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

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?”