A Campfire Girl's First Council Fire Part 12

"To the top of the mountain," said Jack. "But if you want to go off that way I'll walk a way with you, and show you where you can strike off and come to another trail that will bring you out on the main road to Zebulon."

"That'll be fine, Jack. If you'll do that, you'll help us ever so much, and we'll be able to get along splendidly."

"We'd better start," said Zara, nervously. "I want to get away as soon as ever I can. Don't you, Bessie?"

"Indeed I do, Zara. I'm just as afraid of having Farmer Weeks catch us as you are. If he found me he'd take me back to Maw Hoover, I know. And she'd be awfully angry with me."

"I'm all ready to start whenever you are," announced Jack. "Come on. It gets dark early in the woods, you know. They're mighty thick when you get further up the mountain. But if you walk along fast you'll get out of them long before it's really dark."

So they started off. Little Jack seemed to be a thorough woodsman and to know almost every stick and stone in the path. And presently they came to a blazed tree--a tree from which a strip of bark had been cut with a blow from an axe.

"That's my mark. I made it myself," said Jack, proudly. "Here's where we leave this trail. Be careful now. Look where I put my feet, and come this same way."

Then he struck off the trail, and into the deep woods themselves where the moss and the carpet of dead leaves deadened their footsteps.

Although the sun was still high, the trees were so thick that the light that came down to them was that of twilight, and Zara shuddered.

"I'd hate to be lost in these woods," she said.

Then, abruptly, they were on another trail. Jack had been a true guide.

"You can't lose your way now," he said. "Keep to the trail and go straight ahead."

"Good-bye, Jack," said Bessie. "You're just as true and brave as any of the knights you ever read about, and if you keep on like this you'll be a great man when you grow up--as great as your father. Good-bye!"

"Good-bye and thank you ever so much," called Zara.

"Come again!" said Jack, and stood there until they were out of sight.

It was not long before they came out near the main road, and now Zara gave a joyful cry.

"Oh, I'm so glad to be here!" she exclaimed. "Those woods frightened me, Bessie. They were so dark and gloomy. And it's so good to see the sun again, and the fields and the blue sky!"

Bessie looked about her curiously as she strove to get her bearings.

Then her face cleared.

"I know where we are now," she said. "We're still quite a little distance from where we stopped for lunch and Farmer Weeks got hold of you, Zara. We'll have to go up the road. You see, it brought us quite a little out of our direct way--going back in the woods as we did. But it was worth it--to get away from Farmer Weeks."

"I should think it was!" said Zara. "I'd walk on my hands for a mile to be free from him. He was awful. He drove up just as I got down to the road, and as soon as I saw him I started to run. But I was so frightened that my knees shook, and he jumped out and caught me."

"What did he say to you?"

"Oh, everything! He said he could have me put in prison for running away, and he asked me where you were, but I wouldn't say a thing. I wouldn't even answer him when he asked me if I'd seen you. And he said that when I came to work for him, he'd see that I got over my laziness and my notions."

"Well, you're free of him now, Zara. Oh!"

"What is it, Bessie?"

"Zara, don't you remember what he said? That he'd find us through the Camp Fire Girls? He knows about them! If we go right back to them now, we may be walking right into his arms. Oh, how I wish I could get hold of Miss Eleanor--of Wanaka!"

They stared at one another in consternation.

CHAPTER IX

A CLOSE SHAVE

"I never thought of that, Bessie! Do you suppose he'd really go after the girls and look for us there?"

"You could hear how mad he was, Zara. I think he'd do anything he could to get even with you for running away like that. It made him look foolish before all those men and it'll be a long time before folks let him forget how he was fooled by a girl."

"What are we going to do?"

"I'm trying to think. If I could get word to Miss Eleanor, she'd know what to tell us, I'm sure. I'm afraid she'll be wondering what's become of me--and maybe she'll think I just ran away, and think I was wrong to do it."

"But she'll understand when you tell her about it, Bessie, and if you hadn't come I never would have got away by myself. I'd have been afraid even to try, if there'd been a chance."

"The worst part of it is that if Farmer Weeks really has any right to keep you, or if you were wrong to run away, it might get Miss Eleanor into trouble if they could find out that she's been helping you to get away."

They were walking along the road, but now Bessie, who had forgotten the need of caution in her consternation at the thought of the new plight they faced, pulled Zara after her into the bushes beside the highway.

"I heard wheels behind us," she explained. "We mustn't take any chances."

They stopped to let the wagon they had heard pa.s.s by, but as it came along Bessie cried out suddenly.

"That's Paw Hoover!" she said. "And I'm going to speak to him, and ask him what he thinks we ought to do. I'm sure he'll give us good advice, and that he's friendly to us."

She hailed him, and the old farmer, mightily surprised at the sound of her voice, pulled up his horses.

"Whoa!" he shouted. "Well, Bessie! Turning up again like a bad penny.

What's the matter now?"

Breathlessly Bessie told him what had happened, and of Zara's escape from Farmer Weeks, while Zara interrupted constantly to supply some detail her chum had forgotten.

"Well, by gravy, I dunno what to say!" said Paw Hoover, scratching his head and looking at them with puzzled eyes. "I don't like Silas Weeks--never did! I'd hate to have a girl of mine bound over to him--that I would! But these lawyers beat me! I ain't never had no truck with them."

"Will the law make Zara go to him, Paw?" asked Bessie.

"I dunno, Bessie--I declare I dunno!" he answered, slowly. "He seems almighty anxious to get hold of her--an' I declare I dunno why. Seems like there must be lots of other girls over there at the poor-farm he could take if he's so powerful anxious, all of a sudden, to have a girl to work for him. I did hear say, though, that he'd got some sort of a paper signed by the judge--an' if that's so, there ain't no tellin' what he can do. Made him her gardeen, I guess, whatever that is."

"But Zara doesn't need a guardian! She's got her father," said Bessie.

Paw shook his head. He looked as if he didn't think much of the sort of guardianship Zara's father would give her. He was a good, just man, but he shared the Hedgeville prejudice against the foreigner.

"I reckon you're right about not wantin' to get those young ladies I saw you with mixed up with Silas, Bessie," he went on, reflectively. "Too bad you can't get hold of that Miss Mercer. She's as bright as a b.u.t.ton, she is. Now, if she were here, she'd find a way out of this hole before you could say Jack Robinson!"