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[Illustration: “Natalie, in her Camp Fire suit.”]
THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS
Or
The Secret of an Old Mill
by
MARION DAVIDSON
Made in U. S. A.
M · A · Donohue · & · Company
Chicago New York
------------------------------------------------------------------------
DEDICATION
TO THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS OF AMERICA
Who are doing so much to glorify, not only the life of the great
out-doors, but also the more humble life of the home, this
volume is gratefully dedicated.
MARION DAVIDSON
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
I The Challenge
II A Missing Ring
III The Deserted Encampment
IV The Call of the Camp
V Off to the Woods
VI The Old Man
VII A Night Alarm
VIII The Old Mill
IX An Excited Constable
X Overboard
XI Off to the Gipsy Camp
XII The Girls Will Try
XIII Lost at Bear Pond
XIV A Night March
XV “It’s the Boys!”
XVI The Bottle of Olives
XVII A Sharp Attack
XVIII Another Try
XIX The Gipsy Camp
XX The Missing Girl
XXI Old Hanson Moves
XXII Unseen Visitors
XXIII Mystification
XXIV Natalie is Gone
XXV On the Trail
XXVI A Sprained Ankle
XXVII Awaiting the Ghost
XXVIII The Boys Are Puzzled
XXIX The Girls Will Go
XXX The Weeping Voice
XXXI The Secret Room
XXXII Hadee
XXXIII Restoration
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS
OR
THE SECRET OF AN OLD MILL
CHAPTER I
THE CHALLENGE
“Oh, girls, isn’t it just splendid?”
“And the rings are too sweet for anything; aren’t they, really?”
“But what are they for—those seven marks, I mean? I heard Mrs. Bonnell
mention it, but there was so much going on that I’ve forgotten.”
“Oh, Alice! Don’t you recall that those seven ‘marks’, as you call them,
are the seven points of the law of the Camp Fire Girls?”
“To which delightful organization we now belong,” added another of the
quartette.
“Oh, Natalie!” exclaimed Alice Lathrop, “you’re a dear, but you always
did have the most remarkable remembrancer,” and, with a laugh she put
her arms around her chum, whose dark, olive-tinted complexion, with that
calm brow, and eyes, in the depths of which woodland pools seemed to
lie, gave her the appearance of an Indian maid, especially when she
plaited her hair in two, long black braids.
“It’s quite symbolic,” went on Mabel Anderson, as she looked at the
silver ring on one of the slim fingers of her pretty hand, a hand of
which she was perhaps a trifle vain—excusably so, in the opinion of some
of her friends.
“And now we are really ‘Wood Gatherers,’” spoke Marie Pendleton. “It’s
the first step. I wonder if we will take the others?”
“I intend to,” declared Alice. “It only takes three months to become a
‘Fire Maker,’ and three more to be a ‘Torch Bearer.’”
“Oh, but there are lots of things to do in that time,” sighed Mabel
Anderson. “Think of the test of getting two meals for—for you girls!”
and she looked with pretended dismay at her three pretty chums. “I—I
don’t even know how to peel potatoes!” and she covered her face with her
hands.
“It’s time you learned,” declared Marie, who, since the death of her
mother kept house, with the assistance of a maid, for her father, and
her brother Jack.
“I can see all sorts of jolly times ahead of us!” exclaimed Alice. “We
will get to know ever so many nice girls—really we four are too much by
ourselves.”
“We always have been,” said Mabel. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t
continue to go together. Just because we have joined the Camp Fire Girls
doesn’t mean that we’re going to separate, I hope. Shall we make new
friends and lose our old ones?”
“Not at all,” went on Alice. “But we are too—too—what was it Professor
Battell said in class to-day—too inscribed—no, that wasn’t it——”
“Circumscribed,” put in Natalie.
“That’s it. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have you for a memo.
pad, Nat!” and once more Alice embraced her chum.
“Why so pensive?” asked Marie, as, to give entrance for her friends she
opened the door of the little cottage, over which she presided as
mistress. “Has anything happened, Natalie? Did you miss in Latin
to-day?” and Marie, dropping her books on a chair in the hall ushered
her chums into the little library. The girls were on their way home from
the Academy and from class had gone to a meeting of the Camp Fire Girls
Association, which had recently been started in their town. They had
been initiated as “Wood Gatherers” of the Dogwood Camp Fire, which name
Mrs. Pierce Bonnell, the Guardian, had chosen for the group.
“No, nothing has happened,” said Natalie slowly. “I was just thinking
what delightful fun we would have this summer if we could really gather
around a camp fire of our own, out in the open.”
“Well, why couldn’t we?” asked Marie. “Let’s think about it, anyhow. I’m
going to ask Nellie to make tea. It’s real chilly, even if the bluebirds
are here and the flowers almost out. Oh, I have it, I’m going to choose
the name Bluebird—I wonder what that is in Indian?”
“Che-no-sag-ak!” exclaimed a guttural voice, as Marie opened the door of
the dining room. “Che-no-sag-ak! Wah! Pale face maiden heap talk much.
Ugh!”
“Oh Jack! How you startled me!” cried Marie, shrinking back, with her
hands to her breast, as she beheld her brother and his two intimate
chums, Phil Anderson and Blake Lathrop, calmly seated at the dining room
table, luxuriously regaling themselves on water crackers and old cheese,
with some ginger ale which they had evidently smuggled in from the
corner grocery.
“What is it?” echoed the voice of Mabel, as she and the other two girls
crowded to the portal. “Phil!” she went on, “and Blake! Have you been
listening to what we were saying?” she demanded as she marched out and
stood half-threateningly over her brother.
“How could we help it—the way you talked?” he inquired, defensively.
“And so Marie is going to be a bluebird; is she?” went on Jack
with a grin. “Fine! That’s the Indian for it that I was
reciting—‘Che-no-sag-ak!’ Little bluebird of the wildwood, come
and let me have thy feathers—have thy feathers for my new hat, for
my new hat made of satin. Little——”
His voice died off into a gurgle for Alice, with the intimacy of a chum
of Jack’s sister, had clapped her hands over his mouth, to the
destruction of a cracker he had been about to munch.
“Look out for that cheese!” warned Phil.
“And the carpet!” added Blake.
“Well, let him stop making fun!” snapped Alice, as she glided away
before Jack could take a fair revenge.
“What’s it all about, anyhow?” asked Blake, when quiet had been somewhat
restored. “Why all this Indian hocus-pocus? Has a medicine show come to
town?”
“It’s the Camp Fire Girls,” declared Jack, trying to get up from the
carpet some of the cracker crumbs before Nellie, the maid came in, for
Jack and his chums were only in the dining room on sufferance. “Sis has
been mooning around the house about it for the last three weeks.”
“I have not, Jack Pendleton!”
“Gibbering about Wood-gatherers, Fire-makers, and what not,” went on the
irrepressible brother. “She’s been looking in the back of the dictionary
for something or other—I thought she had fallen down on her Latin, and
was trying to work off a condition.”
“I was looking for Indian words,” declared Marie, “only I couldn’t find
any. You know we can each choose an Indian name,” she went on to her
girl chums, ignoring the three boys. “It may be anything, only it ought
to mean something in English. But my dictionary doesn’t have any Indian
information in it.”
“I have an Indian book at home,” said Blake Lathrop quietly, speaking to
all, but looking rather more intently at Natalie. “I think it has a lot
of names such as ‘bluebird’ in it. If you girls want to pick out titles
for yourselves I’ll bring it over.”
“Oh, will you, really?” cried Mabel. “I want an Indian name, too, if the
rest are going to have them.”
“Say, what is this Camp Fire Girls’ racket, anyhow?” asked Phil. “I’ve
heard you talking about it, Mabel, but I thought it was one of the
Academy societies.”
“It’s nothing of the sort,” declared Alice, while Natalie went to the
piano and softly played a weird Indian song, in a haunting minor key.
“Well, what is it?” asked Jack, finishing the last of his crackers and
cheese, and gallantly offering Alice what was left of the ginger ale.
“No, thank you,” interposed his sister. “I’m going to ask Nellie to make
us some tea. We’re all shivering.”
“The Camp Fire Girls is an organization something like the Boy Scouts,”
went on Alice.
“I used to belong,” remarked Blake, as he walked over ostensibly to look
at the picture on the wall—the said picture being very close to the
piano at which Natalie was softly playing.
“Well, the Camp Fire Girls are like the Scouts,” continued Alice, “only
different. It isn’t so military. The camp fire is our symbol, and our
seven laws are—‘seek beauty’——”
“None of _you_ have to!” declared Jack gallantly, bowing with his hand
on his heart.
“Thank you!” chorused the trio, Marie being out in the kitchen
interviewing the maid.
“Go on, Alice,” urged Natalie.
“‘Seek beauty,’” resumed the girl, “‘give service—pursue knowledge—be
trustworthy—hold on to health—glorify work—be happy.’ There, I think
I’ve said them right.”
“You have,” murmured Mabel.
“Very nice,” asserted Phil.
“And there are three degrees,” proceeded Alice. “We have just joined, so
we are humble wood-gatherers, may it please your gracious highnesses,”
and she dropped a pretty courtesy to the boys. “After three months’
service as such, we may become fire-makers, and that’s a lot harder. And
then the next is torch-bearer, which is harder still. But we’re not
worrying about that. See our rings—aren’t they dears?” and she held out
her hand which Jack promptly captured, to the discomfiture of Phil, who
had also made an attempt at the slim fingers.
Then from the piano, which had suddenly ceased its melody there came a
voice:
“No, Blake, you mustn’t take off my ring—really. Oh, stop—there, you’ve
dropped it!”
“Shame on you Blake!” mocked Phil, “to treat a poor girl so. Let me see
your ring, Marie,” he went on, as the pretty hostess came into the room
again.
“I’m too busy,” she called to him. “You may help me get out the cups and
saucers if you will, though,” she added.
“Let me be a wood-gatherer,” pleaded Jack.
“Me for the fire-maker!” declared Blake.
“You’ve got enough to do right there,” mocked Jack. “We will call you
the Greek chorus.”
And thus the merry quips and gibes went on until tea was served, the
boys stoically remaining, and, perforce requiring to be fed, though
Marie remarked to Jack sotto-voice that she thought he had had one lunch
since school.
“I am always open for more,” he replied.
“And so you girls are really going to be members of the Camp Fire club,”
spoke Phil, when the rattle of teacups had ceased.
“Of Dogwood Camp,” added Natalie, daintily removing a bit of butter from
the tip of her finger encircled by the new silver ring.
“Well, it may all be very nice and romantic, and that sort of thing,”
began Jack, “but——”
“It isn’t romantic at all,” interrupted Alice. “It’s practical—at least
I think that’s the proper word,” and she looked rather doubtfully at
Natalie.
“Oh, say, we’re forgetting all about our Indian names,” exclaimed Marie.
“I wonder what signified bluebird?”
“Wash-ton-su-goo!” gurgled her brother.
“Jack!” she cried. “If you don’t stop I’ll never let you stay in when we
have tea again. You’re too——”
“All right, sis!” he laughed. “I’ll be good. Only it’s such a joke.”
“We’re really in earnest,” explained Natalie. “You should see our rules,
and learn how we can acquire merit——”
“Like the Hindoo Yogis,” declared Phil. “Natalie, the dreamer, talking
of acquiring merit. Say, if you girls get to have any more merit you’ll
be too good for this earth.”
“Be quiet!” begged Mabel. “Blake, did you say you had an Indian book at
home?”
“I have. Shall I get it?”
“Listen, girls!” called Mabel. “Why can’t you all come over to my house
this evening, and we’ll select our names. Blake only lives around the
corner. He can leave the book, and——”
“Leave it!” exclaimed Blake, with peculiar emphasis. “Perhaps I had
better _mail_ it, or send it parcels post, or call a messenger from the
telegraph office. Only there’s none there after supper. However——”
“Oh, I suppose you can bring it—and _stay_—if you want to,” conceded
Mabel.
“Not a pressing invitation, but—shall we take it, fellows?” and Blake
looked quizzically at his chums.
“We can tell them how to make a camp fire, anyhow,” declared Jack.
“Thank you, we’re going to learn by practical experience, Jack,” spoke
his sister.
“Then all come to my house this evening,” went on Mabel. “And, Blake,
please bring the Indian book. Phil can entertain you and Jack while we
look up some names.”
“And who will entertain you?” inquired Jack.
“Thank you—we don’t need it,” spoke Natalie.
“Well, I’m willing to wager my new hat against a hair ribbon,” declared
Phil, “that with all you girls talking about wood-gathering and camp
fires, not one of your crowd would dare go camping and build a real camp
fire—I mean a party of you. It’s all very well to talk about being like
the boy scouts, but when it comes down to the real thing, you’ll be so
afraid of an ant crawling on a stick of wood that you’ll want an oil
stove to cook on. Camp fire girls may be——”
“Stop!” commanded Mabel. “In the first place, Phil, the Camp Fire Girls’
organization wasn’t formed to go out in the woods, though lots of them
do. We can have just as good a time at home. But, for all that, we do
intend to go camping, and to make our own camp fires, too!”
“Mabel!” gasped Natalie.
“Oh, Mabel!” whispered Marie.
“Who ever said that?” demanded Alice.
There was a momentous pause.
“We seem to have stirred up trouble,” said Blake softly.
“They’ll never go camping!” came from Jack. “Here, I’ll offer a
challenge—we all will. If you girls go to a genuine, bonafide camp, live
by yourselves in tents, make the camp fire, cook your own meals, the
same as we fellows do—why we’ll come up and see you once in a while.
How’s that?”
“And bring you each a two-pound box of the best candy in town,” added
Phil.
“And take back all we’ve said,” went on Blake.
“Boys,” began Mabel, somewhat solemnly, “we never gave this
consideration until now. That is the others didn’t. But it has been in
my mind since we thought of becoming Camp Fire Girls. I don’t see why we
can’t go off in the woods this summer. It would be jolly,—I think.”
“Lovely,” breathed Natalie.
“I’ll go if the others do,” conceded Alice.
“We’d have to have a chaperone,” remarked Marie.
“Mrs. Bonnell, our Guardian, would come, I think,” suggested Mabel.
“Then let’s accept the boys’ challenge!” exclaimed Natalie. “I don’t see
why we can’t make a fire as well as they. As for cooking, there is so
much that comes canned now that it’s really no trouble at all. We always
live on canned things when our girl leaves.”
“Then it’s decided!” echoed Mabel, clapping her hands. “We’ll become
real Camp Fire Girls. Now I must be going. Don’t forget—come over this
evening. And, Phil, bring that Indian book.”
“I will,” he promised.
“Say, do you think they will go camping?” asked Jack, as his two chums
took their leave, while his sister led her girl friends to her room to
show a new dress she had bought.
“Never!” cried Blake. “They’re just bluffing.”
“It wouldn’t be a bad plan for us to go camping ourselves this summer,”
remarked Phil.
“I’ll go you!” cried Jack.
“I’ll think about it,” agreed Blake.
“He means he’ll go if the girls do,” put in Jack. “Well, I’ll see you
this eve.,” and with that he pretended to dig into some of his Academy
studies, for he and his friends, as did the girls, went to the same
institution in the little semi-country town of Middleford.
“Did you really mean what you said, Mabel, about going camping?” asked
Natalie, as the three walked away from Marie’s house, some time later,
having in the interim found many matters about which to chat.
“I didn’t at first—but when I saw how the boys took me up I did. I don’t
see why we can’t do it—and be real Camp Fire Girls.”
“We can,” declared Alice with decision.
“There goes a real Camp Fire Girl now,” added Natalie in a low voice, as
she indicated, walking slowly down the village street ahead of them, a
figure clad in rather a gaudy skirt, a Zouave jacket, and a sash of
oriental hues.
“A Gypsy,” murmured Alice.
“Yes, there is an encampment of them just outside of town,” went on
Natalie. “One came to our house the other day, wanting to tell fortunes.
It’s romantic, in a way, I suppose, but she didn’t tell our girl
anything that I couldn’t have told her myself.”
“It’s the out-door life that appeals to me!” declared Alice. “That’s why
I like the Camp Fire Girls. We can make our organization an excuse for
all sorts of adventures.”
“Well, we certainly may have some if we go camping,” suggested Natalie,
as they separated at a corner. “Good-bye.”
“Until to-night,” suggested Mabel.
“Until to-night,” echoed Alice.
And little did the girls realize what the events of that night were to
bring forth; nor how they were to exert an influence on their lives. For
that Gypsy played a strange part in the experience of the Camp Fire
Girls.