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[Illustration: FAIRLY LEAPING THROUGH THE WATER, THE LAUNCH CAME ON
THE SCENE. _The Camp Fire Girls on Ellen's Isle._ _Page 80._]
THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS ON ELLEN'S ISLE
OR
The Trail of the Seven Cedars
By HILDEGARD G. FREY
AUTHOR OF
"The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods"
"The Camp Fire Girls at Onoway House"
"The Camp Fire Girls Go Motoring"
"The Camp Fire Girls At School"
"The Camp Fire Girls' Larks and Pranks"
A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers--New York
Copyright, 1917
By A. L. Burt Company
THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS ON ELLEN'S ISLE
THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS ON ELLEN'S ISLE
CHAPTER I
AS USUAL
It was the hottest day of the hottest week of the hottest June ever
recorded in the weather man's book of statistics. The parched earth had
split open everywhere in gaping cracks that intersected and made
patterns in the garden like a crazy quilt. The gray-coated leaves hung
motionless from the shriveling twigs, limp and discouraged. Horses
lifted their seared feet wearily from the sizzling, yielding asphalt;
dogs panted by with their tongues hanging out; pedestrians closed their
eyes to shut out the merciless glare from the sidewalks. The streets
were almost deserted, like those of a southern city during the noon
hours, while a wilted population sought the shelter of house or cellar
and prayed for rain.
On the vine-screened veranda of the Bradford home three of the
Winnebagos--Hinpoha, Sahwah and Migwan--reclined on wicker couches
sipping ice cold lemonade and wearily waving palm-leaf fans. The usually
busy tongues were still for once; it was too hot to talk. Brimming over
with life and energy as they generally were, it seemed on this drowsy
and oppressive afternoon that they would never be able to move again.
Mr. Bob, Hinpoha's black cocker, shared in the prevailing laziness; he
lay sprawled on his back with all four feet up in the air, breathing in
panting gasps that shook his whole body. A bumble bee, blundering up on
the porch, broke the spell. It lit on Mr. Bob's face, whereupon Mr. Bob
sprang into the air, quivering with excitement, and knocked Hinpoha's
glass out of her hand. Hinpoha picked up the pieces with one hand and
patted Mr. Bob with the other.
"Poor old Bobbles," she said soothingly, "what a shame to make him move
so fast! Lucky I had finished the lemonade; there isn't any more in the
pitcher and we used the last lemons in the house."
Sahwah, roused from her reverie, sat up and began fanning herself with
greater energy. "Of all summers to have to stay in town!" she said
disconsolately. "I don't remember having such hot weather, ever."
"Neither does anyone else," said Migwan with a yawn. "So what's the use
wasting energy trying to remember anything worse? Didn't the paper say
'the present hot spell has broken all known records for June?'"
"It broke our thermometer, too," said Hinpoha, joining in the
conversation. "It went to a hundred and six and then it blew up and fell
off the hook."
"And to think that we might all have been out camping now, if Nyoda
hadn't gone away," continued Sahwah with a heavy sigh. "This is the
first summer for three years we won't be together. I can't get used to
the idea at all. Gladys is going to the seashore and Katherine is going
home to Arkansas in three weeks, and Nyoda is gone forever! I just
haven't any appetite for this vacation at all." And she sighed a still
heavier sigh.
The three lapsed into silence once more. Vacation had as little savor
for the other two as it did for Sahwah. Now that the summer's outing
with Nyoda had to be given up the next three months yawned before them
like an empty gulf.
"I'm never going to love anybody again the way I did Nyoda," remarked
Hinpoha cynically, after a long silence. "It hurts too much to lose
them."
"Neither am I," said Migwan and Sahwah together, and then there was
silence again.
"I'd like to see something wet once," said Sahwah fretfully, after
another long pause. "Everything is so dry it seems to be choking. The
grass is all burned up; the paint is all blistered; the shingles are all
curling up backwards. It makes my eyes hurt to look at things. It would
do them a world of good to see something wet for once."
Fate or the fairy godmother, or whoever the mysterious being is that
always pops up at the right moment in the story books, but who is
practically an unknown quantity in real life, proved that she was not a
myth after all by suddenly and unceremoniously granting Sahwah's wish.
Round the corner of the house came Katherine, dripping water on all
sides like Undine, her skirts clinging limply to her ankles, while
little rivulets ran from her head over her nose and dripped from the
ends of her lanky locks. Up on the porch she came, all dripping as she
was, and sank down on the wicker couch beside Sahwah.
"Why, Katherine _Adams_, what has happened to you?" cried the three
all together.
"Nothing much," replied Katherine laconically, tipping the lemonade
pitcher over her head and putting out her tongue to catch the last drop.
The drop missed the tongue and landed full in her eye, whence it joined
the stream trickling over her nose into her lap. "I just stopped to
investigate a garden hose on the way over," she continued. "It was on a
lawn close by the sidewalk and the thinnest little stream you ever saw
was coming out. I was so thirsty I simply couldn't go by without taking
a drink, and I just turned the nozzle the least little bit when it
suddenly came out in a perfect deluge and sprinkled me all over. Then,
seeing that I was wet anyhow I didn't make any haste to get out from
under the cooling flood. There, ladies, you have the whyness of the
thusness. I'm thoroughly comfortable now and inclined to think lightly
of my troubles. Why don't you follow my example and stand under the
hose?"
"Thanks," said Sahwah, edging away from Katherine's dripping proximity,
"I'm all right as I am. Besides, no hose could squirt my troubles away."
"It didn't seem to dispel your gloom, either, Katherine," said Migwan,
looking closely at Katherine, who, after the first moment of banter, had
lapsed into silence and sat staring gloomily into the curtain of vines
that covered the end of the porch. "What's the matter?" she asked
curiously, brushing back the damp hair from Katherine's forehead with a
gentle hand. It was easy to see how Katherine was idolized by the rest
of the Winnebagos. For her to act depressed was unheard of and alarming.
At Migwan's words Sahwah and Hinpoha stared at Katherine in dismay.
"Oh, I'm just low in my mind," said Katherine, with her head still
resting on her hands. "Got a letter from the folks at home today,
telling me not to come home for the summer, that's all. Father and
Mother have been invited to go on an automobile trip through California
and there's no room for me. Aunt Anna will be glad to keep me all right,
but Cousin Grace will be gone all summer--she left yesterday--and it
will be pretty dull for me. Aunt Anna is so deaf----" She finished with
an eloquent gesture of the hands.
"You poor thing!" cried Migwan, drawing Katherine close to her in spite
of her wet garments. "We'll all have to combine to make the summer
lively for you. You'll have some fun even if your aunt is deaf and would
rather read than talk. Don't worry."
Katherine's head suddenly went down on her knee. "What's the matter?"
cried the three in added dismay.
"It isn't because I don't want to stay," said Katherine in a choking
voice, "it's because I want to go home. It's hotter out there than a
blast furnace, and our one-story brick shack is like an oven, and we
haven't one-tenth of the comforts that people have here, but
it's--home!"
Migwan rolled Katherine over and took her head into her lap. "I know
just how you feel," she said softly. "After you've been away from home a
whole year nothing looks good to you any more but that. And when you've
been crossing off the days on your calendar and been cheered up every
night when you realized that you were that much nearer home it must be
an awful bump to find out that you're not to go after all. But cheer up,
it won't be so bad after all, once you get used to the idea. Think what
a good time your folks are having, and then start out and hunt up some
adventures of your own."
Thus she comforted the doleful Katherine and the others pressed around
to express their sympathy and none of them heard the automobile stop in
front of the house. They all started violently when Gladys burst into
their midst, and regardless of the prostrating temperature, danced a jig
on the porch floor.
"Oh, girls," she cried, waving a palm-leaf fan over her head like a
triumphal banner, "listen! Papa has bought Lake Huron and we're all
going camping!"
And without noticing the tears in Katherine's eyes, she pulled her out
of Migwan's lap and danced around with her.
"Your papa has done _what_?" cried Migwan, her voice shrill with
amazement. "Oh, how do you do, Mrs. Evans." For Gladys's mother,
proceeding more leisurely up the walk than her impetuous daughter, was
just coming up the steps. "What's this about Mr. Evans buying Lake
Huron?"
"Oh, nothing so startling as that," said Mrs. Evans, laughing in great
amusement. "We haven't started out to own the world yet. But without any
effort on his part, Mr. Evans has become the owner of a small island
somewhere in Lake Huron. Some time ago he lent a large amount of money
to a company owning the island to establish a bottling works for mineral
water, which flowed from a spring on the island. But after the money had
been spent to get the business under way the spring was discovered to be
much smaller than had at first been supposed; in fact, not large enough
to be profitable at all. The company went bankrupt, and the island,
which had been put up as security for the loan, became the property of
Mr. Evans. Owning an island so far away was so much like having a castle
in Spain that none of us thought much about it until just now, when Mr.
Evans has suffered a severe nervous breakdown and the doctor has ordered
him to get away from his work and from the city altogether and spend the
summer living close to nature. This made our trip to the seashore, with
its hotels and its throngs of people, out of the question, and then we
thought of the desert island up in Lake Huron. But when we talked it
over we decided that it would be pretty lonesome up there with just the
three of us, and Gladys suggested that we round up all the girls who
would otherwise stay in town all summer and take them up with us. Do you
suppose any of you could go?" Mrs. Evans looked rather wistfully from
one to the other.
"Will we go?" shouted Sahwah, likewise forgetting the heat and capering
madly about the porch, "I should say we will! We were just resigning
ourselves to the dullest summer that ever happened."
"I would love to go," said Migwan a little less vehemently, but none the
less sincerely, "and I don't think my folks will have the slightest
objection. Mother was really worried about my having to stay here during
the hot weather. She's afraid I've studied too hard."
"And I am sure I can go," said Hinpoha. "The Doctor and Aunt Phoebe are
going East to a lot of conventions, and while I could go along, I
suppose, rather than stay at home, I'd lots rather go with you."
"How about you, Katherine?" asked Mrs. Evans.
Katherine was holding her head up again and her eyes were sparkling with
animation. "You blessed people!" she exclaimed in extravagant accents.
"You came to the rescue just in the nick of time. If I had had to
languish here all summer there wouldn't have been enough left of me to
go to college in the fall. Think what a misfortune you have averted from
that institution! An hour ago I was wallowing in the slough of despond;
now I am skittering on the heights once more. Hurrah for the spring that
broke the company that owned the island that sheltered the camp that
Jack hasn't built yet but will very soon!" And she danced up and down
until the heat overcame her and she sank on the couch weak and
exhausted, but still feebly hurrahing.
Gladys turned to Migwan in perplexity. "I thought Katherine was going
home for the summer," she said.
Then Migwan explained and Gladys expressed unbounded delight at the turn
of fate, which permitted Katherine to go camping with them. It really
would not have been complete without her.
Plans for the summer trip were made as fast as tongues could move.
Nothing would do but they must go out in the heat and risk the danger of
sunstroke to see Veronica and Nakwisi and Medmangi, and tell them the
glorious news. Katherine, utterly forgetting her bedraggled condition,
rose enthusiastically to go with them.
"Oh, mercy," said Migwan, shoving her back on the couch, "you can't go
out on the street looking like that."
Katherine sighed and accepted the inevitable. "That's right," she said
plaintively, "turn your back on me if you like. There never was any
sympathy for the poor victim of science."
"Victim of science?" muttered Gladys, noticing Katherine's plight for
the first time.
"Yes," said Katherine. "In the interests of science I tried to find out
if troubles could be drowned with a garden hose. Now when I've found out
once for all that they can't, and handed the report of my investigations
on a silver platter to these lazy creatures and saved them the trouble
of finding out for themselves, they won't be seen on the street with me.
It surely is a cruel world!" And she settled herself comfortably on the
couch and devoured the last two cookies on the plate.
Nakwisi jumped with joy when they told her; she, too, had been sighing
for some place to go. Veronica and Medmangi, however, had their summer
plans already made.
"My, won't the Sandwiches envy us," said Sahwah that night, as they all
met at Gladys's house to talk over their plans more fully.
"I wonder----" began Mrs. Evans.
"They're hunting a place to go camping, but so far they haven't found
one," continued Sahwah, speaking to Hinpoha.
"What did you wonder, my dear?" said Mr. Evans, speaking to his wife.
"I was going to say," continued Mrs. Evans, "I wonder if it wouldn't be
possible to take the boys along with us, too. It certainly would add to
our fun a great deal to have them with us. From your description, the
island is certainly large enough to let them have a part of it."
Mr. Evans looked thoughtful. "Something of the kind occurred to me,
also," he said. "That and something more. Oh, Gladys, where can I get
hold of that man who took you folks on that snowshoe hike last winter?"
"It's the Captain's uncle," explained Gladys.
"Let's go and see the Captain," said Mr. Evans, and they went right
away to the home of Dr. St. John. As luck would have it, Uncle Teddy
was there that night, having come into town on business. He listened to
Mr. Evans' proposal quietly, nodding his head here and there at
different points in the conversation. When the conference was ended he
called Aunt Clara over from the other end of the porch. She said "yes"
enthusiastically in answer to several questions and then the Captain
was called out and taken into the council. Once the Captain heard the
news there was no more keeping quiet about it. The secret was out. Mr.
Evans, who had no experience in camping, was afraid he could not manage
it alone, and had invited Uncle Teddy and Aunt Clara to come along and
stay all summer. With them were to come as many of the Sandwiches as
were able.
"It's no use talking," said Hinpoha a little later to the group. "We
Winnebagos weren't meant to be separated. Just as soon as we settle down
to the idea of spending the summer away from each other along comes fate
and throws us all into the same basket again. It happened last summer
and the summer before last. And today, while we were in the midst of our
lament, in steps fate, just as usual."
"Just as usual," echoed the other Winnebagos.