A DAY IN THE WOODS
Mollie crept to the door of their hut at sunrise next morning. She
thought she heard light footfalls outside their door. The other girls
were fast asleep, worn out by the long trip of the day before. Yet when
Mollie peeped outside no one was in sight; all was silence.
Only the birds had begun to stir in their nests and call their morning
greetings across from one tree top to another. As far as Mollie could see
stretched the unbroken forest. A narrow path ran down the hill between
the trees. A steeper incline rose back of them and this was broken with
deep ravines. Mollie could neither see nor hear anyone. Yet it seemed to
her that she was not alone. She had a sense of some unknown presence.
She crept back into the room and put on her crimson dressing gown and
slippers. She was bent on making a discovery. It could not be Naki or his
wife, whose light footfalls she had heard moving swiftly around the
house. They were nowhere to be seen. She was nervous about going out, as
Miss Sallie had made dreadful suggestions about wolves and wild cats, yet
she slipped out on the tiny porch. Far away through the trees and up the
steep hillside she saw flying like a deer, a thin, brown creature. Was it
human or a sprite? Mollie could not guess. She caught a glimpse of it,
but it had been impossible to observe it accurately, so fast it flew.
There was only a whirr of flying feet, and a flash of brown and scarlet
to be seen. Could it be the famous ghost of Lost Man's Trail?
At this same moment Naki came around from the back of the house. "I
thought I heard some one," he grumbled, looking suspiciously at Mollie.
"Yes, so did I," she answered. "And I saw some one or something fly up
the steep side of that hill."
Naki did not answer. Mollie thought he looked at her queerly.
"You must have been mistaken, Miss," he declared. "Nothing could have
gone up that ravine over yonder. There's only an Indian trail back there.
Nobody travels much over that hill. It's all cliffs and dangerous."
Mollie shook her pretty head. She did not argue, but she knew what she
had seen.
"I am going to try climbing it, some day, just the same," she thought to
herself, "but of course, I must get used to finding my way about first. I
must find out just what I saw this morning."
"Where have you been, Mollie?" asked Grace, opening her eyes as Mollie
came back to bed.
"What's up?" called Ruth from the next room, where she slept with Miss
Sallie.
"Oh, nothing," Mollie answered, fearful of being thought superstitious.
"I thought I heard a sound at the door, but I was mistaken."
"Girls," Ruth demanded later, as they sat over their breakfast, "is there
anything in the world so good to eat as bacon fried by Ceally over an
open fire?" Ruth helped herself to all that was left on the dish.
"Ruth Stuart!" called Barbara. "How dare you take all the bacon, when you
have just declared it was so delicious? Miss Sallie, make her divide with
me."
Miss Stuart looked up from her eggs and toast: "What are you children
quarreling about?" she asked placidly. "Suppose you bring us another dish
of bacon, Ceally. The mountain air certainly creates an appetite. I am
sure I don't see what benefit I am to get from 'roughing it!' The one
thing I hoped to do by living outdoors was to reduce my figure, but, if
my appetite continues at the present rate, I shall certainly not lose an
ounce."
"Don't you be too sure, auntie," Ruth demurred. "Wait till we get through
with you to-day. Think you can climb the hill back of us?"
Mollie interrupted. "Naki warns us against that particular hill. He says
it is unpopular for climbing because of its cliffs and ravines. But he
hints that there is an Indian trail over it, so I am dying to explore it.
Aren't you, Bab?"
"Well, it's not for me!" laughed Ruth hastily. "I am not any too devoted
to scaling cliffs, you may remember."
"What's the programme for to-day?" Grace asked.
"Somebody must go down the hill with me this afternoon," Ruth answered.
"The automobile is to meet us there you know, to take us to a postoffice
to mail our letters to our beloved families. This morning we can just
poke round the camp. I want Naki to teach us how to make a camp fire."
Mollie looked down at her dainty hands. "It is rather dirty work, isn't
it?" she asked.
"Not a bit of it, Mollie," put in Bab. "Don't be finicky, or we shall put
you out of camp. It's a good thing to know how to build a first-class
fire. Suppose one of us should be lost in the woods some day!"
"We will suppose no such thing," protested Miss Stuart.
Early in the afternoon Miss Sallie and the four girls started down the
hill. Bab, Mollie and Miss Stuart were to go only a part of the way with
Ruth and Grace, the two girls continuing their walk until they met the
chauffeur, who was to bring the motor car up to the point of the road
where Ruth had told him to meet her.
Mollie and Bab begged off from the excursion. "I don't want to know," Bab
argued, "how near we still are to civilization. If I go to town with you
to-day, no matter how long the drive is, it will take away a part of the
romance of living in the hills."
Miss Stuart was not much of a walker. Before they had gone half a mile
she decided that it was high time to turn back.
"Good-bye girls," she called to Ruth and Grace, who were hurrying on. "Do
not stay too late. You must be back by dusk, or I shall be most uneasy.
At five-thirty I shall expect you in camp. These are my orders." Miss
Sallie turned to Bab and Mollie. "Seriously, children," she explained, "I
think I shall establish military rules. If one of you stays out after
dusk, I believe I shall shut you up in the guard house for twenty-four
hours."
"But where is the guard house please, Miss Sallie?" inquired Mollie
meekly.
Miss Sallie laughed. "In this case the guard house means only the cabin.
The girl who fails to appear when the roll is called in the evening must
remain within the limits of the camp all the following day."
Bab and Mollie left Miss Stuart before the log fire in the living room of
their hut. Miss Sallie, who had a taste for romance in the lives of other
people, was deep in the reading of a new novel. A part of the camping
supplies had been a collection of new books for her.
"Come on, Mollie," cried Bab gayly. "Let's go over in the woods and
gather some pine and cedar branches for our fire this evening." Barbara
walked ahead, pulling a small wagon behind her with all the ardor of a
young boy. "You see," she avowed to Mollie, "I don't have to remember I
am sixteen, or a girl, while we are living in the woods. I can be just as
independent as I like."
The two sisters were deep in their task. The little wagon was piled high
with evergreens. Suddenly Mollie started. She thought she heard a voice
calling from somewhere above their heads. "Hi, there! Hello! Hello!"
"Did you hear some one calling?" asked Mollie.
"Why, no," responded Barbara. "What is the matter with you, Mollie? This
morning you heard a 'spook' outside the door, this afternoon you believe
you hear a voice calling you. Beware, child! Perhaps you are already
afflicted with the wood madness, and may see that wonderful ghost."
"Hi, there! Hi, there!" A voice was surely floating down from the sky.
This time Bab stared. Mollie looked triumphant. As far as they could see
around them, there was no other human creature. And the sound did not
come from the ground. Mollie was right. The noise was from overhead. But
it was so far off and faint, it could not come from the trees above them.
Bab and Mollie ran out into an open space. There was a strange, rattling,
swinging noise above their heads, as though a pair of mammoth wings were
beating in the sky. The two girls looked up. There, about twenty yards
above the tops of the highest trees was the strangest object ever seen by
Mollie and Bab!
"What on earth is it?" Bab breathed faintly. The voice sounded more
distinctly this time. "Is there some one down there in the woods?"
Bab caught the words. The sound was coming from a megaphone from the
strange ship in the air. But Mollie and Bab had no megaphone at their
command through which to answer back--only two frightened girl voices.
"Yes, yes!" they called together as loud as they could shout. The sound
was ridiculous even to their own ears, and was lost in the vast spaces of
the forest. The strange vehicle over their heads was gliding a little
closer to the ground. Bab and Mollie could faintly see the figure of a
man--two men--when they looked again.
This time the voice came through the megaphone: "Can you get me help? I
have broken the rudder of my balloon. We cannot alight without
assistance. If we come too close to the ground we will catch in the
trees. I want some one to pull us down with ropes."
"Well," Mollie spoke to herself, "it is a relief to know that that object
is an airship, not some hideous hobgoblin. I would like to know, Bab, how
you and I are to get the thing to the ground?"
"Run, fly, Molliekins!" cried Bab, whose mind was always quick in action.
"Go to the cabin for Naki and Ceally. Tell them to come here as fast as
they can tear. We can manage together."
Mollie was off in a flash.
Barbara's voice could now be heard by the men in the balloon above her.
"Drop me a line," she called to them, "before you float too far away. I
will tie you to a tree."
Bab had realized that with a broken rudder it was impossible for the
dirigible balloon to remain poised in the air.
A long coil of rope floated down from the sky. Barbara caught it and ran
to a tree which was bare of branches. Then she knotted the rope with all
her skill and strength. There was nothing to do, now, but wait. Bab
fastened her gaze upon the strange white bird she had captured, which
hung fluttering and quivering in the sky above her.