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Ebook has 722 lines and 36747 words, and 15 pages

CHAPTER

I The Grand Council Fire

II The Boy Scouts' Invasion

V Girls Courageous

VI The Punster Makes a Find

X Mr. Stanlock Amused

XX Twelve Girls in the Mountains

"Camp Fire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains"

"A Christmas Success Against Odds"

THE GRAND COUNCIL FIRE.

"Wo-he-lo for aye, Wo-he-lo for aye, Wo-he-lo, Wo-he-lo, Wo-he-lo for aye! Wo-he-lo for work, Wo-he-lo for health, Wo-he-lo, Wo-he-lo, Wo-he-lo for love."

Two hundred and thirty-nine girl voices chanted the Wo-he-lo Cheer with weird impressiveness. The scene alone would have been impressive enough, but Camp Fire Girls are not satisfied with that kind of "enough." Once their imagination is stimulated with the almost limitless possibilities of the craft, they are not easily pleased with anything but a finished product.

The occasion was the last Grand Council Fire of Hiawatha Institute for Camp Fire Girls located in the Allegheny city of Westmoreland. The classroom work had been rushed a day ahead, examinations were made almost perfunctory, and for them also the clock had been turned twenty-four hours forward. The curriculum was finished, and the day just closed had been devoted to preparation for a Grand Council wind-up for the fifteen Fires of the Institute, which would "break ranks" on the following day and scatter in all directions for home and the Christmas holidays.

And there was literal truth in this "break ranks" method of dismissing school at the Institute. Since the United States entered the European war on the side of the anti-frightfulness allies, Hiawatha had become something of a military school. The girls actually drilled with guns, and they would shoot those guns with all the grim fatality of so many boys. Not that they expected to go to war and descend into the trenches and fire hail-storms of steel-coated death-messengers at the enemy. Oh, no. They might, but they were sensible enough not to let their imagination carry them so far. But preparedness was in the air, and the girls voted to a--a--girl to take up military drill and tactics two hours a week as a part of their curriculum.

Madame Cleaver, head of the Institute, did not start the military movement rashly. She was carefully diplomatic in the conduct of her school, for she must satisfy the critical tastes and ideas of a high-class parentage clientele. But she also kept her fingers on the pulse of affairs and knew pretty well how to strike a popular vein. Hence the membership of her classes was always on the increase. Indeed, at the beginning of this school year, she had to turn away something like forty applicants, for want of room and accommodations.

Hiawatha Institute was founded as a Camp Fire Girls' school, and when Uncle Sam became involved in the European war, the national need for nurses appealed strongly to Camp Fire Girls everywhere. What could they do? The very nature of the training of the girls from Wood Gatherer to Torch Bearer made the question, so far as they were concerned, a self-answering one. They had all the broad commonsense rudiments of nursing. With some advanced science on top of this, they would be experts.

But military authorities said that the nurses ought to have some military drill. War nurses must be organized, and there was no better method of effecting this orderly requisite than by military training.

One well-known captain of infantry informed Madame Cleaver that war nurses could not reach the highest grade of efficiency unless they were able to march in columns from one camp to another and be distributed in squads at the points needed.

With all this information at her tongue's end, the madame put the matter to her uniformed girls in the assembly hall. Rumor of what was coming had reached them in advance, so that it did not fall as a surprise. The vote was unanimous in favor of the plan. The needed nursing expert was already a member of the faculty. The classes were formed a few days later.

These were the girls that gathered around a big out-door campfire--it was really a bonfire--in the snow of mid-winter on the evening of the opening of this story. Most of them were rich men's daughters, but there were no snobs among them. They were girls of vigor and vim, intelligence and imagination, practical and industrious. They were lively and fond of a good time, but--most of them, at least,--would not slight a duty for pleasure. Behind every enjoyment was a pathway of tasks well done.

Madame Cleaver was Chief Guardian of the fifteen Camp Fires of the Institute. The faculty was not large enough to supply all the adult guardians required, but that fact did not prove by any means an insurmountable difficulty. More than enough young women in Westmoreland, well qualified to fill positions of this kind, volunteered to donate their services in order to make the Camp Fire organization of the school complete. Indeed, these volunteer Guardians added materially to their influence and rank in the community by becoming connected with the Institute. There was, in fact, a waiting list of volunteers constantly among the social leaders of the place.

The Chief Guardian was mistress of ceremonies at the Grand Council Fire. Two hundred and thirty-nine girls in uniform, brown coats, campfire hats, and brown duck hiking boots, stood around the fire answering "Kolah" in unison by groups as the roll of the Fires was called. As each Fire was called and the answer returned, the Guardian stepped forward and gave a little recitation of current achievements. This program was varied here and there with music by a girls' chorus and a girls' orchestra. Everything went along with the smoothness, although with some of the deep dips and lofty lifts, of Grand Opera, until the name of the last Camp Fire, Flamingo, was called. Miss Harriet Ladd, the Guardian, stepped forward and said:

"Madame Chief Guardian, associate guardians, and Camp Fire Girls of Hiawatha Institute, I bring to you a message of things planned by Flamingo Camp Fire Girls, thirteen in number. As you know, there is in an adjoining state a strike of coal miners that has caused much suffering among the poor families of the strikers. High Peak lives in a mountain mining district. Her father is a mine owner and has given his consent to the extending of an invitation to Flamingo Camp Fire to work among these poor families and give them relief during the Christmas holidays. The arrangements have been completed, and the girls will start for Hollyhill tomorrow."

"Hooray, hooray, hooray! Hooray for High Peak! Hooray for Marion Stanlock! Hooray for Flamingo Camp Fire."

The cheers, shrill on the sharp winter air, now in unison, now in confusion, came not from the assembled Camp Fire Girls, although from nearly as many voices. Out from the timber thicket to the west of the campus rushed a small army of khaki-clad figures. There were a few screams among the girls, but not many. To be sure, everybody was thrilled, but nobody fainted. There were a few moments of suspense, followed by bursts of laughter and applause from the girls.

"It's the Spring Lake Boy Scouts," cried Marion Stanlock, who was first to announce an explanation of the surprise. "Clifford, Clifford Long, are you responsible for this?"

The Boy Scout patrol leader thus addressed did not reply, though he recognized the challenge with a wave of his hand.

He was busy bringing his patrol in matching line with the other patrols. As if realizing their purpose, the circle around the camp fire was broken at a point nearest the newly arrived invaders, and an avenue of approach was formed by the lining up of some of the girls in two rows extended out towards the Boy Scouts. In double file a hundred and fifty boys marched in and around the campfire; then faced toward the outer ring of Camp Fire Girls and bowed acknowledgment of the courteous reception.

THE BOY SCOUTS' INVASION.

That was a grand surprise that the Boy Scouts of Spring Lake academy "put over" on the Camp Fire Girls of Hiawatha Institute. They had been planning it for several weeks, or since they first received information of the Grand Council Fire as a closing event of the first semester of the girls' school. The two institutions were located in municipalities only fifteen miles apart, connected by both steam railroad and electric interurban lines.

Spring Lake academy, located on a lake of the same name at the southern outskirt of Kingston, was originally a boys' military school, and it still retained that primal distinction. But the success of Hiawatha Institute as a Camp Fire Girls' school set the imaginative minds of some of the leaders of the boys at Spring Lake to work along similar lines, with the result that the faculty's cooperation was petitioned for the organization of the student body into a troop of Boy Scout patrols. The scheme was successful, and as it served to inject new life into the academy, the business end of the institution had no ground for complaint.

This innovation at Spring Lake was due largely to the activities of Clifford Long, one of the students. He was a cousin of Marion Stanlock, and naturally this relationship served to direct his personal interest toward Hiawatha Institute. Not a few other students in these two schools were similarly related, some of them being brothers and sisters.

And so it is not to be wondered at if these two places of learning became, as it were, twin schools, with much of interest in common and many of their activities interassociated. They had rival debating teams between which were held more or less periodic contests, and in the numerous social events there were frequently exchanges of invitational courtesies.

The boys plotted their big surprise on the girls in true scout fashion. There was no real secret in the fact that the Camp Fire Girls of Hiawatha Institute were planning a big event, but girl-like they affected secrecy to stimulate interest. The result was more than could have been expected, although the girls did not realize this until after it was all over. The curiosity of the Spring Lake boys was thoroughly alive as soon as they learned of a mysterious "something big" going on at the institute. True to the character of real scouts they delegated emissaries, commonly denominated spies, to visit the stronghold of the Camp Fire Girls, get all the details of their plans discoverable and report back to headquarters. Greater success than that which rewarded their efforts could hardly have been wished for. Half a dozen boys went and returned and then put their heads and their reports together with the result that the Scouts of the school had all the information they needed.

They mapped out their plans and scheduled their prospective movements by the calendar and the clock. They chartered an interurban train for the run to and from the Institute. The arrival on the scene of the Grand Council Fire was, as we have seen, a complete surprise to the girls. The Scouts well knew that their presence would not be regarded as an intrusion, for a Grand Council Fire, according to the handbook, "is for friends and the public."

The interruption of the program by the marching of the Boy Scouts within the circle of the Camp Fire Girls was permitted to continue for ten or fifteen minutes, while a number of short speeches were made by some of the boy leaders, in which they gloried over the way they had "put one over on the girls."

"And we're not through yet," announced Harry Gilbert prophetically. "Some of us are going to put over another surprise just about as thrilling as this, and we want to challenge you to find out what it is."

Of course this statement produced the very result the boys desired. Naturally they wished the girls to think they were pretty bright fellows. They got just what they were looking for as a result of their "surprise," namely, volumes of praise. To be sure, this did not come in the form of undisguised admiration. That isn't the way a clever girl signifies her approval of this sort of thing. It just burst into evidence through such mock jeers as, "You boys think you are so smart," or "It's a wonder you wouldn't have gone to enough pains to build a railroad or sink a submarine."

To which, on one occasion in the course of the evening, Earl Hamilton replied:

"Thank you, ladies; we always do things thorough."

Well, the laugh that followed also was of the nature of an explosion. And it was on poor Katherine quite as much as on Earl, who had tripped up on an adjective in place of an adverb. The girl's eagerness was so evident that it struck everybody as funnier than the boy's mistake in grammar. Anyway, she recovered quite smartly and followed up her attack with this pert addendum as the laughter subsided:

This exchange of repartee took place in the large school auditorium, to which all repaired as soon as the outdoor exercises had been finished.

The program of the evening was punctuated by interruptions of this kind every now and then. Of course, the fun-makers waited for suitable opportunities to spring their "quips and cranks," so that no merited interest in the doing could be lost. And none of it was lost. The presence of the bold invaders seemed to add zest to the most routine of the Camp Fire performances, and when all was over everybody was agreed that there had not been a dull minute during the whole evening.

At the close of the Camp Fire Girls' program the 150 Boy Scouts arose and, with heroic unison of voices peculiar to much practice in the delivery of school yells, they chanted a clever parody of Wo-he-lo Cheer, a Boy Scout's compliment to the Camp Fire Girls, and then marched out of the auditorium and away toward the interurban line, where their chartered train was waiting for them, and all the while they continued the chant with variations of the words, the rhythmic drive of their voices pulsing back to the Institute, but becoming fainter and more faint until at last the sound was lost with the speeding away of the trolley train in the distance.

THE SKULL AND CROSS-BONES.

If Marion Stanlock, "High Peak" in the trait and a torch bearer, had read one of two letters, signed with a "skull and cross-bones," which she found lying on the desk in her room after the adjournment of the Grand Council Fire, doubtless there would have been an interruption, and probably a change, in the holiday program of the Flamingo Camp Fire. She saw the letters lying there and under ordinary circumstances would have torn them open and read them, however hastily, before retiring. But on this occasion she was rather tired, owing to the activities and the excitement of the day and evening. Moreover, she realized that she could not hope for anything but a wearisome journey to Hollyhill on the following day unless she refreshed herself with as many hours sleep as possible before train time.

So she merely glanced at the superscriptions on the envelopes to see if the letters were from any of her relatives or friends, and, failing to recognize either of them, she put them into her handbag, intending to read them at the first opportunity next morning. Then she went to bed and fell asleep almost instantly.

Marion was awakened in the morning by her roommate, Helen Nash, who had quietly arisen half an hour earlier. The latter was almost ready for breakfast when she woke her friend from a sleep that promised to continue several hours longer unless interrupted. She had turned on the electric light and was standing before the glass combing her hair. Marion glanced at the clock to see what time it was, but the face was turned away from her and the light in the room made it impossible for her to observe through the window shades that day was just breaking.

"What time is it, Helen?" she asked. "Did the alarm go off? I didn't hear it. What waked you up?"

Helen did not answer at once. For a moment or two her manner seemed to indicate that she did not hear the questions of the girl in bed. Then, as if suddenly rescuing her mind from thoughts that appealed to have carried her away into some far distant abstraction, she replied thus, in a series of disconnected utterances:

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