Camp Fire Girls The in the Woods Part 7

"Oh, ho-ho," he said, still laughing. "I wouldn't have missed that for a week's pay! If I could only have seen his face! Don't you worry any more! We'll not send you back to him, even if you were running from him. Don't blame anyone for tryin' to get away from that old miser!"

"Wish he'd tried to jump aboard after we started," said Jim, the brakeman. "I'd have kicked him off and I wouldn't have done it gently, either!"

"We know Silas Weeks," explained the conductor. "He's the worst kicker and trouble maker that ever rode on this division. Every time he's aboard my train he gives us more trouble in one trip that all the other pa.s.sengers give us in ten. He's always trying to beat his way without payin' fare, and scarcely a time goes by that he don't write to the office about Jim or me."

"Lot of good that does him," said Jim. "They don't pay any attention to him."

"No, not now. They're getting used to him, and they know what sort of a mischief maker he is. But he's a big shipper, an' at first they used to get after me pretty hard when he wrote one of his kicks."

"Before I came on the run, you mean?"

"Sure! He'd been at it a long time before I got you, Jim. You see, he sends so much stuff by freight they had to humor him -- and they still do. But now they just write him a letter apologizin' and don't bother me about it at all. Bet I've lost as much as a week's pay, I guess, goin' to headquarters in workin' time to explain his kicks. He's got a swell chance of gettin' help from me!"

Then the two trainmen pa.s.sed on, but not until they had promised to see the two girls safe off the car at Pine Bridge.

"People usually get paid back when they do something mean, Zara," said Bessie. "If Farmer Weeks hadn't treated those men badly, they would probably have sent us back. But as soon as they heard who he was, you saw how they acted."

"That's right, Bessie. I bet he'd be madder than ever if he knew that. Someone ought to tell him."

"He'd only try to make more trouble for them, and perhaps he could, too. No, I don't want to bother about him any more, Zara. I just want to forget all about him. I wonder how long we'll have to wait at Pine Bridge."

"Miss Eleanor didn't say what she was going to do, did she?"

"No; she just said that she'd get there, and that she had decided to change all her plans on our account."

"We're making an awful lot of trouble for her, Bessie."

"I know we are, and we've got to show her that we're grateful and do anything we can to help her, if she ever needs our help. I thought when we started from Hedgeville after the fire that we would be able to get along together somehow, Zara, but I see now how foolish that was."

"I believe you'd have managed somehow, Bessie. You can do 'most anything, I believe."

"I'm afraid you'll find out that I can't before we're done, Zara. We didn't have any money, or any plans, or anything. It certainly was lucky for us that we went to that lake where the Camp Fire Girls were. If it hadn't been for them we'd be back in Hedgeville now, and much worse off than if we hadn't tried to get away."

"There's the whistle, Bessie. I guess that means we're getting near Pine Bridge."

"Well, here you are! Going to meet your friends here?" said the conductor.

"Yes; thank you," said Bessie. "We're ever so much obliged, and we'll be all right now."

"You sit right down there on that bench in front of the station," advised the conductor. "Don't move away, or you'll get lost. Pine Bridge is quite a place. Bigger than Hedgeville -- quite a bit bigger. And if anyone tries to bother you, just you run around to the street in front of the station, and you'll find a fat policeman there. He's a friend of mine, and he'll look after you if you tell him Tom Norris sent you. Remember my name -- Tom Norris."

"Thank you, and good-bye, Mr. Norris," they called to him together, as they stepped off the car. Then the whistle blew again, and the train was off.

Although there were a good many people around, no one seemed to pay much attention to the two girls. Everyone seemed busy, and to be so occupied with his own affairs that he had no time to look at strangers or think about what they were doing.

"We're a long way from home now, Zara, you see," said Bessie. "I guess no one here will know us, and we'll just wait till Miss Eleanor comes."

"Maybe she's here already, waiting for us."

"Oh, I don't think so."

"We'd better look around, though. How is she going to get here, Bessie?"

"I don't know. She never told me about that. We were talking as fast as we could because we were afraid Farmer Weeks might come along any time, and that would have meant a lot of trouble."

"Suppose he follows us here, Bessie?"

"He won't! He'll know that we're safe from him as soon as we're out of the state. I'm not afraid of him now -- not a bit, and you needn't be, either."

"Well, if you're not, I'll try not to be. But I wish Miss Eleanor would come along, Bessie. I'll feel safer then, really."

"You've been brave enough so far, Zara. You mustn't get nervous now that we're out of the woods. That would be foolish."

"I suppose so, but I wasn't really brave before, Bessie. I was terribly frightened when he locked me in that room. I didn't see how anyone would know what had become of me, or how they could find out where I was in time to help me."

"Did you think about trying to run away by yourself?"

"Yes, indeed, but I was afraid I'd get lost. I didn't know where we were. I'd never been that way before."

"It's a good thing you waited, Zara. Even if you had got away and got into those woods where Jack took us, it would have been dangerous. You might easily have got lost, and it's the hardest thing to find people who are in the woods."

"Why?"

"Because they get to wandering around in circles. If you can see the sun, you can know which way you're going, and you can be sure of getting somewhere, if you only keep on long enough. But in the woods, unless you know a lot of things, there's nothing to guide you, and people just seem, somehow, bound to walk in a circle. They keep on coming back to the place they started from."

Pine Bridge was a junction point, and while the girls waited, patiently enough, it began to grow dark. Several trains came in, but though they looked anxiously at the pa.s.sengers who descended from each one of them, there was no sign of Miss Mercer.

"I hope nothing's happened to her," said Zara anxiously.

"Oh, we mustn't worry, Zara. She's all right, and she'll come along presently."

"But suppose she didn't, what should we do?"

"We'd be able to find a place to spend the night. I've got money, you know, and the policeman would tell us where to go, if we went to him, as the conductor told us to do."

Another train came in on the same track as the one that had brought them. Again they scanned its pa.s.sengers anxiously, but no one who looked at all like Miss Mercer got off, and they both sighed as they leaned back against the hard bench. Neither of them had paid any attention to the other pa.s.sengers, and they were both startled and dismayed when a tall, gaunt figure loomed up suddenly before them, and they heard the harsh voice of Farmer Weeks, chuckling sardonically as he looked down on them.

"Caught ye, ain't I?" he said. "You've given me quite a chase -- but I've run you down now. Come on, you Zara!"

He seized her hand, but Bessie s.n.a.t.c.hed it from him.

"You let her alone!" she said, with spirit. "You've no right to touch her!"

"I'll show you whether I've any right or not, and I'm going to take her back with me!" Farmer Weeks said, furiously. "Come on, you baggage! You'll not make a fool of me again, I'll promise you that!"

"Come on," said Bessie, suddenly. She still held Zara's hand, and before the surprised farmer could stop them, Bessie had dragged Zara to her feet, and they had dashed under his outstretched arm and got clear away, while the loafers about the station laughed at him "Come back! You can't get away!" he shouted, as he broke into a clumsy run after them. "Come back, or I'll make you sorry -- "

But Bessie knew what she was about. Without paying the slightest attention to his angry cries, she ran straight around to the front of the station, and there she found the fat policeman.

"Won't you help us?" she cried. "Mr. Norris, the conductor, said you would -- "

"What's wrong?" said the policeman, starting. He had been dozing. "Any friend of Tom's is a friend of mine -- here, here, none of that!"

The last remark was addressed to Farmer Weeks, who had come up and seized Zara.

"I've got an order saying I've a right to take her," exclaimed Weeks.

"But it's not good in this state -- " interrupted Bessie.

"Let's see it," said the policeman.

Weeks, storming and protesting, showed him the court order.

"That's no good here. You'll have to get her into the state where it was issued before you can use that," said the policeman.

"You're a liar! I'll take her now -- "

The policeman's club was out, and he threatened Weeks with it.

"You touch her and I'll run you in," he said, angrily. "We don't stand for men laying their hands on girls and women in this town. Get away with you now! If I catch you hanging around here five minutes from now, I'll take you to the lock-up, and you can spend the night in a cell."

"But -- " began Weeks.

"Not a word more -- or I'll do as I say," said the policeman. He was energetic, if he was fat, and he had put a protective arm about Zara. Weeks looked at him and then he slunk off.

And, as he went, the girls heard a merry chorus, "Wo-he-lo, Wo-he-lo," just as another train puffed in.

CHAPTER XI.

THE CALL OF THE FIRE.

"Wo-he-lo!"

How they did thrill at the sound of the watchword of the Camp Fire! How clearly, now, they understood the meaning of the three syllables, that had seemed to them so mysterious, so utterly without meaning, when they had first heard them on the sh.o.r.es of the lake, as, surprised, they peeped out and saw the merry band of girls who had awakened them after their flight from Hedgeville.

For a moment, so overjoyed were they, they couldn't move at all. But then the spell was broken, as the call sounded again, loud and clear, rising above the noises of the engine that was puffing and snorting on the other side of the station. Farmer Weeks, a black look in his eyes as he shot them a parting glance full of malice, was forgotten as he slunk off.

"Thank you, oh, thank you!" cried Bessie to the astonished policeman, who looked as if he were about to begin asking them questions. "Come on, Zara!"

And, hand in hand, they raced around to the other side of the station again, but blithely, happily this time, and not in terror of their enemy, as they had come. And there, looking about her in all directions, was Eleanor Mercer, and behind her all the girls of the Manasquan Camp Fire.

"Oh, I'm so glad! I was afraid something had happened to you!" cried Eleanor. "But now it's all right! We're all here, and safe. In this state no one can hurt you -- either of you!"

Laughing and full of questions, the other girls crowded around Zara and Bessie, so happily restored to them.

"We feel as if you were real Camp Fire Girls already!" said Eleanor Mercer, half crying with happiness. "The girls were wild with anxiety when they found you had gone away, too, Bessie, even though we hadn't told them everything. But they were delighted when I got back and told them you were safe."

"We were, indeed," said Minnehaha. "But it was awful, Bessie, not to know what had become of you, or how to help you! We'd have done anything we could, but we didn't know a single thing to do. So we had just to wait, and that's the hardest thing there is, when someone you love is in trouble."

Bessie almost broke down at that. Until this wonderful meeting with the Camp Fire Girls no one but Zara had loved her, and the idea that these girls really did love her as they said -- and had so n.o.bly proved -- was almost too much for her. She tried to say so.

"Of course we love one another," said Eleanor. "That's one of the laws of the Fire, and it's one of the words we use to make up Wo-he-lo, too. So you see that it's just as important as it can be, Bessie."

"Yes, indeed, I do see that. I'd be awfully stupid if I didn't, after the splendid way you've helped us, Miss Eleanor. What are we going to do now?"

"We're going to join the big camp not far from here. Three or four Camp Fires are there together, and Mrs. Chester, who is Chief Guardian in the city, wants us to join them. I talked to her about you two over the long-distance telephone before we got on the train, and she's so anxious to see you, and help me decide what is best for you to do. You'll love her, Bessie; you're sure to. She's so good and sweet to everyone. All the girls just worship her."

"If she's half as nice as you, we're sure to love her," said Zara.

Eleanor laughed.

"I'm not half as wonderful as you think I am, Zara. But I'm nicer than I used to be, I think."

"Oh!"

"Yes, indeed! I used to be selfish and thoughtless, caring only about having a good time myself, and never thinking about other people at all. But Mrs. Chester talked to me."

"I'll bet she never had a chance to scold you."

"I'm afraid she did, Zara; but she didn't want to. That's not her way. She never scolds people. She just talks to them in that wonderful, quiet way of hers, and makes them see that they haven't been doing right."

"But I don't believe you ever did anything that wasn't right."

"Maybe I didn't mean to, and maybe it wasn't what I did that was wrong. It was more what I didn't do."

"I don't see what you mean."

"Well, I was careless and thoughtless, just as I said. I used to dance, and play games, and go to parties all the time."

"I think that must be fine! Didn't you have to work at home, though?"

"No; and that was just the trouble, you see. My people had plenty of money, and they just wanted me to have a good time. And I did -- but I've had a better one since I started doing things for other people."

"I bet you always did, really -- "

"I'm not an angel now, Zara, and I certainly never used to be, nor a bit like one. Just because I've happened to be able to help you two a little, you think altogether too much of me."

"Oh, no; we couldn't -- "

"Well, as I was saying, Mrs. Chester saw how things were going, and she started to talk to me. I was horrid to her at first, and wouldn't pay any attention to her at all."

"I'm going to ask her about that. I don't believe you were ever horrid to anyone."