The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle Part 24

"_Now_ what are you crying for?" demanded Katherine, coming upon Hinpoha all by herself in the woods.

"Be-c-cause I'm s-so g-glad," said Hinpoha from the depths of a thankful heart.

"You make me tired," said Katherine, and brushed a tear out of her own eye.

CHAPTER XI

HARE AND HOUNDS

Once the tide was turned the Captain mended fast. A spell of beautiful, warm, dry weather followed the cold week, when the sun shone from morning until night and the pine-scented breezes bore health and strength on their pinions. Hinpoha outdid herself cooking delicate messes for him and Slim nearly died with envy when he saw the choice dishes being loaded on the invalid's tray.

"Pretty soft, pretty soft, I call it," he would say to the Captain, and the Captain would laugh and reply he was willing to change places.

The Captain's return to the ranks of the "huskies" was celebrated with a program of water sports and a great clam-bake on the beach. Of course, the Winnebagos got up a pageant, which on this occasion was a canoe procession, each canoe representing one of the seven points of the Camp Fire Law. "Seek Beauty" held a fairy creature dressed in white and garlanded with flowers; "Give Service" was the big war canoe, which went on ahead and towed all the others but one; "Pursue Knowledge" held a maiden who scanned the heavens with a telescope; "Be Trustworthy" held up a bag conspicuously labeled CAMP FUNDS; "Hold on to Health" was Katherine holding up a huge paper clock dial, its painted hands pointing to half past three A. M. with the slogan "Early to bed and early to rise make a crew healthy, wealthy and wise." "Glorify Work" paddled its own canoe, scorning to be towed by "Give Service," and "Be Happy" came along singing such rollicking songs and shouting so with laughter that they set the audience into a roar.

After the pageant came fancy drills in the war canoe. The crew were in fine practice by this time and the paddles rose, dipped, cross rested, clicked and water wheeled all as one in obedience to the commands shouted by Uncle Teddy. Just before the war canoe started out on her exhibition trip the Stars and Stripes was nailed to her prow with much ceremony and "floated proudly before" her throughout the manoeuvers.

Of course, no water sports could be complete without swimming races and a stunt contest, and Slim drew great applause by floating with his hands behind his head and one leg crossed over the other in his favorite position in the couch hammock.

Then Sahwah's stunt was announced and she went to Hinpoha, Migwan and Gladys and invited them to take tea with her that afternoon. They accepted with pleasure and withdrew to prink. In the meantime, Sahwah took a plate in her hand and dove under the surface. She swam to a large, flat rock, which was plainly visible through the clear water, set the plate on the rock and weighed it down with a stone. She did this three more times, setting four plates in all. Then she put a pear on each plate under the stone. This finished, she came to the surface and sat on a rock to await the coming of her guests.

When they arrived she greeted them affably and bade them make themselves comfortable beside her. They were chatting merrily when suddenly a black figure rose from the water almost at their feet so suddenly that Mrs.

Evans screamed. The black figure was the Monkey, who had quietly slipped into the water behind a large rock while all attention was focussed on the girls, and swimming under water came up in front of them. The new arrival on the scene turned out to be the waiter who announced that tea was ready. "We will be down immediately, Thomas," said Sahwah in her best society manner and promptly dove off the rock, the others following suit. They found their plates on the submerged rock, ate the pears under water and came up, amid the prolonged applause and shouting of the audience, who couldn't see "how they did it without choking." Of course that stunt was voted the best and the clever divers were crowned with ground pine in lieu of laurel and treated to lollypops.

Sahwah was just recovering the last plate when a sudden gust of wind tore the flag from the prow of the war canoe, riding at anchor a short distance away, and sent it flying through the air. It flew right over her head as she came up, and, reaching out her hand, she caught it. Then she swam back to the dock holding the flag above her head well out of the water so that not a drop stained it. The watchers cheered mightily as she came in waving it.

"'The old flag never touched the ground,'" she said, holding her head up proudly, "and it'll never fall into the water while I'm around."

"If only all young people had that same spirit of reverence toward their country's flag!" said Uncle Teddy fervently. "It is becoming a rarer sight all the time to see a young man take off his hat to the Stars and Stripes. We have come to regard it as a sort of decorative rag, and of no more significance than any other decoration. I think it is up to you Camp Fire Girls to foster this spirit of respect for the flag among young folks. I am very glad you did this thing today, Sahwah. It was a fine act."

Sahwah hung her head as she always did when praised, but the others declared that she grew an inch taller from that minute on.

"By the way, what's become of the Princ.i.p.al Diversion for this week?"

asked Katherine at breakfast one morning the week following the clam-bake in honor of the Captain's recovery. "Maybe I was asleep in Council Meeting Monday night, but I don't seem to recollect hearing one announced. Did I miss the announcement?" she asked of Sahwah, who with the Monkey was Chief for that week.

"There wasn't any announcement made," said Sahwah, trying to look dignified behind the coffee pot, and so busy filling up the plates of the others that she had scarcely eaten a mouthful herself. "We simply couldn't think of a thing that had not been done before, and we're still thinking."

"We haven't had a hare and hound chase yet," remarked Gladys. It was merely an idle suggestion, but the others pounced upon it immediately.

"The very thing!" said Sahwah promptly. "All our Princ.i.p.al Diversions so far have been trips by water; it's time we did a little scouting on foot. Thanks for the idea. We'll put it into action immediately. Today is a fine day for tramping. Munson can be leader of the Hares and I'll take the Hounds. All those sitting above the toast plate at the table will be Hares; all those on this side of it, Hounds. Hares will start right after breakfast and have an hour's start. Dinner will be carried along and eaten when the Hounds catch up with the Hares. If the Hounds catch the Hares before they reach their destination the Hares will do the cooking and give a show; if they have to wait for the Hounds to come up the Hounds will do the catering, watering and celebrating. The Hares will demonstrate their knowledge of scouting by blazing the trail in the proper manner, both by marking trees and by placing stones in the path."

The Hares scurried around and were ready to start in a jiffy. These were Munson McKee as leader, with Katherine, the Captain, Gladys, Pitt, Nakwisi and Antha. Sahwah's band consisted of Hinpoha and Slim, Migwan and Peter Jenkins, Dan Porter and Anthony. The elders had decided not to go on this trip. Mrs. Evans and Aunt Clara were still somewhat tired from their siege of nursing the Captain and were glad to have a day of quiet, and Uncle Teddy and Mr. Evans wanted to work on the boat landing, which was sinking into the water.

Uncle Teddy took the Hares across the lake in the launch and set them down at the edge of the woods. They struck out through the trees, chipping the trail on the trunks with a sharp hatchet, and working their way around the curve of the sh.o.r.e line to St. Pierre. There they rested and bought ice cream and while they were eating it Katherine had one of her periodical inspirations.

"Let's keep right on going until we get back to camp, and not stop anywhere at all," she suggested. "Won't we lead the others a fine chase, though? They'll be dead by the time they get there."

"What about us?" asked Gladys. "We'll be dead ourselves."

"I suppose we will," admitted Katherine, who hadn't thought of this before, "but it will be worth it. Who'll be game?"

"I know a way to fix it so we won't be dead," said Pitt, the crafty.

Pitt could always use his head to save his heels, and was a very Ulysses for cunning.

"How?" they all asked.

"Leave a note for the others on that last tree we blazed, telling them to follow the sand beach around to the Point of Pines. There aren't any trees along the beach so they won't think anything about our not blazing a trail. Then we'll simply rent a boat and cut straight across the lake to the Point of Pines. From there we'll go on blazing the trail back to the place opposite Ellen's Isle where we are to signal Uncle Teddy. By cutting across the corner of the lake that way we'll save three miles that the others will have to walk, and they'll wonder and wonder how we got so far ahead of them." The prospect of turning the hare and hound chase into a joke on the Hounds was too funny to pa.s.s up, and with giggles and chuckles they pinned the note on the tree back at the edge of the woods where the road ran toward St. Pierre; then they rented two rowboats and piled into them. Some distance to the east of St. Pierre stood the old abandoned lighthouse, and they had to row past it. It stood out in the water, several hundred feet from the sh.o.r.e, on an island so tiny that it did no more than give a foothold for the tower.

"Let's stop and go into it," said Katherine. "I've never seen a lighthouse close up before. And you ought to get a grand view of the lake and the islands from that little balcony that runs around the top.

Maybe we can see the others trailing after us."

The rest were also anxious to see the old lighthouse and as their short cut across the lake would gain them at least an hour they decided there was plenty of time to go inside. So the boys rowed alongside and made the boats fast and they all went up.

"It's horribly dilapidated and messy," said Gladys, viewing with fastidious distaste a pile of crumbled bricks and mortar which lay at the foot of the stairway, the result of an explosion which had blown a hole in the wall.

"'If seven maids with seven mops swept it for half a year, Do you suppose,' the Walrus said, 'that they could get it clear?'"

quoted Gladys, waving her hand in the direction of the heap.

"No doubt, but for a job like that I really wouldn't keer!" answered Katherine. "Come on, you can climb over it." And suiting the action to the word she took a long step over the pile of bricks and then reached down and pulled Gladys up after her.

It was fun standing up in the top of the lighthouse and looking out over the lake in all directions. The boats in the harbor of St. Pierre looked like cute little toys, and Ellen's Isle seemed to have shrunk to half its size.

"Come, Munson," said Katherine, "you get into the lantern and be the beacon. You can see that red hair of yours a mile. Too bad Hinpoha isn't here, she's a regular signal light."

"Get in yourself," retorted the Monkey. "Your nose is as red as my hair."

Far out over the lake they could see the black trail of smoke made by an approaching steamer.

"Here comes the _Huronic_," said Gladys.

"Let's stay out here until she goes past, and wave at the people," said Katherine.

"We won't have time, if we want to get to the Point of Pines ahead of the others," said the Captain. Katherine reluctantly admitted that he was right and they picked their way down the littered stairs again. But there were so many fascinating corners to poke into that another half hour ticked by before they could finally tear themselves away.

"Where are the boats?" asked Katherine, who was the first through the door. Yes, where were they? They were no longer fastened where the Captain had left them. Far out in the lake they saw them, still tied together, bobbing up and down on the baby waves.

The girls uttered a shriek of dismay, all except Katherine, who exclaimed in comical amazement, "What do you know about that?"

"I thought I had them tied fast," said the Captain ruefully. "What in the name of goodness are we going to do now?"

"Don't ask me," said the Monkey, gazing in a fascinated way at the swiftly fleeing boats. There was a strong current among the islands up here which was sweeping the runaways very fast toward the channel.

"Stranded!" exclaimed the Captain.