THE PREMATURE CAMP
After all, the last days of school came and went, and the Glenwood
girls had started off for their respective homes before Dorothy had a
chance to fully realize that the vacation had really begun, and that
each day of that delightful calendar now seemed suspended from the
very skies, illumined with the prospects of the very best of good
times.
Dorothy had promised to spend a greater part of the summer with
Rose-Mary Markin at the Markin summer place, a delightful spot on Lake
Monadic in Maine. This plan was particularly fortunate, as Mrs.
Winthrop White, Dorothy's Aunt Winnie, with whom the Dales had lately
made their home, was to go abroad, while Ned and Nat, Dorothy's
cousins, had arranged such a varied itinerary for their summer sports,
that one might imagine, to hear the schedule, that the particular
summer involved must have been of the brand which has neither night
nor autumn to mark its limits.
Then Major Dale, and Dorothy's brothers, Joe and Roger, were to take a
long-promised cruise on the St. Lawrence, so that Dorothy was quite at
liberty to plan for herself.
But these plans could never interfere with a visit to the Cedars, the
White's summer home, and here, on the afternoon of which we write,
Dorothy found herself at last surrounded by her family, and submerged
in their joyous welcome.
"Roger, how you have grown!" she kept saying as her eyes, time after
time, sought out the "baby" brother of whom Dorothy was so fond. "And
Joe! Why, you are getting to look so much like Nat----"
"Here, now! No knocking!" called out the jolly Nat. "I don't want to
be handsome, but I simply refuse to look ten years younger!" This last
was said in imitation of the "lady-like way" girls are supposed to
have in expressing their compliments.
"And me?" asked Ned, pulling himself up out of his high-enough height
before his cousin. "What is the verdict? Am I not--ahem--stunning?"
"You are big enough, that's sure," admitted Dorothy, giving him a
look of unstinted admiration, "and as to being stunning--I just
imagine that you are even that--in your golf suit."
"There now!" and Nat went off into kinks; "he has to wear knickers to
look cute. You ought to see me in my football togs if you want to
behold something really magnificent."
"Here, here!" called out Major Dale. "When I was a lad it was
considered a crime to keep a mirror in one's room. We used to keep one
blind shut to get a reflection on the window pane for the neck-tie
business, and we took a chance at the hair-part. But to hear you young
ones! What you actually need, boys, is a little of the real thing in
training. Why don't you pitch a tent out on your own river here, and
go in for roughing it?"
"Great!" declared the boys' chorus.
"Now that's something like," continued Nat, "and it would do a lot
toward patching up a fellow's finances. Let's see. Where's that
itinerary? Suppose we make it two weeks at home--on the co-operative."
Like the proverbial wildfire, the suggestion spread, until within a
short hour the boys, with Dorothy, were out on the river edge,
selecting the spot upon which to pitch the "War Tent"--for war they
declared it would be, "against masculine beauties." Dorothy found
herself so busy planning the boys suits, figuring out what they would
require in the way of supplies and furniture, though this last was to
be cut down to mere necessities, that she almost felt her own camping
days had begun, as Nat expressed it.
"Now that comes of having a girl around," declared Ned. "If you had
not come, Dorothy, we would never have had that admiration conference,
and then we could never have discovered our own beautiful river, for
in this case, I don't mind using a correct, and all right adjective,
although usually I consider anything adjectivey rather too much of a
spread."
He sauntered once more to the river's brink, where a short distance
down stream could be seen the _Lebanon_, the family rowboat. Surely
the place did warrant the boy extravagant use of "a correct
adjective," and did look "adjectivey" away into the superlative.
Nat found just the spot for the tent, Roger and Joe were racing about
like little human greyhounds, intent upon the scent of fun, and
Dorothy took time to decide that perhaps this camp would prove as
delightful as she expected that one to be, whither, in a few days, she
must journey, and leave the dear home-folks, reluctantly, indeed. But
then boys' fun always seemed like their idea of Fourth of July--just
as noisy and just as unreliable. At the same time they always managed
to put it off with a roar, and this roar had already set in for the
Blanket Indians of "Cut-it-out-Camp."
Dorothy had promised her Aunt Winnie not to stay too long away from
her, as there were so many things to be discussed before the aunt and
her favorite niece should part for the summer. So that, now, Dorothy
was hurrying to finish up her part of the camp map, and go back to the
Cedars.
"We fellows must get a few good strong poles over there on the knoll,"
said Nat, "and I see no better time to get them than right now."
"Then I must go home," spoke Dorothy. "I have already overstayed my
leave of absence."
"Can you go back alone?" asked Ned. "If not, I'll cut the trees by
cutting out the work. See how well we have named the camp. It's in
working order already."
"No you don't," interrupted Nat. "You've got to do your share of
everything."
"I'll run back while you are talking about it," declared Dorothy. "I'm
sure I know the way perfectly well."
"Be sure," called Ned, "for there are turns and twists in that
woodland, that I think you are scarcely familiar with."
But Dorothy was gone. She ran along through the twilight-tinted woods,
stopping now and then to look at the gray squirrels that capered up
and down the trees, some making so bold as to run along the fence at
her very side.
"This will make an ideal camping grounds," she was thinking. "I wonder
the boys never thought of using it before."
Suddenly she heard a rustle in the brush. She stopped and listened. It
sounded again, this time nearer. She looked about her, and, for the
first time, realized that she was, indeed, in deep woods.
To call for the boys, Dorothy knew would be worse than useless, for it
would simply notify any listener of her fears, so, instead, she walked
along boldly enough, even whistling lightly as any Glenwood girl would
do "when in doubt," according to the Glenwood code.
But she had not more than crossed the first small stream, made up of a
number of springs, running through this wood toward the river, when
something--a most grotesque figure--stepped out in her path!
It was too absurd to really frighten her at first, for it apeared to
be a boy dressed up as a bandit, and surely any such prank could mean
nothing serious, she thought.
"Good afternoon," Dorothy said, attempting to pass.
A queer growl was her answer, and the figure in the Indian suit, with
a mask of red cloth, and all sorts of trappings hanging about from
belts and straps, actually pointed what seemed to be a real gun at
her.
"Hands up!" came the command.
Dorothy still felt like laughing. Surely this must be a trick of some
boy in the neighborhood, she decided.
"Hands up!" again came the command, this time the gun being
deliberately aimed at her head!
"What do you want?" demanded Dorothy. "Why should you stop me--with
your nonsense?"
Dropping the old-fashioned gun the boy (for such she decided the
person was) jumped at her, and grasped her hands, at the same time
making an effort to tie them, with a bit of rope from the belt
trappings.
"Stop! Stop!" Screamed Dorothy, now thoroughly frightened. "Help!
Help!" she yelled at the very top of her terrified voice.
"Easy, easy," came the exasperating, sneering words from the bandit.
"Take it easy or it will be all the worse for you. Now where do you
keep the goods?"
He had actually succeeded in tying her hands and now held her prisoner
with one strong arm about her waist, and with the other hand he was
endeavoring to unclasp her beautiful little gold bracelet. Fearing to
lose her footing, in her frantic efforts to get free, Dorothy thought
quickly. It would be better to lose her jewelry, than to have her life
perhaps imperiled.
"You may take my--gold," she panted. "You seem to be stronger than I,
and if you are not crazy you must be--a thief!"
"If you shout--I'll gag you," came the astonishing declaration, while
the bandit struggled with the bracelet, and almost cut Dorothy's wrist
on the knife with which he was trying to cut loose the circlet.
"Oh, don't," pleaded Dorothy. "Let go my hand and I'll give it you!"
How she wanted to yell! But if he should tie her mouth!
Voices sounded!
"Oh, it must be the boys," thought Dorothy. "If only they come this
way!"
Her assailant heard the same voices, and desperately he pulled at the
locked bracelet. As he made one final attempt to wrench it from
Dorothy's wrist, his knife slipped, and cut clear across his own hand,
the blood spurting from a long wound. With a cry he dropped his hold
on Dorothy, and attempted to staunch the flow of blood.
Freed, Dorothy ran--ran as she felt she had never known she could run!
She did not stop to call, although she judged that the boys might be
near by; but ran on, across the marshes without any heed to the water,
that even splattered up in her face, as she jumped from edge to edge
of the rivulets, making her way out to the open roadway.
How her heart pounded! It did not seem to beat, but rather to strike
at her breast and almost to strangle her.
It was getting quite dusk, but once on the road and she would feel
safe.
"Hey there!" came a call in a familiar voice.
The boys were just coming out of the woods at the far end of the oaks.
"What's your hurry!" demanded Nat.
Dorothy felt like sinking down. The relief was almost as overwhelming
as had been her fear.
"Oh, do hurry!" she called rather feebly. "I am almost dead!"