THE BOTTLE OF OLIVES
“Did you come to look for us?”
“How did you know where we were?”
“Oh, but we’re _so_ glad to see you!”
“How far is it to camp? We’re almost dead!”
“Girls! Girls! Do restrain yourselves a little! We are not half so badly
off as that!”
It was Mrs. Bonnell who uttered the last, and Natalie, Marie, Alice and
Mabel who, in turn, gave voice to the other expressions, following the
gladsome cry of Alice that she had heard the boys. And she really had.
“Camp Fire Girls ahoy!” yelled Jack, as he and his chums came a little
nearer.
“However did you find us?” demanded Natalie, as the three came running
along the path through the halo of misty light caused by the refraction
of the Guardian’s electric torch on the raindrops.
“By the process of deduction!” said Phil, as he gave his sister’s hand a
quick pressure, and then—pressed that of some one else. No, there’s no
use in asking whose it was. Besides Phil often changed—as did Jack and
Blake, for all the girls had hands that were temptations to hold.
“I don’t see how you knew we were here,” went on Mabel, as, after some
hysterical laughter they resumed their way.
“Old Hanson told us he saw you coming over this direction in boats,”
explained Blake, “and we put two and three together and got six. Then,
by subtracting one we knew you five were over here and we came.”
“Oh, how glad we are!” exclaimed Natalie.
“And is it far to the lake?” inquired Alice. “It seems as if we must
have walked ten miles.”
“The cove where you left your boats is about a quarter of a mile away,”
explained Jack. “You’d have been there in about five minutes if you had
kept on.”
“We were about to give up,” declared Natalie.
“We can never row back,” added Mabel.
“You won’t have to,” declared her brother. “We have the motor-boat, and
we can leave your boats here until to-morrow.”
“It would be hard to find where we hid the oars, anyhow,” suggested
Marie, fearing lest the boys would insist on towing the craft. “You
haven’t, by any chance, anything to eat; have you?”
“Nary an eat!” confessed Blake. “We came off in such a hurry.”
“Where did you go?” asked Mabel, as if she did not know.
“To Mt. Harry,” explained Jack. “You see we heard that the Gypsy camp
was over there, and we thought we could get on the track of that girl!”
“Did you?” asked Mrs. Bonnell innocently, nudging Marie under cover of
the darkness.
“No. There wasn’t the sign of a camp. But what did you go to Bear Pond
for?”
“How did you know we were at Bear Pond?” challenged Natalie.
“Because that’s the only place to go to on this road, or from this part
of the lake. Every one goes to Bear Pond who comes over this way. So,
when we got back, and went over to your camp, and found you weren’t home
by supper time,” explained Jack, “we knew where you’d gone.”
“And we knew you were lost,” added Phil.
“How?” Mabel wanted to know.
“Because every one who goes to Bear Pond the first time gets lost,”
declared Blake. “Don’t they, fellows?”
“Sure,” came the chorus.
“Why did you go without telling us?” asked Jack. “We could have shown
you the road, and—”
“Oh-o-o-o-o!” suddenly screamed Mabel. “Look!”
“What is it? A snake?” asked Jack, springing to her side.
“No, but I saw two green eyes— Oh! how they glittered! On the path right
in front of us!”
“A skunk, maybe!” volunteered Blake.
“Oh, you horrid thing!” came in five different intonations of feminine
voices.
“Well, maybe it was only a ’coon, or ’possum,” admitted Blake. “He was
probably attracted by Mrs. Bonnell’s light.”
“Then I’ll put it out!” declared the Guardian, who had kept the spring
switch of her pocket electric torch pressed down, thus making a
continuous light.
“No, don’t,” begged Blake. “We came off in such a hurry that we didn’t
bring a lantern, and the path isn’t any too plain. They won’t hurt you.”
“I know—but—skunks——” hesitated Mrs. Bonnell.
“They’re as harmless as cats. Come on!” and resolutely Blake pressed
forward. The two green spots had disappeared, and by the time the
excitement had calmed down Jack’s question had been forgotten, to the
relief of the girls, who did not want to answer unless they had to.
“Next time don’t try to find Bear Pond unless one of _us_ goes along,”
suggested Jack in patronizing tones.
“Oh, but we did find it,” declared Mabel. “It was after we found it, and
on our way home, that we got lost. The hairpin blazing didn’t work.”
“The what?” cried Blake in curiosity.
“Mabel, if you mention that I’ll never forgive you!” threatened Mrs.
Bonnell.
“Go on; tell!” urged Phil. “Hairpin blazing? What is that; a new kind of
Camp Fire Girls’ stunt?”
“Don’t you tell!” warned the Guardian, and with laughter the girls
refused.
“Oh, we’ll find out!” the boys threatened.
“We’ll go over the same trail to-morrow,” added Jack.
“Then it will be time enough to tell you,” remarked Mrs. Bonnell calmly.
A little later they were at the cove, and safely in the motor-boat,
puffing across the lake, the red and green lights making shimmering
jewels in the water. It was raining quite hard now, but the boys had
some pieces of tarpaulin, with which the engine was covered nights,
since there was no boat house. These stiff canvases the girls used to
put over their shoulders, though they were pretty well wet through as it
was.
“Oh, be it ever so cheerless there’s no place like camp!” cried Mabel,
as they reached the place of the tents. “I’m nearly starved.”
“Well, you girls just get some dry things on,” directed her brother,
“and we’ll make a ripping old fire, and have tea for you in a jiffy.
Where do you keep the grub, anyhow?”
“I’ll show you,” said Mrs. Bonnell, and soon the boys, with occasional
laughter and gibes at the girls, were making a simple meal ready, while
the camp fire, built from some wood stored under a strip of canvas to
keep it dry, sent out its cheerful blaze.
“Oh, and to think how miserable we were an hour ago!” sighed Natalie as
she sipped the tea and ate some cakes, which, in lieu of sandwiches, the
boys had served.
“It was lovely of you to come for us,” said Marie. “And you didn’t find
the Gypsies after all?”
“No; I don’t believe they’re even in this neighborhood,” declared Blake.
“If they were they skipped out since the pocket-book was taken. Have
some more tea, Mrs. Bonnell?”
“A half cup, if you please. It’s really delicious.”
“Oh, we can make tea, even though we seldom drink it,” declared Jack.
“Coffee is our main standby.”
The girls, in dry garments, soon forgot the discomforts of the trip to
Bear Pond, and a little later, after a session of sitting under a
heavy-foliaged pine tree, that kept off the rain, while a fire blazed
cheerfully beneath it, the boys went to their own tents, and the girls
prepared for the night.
“Let’s go fishing!” proposed Marie to her chums the next day, and as
they knew something of the art so delightfully described by Mr. Izaak
Walton, and were not afraid to bait hooks, the Camp Fire Girls were soon
out on the lake in their two rowboats, heading for a quiet cove, where
the boys had said some fine pickerel and perch abounded.
A “clay chicken” had been decided on for dinner that day the girls
having found that this method of preparing the fowl was most excellent.
It had been put in the hole in the ground, and covered with embers
before the fishing party had started off.
“It will be done when we get back,” decided Marie, who was cook that
day, “and there will be enough left over for supper.”
“What will we do with our fish?” asked Mabel. “We haven’t much ice, and
they won’t keep,” for the ice boat left a supply occasionally at the
camps and cottages of the lake.
“We can give them to the boys, or to Mr. Rossmore,” said Natalie.
“Let’s wait and see if we catch any,” suggested Mrs. Bonnell with a
laugh.
The girls did have fairly good luck, though Natalie lost what she
declared was the biggest perch in the lake, it not being well-hooked,
and getting off just as she raised it from the water. Indeed they did
have so many fish, that, what with the “clay chicken” they did not need
them all for food. And after the boys had cleaned the catch, some were
given to themselves, and the rest to Reuben, whose directions had
enabled the girls to get lost coming from Bear Pond. He said he would
give some to the old hermit of the mill.
“But indeed it wasn’t his fault that we took the wrong path,” said
Natalie.
“No, I guess every one who goes to Bear Pond the first time has the same
experience,” added Marie. “I know I heard a number of campers say the
same thing. There are too many cow-paths.”
They had nearly finished dinner, some time later, the “clay chicken”
being done to a turn, when Natalie remarked:
“I’m going to get some olives. I set out a bottle to put on the table,
but I forgot them. Have some, girls?”
“Surely!” exclaimed the others.
Natalie disappeared into the cooking tent where some of the supplies
were kept, and came back quickly, exclaiming:
“Who took them?”
“What?” asked Mrs. Bonnell.
“That bottle of olives. I left them, all ready to serve, on the box of
canned things that we haven’t opened yet. Now they’re gone.”
“The boys——” began Alice.
“Haven’t been here,” declared Natalie. “They have gone to Mt. Harry
again, or somewhere else, trying to locate the Gypsy camp.”
“Perhaps you didn’t put the olives there,” suggested Mabel.
“I’m sure——” began Natalie, and then as the others came to the tent to
help her look, she added:
“And the corkscrew is gone, too, and a can of sardines! I left them all
together here on the box, intending to open the olives, and now they’re
gone.”
“Were you going to open the sardines, too?” asked Mrs. Bonnell.
“No, Jack asked me for them; he said he’d call this afternoon. They
haven’t any in camp. Girls, some one has been here taking our things!”
and Natalie looked tragically at her companions.