The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle Part 13

"Hinpoha," said Gladys, drawing her aside when they were ready to retire, "what do you think of watching tonight? I've never done it and I'm crazy to try it once."

"You mean sit up all night?" asked Hinpoha.

"Yes," answered Gladys. "Go off a little way from the others and build a small fire and sit there in the still woods and watch. Nyoda always wanted me to do it some time, and I promised her I would if I got a chance."

"We'd better ask Aunt Clara about it first," said Hinpoha.

Aunt Clara said that after such a strenuous day's paddling, and with the prospect of another one before them it would be out of the question for them to sit up all night, but they might stay up until midnight if they chose and sleep several hours later in the morning.

Everyone else was too dead tired to want to sit up, so the two of them departed quietly into the woods where they could not hear the voices of the others and built a tiny fire. The proper way to keep watch in the woods is to do it all alone, but Hinpoha and Gladys compromised by agreeing not to say one word to each other all the while they sat there, but to think their own thoughts in absolute silence. If the city girl thinks there is not a sound to be heard in the woods at night she should keep the watch some time and listen. Beside the calls of the whippoorwill and the other night birds, there are a hundred little noises that seem to be voices talking to one another in some soft, mysterious language. There are little rustlings, little sighings, little scurryings and patterings among the dry leaves, drowsy chirpings and plaintive croakings. The old workaday world seems to have slipped out of existence and a fairy world to have taken its place. And the girl who truly loves nature and the wide outdoors will not be frightened at being alone in the woods at night. It is like laying her ear against the wide, warm heart of the night and hearing it beat.

And to sit by a lonely watch fire in the woods in the dead of night is to unlock the doors of romance. Strange fancies flitted through the minds of the two girls as they sat there, and thoughts came which would never have come in daylight. Somehow they felt in the calmness of the night the nearness of G.o.d and the presence of the Great Mystery. All the petty little daylight perplexities faded from reality; their souls became serene, while their hearts beat high with ambition and resolve.

They had no desire to speak to each other; each was planning out her life on a n.o.bler scale; each was steeped in peace profound.

Without warning they were roused from their reverie by a startled yell that shattered the silence and made the night hideous.

"What's the matter?" they both shrieked, starting to their feet in great fright.

The yell had come from the direction of the girls' sleeping place, and, taking to their heels, Gladys and Hinpoha sped through the woods to their friends. There they found everybody up and standing around with their blankets over their shoulders. A fire had been left burning in an open s.p.a.ce and beside this, Aunt Clara, looking like an Indian squaw, was talking to a man who looked as if he might be a brother of the man who had jumped into the river after Eeny-Meeny that evening.

"What's the matter?" they asked of Katherine.

"He ran into Eeny-Meeny," explained Katherine, "and it scared the wits out of him."

There was another rush of feet and Uncle Teddy and the Sandwiches came on a dead run. They had heard the yell and were coming to see what was the matter. The strange man in the Norfolk suit, nearly dead from embarra.s.sment, explained that he and his friend were camping some distance up the river and his friend had gone out walking in the early evening and come home with dripping clothes, having accidentally fallen into the river. Here the girls and boys looked at each other and had much ado to keep their faces straight. The friend had gone to bed and later in the evening had been taken with a severe chill. He had happened to mention that he pa.s.sed a large camping party in his walk. Seeing the light of the fire through the trees and taking it to be this camp which his friend had seen he had taken the liberty of walking over to ask if Uncle Teddy had any brandy. But before he had seen any of the campers or come near enough to hail them he had run into something in the darkness, and upon scratching a match was horrified to see an Indian girl tied to a tree. (Katherine had tied Eeny-Meeny up so she wouldn't fall over in the night.) In his fright he had cried out, and that was what had aroused the camp. He was very sorry, but he had never come upon an Indian in the woods at night, even a wooden cigar store one, and thought he might be pardoned for being frightened.

His exclamation when Eeny-Meeny was explained to him was just like that of his friend: "Well, really!" And there was that same shade of doubt in his voice as to the sanity of people who carried such a thing along with them on a canoe trip.

"Oh--I say," he called back, when Uncle Teddy had given him a small flask of brandy and pointed out the nearest route back, "if you should happen to run into my friend anywhere while you are in these woods would you be so kind as not to mention this--er--mistake of mine? He is something of a joker, and I am afraid if this story came to his ears he would repeat it where it would cause me some embarra.s.sment."

And he departed as solemnly as the other had done, leaving the campers limp with merriment.

The next day they ascended the river as far as they could go, with nothing more exciting than the dropping overboard of Katherine's poncho.

On the return trip the punctured canoe began to leak, so her crew and supplies were transferred to Eeny-Meeny's canoe and she was towed along in the leaky one, with frequent stops to bail out the water when she seemed in danger of being swamped. They spent the second night in the same place where they had spent the first, and this time there was no disturbance. They mended the leaky canoe again and Eeny-Meeny finished her trip in comparative dryness.

"Oh, dear," said Katherine, when they were back at Ellen's Isle once more, and had finished telling Mr. and Mrs. Evans their adventures, "what was there in life worth living for anyway, before we had Eeny-Meeny?"

CHAPTER VII

A FAST AND A SILENCE

Being Chief that week it was Katherine's duty to blow the rising horn in the morning. The day after the return from the canoe trip was the morning for war canoe practice. The crew practised three mornings a week before breakfast. Katherine, who had gone to sleep with the idea firmly fixed in her mind that she must wake by a quarter to seven so that she could rouse the others, awoke with a start, dreaming that she had overslept and the others had tied her in her bed and gone off without her. The world was dull and grey and covered with a chilly mist. There was nothing to inspire a desire to go war canoe practicing. Katherine was still tired from the strenuous paddling of the past two days, and she stretched in delicious comfort under the covers. Then she pulled her watch from under her pillow and looked at it.

"Gracious!" she exclaimed, sitting bolt upright in bed. "It's ten after seven. I have overslept! It's so grey this morning it seems much earlier."

She seized the horn and blew a mighty blast at the other girls, who were still sleeping peacefully. One by one they opened their eyes drowsily.

"Get up!" shouted Katherine. "We've overslept! This is the morning for crew practice and it's ten after seven already."

"Seems as if I'd just fallen asleep," grumbled Hinpoha, half rising from the pillow and then sinking down into its warm depths again.

"It's horrid and misty out," sighed Gladys. "Do we have crew practice if it isn't a nice day?"

"We certainly do," said Katherine emphatically, b.u.t.toning the last b.u.t.ton of her bathing suit and departing to wake the others.

In the next tent she encountered the same sleepy protest. "I didn't think we went out when it was misty," said Migwan, regretfully leaving the warm embrace of her blankets.

"I'm _so_ comfortable," sighed Nakwisi.

Katherine stood in the doorway with arms akimbo and delivered her mind.

"What kind of sports are you, anyway? Just because it's cold and misty you want to stay in bed all day and sleep. It's no test of energy to get out on a fine morning and paddle a canoe, that's pure fun; a cold, wet day is the real test of sportsmanship. What kind of Winnebagos are you?

You sing:

"'We always think the weather's fine in sunshine or in snow,' and then when the chance comes to prove it you back down."

"We haven't backed down," said Migwan hastily, "and we aren't going to.

See, I'm up already." And she reached for her bathing suit.

Katherine pa.s.sed out of the tent and took her position on the high place between the two encampments where her horn would awaken the boys. It took no end of l.u.s.ty blowing before she heard the answering shout that told they had heard and were getting up.

"Such a bunch of sleepy heads," she called aloud to the trees. "They paddle a few miles and think they're killed and have to sleep a week to make up for it. I won't have it while I'm Chief. We must get hardened down to all kinds of weather or else we're not true sports." And she marched back to her tent to see that none of the girls had slipped back to bed while she was out. They were all grumbling and yawning, but were dutifully getting into their bathing suits.

"Mine's wet," wailed Hinpoha, "and--ouch! it's cold. I forgot to hang it up after our swim last night. I think it's cruelty to animals to make a person get into a wet bathing suit."

"Serves you right for not hanging it up," said Katherine imperturbably.

It was a chilly and unenthusiastic crew that manned the war canoe a few minutes later. The boys had been just as reluctant to leave their beds as the girls, though none of them would admit it. Katherine lectured them all on their doleful countenances and repeated her remarks about the test of sportsmanship. After that n.o.body dared open their mouths about the unpleasantness of the weather; in dogged silence they dipped their paddles and pushed out into the greyness.

"Sing something," commanded Katherine, "and put a little life into your paddling! Ready now, 'We pull long, we pull strong.'"

And obediently they opened their mouths and sang, but it sounded all out of tune and they couldn't keep together no matter how hard they tried.

"Did the lake ever look so big and cold to you before?" asked Hinpoha in a forlorn voice after the attempt at singing had been given up.

"And St. Pierre looks about a thousand miles away, and all grey and shabby," said Gladys.

"Do you think it will rain so much today that we can't go over to St.

Pierre with the little launch engine?" asked the Captain.

"No telling," said Uncle Teddy, vainly trying to stifle a telltale yawn.

Uncle Teddy was secretly wishing that Katherine had overslept with the rest of them and did not have such a tremendous idea of good sportsmanship. But, being a thorough sport, he shook himself out of his drowsiness and shouted the paddling commands l.u.s.tily.

"One, two! One, two! Click stroke! Ready, dip!"

And the paddles clicked and dipped, as the paddlers began to feel the energy rising in their systems.