The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle Part 16

There was a ripple of exclamations at this, mixed with laughter, for Hinpoha's fondness for conversation was well known. "Laugh all you want to," she said, "but I'll prove to you that I can do it."

The Captain chose the spot for his retirement and on the first day after he was released from Chiefhood he paddled across to the mainland taking his blankets and water, but no food. Hinpoha stood on the bank as he departed, with a middy tie bound over her mouth. She had feared her ability to keep silence without it as a constant reminder.

When the Captain reached the place where he planned to spread his blankets he found an Indian bed of balsam branches fully two feet high.

Who could have made it? he wondered, and then he remembered that Hinpoha had gone off paddling by herself the afternoon before. She knew the place he had picked out. He threw himself down on the fragrant couch and began his long struggle for the victory of the spirit over the body.

Every night at sunset Uncle Teddy went over to see if he was all right and bring him fresh water from the little sweet spring on Ellen's Isle.

The third day the Captain lay with his eyes closed most of the time and dozed, the sounds of the wood and the lake coming to him as from afar off. Sometimes he slept and once he dreamed he saw an Indian girl come across the lake in a canoe, walk up to where he lay and stand looking at him steadily for a long time. He half opened his eyes and it still seemed to him as if there were someone there, but the face and the figure were Hinpoha's. He opened his eyes wider and looked again, but she had vanished, and he sank back to sleep.

Over at Ellen's Isle Hinpoha was going through the most strenuous three days in her whole experience. If anyone thinks it is easy to refrain from talking when one has talked all her life, let her try it, and her respect for Hinpoha will be greatly increased. The others tried by every means at their command to make her talk, popping questions at her suddenly to take her off her guard, making statements in her presence which she knew were incorrect and which she burned to correct, and in every way making the fulfillment of her vow a difficult task. She could not go off by herself and thus remove the temptation, for she had vowed to go about her daily tasks as usual. By the end of the third day she was nearly ready to burst, but through it all she managed to keep an unruffled temper and a pleasant expression--the outward signs of a soul at peace. There will be many readers who will maintain that Hinpoha won the greater victory, although the Captain's exploit won him more glory among his friends. To go off and fast has the halo of romance about it; to cease from talking for three days sounds easy, and in the case of a woman is apt to provoke smiles and hints that she must have talked in her sleep to make up for it.

When Uncle Teddy went over on the third sunset he brought the Captain home with him in the canoe. He looked just as he did when he went; not a bit thinner. When they asked him how he could stand it he replied that he hadn't felt hungry after the first day at all. A great feast had been prepared in his honor, and Hinpoha, released from her vow, shared the glory with him.

"Well, was anything revealed to you during your fast?" asked Aunt Clara.

"Do you know how to make your fortune now?"

The Captain only smiled at all remarks like that and in reply to demands as to what had been revealed simply replied, "Oh, several things." And his glance rested on Hinpoha for a fraction of a second.

"What did you dream about?" asked Hinpoha.

"Water," said the Captain. "That isn't surprising, though. There was water all around me in the lake and water in the jug beside me. And it was the only thing I was putting into my stomach, and dreams usually are the result of what you eat."

"I would have dreamed about turkey dinners and slumgullion and fudge,"

said Slim, spearing his fourth potato.

"You probably would," said the Captain, without a tinge of sarcasm. And his eyes rested on Hinpoha again for a fraction of a second.

CHAPTER VIII

A SEARCH FOR RELICS

The statement made by Colonel Berry that there might possibly be something buried under the rock in the ravine had made a deep impression on the Winnebagos and Sandwiches, and the possibility began to grow in their minds until it became a very strong probability. Visions of arrow heads, Indian pottery and ornaments were before them constantly, until nothing would do but they must investigate. The elders were much amused over the excitement, but voted it a harmless pastime and gave their full consent to an attempt at scientific research.

"Older and wiser people than they have spent their time digging in the dust for relics," said Uncle Teddy. "Even if they don't find what they are looking for there is nothing lost, and as the colonel said, digging is good exercise. It will be no small feat to move that rock over and if they accomplish it they will be pretty good engineers."

There were two spades and many hatchets among the camp equipment, and armed with these the Winnebagos and Sandwiches crossed the lake, went along the river until they came to the big cedar tree and from there struck into the woods, where they easily followed the trail they had traveled on that other occasion, for the cedar trees along the way were unmistakable guides. When they saw the rock again they were more certain than ever that it had been marked for some reason.

"Hurry and let's shove it aside," said Hinpoha, who could hardly wait.

"You talk about shoving it aside as if it were a baby carriage," said the Captain. "Can't you see it's imbedded in the earth?"

And not all their efforts would budge it one particle. So they began to dig around the base. They dug and they dug; they heaved and they perspired; they threw out the dirt by shovelfuls until it made a heap several feet high, and still they did not come to the bottom of the rock.

"I bet it goes clear through to China," said the Captain disgustedly, resting on his spade and mopping his brow.

"What sillies we are!" said the Bottomless Pitt. "What are we trying to dig the blooming rock out for? There wouldn't be anything under it that far down. If anything's buried here it's in the ground at the base of the rock."

"Well, there's the ground at the base of the rock," said the Captain, pointing to the heap of dirt. "We've dug it all up. There wasn't anything in it."

Slowly but undeniably the fact began to dawn on all of them. The marked rock was not the burying ground of any Indian relics. Hinpoha held out the longest, but even she had to admit it at last. Katherine, who had been skeptical from the first, laughed loud and long.

"What fools these mortals be!" she quoted disgustedly. "Breaking our backs digging up clay that's like iron and cutting up dozens of perfectly good angle-worms all on account of an old rock with a mark on it!"

"But the colonel said there _might_ be Indian relics," said Hinpoha, "so it wasn't so silly."

"Well, there aren't any," said Katherine.

"Never mind," put in Gladys pacifically, "if we didn't find anything we didn't lose anything either, and I've worked up such an appet.i.te from digging that I could eat an ox."

"So could I," said Sahwah. "Let's take the worms home with us and go fishing this afternoon. Then all our digging won't be for nothing."

"I bet I can catch more than any of you," boasted Anthony, strutting on ahead as usual.

Thus ended the quest for Indian relics and the excitement over the marked rock. The elders were very polite on their return and did not ask too many questions. "Never mind, chickens," said Aunt Clara soothingly.

"You're not the first who dug for treasure and didn't find it, and I've a notion you won't be the last. Go fishing with you this afternoon? I certainly will!" If Aunt Clara could be said to love one sport more than any other that one was fishing. "Where did you get all the worms?"

"They're the relics we found," said Katherine. "We dug them out of the hole we made."

"I dug most of them," said Anthony.

"He never touched one!" said Slim in an indignant aside to Hinpoha. "To hear him talk you'd think he was the only one who ever did anything around here."

Katherine considered fishing the most inane occupation under the sun, so she curled up on the beach to read while the enthusiastic anglers put out in the rowboats. Gladys did not care for fishing either, so she decided to stay on sh.o.r.e and keep Katherine company.

"What are you reading?" she asked, sitting down beside her in the shadow of the bluff.

Katherine held up the book so she could see the t.i.tle.

"_Romeo and Juliet_!" exclaimed Gladys. "Why, Katherine! I thought you hated love stories."

Katherine grinned rather shamefacedly. "I do, usually," she replied.

Gladys sat back and regarded her in wonder. Here was a new side coming to light. Katherine the unromantic; Katherine the prosaic; the independent, the hater of sentimental reading, devouring love stories all of a sudden! Gladys drew pictures in the sand and pondered on the meaning of it.

Katherine read on absorbedly for ten minutes, then she laid the book down abruptly. "Gladys," she said, "I want you to tell me something."

"What is it?" asked Gladys, pausing in the middle of an intricate pattern.

"What is the matter with me?" asked Katherine.

"What's the matter with you?" repeated Gladys. "There isn't _anything_ the matter with you. You're a dear."

"There is, too," said Katherine. "Somehow all the girls I read about in books are different. You're like the girls in books and so is Hinpoha and so are the rest of you, but I'm not. I'm big and awkward and homely, and that's all I'll ever be."

"No, you're not," declared Gladys. "You're the most fun that ever happened."