GIRLS COURAGEOUS.
"What's the matter, girls? You look as if you had the weight of the
world on your shoulders."
Miss Ladd spoke these words lightly as if to pass judgment on the
conference as entirely too serious for a Christmas holiday occasion.
Marion and Helen did not respond in tones of joviality, as might have
been expected. They met her jocular reproach with expressions of such
serious portent that the Guardian of the Fire could no longer look
upon it as calling for words of levity.
"What's the matter, girls?" she repeated more seriously. "You look
worried."
"Sit down, Miss Ladd, and read these letters I received last night,"
said Marion without any change of tone or manner. "They will explain
the whole thing. We were just about to call you aside and lay our
trouble before you."
"Trouble," Miss Ladd repeated deprecatingly, "I hope it isn't as bad
as that."
She drew an upholstered armchair close to the girls and began at once
to examine the letters that Marion handed to her. Marion and Helen
watched her closely as she read, but the Guardian of Flamingo Fire
indicated her strength of character by a stern immobility of
countenance until she had finished both letters. Then she looked at
Marion steadily and said inquiringly:
"I suppose you have no idea who wrote these letters?"
"Not the slightest," replied the girl addressed, "unless the shorter
one was written and mailed by some of the Boy Scouts at Spring Lake.
Helen thinks it was, and I am inclined to believe with her that it
doesn't make much difference to us who wrote it. The other letter is
the one we are most interested in."
"I agree with you thoroughly," said Miss Ladd energetically. "And we
have got to do something to prevent him from carrying out his threat."
"Ought we to inform the other girls now?" asked Marion with a sense of
growing courage, for she felt that in the Camp Fire's Guardian she had
found elements of wise counsel extending even beyond that young
woman's experience.
"Why, yes," Miss Ladd replied. "I see no reason for delay. I'd rather
tell them now than just before or after we get to Hollyhill. If we
tell them now they'll have a couple of hours in which to stiffen their
courage. There are eleven girls besides you two. Suppose you call them
here in three lots in succession, four, four, and three, and we'll
tell them quietly what has occurred and give them a little lecture as
to how they should meet this crisis."
"All right," said Marion, rising. "I'll bring the first four and you
get your lecture ready."
"It's ready already," said the guardian reassuringly. "It is so simple
that I have no need of preparation."
"I'm afraid I need some drill in the best means and methods of reading
character," Marion told herself as she walked back to the rear of the
car. "I was really afraid to take the matter up with Helen or Miss
Ladd for fear lest they recommend something foolish. Now it appears
that each of them has a very clever head on her shoulders. Maybe I'll
find the other girls possessed of just as good qualities. If I do,
this day will have brought forth an important revelation to me, that
the average girl, after all, is a pretty level-headed sort of person.
Well, here's hoping for the best."
Marion selected the four girls farthest in front and asked them to
approach the forward end of the car. They did so with some appearance
of apprehension, for by this time all the girls had begun to suspect
that something unusual was doing. This appeared to be evident also to
the half-dozen other passengers in the car, whose curious attention
naturally was directed toward the forward group of girls.
All of the girls received the information relative to the anonymous
letters so calmly that Marion felt just a little bit foolish because
of her groundless misjudgment of them. After the last group had read
the letters and discussed the situation with the trio of informants,
she spoke thus to them:
"Girls, you are real heroines, or have in you the stuff that makes
heroines, and that is about the same thing. You take this as calmly as
if it were an ordinary every-day affair in the movies. I'm proud of
you."
"We ought to be wearing Carnegie medals, oughtn't we, girls?" said
Julietta Hyde, blinking comically. "We can throttle anything from a
black-hand agent to a ghost."
"No, you ought to be wearing honor pins, for things well done," Miss
Ladd corrected. "We'll leave the Carnegie medals for those who haven't
any Camp Fire scheme of honors. But really, girls, you have all
conducted yourselves admirably in this affair. We will hope it won't
result in anything very serious, but meanwhile we must take proper
precautions."
"Shall we have to give up our vacation at Hollyhill on account of
this?" asked Katherine Crane almost as dejectedly as if she were being
sentenced to prison for violating a Connecticut blue law.
"That is up to you girls and the conditions that develop," answered
Miss Ladd. "As soon as we get to Hollyhill we will take the matter up
with the proper authorities and try to determine what the outlook is."
"My father will get busy as soon as he hears about this," said Marion.
"I think we can leave everything to his management. He will probably
advise us to give up the idea of doing anything for the strikers'
families and have as good a time as we can entertaining ourselves at
home."
"Oh, I hope not!" Katherine exclaimed, and the manner in which she
spoke indicated how much she had set her heart on the work they had
planned to do.
"It would be too bad to give it up," Marion said earnestly, "for I
understand some of those people are greatly in need of assistance.
There is not only much hunger and privation among them, but
considerable sickness among the children. We can't do a whole lot in
two weeks, but we can do something, and our training as Camp Fire
Girls and in our nursing classes fits us to be of much assistance to
them. It is a shame that they should take an attitude so hostile to
their own interests."
"They probably don't understand your father or they wouldn't be
striking now," said Miss Ladd.
"I'm sure they wouldn't," Marion testified vigorously. "I've often
heard father say he'd like to do more for the men and their families
but conditions tied his hands. Many of the miners are good fellows,
but they get mistaken ideas in their heads and it's impossible for
anybody whom they once put under suspicion to convince them that they
are in the wrong."
"Do you know, girls," interposed Violet Munday enthusiastically; "I
believe we are going to get a lot out of this vacation experience,
whatever happens. I'm interested in what Marion tells us about the
miners. Let's make a study of coal mining, hold up everybody we can
for information and watch our chance to help the poor families and
their sick children whenever we can without doing anything foolhardy."
"That's a good idea," said Miss Ladd. "We'll keep that in mind and if
Marion's father's advice is favorable, we'll take it up."
The train arrived at Hollyhill shortly after 2 p.m. Mr. Stanlock's
touring car and two taxicabs were waiting at the station to convey the
girls to Marion's home. The run to the spacious, half-rustic Stanlock
residence at the northeast edge of the city occupied about fifteen
minutes, and was without notable incident.
The cars passed through a massive iron gateway, up a winding
gravel-bedded drive, and stopped near a white pillared pergola
connected with the large colonial house by a vine-covered walk running
up to a porticoed side entrance.
Mrs. Stanlock met them at the door and the travelers were speedily
accommodated with the usual journey-end attentions. Marion then
inquired for her father, but Mr. Stanlock had gone to his office early
in the day and would not return until dinnertime. So the girl hostess
decided that she must let the problem uppermost in her mind rest
unsettled a few hours longer.
Evening came, but still Mr. Stanlock did not appear. Wondering at his
delay, Mrs. Stanlock called up his office, but learned that he had
left an hour and a half before, supposedly for home.
"How did he leave?" Mrs. Stanlock inquired nervously.
"In his automobile," was the answer.
That being the case, he ought to have been home more than an hour ago.
His office was in the city and he could easily make the run in fifteen
minutes.
Thoroughly alarmed, Mrs. Stanlock called up the police, stated the
circumstances and asked that a search be made for her husband.
Two hours more elapsed and the whole neighborhood was alarmed. The
news spread rapidly and was communicated by phone to most of Mr.
Stanlock's friends and acquaintances throughout the city. The search
was growing in scope and sensation. Treachery was suspected, a tragedy
was feared.
Then suddenly and calmly, Mr. Stanlock reappeared at home, driving the
machine himself. He had a thrilling story to tell of his experiences.
* * * * *