THE MISSILE.
Five of the members of the Camp Fire were present when Miss Ladd made
this startling announcement that they had been watched secretly for a
considerable time while roping off the limits of their swimming place.
The other girls had taken the lead back to the camp and were a
considerable distance ahead.
“Are they watching us yet?” Azalia asked.
“I think not,” the Guardian replied. “I haven’t seen any sign of them
during the last twenty minutes.”
“How do you know they are girls?” Katherine inquired. “That’s quite a
distance to recognize ages.”
“Oh, they may be old women, but I’ll take a chance on a guess that they
are not. The millinery I caught a peep at looked too chic for a
grandmother. I’ve got pretty good long-distance eyes, I’ll have you
know,” Miss Ladd concluded smartly.
There was no little excitement among the other girls when this bit of
news was communicated to them. But they had had good experience-training
along the lines of self-control, and just a hint of the unwisdom of loud
and extravagant remarks put them on their guard.
Some of the girls proposed that the plan of building a bonfire in the
evening be given up and nobody objected to this suggestion. All the
girls felt more like resting under the shade of a tree than doing
anything else, and those who had performed the more arduous tasks in the
work of the afternoon were “too tired to eat supper,” as one of them
expressed it. So nobody felt like hunting through the timber for a big
supply of firewood.
The atmosphere had become very warm in the afternoon, but the girls
hardly noticed this condition until their work in the water was finished
and they returned to the camp. After they had rested a while some of the
girls read books and magazines, but little was done before supper.
After supper some of the girls, who felt more vigorous than those who
had performed the more exhausting labor of the afternoon, revived the
idea of a bonfire and were soon at work gathering a supply of wood. They
busied themselves at this until nearly dusk and then called the other
girls down to the water’s edge, where on a large rocky ledge
arrangements for the fire had been made.
All of the girls congratulated themselves now on the revival of the
bonfire idea, for the mosquitos had become so numerous that comfort was
no longer possible without some agency to drive them away. A bonfire was
just the thing, although it would make the closely surrounding
atmosphere uncomfortably warm.
Even the girls who had performed the hardest tasks in the “fencing in”
of their swimming place were by this time considerably rested and
enjoyed watching the fire seize the wood and then leap up into the air
as if for bigger prey.
“Let’s sing,” proposed Harriet Newcomb after the fire had grown into a
roaring, crackling blaze, throwing a brilliant glow far out onto the
water.
“What shall it be?” asked Ethel Zimmerman.
“Burn Fire, Burn,” Hazel Edwards proposed.
“Marion, you start it,” Miss Ladd suggested, for Marion Stanlock was the
“star” soprano of the Fire.
In a moment the well-trained voices of fourteen Camp Fire Girls were
sending the clear operatic strains of a special adaptation of the fire
chant of the Camp Fire ritual. The music had been composed and arranged
by Marion Stanlock and Helen Nash a few months previously, and diligent
practice had qualified the members of the Camp Fire to render the
production impressively.
This song was succeeded by a chorus-rendering of a similar adaptation of
the Fire Maker’s Song. Then followed an impromptu program of
miscellaneous songs, interspersed here and there with such musical
expressions of patriotism as “America,” “Star Spangled Banner,” and
“Over There,” in evidence of a mindfulness of the part of the United
States in the great international struggle for democracy.
Meanwhile dusk gathered heavier and heavier, the stars came out, and
still the fire blazed up brightly and the girls continued to sing songs
and tell stories and drink in the vigor and inspiration of the scene. At
last, however, the Guardian announced that it was 9 o’clock, which was
Flamingo’s curfew, and there was a general move to extinguish the fire,
which by this time had been allowed to burn low.
Suddenly all were startled by an astonishing occurrence. A heavy object,
probably a stone as large as a man’s fist, fell in the heap of embers,
scattering sparks and burning sticks in all directions. There was a
chorus of screams, and a frantic examination, by the girls, of one
another’s clothes to see if any of them were afire.
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