manner. Luckily the girls seldom went anywhere without carrying some games with them and this habit stood them in good stead now.
From somewhere among the jumble of things within the tent Grace produced a much battered and worn board and men and so they settled down to play until daylight should put in its friendly appearance.
And when at last the first rays of the sun broke through the clearing sky, the two girls were so utterly exhausted from lack of sleep and the nerve strain they had been under that they simply sprawled out upon the blankets and fell into a sound slumber.
The sun had crept high in the heavens when at last they awoke, staring at one another stupidly.
“Was it a bad dream, Mollie, or did it really happen?” queried Grace, as she rubbed a hand across her forehead. “I declare I can’t remember——”
“Well, I can, only too well,” cut in Mollie shortly. Mollie’s temper was almost always short before breakfast. “Stop staring in that befuddled fashion, Grace Ford, and help me get breakfast. I feel badly in need of sustenance.”
They went about the getting of breakfast in a curiously silent manner, too busy with their thoughts to say much. And they both looked rather grave and hollow-eyed.
It was true the situation did not seem nearly so terrifying in the broad daylight, but just the same, they knew their adventure had been rather serious.
“I’m glad Betty will be back pretty soon,” said Grace at last, breaking the long silence. “She always knows what to do.”
“I don’t know that she’ll be able to do much more about this than we have done,” retorted Mollie. It is to be noted that she had not yet had her breakfast. “Anybody would think Betty had some sort of supernatural power of making things come out right.”
“I don’t know about the supernatural,” returned Grace. “But I do know that she pretty nearly always makes things come out all right.”
“Humph,” snorted Mollie, and tossed her head.
Luckily the girls had thought to put some firewood within the shelter of the tent before they had turned in the night before, so that they had enough dry wood to make a good fire. If they had been forced to try burning wet wood nobody knows what might have happened to Mollie’s temper!
And when, just before noon, they heard the familiar putt-putting of the Gem out on the lake, Mollie, as well as Grace, felt a great relief as though a heavy burden had suddenly slipped from her shoulders.
For the Little Captain had come back!
AIR MATTRESSES
When Mollie and Grace saw that not only Amy and the Little Captain, but Will Ford and Frank Haley also, were in the little boat, the relief and joy of the girls reached a climax.
“Well, this is something like!” cried Mollie, putting an arm about Grace and squeezing her ecstatically. “Nothing like having the boys around once in a while, eh, Gracie?”
“I’ll say!” returned Grace, as she waved to the quartette in the boat. They were still too far away and there were too many trees in their path for the Gem’s occupants to see the wave, but that made no difference to Grace.
However, it took only a few minutes for the little motor boat to nose its way up the narrow inlet to the improvised landing above which Mollie and Grace were so eagerly waiting.
Although Betty and Amy and the boys as well had expected a rather warm greeting, they were entirely unprepared for the kind they really got.
They were hugged and kissed—boys as well as girls, much to the glee of the former—till the Little Captain called out laughingly to “Stop it!”
“What’s the matter with you?” she asked. “Are you going stark, raving crazy?”
“If they are, don’t attempt to stop them, Betty,” laughed Frank Haley, and Will added, happily:
“Home was never like this.”
However, in due time the girls calmed down to a more normal key and the whole party started toward the camp.
“Hear you had pretty tough luck—shack burned down and no tent,” said Will. “It surely must have been a facer for you. Wonder you didn’t come back to Deepdale, full speed.”
“Will Ford, is that what you think of us?” asked gentle Amy indignantly, and Will countered lightly with:
“You ought to know better than to ask me what I think of you, Amy—especially when there’s a crowd around.”
The girls giggled and Amy flushed and everybody was happy!
It was not till after Mollie and Betty had prepared something for the famished boys to eat—and they had eaten it—that they settled down to a serious discussion of plans for the future.
“We’ve brought back a regular, waterproof tent with us,” explained the Little Captain. “Also four perfectly delightful air mattresses. But the boys think we oughtn’t to stay.”
“Humph,” said Mollie, valiantly, “I’d like to see ’em get us away.”
Strange that with the coming of the boys and Betty and Amy, the adventure of the night before had lost most of its terrifying aspect. It seemed almost something to laugh at.
However, when some time later Grace mentioned the affair to the boys, they did not seem inclined to laugh at it—not one bit.
“It’s a pretty serious thing, I think,” said Frank Haley. “I have a strange prejudice against anything that prowls at night.”
“Same here,” said Will, looking worried. “Of course, if you girls are sure you saw some one——”
“Oh, there’s no doubt about that,” said Mollie, positively. “We both saw it—or him—it was hard to tell whether it was really a man or not in the dark. But anyway,” she added, trying to make light of it, “I don’t think there’s anything to be excited about. Somebody was probably just—curious.”
But they hooted this idea as Grace had done some hours earlier. People did not go prowling about a camp in the middle of the night just out of harmless curiosity.
“However, we’re going to spend to-night here, anyway,” said Will, rising and looking about him. “And to-morrow will be time enough to decide whether you want to stay here or not.”
“There’s no deciding to be done about that—it’s settled,” returned Betty, adding, gayly: “How do you like our tent, Will? Isn’t it a masterpiece?”
“Masterpiece is right,” Will returned, admiringly. “It’s about as thorough a piece of work as I’ve seen. How about it, Frank?”
“Fine,” returned Frank, as he walked about the makeshift tent, examining it. “All to the good, girls. Did you say it was rain-tight, too?” he asked of Mollie, who laughed grimly.
“I guess we ought to know,” she said. “We sat for hours playing checkers with the rain pattering on top of it.”
“Raining, raining everywhere, and not a drop on us,” said Grace, adding, as they laughed: “Mighty lucky for us, too, that we didn’t get wet. All we needed was a soaking to make our contentment complete.”
“You poor children,” said Betty, commiseratingly. “You must have had one awful time.”
“So much so that we’d rather think of something else,” said Grace, adding, as she turned to her brother: “How about the tent you brought, Will? Aren’t you going to put it up for us?”
“It’s for that express purpose that we came,” Will returned as he led the way back to the Gem. “Might as well get the business part of our mission over with first and then we can enjoy ourselves.”
So they went to work, and it was not long before they had the new tent up, as snug and pretty a tent as any one would wish to see. It even had a window in one side of it, a window whose canvas flap could be pulled up or let down from the inside by means of a convenient cord.
The boys would not let the girls take down the makeshift tent of tarpaulin, saying that it would serve as an excellent shelter for them, the boys, for this one night in camp. And since they had brought along another piece of tarpaulin to cover the Gem in case of bad weather, there was no reason why they should not leave the original tent standing.
When the boys were unloading the paraphernalia from the Gem Mollie noticed with surprise that they had brought along their bicycles.
“What are they for?” she asked, and the boys eyed her pityingly.
“How did you suppose we were going to get back to Deepdale?” Frank asked. “We can’t take the Gem, and it’s a little too far to walk—when you’re in a hurry anyway.”
“Well,” was Mollie’s biting comment, “the only wonder is you didn’t bring along automobiles. They’d have been much quicker.”
“We thought of that,” agreed Will, solemnly. “But unfortunately the Gem protested.”
But it was when Will produced his air mattresses that the girls were most deeply interested. When he first unrolled them they looked like nothing so much as dejected strips of canvas, about six feet long by two and a half feet wide.
But when he began to blow one of them up—oh, what a change there was! Before their enchanted eyes the dejected strip of canvas grew and assumed shape, blooming out majestically into a bed that, for comfort, would have delighted a king.
Betty, lolling luxuriously upon it, declared she felt as though she were floating on clouds.
“Get up and give me a feel,” commanded Mollie, and the Little Captain reluctantly obeyed.
“But what’s this funny thing lacing down the front?” asked Amy, pointing to a loose fold of the canvas. “Are you supposed to get inside that?”
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