Dorothy Dale's Camping Days Part 5

But these plans could never interfere with a visit to the Cedars, the White's summer home, and here, on the afternoon of which we write, Dorothy found herself at last surrounded by her family, and submerged in their joyous welcome.

"Roger, how you have grown!" she kept saying as her eyes, time after time, sought out the "baby" brother of whom Dorothy was so fond. "And Joe! Why, you are getting to look so much like Nat----"

"Here, now! No knocking!" called out the jolly Nat. "I don't want to be handsome, but I simply refuse to look ten years younger!" This last was said in imitation of the "lady-like way" girls are supposed to have in expressing their compliments.

"And me?" asked Ned, pulling himself up out of his high-enough height before his cousin. "What is the verdict? Am I not--ahem--stunning?"

"You are big enough, that's sure," admitted Dorothy, giving him a look of unstinted admiration, "and as to being stunning--I just imagine that you are even that--in your golf suit."

"There now!" and Nat went off into kinks; "he has to wear knickers to look cute. You ought to see me in my football togs if you want to behold something really magnificent."

"Here, here!" called out Major Dale. "When I was a lad it was considered a crime to keep a mirror in one's room. We used to keep one blind shut to get a reflection on the window pane for the neck-tie business, and we took a chance at the hair-part. But to hear you young ones! What you actually need, boys, is a little of the real thing in training. Why don't you pitch a tent out on your own river here, and go in for roughing it?"

"Great!" declared the boys' chorus.

"Now that's something like," continued Nat, "and it would do a lot toward patching up a fellow's finances. Let's see. Where's that itinerary? Suppose we make it two weeks at home--on the co-operative."

Like the proverbial wildfire, the suggestion spread, until within a short hour the boys, with Dorothy, were out on the river edge, selecting the spot upon which to pitch the "War Tent"--for war they declared it would be, "against masculine beauties." Dorothy found herself so busy planning the boys suits, figuring out what they would require in the way of supplies and furniture, though this last was to be cut down to mere necessities, that she almost felt her own camping days had begun, as Nat expressed it.

"Now that comes of having a girl around," declared Ned. "If you had not come, Dorothy, we would never have had that admiration conference, and then we could never have discovered our own beautiful river, for in this case, I don't mind using a correct, and all right adjective, although usually I consider anything adjectivey rather too much of a spread."

He sauntered once more to the river's brink, where a short distance down stream could be seen the _Lebanon_, the family rowboat. Surely the place did warrant the boy extravagant use of "a correct adjective," and did look "adjectivey" away into the superlative.

Nat found just the spot for the tent, Roger and Joe were racing about like little human greyhounds, intent upon the scent of fun, and Dorothy took time to decide that perhaps this camp would prove as delightful as she expected that one to be, whither, in a few days, she must journey, and leave the dear home-folks, reluctantly, indeed. But then boys' fun always seemed like their idea of Fourth of July--just as noisy and just as unreliable. At the same time they always managed to put it off with a roar, and this roar had already set in for the Blanket Indians of "Cut-it-out-Camp."

Dorothy had promised her Aunt Winnie not to stay too long away from her, as there were so many things to be discussed before the aunt and her favorite niece should part for the summer. So that, now, Dorothy was hurrying to finish up her part of the camp map, and go back to the Cedars.

"We fellows must get a few good strong poles over there on the knoll,"

said Nat, "and I see no better time to get them than right now."

"Then I must go home," spoke Dorothy. "I have already overstayed my leave of absence."

"Can you go back alone?" asked Ned. "If not, I'll cut the trees by cutting out the work. See how well we have named the camp. It's in working order already."

"No you don't," interrupted Nat. "You've got to do your share of everything."

"I'll run back while you are talking about it," declared Dorothy. "I'm sure I know the way perfectly well."

"Be sure," called Ned, "for there are turns and twists in that woodland, that I think you are scarcely familiar with."

But Dorothy was gone. She ran along through the twilight-tinted woods, stopping now and then to look at the gray squirrels that capered up and down the trees, some making so bold as to run along the fence at her very side.

"This will make an ideal camping grounds," she was thinking. "I wonder the boys never thought of using it before."

Suddenly she heard a rustle in the brush. She stopped and listened. It sounded again, this time nearer. She looked about her, and, for the first time, realized that she was, indeed, in deep woods.

To call for the boys, Dorothy knew would be worse than useless, for it would simply notify any listener of her fears, so, instead, she walked along boldly enough, even whistling lightly as any Glenwood girl would do "when in doubt," according to the Glenwood code.

But she had not more than crossed the first small stream, made up of a number of springs, running through this wood toward the river, when something--a most grotesque figure--stepped out in her path!

It was too absurd to really frighten her at first, for it apeared to be a boy dressed up as a bandit, and surely any such prank could mean nothing serious, she thought.

"Good afternoon," Dorothy said, attempting to pa.s.s.

A queer growl was her answer, and the figure in the Indian suit, with a mask of red cloth, and all sorts of trappings hanging about from belts and straps, actually pointed what seemed to be a real gun at her.

"Hands up!" came the command.

Dorothy still felt like laughing. Surely this must be a trick of some boy in the neighborhood, she decided.

"Hands up!" again came the command, this time the gun being deliberately aimed at her head!

"What do you want?" demanded Dorothy. "Why should you stop me--with your nonsense?"

Dropping the old-fashioned gun the boy (for such she decided the person was) jumped at her, and grasped her hands, at the same time making an effort to tie them, with a bit of rope from the belt trappings.

"Stop! Stop!" Screamed Dorothy, now thoroughly frightened. "Help!

Help!" she yelled at the very top of her terrified voice.

"Easy, easy," came the exasperating, sneering words from the bandit.

"Take it easy or it will be all the worse for you. Now where do you keep the goods?"

He had actually succeeded in tying her hands and now held her prisoner with one strong arm about her waist, and with the other hand he was endeavoring to unclasp her beautiful little gold bracelet. Fearing to lose her footing, in her frantic efforts to get free, Dorothy thought quickly. It would be better to lose her jewelry, than to have her life perhaps imperiled.

"You may take my--gold," she panted. "You seem to be stronger than I, and if you are not crazy you must be--a thief!"

"If you shout--I'll gag you," came the astonishing declaration, while the bandit struggled with the bracelet, and almost cut Dorothy's wrist on the knife with which he was trying to cut loose the circlet.

"Oh, don't," pleaded Dorothy. "Let go my hand and I'll give it you!"

How she wanted to yell! But if he should tie her mouth!

Voices sounded!

"Oh, it must be the boys," thought Dorothy. "If only they come this way!"

Her a.s.sailant heard the same voices, and desperately he pulled at the locked bracelet. As he made one final attempt to wrench it from Dorothy's wrist, his knife slipped, and cut clear across his own hand, the blood spurting from a long wound. With a cry he dropped his hold on Dorothy, and attempted to staunch the flow of blood.

Freed, Dorothy ran--ran as she felt she had never known she could run!

She did not stop to call, although she judged that the boys might be near by; but ran on, across the marshes without any heed to the water, that even splattered up in her face, as she jumped from edge to edge of the rivulets, making her way out to the open roadway.

How her heart pounded! It did not seem to beat, but rather to strike at her breast and almost to strangle her.

It was getting quite dusk, but once on the road and she would feel safe.

"Hey there!" came a call in a familiar voice.

The boys were just coming out of the woods at the far end of the oaks.