A NIGHT MARCH
“We must keep on!”
“Yes, we can’t stay here in this lonesome place!”
“Oh, if we could only see some house—and ask our way.”
“I believe it’s going to rain—I felt a drop on my nose.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t a tear, Natalie?”
Thus talked the Camp Fire Girls as they gathered in a group after Marie
had admitted the dismal failure to lead the way back from Bear Pond.
“No, though I do feel badly enough to cry,” answered
breath-of-the-pine-tree. “It’s really raining!”
“It can’t melt us,” declared Alice. “I only hope it doesn’t thunder and
lightning.”
“It won’t be that kind of a storm at all,” was Mrs. Bonnell’s opinion.
“It’s going to turn into a miserable drizzle.”
“My hair always curls in the wet,” cried Marie. “That’s one consolation,
anyhow.”
“You poor girl!” came from Alice. “Really it’s no one’s fault that we
got lost,” for Marie appeared to think that she bore the responsibility
of leading her forces thus into _terra incognita_.
“Of course not,” added Mrs. Bonnell. “It couldn’t be helped. Now I want
you all to be real Camp Fire Girls!” she went on. “We must be brave and
loyal. This is only a little trouble. We may be tired and wet but we’ve
got to get back to our tents sometime, and then we can thaw out, and
take enough hot lemonade to ward off colds. Now I’m going to assume
charge, and I’m going to give orders. Wood-Gatherers, attention!”
The girls stood up.
“Get all the dry fuel you can,” ordered the Guardian. “We are going
to make a little fire, and devour the remainder of our sandwiches.
We’ll get good and warm, rest, eat and then we’ll consider our case.
This is a good place for a fire, under the pine tree. Come,
No-moh-te-nah—Sweeper-of-the-tepee,” she went on, addressing Alice,
“you arrange some seats for us. I’ll get out the lunch. The others
gather wood, and get some dried leaves to start the fire.”
Soon they were all busy, forgetting their troubles in the gospel of
work—the best secular gospel in the world. A little later a cheerful
blaze was crackling under the wide-spreading branches of a giant pine
tree. For Mrs. Bonnell had a dependable match box.
“Isn’t this jolly,” exclaimed Natalie.
“It’s really fun!” declared Marie.
“If the boys could only see us now!” came from Alice.
“And hear about the hairpin-blazed trees that we couldn’t locate after
we scratched them,” added Mabel.
“Girls, if you ever tell on me I’ll never forgive you!” insisted Mrs.
Bonnell. “After this I’m going to carry one of those boy-scout axes that
fold up into a sort of leather card case, and which can be carried as a
watch charm. Then I can chip off the bark so we can see it at midnight.
Only my sense of proportion as one of the members of the society for the
conservation of forests prompted me to use a hairpin.”
“Are there any more olives left?” asked Natalie.
“Yes—a few, but they’ll make you dreadfully thirsty, and we have only a
little water,” answered Mabel, for they had brought a little water in a
bottle from a spring they passed on their homeward wanderings.
They had been unable to find the path back to the cove, after coming to
the conclusion that they were lost, and had come to a halt in a little
glade, where they had made the fire.
The cheerful blaze did more than warm them, for the summer rain was
chilling. It put new hearts into them, and made them more hopeful. Then
too, the little food they had remaining aided in the work of
regeneration.
What though it be dusk, and they far from camp—what though it rained?
They had a fire, they were warm and had been fed after a fashion.
“‘Fate cannot harm me—I have dined to-day!’” quoted Natalie. “Which is
not saying that I could not eat more,” she added, as she shook her long
braids to free them from the moisture that had gathered as she collected
the wood for the fire.
“But we mustn’t stay here,” went on Mrs. Bonnell after they had
devoured—and I use the word advisedly—the last crumbs of the sandwiches.
“We must keep on! We will simply have to find a place to stay
to-night—if we can’t get back to camp. There must be farmhouses around
here. This isn’t a desert, and that boat at Bear Pond showed that some
one used it—even if it did leak.”
“Don’t speak of Bear Pond!” pleaded Marie.
“Now, dearie, don’t you worry!” exclaimed Alice, putting her arms around
her chum. “It isn’t any more your fault than ours. We should be more
like the boy scouts and ‘be prepared.’ That’s their motto, you know.”
“But I lost the directions!” exclaimed Marie.
“You couldn’t help it. Probably you pulled them out of your pocket with
your handkerchief, dear. Don’t worry. We’ll get back to Dogwood
Camp—someday.”
“I’m glad we brought stuffed olives instead of those with pits in,”
remarked Natalie.
“Why?” her chums chorused. Natalie was always saying odd things, they
thought.
“Because there’s so much more meat to them. The seeds are wasteful.”
They laughed, and it seemed to make them feel better. Then, with a
warming of hands at the blaze, they prepared to set out again.
“This path must lead _somewhere_!” exclaimed Mrs. Bonnell, as she and
the girls carefully scattered the embers of the fire, and kicked damp
earth on them to extinguish the brands. For they had adopted some of the
tenets of the boy scouts, one of which is never to leave a burning camp
fire to work damage.
“And if we keep on it long enough we must come to some place!” declared
Alice. “Even if it’s only a cow-shed.”
“This does seem like a cow-path,” declared Natalie, “though it’s hard to
tell what it is in the dusk.”
“What—what are we going to do after dark?” whispered Mabel.
“March along with this!” cried Mrs. Bonnell, flashing a small pocket
electric lamp, operated by a dry battery. It contained a tungsten
filament, and gave a glaring light, if it was limited as to area.
“Oh, you dear—to think of bringing that!” cried Natalie. “I won’t be
afraid now.”
“Afraid—what is there to be afraid of?” insisted the Guardian, though it
might be noted that she looked rather fearsomely back of her as she
spoke.
No one answered her.
Once more they took up the march, as night slowly settled down. There
would be an hour or more of rather dim daylight yet, for the days were
long, but the clouds made it more gloomy than otherwise would have been
the case.
“There is a house!” suddenly called Marie.
“Where?” they all demanded at once.
“Right ahead of us. Oh, we’re all right now!”
But it was not such a haven of refuge as they had supposed. For the
ram-shackle old building was inhabited by an uncouth German, his wife
and several very much soiled children. He could speak a little
English—hardly enough to make himself understood, and the German essayed
by the Camp Fire Girls was evidently beyond his comprehension, for he
shook his head in a puzzled fashion.
“Where were they?”
He knew not.
“Which was the road to Green Lake?”
He knew not.
“Was there any one who did?”
The same result.
“Was there any one who could put them on the right road?”
No one. And the rain came down harder, while it grew darker—seemingly
more so in contrast to the light that Mrs. Bonnell flashed to the no
small fear of the German _kinder_.
“I suppose we might stay here until he could go and get some one who
could speak English, and who could either show us where we have left our
boats, or take word to the boys to come after us,” ventured Marie.
“Ugh! Stay here? Never!” cried Natalie. “It’s so—so— Oh, it wouldn’t do
at all!” she finished with a real shudder. The others reluctantly agreed
with her.
The man muttered something in his own language. His wife replied,
gesticulating and pointing in several directions. Evidently she meant to
be of service but was unable to accomplish it. Then the children cried
for their suppers, and the girls, feeling very lonesome and deserted,
continued their night march along the little path, the electric light
flashing like some modern firefly.