HARE AND HOUNDS
Once the tide was turned the Captain mended fast. A spell of beautiful,
warm, dry weather followed the cold week, when the sun shone from
morning until night and the pine-scented breezes bore health and
strength on their pinions. Hinpoha outdid herself cooking delicate
messes for him and Slim nearly died with envy when he saw the choice
dishes being loaded on the invalid's tray.
"Pretty soft, pretty soft, I call it," he would say to the Captain, and
the Captain would laugh and reply he was willing to change places.
The Captain's return to the ranks of the "huskies" was celebrated with a
program of water sports and a great clam-bake on the beach. Of course,
the Winnebagos got up a pageant, which on this occasion was a canoe
procession, each canoe representing one of the seven points of the Camp
Fire Law. "Seek Beauty" held a fairy creature dressed in white and
garlanded with flowers; "Give Service" was the big war canoe, which went
on ahead and towed all the others but one; "Pursue Knowledge" held a
maiden who scanned the heavens with a telescope; "Be Trustworthy" held
up a bag conspicuously labeled CAMP FUNDS; "Hold on to Health" was
Katherine holding up a huge paper clock dial, its painted hands pointing
to half past three A. M. with the slogan "Early to bed and early to rise
make a crew healthy, wealthy and wise." "Glorify Work" paddled its own
canoe, scorning to be towed by "Give Service," and "Be Happy" came along
singing such rollicking songs and shouting so with laughter that they
set the audience into a roar.
After the pageant came fancy drills in the war canoe. The crew were in
fine practice by this time and the paddles rose, dipped, cross rested,
clicked and water wheeled all as one in obedience to the commands
shouted by Uncle Teddy. Just before the war canoe started out on her
exhibition trip the Stars and Stripes was nailed to her prow with much
ceremony and "floated proudly before" her throughout the manoeuvers.
Of course, no water sports could be complete without swimming races and
a stunt contest, and Slim drew great applause by floating with his hands
behind his head and one leg crossed over the other in his favorite
position in the couch hammock.
Then Sahwah's stunt was announced and she went to Hinpoha, Migwan and
Gladys and invited them to take tea with her that afternoon. They
accepted with pleasure and withdrew to prink. In the meantime, Sahwah
took a plate in her hand and dove under the surface. She swam to a
large, flat rock, which was plainly visible through the clear water, set
the plate on the rock and weighed it down with a stone. She did this
three more times, setting four plates in all. Then she put a pear on
each plate under the stone. This finished, she came to the surface and
sat on a rock to await the coming of her guests.
When they arrived she greeted them affably and bade them make themselves
comfortable beside her. They were chatting merrily when suddenly a black
figure rose from the water almost at their feet so suddenly that Mrs.
Evans screamed. The black figure was the Monkey, who had quietly slipped
into the water behind a large rock while all attention was focussed on
the girls, and swimming under water came up in front of them. The new
arrival on the scene turned out to be the waiter who announced that tea
was ready. "We will be down immediately, Thomas," said Sahwah in her
best society manner and promptly dove off the rock, the others following
suit. They found their plates on the submerged rock, ate the pears under
water and came up, amid the prolonged applause and shouting of the
audience, who couldn't see "how they did it without choking." Of course
that stunt was voted the best and the clever divers were crowned with
ground pine in lieu of laurel and treated to lollypops.
Sahwah was just recovering the last plate when a sudden gust of wind
tore the flag from the prow of the war canoe, riding at anchor a short
distance away, and sent it flying through the air. It flew right over
her head as she came up, and, reaching out her hand, she caught it. Then
she swam back to the dock holding the flag above her head well out of
the water so that not a drop stained it. The watchers cheered mightily
as she came in waving it.
"'The old flag never touched the ground,'" she said, holding her head up
proudly, "and it'll never fall into the water while I'm around."
"If only all young people had that same spirit of reverence toward their
country's flag!" said Uncle Teddy fervently. "It is becoming a rarer
sight all the time to see a young man take off his hat to the Stars and
Stripes. We have come to regard it as a sort of decorative rag, and of
no more significance than any other decoration. I think it is up to you
Camp Fire Girls to foster this spirit of respect for the flag among
young folks. I am very glad you did this thing today, Sahwah. It was a
fine act."
Sahwah hung her head as she always did when praised, but the others
declared that she grew an inch taller from that minute on.
"By the way, what's become of the Principal Diversion for this week?"
asked Katherine at breakfast one morning the week following the
clam-bake in honor of the Captain's recovery. "Maybe I was asleep in
Council Meeting Monday night, but I don't seem to recollect hearing one
announced. Did I miss the announcement?" she asked of Sahwah, who with
the Monkey was Chief for that week.
"There wasn't any announcement made," said Sahwah, trying to look
dignified behind the coffee pot, and so busy filling up the plates of
the others that she had scarcely eaten a mouthful herself. "We simply
couldn't think of a thing that had not been done before, and we're still
thinking."
"We haven't had a hare and hound chase yet," remarked Gladys. It was
merely an idle suggestion, but the others pounced upon it immediately.
"The very thing!" said Sahwah promptly. "All our Principal Diversions so
far have been trips by water; it's time we did a little scouting on
foot. Thanks for the idea. We'll put it into action immediately. Today
is a fine day for tramping. Munson can be leader of the Hares and I'll
take the Hounds. All those sitting above the toast plate at the table
will be Hares; all those on this side of it, Hounds. Hares will start
right after breakfast and have an hour's start. Dinner will be carried
along and eaten when the Hounds catch up with the Hares. If the Hounds
catch the Hares before they reach their destination the Hares will do
the cooking and give a show; if they have to wait for the Hounds to come
up the Hounds will do the catering, watering and celebrating. The Hares
will demonstrate their knowledge of scouting by blazing the trail in the
proper manner, both by marking trees and by placing stones in the path."
The Hares scurried around and were ready to start in a jiffy. These were
Munson McKee as leader, with Katherine, the Captain, Gladys, Pitt,
Nakwisi and Antha. Sahwah's band consisted of Hinpoha and Slim, Migwan
and Peter Jenkins, Dan Porter and Anthony. The elders had decided not to
go on this trip. Mrs. Evans and Aunt Clara were still somewhat tired
from their siege of nursing the Captain and were glad to have a day of
quiet, and Uncle Teddy and Mr. Evans wanted to work on the boat landing,
which was sinking into the water.
Uncle Teddy took the Hares across the lake in the launch and set them
down at the edge of the woods. They struck out through the trees,
chipping the trail on the trunks with a sharp hatchet, and working their
way around the curve of the shore line to St. Pierre. There they rested
and bought ice cream and while they were eating it Katherine had one of
her periodical inspirations.
"Let's keep right on going until we get back to camp, and not stop
anywhere at all," she suggested. "Won't we lead the others a fine chase,
though? They'll be dead by the time they get there."
"What about us?" asked Gladys. "We'll be dead ourselves."
"I suppose we will," admitted Katherine, who hadn't thought of this
before, "but it will be worth it. Who'll be game?"
"I know a way to fix it so we won't be dead," said Pitt, the crafty.
Pitt could always use his head to save his heels, and was a very Ulysses
for cunning.
"How?" they all asked.
"Leave a note for the others on that last tree we blazed, telling them
to follow the sand beach around to the Point of Pines. There aren't any
trees along the beach so they won't think anything about our not blazing
a trail. Then we'll simply rent a boat and cut straight across the lake
to the Point of Pines. From there we'll go on blazing the trail back to
the place opposite Ellen's Isle where we are to signal Uncle Teddy. By
cutting across the corner of the lake that way we'll save three miles
that the others will have to walk, and they'll wonder and wonder how we
got so far ahead of them." The prospect of turning the hare and hound
chase into a joke on the Hounds was too funny to pass up, and with
giggles and chuckles they pinned the note on the tree back at the edge
of the woods where the road ran toward St. Pierre; then they rented two
rowboats and piled into them. Some distance to the east of St. Pierre
stood the old abandoned lighthouse, and they had to row past it. It
stood out in the water, several hundred feet from the shore, on an
island so tiny that it did no more than give a foothold for the tower.
"Let's stop and go into it," said Katherine. "I've never seen a
lighthouse close up before. And you ought to get a grand view of the
lake and the islands from that little balcony that runs around the top.
Maybe we can see the others trailing after us."
The rest were also anxious to see the old lighthouse and as their short
cut across the lake would gain them at least an hour they decided there
was plenty of time to go inside. So the boys rowed alongside and made
the boats fast and they all went up.
"It's horribly dilapidated and messy," said Gladys, viewing with
fastidious distaste a pile of crumbled bricks and mortar which lay at
the foot of the stairway, the result of an explosion which had blown a
hole in the wall.
"'If seven maids with seven mops swept it for half a year,
Do you suppose,' the Walrus said, 'that they could get it clear?'"
quoted Gladys, waving her hand in the direction of the heap.
"No doubt, but for a job like that I really wouldn't keer!" answered
Katherine. "Come on, you can climb over it." And suiting the action to
the word she took a long step over the pile of bricks and then reached
down and pulled Gladys up after her.
It was fun standing up in the top of the lighthouse and looking out over
the lake in all directions. The boats in the harbor of St. Pierre looked
like cute little toys, and Ellen's Isle seemed to have shrunk to half
its size.
"Come, Munson," said Katherine, "you get into the lantern and be the
beacon. You can see that red hair of yours a mile. Too bad Hinpoha isn't
here, she's a regular signal light."
"Get in yourself," retorted the Monkey. "Your nose is as red as my
hair."
Far out over the lake they could see the black trail of smoke made by an
approaching steamer.
"Here comes the _Huronic_," said Gladys.
"Let's stay out here until she goes past, and wave at the people," said
Katherine.
"We won't have time, if we want to get to the Point of Pines ahead of
the others," said the Captain. Katherine reluctantly admitted that he
was right and they picked their way down the littered stairs again. But
there were so many fascinating corners to poke into that another half
hour ticked by before they could finally tear themselves away.
"Where are the boats?" asked Katherine, who was the first through the
door. Yes, where were they? They were no longer fastened where the
Captain had left them. Far out in the lake they saw them, still tied
together, bobbing up and down on the baby waves.
The girls uttered a shriek of dismay, all except Katherine, who
exclaimed in comical amazement, "What do you know about that?"
"I thought I had them tied fast," said the Captain ruefully. "What in
the name of goodness are we going to do now?"
"Don't ask me," said the Monkey, gazing in a fascinated way at the
swiftly fleeing boats. There was a strong current among the islands up
here which was sweeping the runaways very fast toward the channel.
"Stranded!" exclaimed the Captain.
"Marooned!" said the Bottomless Pitt.
"Shipwrecked!" said the Monkey.
"Desoited!" cried Katherine, wringing her hands and rolling her eyes.
"Left to perish miserably in the middle of the sea! Now, Count Flamingo,
you have your revenge!"
"Just the same," said Gladys when she had finished laughing at
Katherine's absurd heroics, "we're in a fine pickle. Just how are we
going to get out of here?"
"Let's see," said Katherine, puckering her brow. "What do people usually
do on such occasions? We've been in 'fine pickles' before, and we've
always gotten out of them. Isn't the proper thing to do when you're
locked up in a lonely tower to sing siren-like music until the noble
hero hears you and comes to the rescue? Do you suppose my secret lover
would ever mistake my sweet voice for anyone else's, once he heard it
wafted in on the breeze?"
"Oh, stop your nonsense, Katherine," said Gladys. "You make me laugh so
I can't think of a thing to do. Captain, how are we going to attract
people's attention?"
"Run up a distress signal, I suppose," replied the Captain, "if we have
anything to run up."
"Well, there's one thing about it," declared Katherine flatly, "I refuse
to be the distress signal this time. Every time we've had to have one in
the past my belongings have been sacrificed."
"Don't get worried, injured one," said Gladys soothingly. "We can wave
the two towels I brought along."
"Just the thing!" said Katherine. "We can wave them when the steamer
goes by and they'll send a lifeboat for us. How romantic! She's just
coming into the channel now. Everybody get ready to call."
The big _Huronic_, the magnificent white steamer that stopped at
St. Pierre once a week on her way down to Chicago, swung into sight
around a long point of land.
"Now wave!" commanded Katherine, when the _Huronic_ was almost
opposite them, and the towels fluttered frantically over the edge of the
little balcony. Dozens of handkerchiefs were waved in answer from the
deck of the big liner. "They think we're just waving at them for fun,"
said Katherine, when nothing took place that looked like an effort at
rescue.
Making trumpets of their hands they all shrieked in unison, "Help!" But
the wind was toward them and carried the sound back. The stately
_Huronic_ proceeded serenely on her way without a pause.
"They aren't going to stop!" said Gladys.
"Oh, let them go on then," said Katherine crossly. Then she added, "I
suppose it was kind of foolish to expect a big boat like that to stop
and pick up a bunch of folks that didn't know any better than to climb
into an old lighthouse and let their boats float away."
"Isn't she a beauty, though?" said Gladys, looking after the ship in
admiration. The sun shining on the broad, white side of the _Huronic_
as she turned toward St. Pierre made her look like a gleaming, white
bird.
"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again," said Katherine
optimistically. "Even if the fair _Huronic_ did spurn us we can no
doubt get the attention of a fishing boat. Some of them are always going
round. Cheer up, Antha, and don't look so scared. Remember, you're with
me, and I bear a charmed life!"
And joking over their situation, but, nevertheless, keeping a sharp
lookout for anything on the horizon, they settled down to pass the time.
Meanwhile, the Hounds had reached the woods before St. Pierre, found the
directions on the tree and turned off toward the beach to follow the
shore to the Point of Pines. But after plodding through the thick, soft
sand for a while they decided that that mode of traveling was altogether
too fatiguing, and went back into the woods where they found a path
which ran in the general line of the shore and which was much easier
traveling. But even at that they were pretty well tired when they
reached the Point of Pines where they supposed the others would be
waiting for them. But there was no glimpse of the Hares at the Point of
Pines.
"Where do you suppose they are?" asked Hinpoha, mystified.
"Hiding, I suppose," said Sahwah wearily, sitting down in the soft
grass. "Let's let them stay hidden until we get rested up. It's up to us
to get dinner I suppose, but I'm just too tired to begin."
"But you will pretty soon, won't you?" asked Slim anxiously.
"You aren't hungry already, are you, Slim?" asked Hinpoha teasingly.
"Already!" said Slim, looking at his watch. "Do you folks know what time
it is? It's half past two!"
"Mercy!" said Sahwah. "It's taken us ages to get here. Maybe the beach
would have been shorter, anyway."
"Let's call for the Hares," said Hinpoha. "It'll take too much time to
try to find them. And I'm too tired to go hunting through the woods."
So they called, "Come out, we give up." Their voices echoed against the
opposite shore, but there was no other answer. They called again with
the same result.
"They're not here!" said Hinpoha with a prophetic feeling. "Where are
we, anyway? Is this the Point of Pines? I believe we've come to the
wrong place! We should have stuck to the shore after all and not gone
off into that path through the woods that turned and twisted so many
times. Are you sure this is the Point of Pines?"
"I don't know whether I'm sure or not," said Sahwah in perplexity. "I
certainly thought it was all the time. I may be mistaken."
"I think you are," said Hinpoha. "There isn't a sign of the Hares here.
How will we find them?"
"I think the best thing to do," said Sahwah calmly, displaying her great
talent for leadership in this emergency, "is to stay where we are and
let them find us. If we start hunting around for each other in these
woods we'll never get together. We'll just stay here and build two
signal fires. You know that two columns of smoke is the sign for 'I'm
lost.' Well, we'll just put up the 'lost' signal and if they're hunting
for us they'll see that and come straight over here."
The others agreed that this was the most sensible thing to do under the
circumstances. There was plenty of driftwood, and two good fires were
soon going, and the green branches piled on top of them sent up the most
gratifying signal smokes.
"Now let's get our dinner," said Hinpoha, when that was accomplished,
"without waiting any longer."
The seven marooned sailors looked and looked in all directions without
seeing a single thing to wave at.
"It's too bad," said Katherine. "Here's a fine opportunity for some
likely young fisherman to make a hero of himself rescuing a band of
shipwrecked lady fairs and winning their undying gratitude. Maybe we'd
take up a collection and buy him an Ingersoll as a reward. But nobody
seems to be around anywhere to jump at the chance. It's a wasted
opportunity."
"There seems to be a boat around the other side of that point of land,"
said Gladys, shading her eyes with her hand. "See those two columns of
smoke going up?"
"It must be standing still," said the Captain. "The smoke is going up in
the same place all the while."
"It's two boats," said Katherine, "or does a boat have two smokestacks?"
"That's not boat smoke," said the Captain with a knowing air. "That's
from fires on the shore. They must be on that farther point, just beyond
the one we're looking against."
"Isn't that the Point of Pines?" asked Gladys.
"It is!" said Katherine. "And I'll bet you a cooky it's the Hounds who
have built those fires. They've been walking all this while and have
reached the Point."
"What would they want with two fires, though?" asked Gladys. "And such
thick smoke! They can't possibly be cooking anything over them."
"I know!" cried the Captain. "They're signal fires. You know Uncle Teddy
showed us how to make them. Two smokes mean 'We're lost.' They don't
know what to make of it because they didn't find us there and are
signalling for us."
"How perfectly rich!" said Katherine, laughing until her hair tumbled
down. "Here we are, cooped up in a lighthouse trying to signal someone
to come and get us away, and there they are, wanting us to come and help
them. It's the funniest thing you ever saw!"
And the Hares watched the two smokes ascending into the blue sky and
laughed helplessly.
Meanwhile, there was a panic on the Point of Pines. In the middle of the
peaceful dinner party two rowboats tied together came floating in toward
the shore. The boys waded out and brought them up on the beach.
"Look," cried Hinpoha, picking up something that lay in the bottom of
one of them. It was a battered tan khaki hat with the frayed cord
hanging down over one side and a picture of a Kewpie drawn on the big
button in front. There was no mistaking it. It was Katherine's hat.
Migwan screamed. "They're drowned! They've gone out in boats and upset!
That's why they're not here. Oh, what will we do?"
"Take it easy," said Sahwah soothingly. "They haven't upset. There isn't
a speck of water in the boats. They've simply floated off and left the
folks somewhere. What were the Hares doing out in boats, anyway?" she
mused. "But if they're along the shore here somewhere we ought to go and
look for them. Maybe we missed directions by not keeping to the beach.
That must be it. They probably told us about the boats in a later note
that we didn't get."
With an air of relief they finished their dinner and then piled into the
boats and started coasting along the shore, looking for the Hares.
"This is getting to be a real hare and hound chase," observed Hinpoha,
as they proceeded slowly, looking into every little cove and inlet. Soon
they rounded the last point and were spied by the anxious watchers in
the lighthouse, who waved their towels and shrieked at the tops of their
voices.
The Hounds got the surprise of their lives when they heard that hail and
looking up saw the Hares perched up in the lighthouse, "just exactly
like crows on a telephone pole," said Sahwah, telling Aunt Clara about
it later.
The stranded Hares were taken ashore under a running fire of pleasantry
about their plight, and were told moral stories about people who tried
to play jokes on others and got the worst of it themselves, and Sahwah
advised them gravely never to go out in a rowboat that wouldn't stand
without hitching, and so on and so forth until the poor Hares did not
know which way to turn.
So the members of the chase went homeward, hunters and hunted side by
side, laughing at the events of the day and agreeing that the chief
charm of nearly all their expeditions lay in the fact that they never
turned out the way they had expected them to.
"Good gracious, Slim, you aren't hungry again?" said Sahwah, as Slim,
stooping among the leaves, brought up a bunch of bright blue berries and
started to put them all into his mouth at once.
"Don't eat those berries!" said Anthony suddenly. "They aren't real
blueberries. They make your throat feel as if it were full of red hot
needles and it hurts for hours. I ate some one day and I know."
Slim dropped the berries hastily. "Thanks, old man, for telling me," he
said warmly.
"Whew! What a chance for a comeback he would have had on Slim!" said the
Captain that night as the campers sat around in an informal family
council while the twins were out in the launch with Mr. Evans. "The fact
that he didn't take it shows that he's a pretty good sort after all. I
didn't think he had it in him."
"Do you know," said Katherine seriously, "I believe I know what's been
the trouble with Anthony. He was spoiled when he was little and allowed
to talk all the time and that made people dislike him. It made him
unpopular with his boy friends and he's been unpopular so long that he
expects everybody he meets to dislike him. So he starts to patronize and
bully his new acquaintances right away because he thinks they won't like
him anyway and it's his way of getting even. But I believe that
underneath it he's the loneliest boy that ever lived. Nobody can have a
very good time or really enjoy life when they're disliked by everybody.
"Now I think we made a mistake in our treatment of him from the start.
We didn't like him when we first saw him and we let him know it. We
froze him out in the beginning. I know how I feel toward people that I
think don't like me. They bring out the worst side of me every time. Now
Anthony must have a lot of good stuff in him or he couldn't have acted
the way he did today. It's up to us to bring it out, and I think the way
to do it is to treat him as if we thought there was nothing but a 'best'
side to him. We mustn't act as if we thought he was going to do
something mean all the time. Take, for instance, the time we thought
somebody had hidden Eeny-Meeny, and you jumped on him as a matter of
course."
"We thought he'd be likely to do it," said the Captain, trying to
justify himself before Katherine's reproach.
"That's exactly the trouble," said Katherine. "We always thought he'd be
'likely' to do something mean, but we never thought he'd be 'likely' to
do something good. Everything that has happened around here has been
blamed on Anthony as a matter of course. We've never given him a fair
chance. You boys didn't let him in on the secret of those council seats
because you were afraid he'd give it away. That was wrong. You should
have let him help and never doubted him for a minute. People generally
do just what you expect them to do. If we took Anthony seriously and
acted as though we could rely on his judgment he'd soon have a judgment
we could rely on. I say we've had ahold of the wrong handle of Anthony
all the while. We knocked the boasting out of him with a sledgehammer
and that was all right in that case; but for the rest of it we've got to
show that we respect and trust him, and take my word for it, he won't
disappoint us. Don't you think that's what's been the trouble, Uncle
Teddy?"
"My dear Katherine," said Uncle Teddy, "the way you put things it would
take a blind beetle not to see them. You certainly have put Anthony up
in an entirely new light. I've nearly got gray hair wondering why he did
not profit by our illustrious example here; now you've put the whole
thing in a nutshell. It isn't half as much to sit and look at a parade
as it is to ride in the band wagon. But from now on we'll see that
Anthony is made part of the show.
"If only everybody had such faith in mankind as you have, what a world
this would be!"