"Oh!" gasped Dolly, when they were inside the main buildings. "They call this a camp! Electric lights, and it couldn"t be better furnished if it were in the city!"
"The Worcesters like to be comfortable," said Eleanor, with a smile, "even when they pretend they"re roughing it. It is a beautiful place, though I like our own rough shacks in the Long Lake country better."
"Come on! I want to explore this place, Bessie!" cried Dolly. "May we, Miss Eleanor?"
"Go ahead, but be back in half an hour. We"ve got to help to get dinner, even if we are in the midst of luxury!"
So off went the two girls, and Dolly, always delighted by anything new, was all over the place in a few minutes.
"Look at those summer houses--places for having tea, I bet," she said. "h.e.l.lo! Why, there"s another camp, just like this!"
Sure enough, through the trees they could see other buildings, all logs outside, but probably all luxury within. And, even while they were looking at them, Dolly suddenly heard her own name.
"Dolly! Dolly Ransom! Is that really you?"
Dolly and Bessie looked up, surprised, for the call came from above and a girl began to climb down from a tree above them, and they saw that she had been hidden on a platform that was covered by leaves and branches.
"Gladys Cooper!" said Dolly. "Well, whoever would have thought of seeing you here?"
"Oh, there are lots of us here!" said Gladys, rushing up to Dolly as soon as she reached the ground, and embracing her. "We"re all in a regular camp here, about a dozen of us. We"re supposed to do lessons, but I haven"t looked at a book since I"ve been here, and I don"t believe any of the other girls have, either!"
"Oh," said Dolly, suddenly remembering Bessie. "This is Bessie King, Gladys. And this is my friend Gladys Cooper, Bessie. We used to go to school together before her parents sent her off to boarding-school."
Suddenly Gladys broke into a roar of laughter.
"Oh, this is rich!" she exclaimed. "I forgot--why, you must be one of the Camp Fire Girls who are coming here, aren"t you, Dolly?"
"I certainly am--and Bessie"s another," said Dolly, a little resentfully. "Why are you laughing?"
"Oh, it seems so funny for you to belong! None of our crowd do, you know, except you. We were furious when we heard you were coming. We couldn"t see why the Worcesters let you people have the camp. But you"ll spend all your time with us, won"t you, Dolly? And"--she seemed to remember Bessie suddenly---"bring your friend along, sometimes."
"Indeed, and I"ll stay with my own friends!" she said, flushing hotly.
CHAPTER XII.
ENEMIES WITHOUT CAUSE.
"Horrid little sn.o.b!" commented Dolly, as, with the surprised Bessie following her, she turned on her heel abruptly and left Gladys Cooper standing and looking after her.
"Why, Dolly! What"s the matter? And why did she talk that way about the Camp Fire Girls?"
"Because she"s just what I called her--a sn.o.b! She thinks that because her father has lots of money, and they can do whatever they like that she and her family are better than almost anyone else. And she and her nasty crowd think the Camp Fire Girls are common because some of us work for a living!"
Dolly"s honest anger was very different from the petulance that she had sometimes displayed, as on the occasion when she had been jealous of poor Bessie. And Bessie recognized the difference. It seemed to reveal a new side of Dolly"s complex character, the side that was loyal and fine. Dolly was not resenting any injury, real or fancied, to herself now; the insult was to her friends, and Bessie realized that she had never before seen Dolly really angry.
"As if I"d leave you girls and stay with them while we"re here!" cried Dolly. "I can just see myself! They"d want to know if I didn"t think Mary Smith"s new dress was perfectly horrid, and if I said I did, they"d go and tell her, and try to make trouble. Oh, I know them--they"re just a lot of cats!"
"Oh, don"t you think you may be hard on her, Dolly?" asked Bessie. Secretly she didn"t think so; she thought Gladys Cooper was probably just what Dolly had called her. But it seemed to her that she ought to keep Dolly from quarreling with an old friend if she could. "Maybe she just wanted to see you, and she knew you, and didn"t know the rest of us."
"Oh, nonsense, Bessie! You"re always trying to make people out better than they are. I don"t know these girls who are up here with her, but she"d say she knew me, and that we lived in the right sort of street at home, and that her mother and my aunt called on one another, so I"m all right. I know her little ways!"
And Bessie was wise enough to see that to argue with Dolly while she was in such an angry mood would only make matters worse. Bessie loved peace, because, perhaps, she had had so little of it while she lived in Hedgeville with the Hoovers. But Dolly wasn"t in a peaceful mood, and words weren"t to bring her into one, so Bessie decided to change the subject.
"We"d better hurry back," she said. "I really think it must be almost time to start getting supper ready."
"Good!" said Dolly. "We haven"t really come so far, but it"s taken us a long time, hasn"t it? That old train from Moose Junction is about the pokiest thing in the way of a train I ever saw."
So they made their way back to the big building that, as they had already learned, was called the "Living Camp." The sleeping rooms were in other and smaller buildings, that were grouped about the central one, in which were only three rooms, beside the big kitchen, a huge, square hall, with a polished floor, covered with skins instead of rugs, to bear out the idea of a rough woods dwelling, and two smaller rooms that were used as a dining-room and a library.
And, as soon as they arrived, they found that they were not the only ones who had had an encounter with their next door neighbors. Margery Burton was talking excitedly to Eleanor Mercer.
"I didn"t know I was on their old land!" she was saying. "And, if I was, I wasn"t doing any harm."
"Tell me just what happened, Margery," said Eleanor, quietly.
"Why, I was just walking about, looking around, the way one always does in a new place, and the first thing I knew a girl in a bathing suit came up to me!"
""I beg your pardon," she said, "but do you know that you are trespa.s.sing?"
"I said I didn"t, of course, and she sort of sneered.
""Well, you know it now, don"t you?" she said, as if she was trying to be just as nasty as she could. "Why don"t you go to the land you"re allowed to use? I do think when people are getting charity they ought to be careful!""
"That"s another of that crowd of Gladys Cooper"s," stormed Dolly. "What did you say, Margery? I hope you gave her just as good as she sent!"
"I was so astonished and so mad I couldn"t say a thing," said Margery. "I was afraid to speak--I know I"d have said something that I"d have been sorry for afterward. So I just turned around and walked away from her."
"What did she do? Did she say anything more, Margery?" asked Eleanor, who, plainly, was just as angry as Dolly, though she had better control of her temper.
"No, she just stood there, and as I walked off she laughed, and you never heard such a nasty laugh in your life! I"d have liked to pick up a stone and throw it at her!"
"Good for you! I wish you had!" said Dolly. "It would have served her right--the cat! Bessie and I met one of them, too, but I happened to know her, so she asked me to come and spend all my time with them while we were here! I"m glad I sailed into her. Bessie seemed to think I was wrong, but I"m just glad I did."
Eleanor Mercer looked troubled. She understood better than the girls themselves the reason for what had happened, and it distressed and hurt her. The other girls who had heard Margery"s account of her experience were murmuring indignantly among themselves, and Eleanor could see plainly that there was trouble ahead unless she could manage the situation--the hardest that she had yet had to face as a Camp Fire Guardian.
"You say it was Gladys Cooper you saw, Dolly?" she said. "The Gladys Cooper who lives in Pine Street at home?"
"Yes, that"s the one, Miss Eleanor."
"I"m surprised and sorry to hear it," said Eleanor. "How does she happen to be there, Dolly? Do you know? The Coopers haven"t any camp here, I know."
"Oh, it"s a girls" summer camp, Miss Eleanor. You know the sort. They"re run for a lot of rich girls, whose parents want to get rid of them for the summer. They"re supposed to do some studying, but all they, ever really do is to have a good time. I"d have gone to one this year if I hadn"t joined the Camp Fire Girls instead. Gladys laughed at me in the city when she heard I was going to join."
"Mrs. Cooper wouldn"t like it, I know that," said Eleanor, thoughtfully. "She"s a charming woman. She and my mother are great friends, and I know her very well, too. There"s nothing sn.o.bbish about her, though they have so much money. I remember now; they went to Europe this summer, and they didn"t take Gladys with them."
"I wish they had!" said Dolly, viciously. "I wish she was anywhere but here."
"Well," said Eleanor, "I"ll find out in the morning just where the line comes between the two camps, and we"ll have to be careful not to cross it."
"I"m sure none of us want to go into their camp," said Margery. "But there"s no fence, and there aren"t any signs, so how is one to know?"
"We"ll find some way to tell," said Eleanor, decisively. "And we won"t give them any chance to make any more trouble. They"ve got a right to warn us off their property, of course, though they"re just trying to be nasty when they do it. But as long as they are within their rights, we can"t complain just because they"re doing it to be ugly. We mustn"t put ourselves in the wrong because nothing would suit them better."
"Oh, I hope we"ll be able to get away to-morrow!" said Margery, angrily. "I don"t want ever to see any of them again."
Eleanor"s eyes flashed.
"I"ve made up my mind to one thing," she said. "We"re going to stay here just as long as we like! I don"t intend to be driven away in that fashion. And I shouldn"t wonder if we could start our missionary work better with them than with anyone else!"
"That"s right--about staying here, I mean!" said Dolly, enthusiastically. "Why, Margery, if we ran away now, they"d think they had scared us off. You wouldn"t want that, would you?"
"No, I guess not!" said Margery. "I hadn"t thought of that. But it"s true. It would be giving them an awful lot of satisfaction, wouldn"t it?"
"Understand, Dolly, and the rest of you," said Eleanor, firmly, "I don"t mean to have any petty fighting and quarrelling going on. But I won"t let them think they can make us run away, either. Pay no attention to them and keep out of their way, if you can. But we"ve got just as much right to be here as they have to be in their camp, because we"re here as the guests of the Worcesters."
"I know Miss Worcester," said Margery, hotly. "I"ll bet she"d be furious if she knew how they were acting."
"She doesn"t need to know, though, Margery," said Eleanor. "This is our quarrel, not hers, and I think we can manage to settle it for ourselves. Don"t begin thinking about it. Remember that we"re in the right. It will help you to keep your tempers. And don"t do anything at all to make it seem that we"re in the wrong."
"My, but Miss Eleanor was angry!" said Dolly, when she was alone with Bessie" after supper, which, despite the unpleasantness caused by the girls next door, had been as jolly as all meals that the Camp Fire Girls ate together. "I"m glad to see that she can get angry; it makes her seem more lake a human being."
Bessie laughed.
"She can get angry, all right, Dolly," she said. "I"ve heard it said that it isn"t the person who never gets angry that ought to be praised; it"s the person with a bad temper who controls it and never loses it. Miss Eleanor was angry because she is fond of us and thought those other girls were being nasty to us. It wasn"t to her that they"d been nasty."
"No, and just you watch Gladys Cooper if she gets a chance to see Miss Eleanor! The Mercers have got just as much money as the Coopers, and they are in just as good society. But you don"t see Miss Eleanor putting on airs about it! Gladys would be nice enough to her, you can bet!"
"Dolly, why don"t you go over and see Gladys, if you know her so well? You might be able to talk to her and make her see that they are in the wrong."
"No, thank you, Bessie! I"m no good at that sort of thing. I"d just get angry again, and make the trouble worse than ever. If she"s got any sense at all, she must know I"m angry, and why, and if she wants to be decent she can come over and see me."
Nothing more happened that night. The girls, tired from their journey, were glad to tumble into bed early. They all slept in one house, which contained only sleeping rooms, and, because of the smoke, which was still being blown across the lake when they went to bed, windows had to be closed. The house was ventilated by leaving a big door open in the rear and on the side away from the wind and the smoke, and of course all the doors of the sleeping rooms were also left open.
"I"m awfully sorry that smoke is blowing this way," said Dolly. "Look here, Bessie, there"s a regular porch running all the way around the house. And do you see these screens that you can let down? I bet they sleep out here."
"They do," said Eleanor. "This sleeping porch arrangement is one of the very best things about this camp, I think. But I don"t see how we can use it to-night, for the smoke is much too thick."
So they regretfully closed their windows. And in the morning they found that visitors had been at the house during the night. Every window was firmly closed from the outside, wedges having been driven in in such a fashion that it was impossible to open the windows from within. The doors, too, were barred in some manner.
"That"s a joke those girls from the next camp played on us!" cried Dolly, furiously. "Look there! They must have done it. No one else could have managed it."
The house resembled nothing so much as a hive of angry bees. The girls buzzed with indignation, and loud were the threats of vengeance.
"How are we going to get out?" cried Margery, indignantly. "What a wicked thing to do! Suppose the place had caught fire? We might all have been burned up just because of their joke!"
But Bessie had busied herself in seeking a means of escape instead of planning revenge, and now she called out her discovery.
"Here"s a little bit of a window, but I think I can get through it," she said, emerging from a closet that no one had noticed. "If you"ll boost me up I"m pretty sure I can get out."
"But you"ll only be on the porch when you do get out, Bessie," said Dolly.
"I think maybe I can get those wedges out of the windows if I get out there. If I can"t, I"m quite sure I can manage to get to the ground and get help. You see, everything downstairs is barred the same way. I don"t see how they could have done all that without our hearing them."
"We were sleeping pretty soundly, Bessie," said Eleanor, her cheeks red with indignation at the trick that had been played upon her girls. "If the windows had been open, they couldn"t have done it."
Bessie had hard work getting through the tiny closet window, which had been overlooked by the raiders, but she managed it somehow, and in a moment she was outside. She first ran to the edge of the porch to look around, and, to her anger and surprise, she saw a group of girls, all in bathing suits, watching her and the house. At her appearance a shout of laughter went up, and she recognized Dolly"s friend, Gladys Cooper, who was evidently a ringleader in the mischief.
Bessie was sorely tempted to reply, but she realized that she would only be playing into their hand if she seemed to notice them at all, and, going to the other side of the house so that they could not see her, she examined the windows. But she decided very quickly that she could do nothing without tools of some sort, and she had none to work with.
Without any further hesitation, she slipped over the rail of the porch, being still out of sight of the raiders, and went down the pillar, which, being nothing more than a tree with its bark still clinging to it, gave her an easy descent. Once on the ground, her task was easy. She worked very quietly, and in a minute or two she had one of the ground floor windows open. Eleanor Mercer, who had heard her at work, was waiting for her.
"Oh, Miss Eleanor," said Bessie, tensely, "those girls are all around at the other side of the house, watching. They laughed at me like anything when they saw me, and I"m sure they think we"ll have to get the guide to let us out."
"Good," said Eleanor, snappily. "Do you think we can get behind them, Bessie?"
"I"m sure we can, if we go out this way and go around through the trees."
So bidding the other girls to stay behind for the moment, Eleanor climbed out, and followed Bessie off the porch and around to the back of the house. They swung around in a wide arc, moving quietly and making as little noise as possible, until they heard laughter in front of them. And a moment later they came around, and faced the astonished raiders.
CHAPTER XIII.
A PLAN OF REVENGE.
Bessie had to laugh at the sight of Gladys Cooper"s face when Dolly"s friend saw Miss Eleanor. It fell, and Gladys turned the color of a beet. Evidently she had had no idea that Miss Mercer was with the Camp Fire Girls.
"How do you do, Gladys?" said Eleanor, pleasantly. "Do you know that you are trespa.s.sing?"
"The--the Worcesters gave us permission to come on their land whenever we liked," stammered Gladys.
"Yes, when they supposed that they and their guests were to receive the same sort of courtesy from you. But the Worcesters aren"t here just now, and I must ask you girls not to come across the line at all, unless you wish to behave in a very different manner."
"I--I don"t know what you mean, Miss Mercer. We haven"t done anything--"
"That"s silly, Gladys. I"m not going to do anything about it, but I think it would be very easy to prove that it was you and your friends who locked us in. Didn"t you stop to think of what would have happened if there had been a fire?"
Gladys grew pale.