FOREBODINGS OF TROUBLE
"I think we'll beat those old Boy Scouts easily when we have that field
day, Bessie," said Dolly Ransom to her chum, Bessie King. "Look at the
way we beat them in the swimming match the other day."
A friendly rivalry between the Camp Fire Girls and the Boy Scouts of a
troop that was camping at a lake some miles away had led, a short time
before, to a swimming contest in which skill, and not speed and
strength, had been the determining factors, and, vastly to the surprise
and disgust of the boys, the girls had had the best of them.
"We don't want to be over-confident," said Bessie. "You know they
thought we were easy, and I don't believe they tried as hard as they
might have done. After all, girls and boys aren't the same, and if
boys are any good, they're stronger and better at games than girls, no
matter how good the girls are."
"Oh, they tried right enough," said Dolly. "They just couldn't do it,
that's all."
"Another thing, Dolly, we've got to remember, is that those weren't
races. If they had been we'd have been beaten, because those boys
could really swim a lot faster than we could. It was just a case of
doing certain things and doing them just the right way. Anyone can
learn that if they're patient enough, and it's not really very
important. I'm glad we won, because I think boys sometimes get the
idea that girls can't do anything, and it's just as well for them to
find out that we can."
"You're getting on, Bessie. When you first came from Hedgeville you
wouldn't have believed that, or, if you had, you wouldn't have said it."
"Oh, I think I would have, Dolly. You know about the only boy I had
much to do with in those days was Jake Hoover, and you saw him when he
tried to help get me back where I'd be bound over to that Farmer Weeks
until I was grown up."
"That's so, Bessie. You wouldn't have much use for boys if you thought
they were all like him, would you?"
"I know they're not, though, Dolly. So I never got any such foolish
ideas."
"What sort of things will we do in this field day, Bessie? Do you
know?"
"Not exactly. Miss Mercer hasn't arranged everything yet with their
Scoutmaster, Mr. Hastings. You know the reason we're going to have it
is that Mr. Hastings used to tease Miss Mercer about the Camp Fire
Girls."
"That's what I thought. He said we really couldn't manage by
ourselves, didn't he, if we were caught out in the woods without a man
to do a lot of things for us?"
"I think he did. They say a lot of the Boy Scouts think the Camp Fire
Girls are just imitating them, and that isn't so at all, because I got
Miss Eleanor to tell me all about it. The Camp Fire Girls are more
serious. They want to prepare girls to make good homes, and look after
them properly, and to help them to make things better in their own
homes.
"The Boy Scouts were organized partly to give boys something to do, and
to keep them out in the open air as much as possible, to make the boys
stronger, and healthier, and keep them from being idle and getting into
mischief."
"Well, that's what we're for, too, isn't it?"
"Yes, but not so much. Girls don't get into just the same sort of
mischief that boys do, so it's a different thing altogether. But,
anyhow, Miss Eleanor says it's silly for one to laugh and jeer at the
other; that all the Camp Fire people, the ones who are at the head of
the movement, approve of the Boy Scouts and think it's a fine thing,
and that most of the men who started the Boy Scout movement are
interested in the Camp Fire, too."
"Then she's going to try to prove that we really can manage by
ourselves?"
"Yes. And I think the idea is for their troop of Boy Scouts and our
Camp Fire to make a march on the same day, going about the same
distance, and doing everything without any help at all; cooking meals,
finding water, making camp, getting firewood, and everything of that
sort. A certain time is to be allowed for eating, and we are to make
smoke signals when we reach the camping place, and again when we leave.
There aren't to be any matches; all fires are to be made by rubbing
sticks together. We're to cook just the same sort of meals, and the
party that gets back to the starting point first wins."
"We're not to go together, then?"
"No. Won't it be much more exciting? You see, we won't know how
nearly finished they are. And they won't be able to see how fast we
are working. So each side ought to work just as fast as it can. It's
a new sort of a race, and I think it will be great sport."
"Oh, so do I! We're each to spend the same amount of time eating?"
"Yes, because if we didn't, one side could hurry through its meal, or
eat almost nothing at all, and get a start that way. And there's no
object in eating fast. It's to see how quietly we can march and
prepare our food and clean up afterward that we're having the test. It
isn't to be exactly like a race. The idea is to get as much fun and
good exercise out of it as anything else."
"Still it really will be a race, because each side will want to win.
Don't the Boy Scouts have contests like that among themselves,
sometimes?"
"Oh, yes. That's where the idea came from, of course."
"My, Bessie, but I'm glad everything is so quiet around here now! It
doesn't seem possible that we've had such exciting times since we've
been here, does it?"
"You mean about the gypsy who mistook you for me and tried to kidnap
you?"
"Yes. I think he's safe for a time now. Did you see Andrew, the
guide, when he came in to tell Miss Eleanor about how they'd taken
those gypsies down to the town, where the sheriff took hold of them?"
"No. What did he say?"
"Why, it seems that on the way down, John--he's the one who actually
carried me off, you know--tried to bribe them and get them to let him
go free. He said he had a friend who would pay a whole lot of money if
they would let him escape, and they could pretend that he just got
away, so that no one would ever know that they had had anything to do
with it."
"I suppose they just laughed at him?"
"They certainly did, and tied him up a little tighter, so that there
wouldn't be any chance of his managing to get away."
"Did he want them to let Lolla and Peter go, too?"
"No, that's the funny part of it. He didn't seem to care at all what
happened to them, so long as he didn't have to go to jail. He's just
as mean as a snake, Bessie. I've got no use for him at all."
"He was glad enough to have them help him when he wanted to get hold of
us, Dolly. But when he saw a chance to desert them he didn't remember
that, I suppose. What did Andrew think they would do to them?"
"Well, he didn't know. He said that when the people in the town heard
what the gypsies had done they were pretty mad, but, of course, they
didn't really start to do anything to hurt them. The sheriff said he'd
see that they were kept tight until they could be tried, and Andrew
guessed they wouldn't have much chance of getting off when the people
around the town would be on the jury. The men in those parts haven't
any use for gypsies, you see, and they'd be pretty sure to see to it
that they were properly punished."
"I wouldn't mind seeing Lolla get off, Dolly. I don't think she's as
bad as the others."
"Oh, I do, Bessie. I think she's worse. Why, she did her best to get
you into the same trap I was in! She was treacherous and lied to you."
"I know all that, too, Dolly. But it was because John made her do it.
He frightened her, I think, and besides that she's going to be married
to him, and among the gypsies a woman isn't supposed to do any thinking
when her husband tells her to do something. She just has to do it,
whether she thinks it's right or not. It isn't as if she had planned
the whole thing out."
"Well, she hurt you more than she did me. If you don't want her to be
punished, I don't see why I should."
"I don't think I want anyone to be punished, Dolly. But it isn't just
what I want that counts, and I suppose that if that man John got off so
easily it would be a bad thing, because if he's punished it may
frighten some others who'd be ready to do the same thing, and make them
understand that they'd better be careful before they do things that are
against the law."
"Well, I'd like to see him in jail, just to get even for the fright he
gave me when he snatched me up and carried me off through the woods.
And he left me there in that place he found, too, with a handkerchief
in my mouth, and tied up so that I couldn't move, so I don't see why I
shouldn't be glad to see him suffering himself. It was awful, Bessie,
and if you hadn't followed me and had a chance to sneak in there and
cheer me up, I don't know what I would have done."
"We'll have to tell what we know about what happened to us, I suppose,"
said Bessie. "I don't like the idea of that, but Miss Eleanor says we
can't help it; that the law will make us do it."
"Oh, I think it will be good fun. We'll get our names in the
newspapers, Bessie, and maybe there will be pictures of us. I won't
have any trouble telling them, either. I don't believe I'll ever
forget the things that happened to us that day, if I live to be a
hundred years old."
"No, neither shall I."
They had no more chance to discuss the matter, for just then they heard
the voice of Eleanor Mercer, the Guardian of their Camp Fire, calling
them. When they answered her call, finding her in the opening of her
own tent, her face was very grave.
"I've just had a letter from Charlie Jamieson, my cousin, the lawyer,"
she said. "I wrote to him about the extraordinary attempt that this
gypsy made to kidnap Dolly, and of how certain we were that Mr. Holmes
was back of it."
"I wish we knew why Mr. Holmes is so anxious to get hold of me, or to
get me into the same state I came from, so that Farmer Weeks can keep
me there until I'm twenty-one," said Bessie, looking worried.
"I wish so, too, Bessie," said Eleanor, anxiously. "I don't know how
much Dolly knows about this business, but I'm very much afraid that she
may be drawn into it from now on. And Mr. Jamieson agrees with me."
"Why, how is that possible?" asked Bessie. "You don't mean that they
may try to take her away?"
"I don't know, Bessie. That's the worst part of it. You see, they may
think she knows too much for it to be safe to leave her out of any
plans they are making now. We don't know what those plans are. This
last time, you see, Mr. Holmes evidently thought he had a splendid
chance to get hold of you through this gypsy, without being suspected
himself."
"He thought everyone would just blame the gypsy and never think about
him at all, you mean?"
"You see, the gypsy misunderstood--or rather Mr. Holmes misled him by
accident. He thought Dolly was Bessie, and the other way around. So
Dolly really suffered in your place that time, Bessie."
"I'm very glad I did!" said Dolly, stoutly.
"I know that, Dolly. You're not selfish, no matter what your other
faults may be. But I think you've got to understand just what we know
about the reasons for all this, though it isn't very much. Bessie
doesn't know much about her parents. They left her--because they had
to--when she was a very small girl, in charge of Mr. and Mrs. Hoover,
farmers, in Hedgeville."
"I know about that, Miss Eleanor. The place where we first met Bessie
and Zara, you mean."
"Yes. And Mrs. Hoover and her son Jake didn't treat Bessie well. In
fact, they treated her so badly that finally she ran away. You know
that the Camp Fire thinks people ought to stay at home, even if things
aren't very pleasant, but Bessie was quite right, I believe, to run
away then, because they had no real claim to her."
"I should say she was!"
"Well, you know about Bessie's chum, Zara, too. Her father was in
trouble, and was to be arrested. And when Zara and Bessie found out
that Zara was to be taken by this Mr. Weeks, a miser and a money
lender, Zara ran away, too, and we Camp Fire Girls helped them to get
away from that state and have been looking after them since."
"And then they stole Zara away!"
"No, not exactly. They lied to Zara, and told her things that made her
willing to go with them. Mr. Holmes seems to have been responsible for
that. You remember yourself how Mr. Holmes tricked you and Bessie into
going for a ride with him in his automobile, when we were all at the
farm?"
"I certainly do! I ought to, because all the trouble we had then was
my own fault."
"Well, never mind that, because, as it turned out, it was owing to that
ride that we got Zara back. She's with us now, and we are going to try
to keep her, and get her father out of prison, because Mr. Jamieson is
sure he is innocent. But we've got to be mighty careful, because we
don't know how Mr. Holmes happens to be mixed up with Farmer Weeks, and
why either of them should care anything about Bessie and Zara and
Zara's father. That's why I wanted to be sure that you understood as
much as we do ourselves."
"I see, and I'll promise to be as careful as I can, Miss Eleanor. I
wouldn't get Bessie or Zara into any more trouble for the world."
"I know you wouldn't, Dolly, and I hope it won't be very long before
the whole thing is straightened out. Mr. Jamieson is working hard to
try to find out what it is all about, and I think he's sure to find out
soon. This letter I had from him today is a new warning, really. He
says Mr. Holmes has hired lawyers to try to get that gypsy off."
"That proves that he hired him, too, I should think," said Bessie.
"It seems to, certainly, but I'm afraid it isn't legal proof, even
though it satisfies us. But the chief point is that Mr. Jamieson is
worried about you two when you have to testify."