A Campfire Girl's First Council Fire Part 8

"I know that, and I can't tell you how good it makes me feel."

Wanaka laughed then, to herself.

"I say we'll look after you," she said, still smiling. "But so far it looks more as if you were going to look after us. You saved Minnehaha in the lake--and to-night you saved all the girls from being frightened.

But we'll have to begin doing our share before long."

"As if you hadn't done a lot more for me already than I'll ever be able to repay!" said Bessie. "And I know it, too. Please be sure of that.

Good-night."

"Good-night, Bessie."

In the morning Bessie and Zara woke with the sun shining in their faces, and for a long minute they lay quiet, staring out at the dancing water, and trying to realize all that happened since they had said good-bye to Hedgeville.

"Just think, Zara, it's only the day before yesterday that all those things happened, and it seems like ever so long to me."

"It does to me, too, Bessie. But I'll be glad when we get away from here. It's awfully close."

"And, Zara, Jake Hoover was around here last night!"

"Does he know you're here? Was that why he came?"

"No," said Bessie, laughing again at the memory of the ghost. And she told Zara what had happened.

"He won't come around again at night, but it would be just like him to snoop around here in the daytime, Bessie."

"I hadn't thought of that, Zara. But he might. If he stops to think and realizes that someone turned his own trick against him, or if he tells someone, and they laugh at him, he'll want to get even. I'd certainly hate to have him see one of us."

But their fears were groundless. For, as soon as breakfast was over, Wanaka called all the girls together.

"We're going to move," she said. "I know we meant to stay here longer, but Bessie and Zara will be happier if we're somewhere else. So we will go on to-day, instead of waiting. And I've a pleasant surprise for you, too, I think. No, I won't tell you about it now. You'll have to wait until you see it. Hurry up and clean camp now, and begin packing. We want to start as soon as we can."

Bessie was amazed to see how complete the arrangements for packing were.

Everything seemed to have its place, and to be so made that it could go into the smallest s.p.a.ce imaginable. The tents were taken down, divided into single sections that were not at all heavy, and everything else had been made on the same plan.

"But how about the canoes?" asked Bessie. "We can't carry those with us, can we?"

"I've often carried one over a portage--a short walk from one lake to the next in the woods," said Minnehaha, laughing. "It's a lot easier than it looks. Once you get it on your back, it balances so easily that it isn't hard at all. And up in the woods the guides have boats that they carry that way for miles, and they say they're easier to handle than a heavy pack. But those boats are very light."

"But we'll leave them here, anyhow," said another girl. "They don't belong to us. They were just lent to us by some people from the city who come here to camp every summer. They own this land, too, and they let us use it."

And then Bessie saw, as the first canoe was brought in, the clever hiding-place that had been devised for the boats. They were dragged up, and carried into the woods a little way, and there a couple of fallen trees had been so arranged that they made a shelter for the canoes. A few boards were spread between the trunks, and covered with earth and branches so it seemed that shrubbery had grown up over the place where the canoes lay.

"In the winter, of course, the people that own them take them away where they'll be safe. But they leave them out like that most of the summer.

Some of them come here quite often, and it would be a great nuisance to have to drag the canoes along every time they come and go."

Long before noon everything was ready, and Wanaka, who had gone away for a time, returned.

"You and Zara look so different that I don't believe anyone would recognize either of you," she told Bessie. "You look just like the rest of the girls. So, even if we should meet anyone who knows you, I think you'd be safe enough."

"Not if it was Maw Hoover," said Zara so earnestly that Wanaka laughed, although she felt that there was something pathetic about Zara's fear of the farmer's wife, too.

"Well, we're not going to meet her, anyhow, Zara. And she'd never expect to find you and Bessie among us, anyhow. We aren't going across the lake and over to the main road. We're going right through the woods to the next valley. It's going to be a long day's trip, but it's cool, and I think a good long tramp will do us all good."

"That's fine," said Bessie. "No one over there will know anything about us. Is that why we made so many sandwiches and things like that--so that we could eat our lunch on the way?"

"Yes, and we'll build a fire and have something hot, too. Now you can watch us put out the fire."

"I hate to see it go out," said Zara. "I love the fire."

"We all do, but we must never leave a fire without someone to tend it.

Fire is a great servant, but we must use it properly. And a little fire, even this one of ours, might start a bad blaze in the woods here if we left it behind us."

Bessie nodded wisely.

"We had an awful bad fire here two or three years ago. It was just before Zara came out here. Someone was out in the woods hunting, or something like that, and they left a fire, and the wind came up and set the trees on fire. It burned for three or four days, and all the men in the town had to turn out to save some of the places near the woods."

"Almost all the big fires in the forests start because someone is careless just like that, Bessie. They don't mean any harm--but they don't stop to think."

Then all the girls gathered about the fire, and each in turn did her part in stamping out the glowing embers. They sang as they did this duty, and Bessie felt again the curious thrill that had stirred her when she had heard the good-night song the evening before.

"I know what it is that is so splendid about the Camp Fire Girls, Zara," she said, suddenly. "They belong to one another, and they do things together. That's what counts--that's why they look so happy.

We've never had anything to belong to, you and I, anything like this.

Don't you see what I mean?"

"Yes, I do, Bessie. And that's what makes it seem so easy when they work. They're doing things together, and each of them has something to do at the same time that all the others are working, too."

"Why, I just loved washing the dishes this morning," said Bessie, smiling at the thought. "I never felt like that before, when Maw Hoover was always at me to do them, so that I could hurry up and do something else when I got through. And I did them faster here, too--much faster.

Just because I enjoyed it, and it seemed like the most natural thing to do."

"I always did feel that way, but then I only worked for myself and my father," said Zara.

Then the walk through the cool, green woods began. The girls started out in Indian file, but presently the trail broadened, so that they could walk two or three abreast. It was not long before they came into country that Bessie had never seen, well as she knew the woods near the Hoover farmhouse.

Wanaka, careful lest too steady a walk should tire the girls, called a halt at least once an hour, and, when the trail led up hill, oftener.

And at each halt one girl or another, who had been detailed at the last stop, reported on the birds and wild animals she had seen since the last check, and, when she had done, all the others were called on to tell if they had seen any that she had missed.

"It's just like a game, isn't it?" said Zara. "I think it's great fun!"

The halt for lunch was made after they had come out of the woods, by the side of a clear spring. They were on a bluff, high above a winding country road, with a path worn by the feet of thirsty pa.s.sersby who knew of the spring, and some thoughtful person had piped the water down to a big trough where horses could drink. But they could not, from the place where the fire had been made, see the road or the carriages.

"I don't think anyone will come along looking for you," Wanaka told Bessie, "but if we stay out of sight we'll surely be on the safe side."

Suddenly, as they were about to sit down, Zara cried out.

"My handkerchief!" she said. "It's gone--and I had it just before we crossed the road. I must have dropped it there. I'll go back and see."

"I'll go with you," cried Bessie, jumping up. But before she could move, Zara, laughing, had dashed off, and Bessie dropped back to her place with a smile.

"She's as quick as a flash," she said. "She always could beat me in a race. There's no use in my going after her."