THE BATTLE MAID
Of the Stella Olympia Relief Fund it was decided to place $65 in the
savings bank. The morning after the Festival the campers took Limpy the
remaining ten, the sum of a doctor’s bill, long unpaid. A more
astonished lass and a happier was not to be found in the United States,
but for fear of giving her too much excitement the girls made their
visit a short one, Jean promising to come again on the following
afternoon.
The next day Carol and her classmates went with Miss Hamersley on a
tally-ho party to Deer Lake, as the guests of Mrs. Clinton of Big Pine
Camp. After dinner Mrs. Brook took Cecily and Betty on a marketing
expedition to a farm twelve miles away, Douglas driving them in a
buckboard. While they were gone some of the girls held a tennis
tournament, and Jean watched them, her ears pricked up for the sound of
the coaching-horn, in hopes that Carol would return in time to go with
her to see Limpy.
“Oh, dear! it’s four o’clock! I can’t wait any longer. I’ll just have to
go alone!” she sighed at, last. “Oh, I think Carol might come! Limpy may
get a heart attack, and I won’t know what to do. I just hate to go
alone, but I’ll have to,—I _promised_.” Choosing a story-book to read
aloud she set forth with a downcast countenance.
“Jean, Jane, whar’s you gwine?” Frances called from the hammock.
“To see Limpy,” replied Jean. “I have to go alone, because Carol hasn’t
come back, and Fräulein has such a headache I don’t like to ask her.”
“Why didn’t you ask _me_? I’ll go with you,” said the friendly Mouse.
“I didn’t ask _you_ because I knew you wouldn’t behave.”
“Well, I’m going to be good now, anyway,” said Frances. “I haven’t
anything to do, so I’m going with you.”
“Will you promise solemnly, on your honor, to be good?” Jean demanded.
“You know the least thing might give her a heart attack.”
“Yes, I’ll be good. She’ll like me a great deal better than you.” But as
they crossed the Harrels’ daisy field, Frances said, “Don’t let’s go to
Limpy’s. Let’s go to the _flume_,—I’m crazy to see it!”
Troublesome Path, the nearest way to the flume, was the wildest and most
perplexing trail in the whole region; and it began in the woods that
skirted the daisy field. The Hamiltons had taken Carol and Jean over it
a few days before, and the girls had brought back a thrilling report of
the deep gorge, with the brook roaring through it, and the natural
bridge spanning the chasm.
“Oh, yes. I’d like to see ourselves marching off to the flume!” said
Jean. “We’d get a _nice_ big scolding!”
“Nobody’d know, and nobody’d care,” said Frances.
“Veritas!” And Jean planted the tip of her forefinger on Frances’s
golden shield.
“Oh, shoot Veritas!” returned the Mouse. “Come on!”
“I won’t do it!” declared Jean. “I’m going to Limpy’s and you are too,
so come along! This is Silver Sword work, and it’s time you did a
little, Miss Battle Maid!”
“Oh, Giraffe, you’re such a crank! I did enough silver-swording making
candy for the festival. I’m going to the flume, whether you are or not.
Good-bye!”
“No, you sha’n’t!” Jean caught Frances by the arm. “You’d lose the trail
in two minutes! Ah, Frisk, I think you’re terribly mean! You promised
you’d be good—I knew you were only pretending, though!”
“All rightee, I’ll be good,” said Frances, who was really not at all
anxious to take the long, unknown walk, with only herself for company.
But when she reached the Harrels’ she balked again, and dropped into a
rickety chair under a tree. “I’m going to stay out here,” she announced.
“My daddy sent me to camp to be out in the fresh air all I could!”
“Frances Browne, you’re just trying to be hateful! You _must_ come
in—I’ll _make_ you!” cried Jean, doing her best to drag the Mouse.
“No,” said Frances, “I won’t. I can’t stand that cabbagey smell. I’ll
sit out here and cool off. But I won’t hang around waiting for you all
the afternoon. If you stay too long I _will_ go to the flume!”
“Well, stay out then!” snapped Jean. The vision of a pale, unconscious
Limpy was rising before her, but she bravely went into the house by the
open front door. At the same moment Frances saw Tony Harrel come out by
the kitchen door and walk hurriedly away to the woods.
Frances lolled back, fanning herself with her hat; then she took a light
luncheon from the Harrels’ sparse currant crop. Finally she strolled off
and began to climb the hill near by; and whom should she see coming down
but Bob and Ted Talcott, boys of fourteen and twelve, who were spending
a month under Dr. Hamilton’s care. They had struck up an acquaintance
with her at the festival over berries and cream.
“Hello, Miss Fruit Fairy! Where are you going all by yourself?” asked
Bob.
“Oh, nowhere,” said Frances. “I want to go to the flume. Do you know the
way?”
“Sure. Went there yesterday with Jack.”
“Take me there now, will you?” asked Frances eagerly. “I’m wild to see
it, and I haven’t anybody to go with.”
“Too far for girls,” said Bob, with manly superiority.
“It isn’t at all. Jean went there last week. If you’ll take me I’ll make
you some fudge to-morrow.”
“All right, ma’am. Well take you to the flume, and we’ll come and call
on you too,” said Bob.
“Won’t she squeal when we get her out on the bridge!” said his brother.
“No, I won’t. I never get dizzy,” Frances declared. “Do you dare me to
cross it all alone?”
“Nope.”
“I dare myself, then!” said Frances in high glee. They ran down the hill
and turned into the Harrels’ place on their way to the trail.
“You haven’t got a pencil and paper, have you?” asked Frances.
“There you are!” Bob brought out a small red account book and a stubby
pencil.
Frances tore out a page and wrote: “I’ve waited about three hours for
you, and now I’m going to the flume. Good-bye.” This note she fastened
with a hat-pin to the tree under which Jean had left her, and then set
off with the boys along Troublesome Path.
Jean looked much bolder than she felt as she walked in at the Harrels’
front door. She peeped into the parlor,—no one was there. She went into
the kitchen,—that was deserted too. It was a bad sign, and the horror of
perhaps finding Limpy unconscious almost made her play the coward. But
she rallied her flagging courage and stole upstairs. The door of Limpy’s
bedroom was open and she heard the sound of sobbing. She went in. There
was the poor girl in a heap on the floor beside the bed, her face buried
in her hands, shuddering with convulsive tremors.
“Limpy, what’s the matter?” cried Jean.
Limpy started, stared at her wildly for an instant; then, half raising
herself, she threw her arms around Jean’s waist, dragging her down on
the floor beside her and panted out:
“Where’s Tony? Is he gone? Is he gone?”
“Limpy, dear, please stop crying and tell me what’s happened,” said
Jean, putting her arms around the sobbing girl.
“Tony come back last night. He lost his place,” answered Limpy. “An’
he—he took my—money,—my ten dollars!”
“He stole it?” Jean asked breathlessly.
“No, he made me give it to him. He said—oh, dear! he’d kill me for
tellin’! Shut the door; he might hear us.”
“Whisper; then he can’t hear,” said Jean, closing the door softly; and
Limpy went on in an undertone: “He said he was goin’ away again, an’ he
made me give him the ten dollars. I ain’t had no chance to give ’em to
Doctor. An’ Tony said if I ever told on him he’d ruin Douglas! So I
couldn’t do nothin’,—I just _had_ to give him the money. An’ I got to
give him all the rest. He said if I didn’t have it ready for him when he
come back next time, he’d set the woods afire, an’ burn up your camp an’
the Hamiltons’! An’ he’ll do it! I know he will! He said he’d do it
_now_, if I told on him!”
“No, he won’t!” answered Jean, desperately frightened herself, but
knowing that for Limpy’s sake she must hide her terror. “I’ll tell
everybody about it, and they’ll watch for him so he won’t get a chance.
Wait till I go and get Frances,—she’s waiting outside,—and then we’ll
stay with you till it’s time to go home. Don’t be frightened.”
“Please come back quick then,” begged Limpy. “My heart’s beatin’
terrible bad! I can’t hardly breathe.”
“Oh, dear! Now she’s going to be _unconscious_,” thought Jean. “Come,
Limpy, get on the bed,—quick—and then you’ll feel better,” she urged,
her own heart beating fast with fear. She helped Limpy to the bed, and
sat beside her until the excited girl grew quieter. Then she slipped
softly down stairs, hurried out of doors and found that Frances had
deserted already. She could see her in the distance climbing the hill,
but she was afraid to leave Limpy alone and go after the runaway.
Fighting the terror that gripped her, Jean went indoors again, her hands
icy and her ears alert for sounds of danger. She peeped cautiously into
each room in turn until she had proof positive that Tony was not in the
house. Then she went back to Limpy and forced herself to speak cheerily.
“Frances has gone up the hill and I can’t make her hear,” she said. “But
let’s not worry any more about Tony. I’m sure he’s gone. I’ve brought a
lovely book and I’ll read to you.”
Jean read for an hour or more, and then, though the clock in the kitchen
had stopped, she was sure that it was time to leave. “I’ll have to go
now,” said she. “It must be tea-time. But I’ll ask Mrs. Brook to send
somebody to stay with you. You won’t be left alone long.”
As she went out Frances’ words came back to her: “If you stay too long I
_will_ go to the flume.” Spying the note pinned to the tree she took it
down and read it. “Mercy! She _has_ gone!” exclaimed poor Jean. “Oh,
dear! She’ll lose her way! I’ll have to go after her. She can’t have
gone far. I’ll soon catch up with her.”
Running across the yard and through the fields to the woods, she set out
on the trail to the flume, calling, “Frances!” and “Ooh-ooh!” and
listening in vain for an answer. On she went, following with difficulty
Troublesome Path. She pushed her way through tangled underbrush and
scrambled over rocks, trying to find the trees on which blazes had been
cut. But the trail was so hard to make out that to keep the right course
proved a baffling problem. Pretty soon she was hopelessly perplexed, and
which was north, south, east or west, which way led home and which to
the flume she had not the least idea. It was growing dimmer and dimmer
in the forest; night would fall early in that dense shade, and suddenly
Jean realized that she was lost. Lost! It came upon her like a
nightmare. She was shut up in a vast dark prison; and it would have been
almost as easy to break through the walls of a cell as to find her way
out through that bewildering maze of trees. The fears of the afternoon
were nothing compared with the terror that rushed over her now. She
began to call, “Frances!” again, with all her strength, but deathlike
silence was the only answer. Suddenly she checked herself and shrank
back into the cleft of a rock with a new dread. Tony himself might be in
the woods! His vindictive eyes might even now be peering at her out of
the dusk.
But she must not stay cowering there; she must go on before the night
should blind her; and so she tried again to pick out the way by which
she had come. She wondered whether she and Frances had already been
missed, and whether any one had yet been sent out to search for them;
and she asked herself how, in that vast forest, either of them could
ever be found. Then she was seized with a new alarm. She remembered
having heard of people being lost in forests and becoming crazed with
the horror of it. What if she should go crazy! Though lost, she must
control herself and keep her senses. She gathered up all her will power
and tried to fight down the fear that had mastered her.
How dark it was growing! In some places Jean could hardly see. Wandering
on despairingly, she at last came out on the bank of a brook. This was
next best to seeing a friend. It might lead her out of the woods. It
_must_ lead somewhere, and following it she would have a path that she
could not lose. She walked along the edge of the stream, but before she
had gone far she noticed the smell of smoke. Then the terror that she
had been trying to conquer swept over her again. Tony might have
overheard Limpy telling her of his threat and have set fire to the woods
already! She must escape by way of the brook before he should find her,
or the fire spread. She hurried forward, but suddenly stopped, checked
by a new thought. There had been but little rain all summer, and Douglas
had told her that a fire once kindled in the dry woods might spread for
miles and even destroy the camps at Halcyon. He had said that a fire
once started even through carelessness would smoulder and spread through
the inflammable mat of dead leaves, twigs and moss, the “duff” as it was
called, and at last break out in violence to do its work of destruction.
Danger was near—not to herself alone, but to the homes over which the
fire might sweep. But it was a danger that it might be possible to
avert.
Suddenly it seemed almost as if a voice said, “Battle Maid, take your
sword and conquer!”
“I will!” said Jean. “This is a real battle! I’ll do the best I can!”
She climbed the bank; pushed through the trees, and scrambled through a
windfall. Beyond the heap of boughs she came upon a patch of ground from
which little curls of smoke were rising. Here and there sparks gleamed
under the smoke. Could she do anything to check the spreading fire? The
brook was near, but all she had for a pail was her canvas hat, nearly
water-proof to be sure, but holding scarcely a cupful. Yet the
experiment seemed worth trying. She hurried back to the brook, filled
her hat, returned to the burning patch and poured out the water. There
was a fizzle, and the smoke disappeared from about as wide a space as
her palm could have covered. Back and forth she went between the brook
and the fire, each time a splutter and a few inches conquered,
encouraging her to continue. Her fears were lessening now that she had
work to do, and she toiled on, her path growing more and more obscured.
She had heard of beating out fires, and she struck at the smouldering
ground with a branch; but it was a dead one and broke at the second
blow. She took up her hat again, and this time, as she carried it to the
brook she could find her way only by groping. Returning she caught her
foot in the fallen branches and fell, bruising herself painfully.
Then her utter helplessness overpowered poor Jean. The night had come
down at last, wrapping her around in a cloak of darkness, and she
crouched there among the fallen trees, alone and in pain. The wounded
battle maid could not help one sob of despair and a little low moan. The
moan ended in a prayer: “Oh, dear Lord, don’t let me die here. Make them
find me! Oh, Lord, please help me, and don’t let the woods burn!” And
then the agony of fear and the despair passed away. Suddenly Jean was
strong again and hopeful, though so helpless and all alone. She rose up
and groped her way back to her work again.