The Meadow Brook Girls Across Country Part 37

"Now we will get ready at once. Let us be certain that none of the boys are watching. I would suggest that you girls lie down for an hour or so, while Harriet and myself get the packs together."

Hazel obediently led the way into the tent, Margery and Tommy following.

"I can't thleep. I'm too exthited," protested Tommy. She and her companions did sleep however. They were allowed to rest for two hours.

When they awakened Harriet informed them that the Tramp Club already had started. Half an hour later the girls themselves had taken the trail to Meadow-Brook.

The Pathfinders made straight for a blue range of mountains that stood out dark and forbidding in the bright moonlight. The girls were full of enthusiasm, and would have walked much faster had not their guardian insisted on their saving their strength for the more difficult traveling after they reached the hills.

It was three o'clock in the morning when finally they dropped down a sharp incline into the gloomy depths of a rocky canyon. A trickling stream flowed through the canyon and the walls stood high on either side, rising sheer for a hundred feet.

"You will have to wade, girls. But I think we are all sufficiently hardened so that we shall not suffer more than temporary discomfort from getting our feet wet," said the guardian, with an encouraging smile.

The girls plunged into the brook without hesitation. The water was only ankle deep, but the stones on the bottom of the creek were moss-covered and slippery. Still, they made good progress, really traveling faster than before they had entered the canyon.

At daylight Miss Elting called a halt. She had chosen a place where a dry shelf of rock offered a resting place. The girls threw themselves down flat on their backs. There was no wood with which to build a fire, but Miss Elting produced a small alcohol stove from her pack and made coffee. This with biscuits they had brought proved very refreshing. The guardian did not permit them to remain on the shelf of rock for a long time, fearing that their muscles might become stiffened. Then the journey was taken up again. So full of enthusiasm and determination were the Meadow-Brook Girls that not one of them offered a word of complaint; but when at two o'clock that afternoon, they emerged from the canyon into the open country, Tommy and Margery were limping a little.

Beyond in the haze of a distant valley lay Meadow-Brook. The girls eager to get to their journey's end pushed on again. After half an hour's walking, Miss Elting called a halt. She shaded her eyes and gazed off to the west. A thin brown line was crawling slowly along the road.

"It's the boys!" cried Harriet.

"They're going to win," groaned Margery.

"They are not. We must run for it."

"Yes," agreed Miss Elting. "But don't get excited. Keep your lips tightly closed. Breathe through your nostrils and keep your shoulders well back. Don't keep yourselves rigid, but just trudge along with every muscle relaxed. They don't see us. Ready! Go!"

The girls crossed the field at a trot. It was a good two miles to the village. They ran slowly, but steadily. At the end of a mile the guardian again ordered a halt, directing the girls to lie down in the field flat on their backs. A few moments later they were up and off again. They saw the boys a long distance to the rear, still trudging doggedly along. And half an hour later the girls stepped from the field out into the road. They heard the chug of a motor car. It swept on and overtook them. It was Jane. She was howling like a wild Indian.

"They're coming! They're coming. Run for it!" she yelled.

By this time the boys had discovered the girls. They, too, began to run.

The race was on in earnest. Never had those girls run and stumbled and lurched along as they did that afternoon. The boys gained slowly. The girls were nearing home. Jane was leading the procession, standing up in her car, steering as she stood, setting the pace for the Meadow-Brook Girls. She was shouting and yelling to keep up their courage, but it was an almost killing pace that she was making for them.

The girls staggered over the line that marked the village limits.

"Home!" cried Miss Elting.

"We've won!" screamed Jane almost beside herself with joy.

The girls walked unsteadily to one side of the road and sat down gasping. They had won the race, but by a slender margin. The boys were still forging ahead, running at top speed. They had thrown away their packs and were racing into the village in light order. Five minutes later a crowd of weary, humiliated boys came hurrying up to where the girls sat. They were much more fatigued than were their opponents, besides which, they were chagrined beyond words.

"Did we win?" jeered Jane triumphantly.

"Yes. You won," admitted Captain Baker sourly. "I take off my hat to you." He suited the action to the word. "You beat us at our own game. I don't know how you did it, but you did and that's all there is about it, and we aren't going to whine. We'll take our medicine. We're going to stay in town the rest of the day, and we'll see you later on. Good-bye until to-night."

The girls' weariness left them almost magically. They hopped into Jane's car and were swiftly whirled home. Later in the afternoon a box of marshmallows for each of the girls was delivered to Miss Elting. But the fun was not yet ended.

That night the Tramp Club and the Meadow-Brook Girls were the guests of Tommy Thompson's father and mother at dinner. Tommy's parents, as well as the parents of the other girls, were delighted with the splendid physical condition of their daughters. Before each girl's plate at the table that stretched the length of the big dining room, was a box of marshmallows, before each boy's plate a handkerchief.

The marshmallow boxes were tied with pink ribbon, the color chosen by the Meadow-Brook Girls for their organization.

"On Hallowe'en," declared Dill Dodd solemnly, "you shall hear from the tramps again, and the message will have a bearing on the question of melons."

Nor did Baker's Tramp Club forget. Surely enough, on Hallowe'en Harriet received for herself and her friends two great, ripe, luscious watermelons with a most cordially worded note from the boys.

"We must see to it that the Tramp Club never do anything like this again," said Miss Elting, as she and the Meadow-Brook Girls cut up and enjoyed the watermelons. "At this season of the year fruit of this kind comes only from hot houses and is very expensive. The boys, to show their contrition, have mortgaged their pocket money, I fear."

Soon after their return the Meadow-Brook Girls entered upon the duties and pleasures of the new school year. We may be a.s.sured also that at the proper time, Miss Elting would see to it that the beads which the girls had won by their deeds of daring and other achievements during their recent trip, would be awarded. But we shall hear from them again.

They had ahead of them many happy days of outdoor life and adventure, as will be learned in the next volume of this series, which is published under the t.i.tle, "The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat; Or, The Stormy Cruise of the Red Rover."

THE END