As she stood gazing, half lost in dreams, she saw a canoe shoot out from the opposite sh.o.r.e some distance up the river and come toward Keewaydin, keeping in the shadows along the sh.o.r.e. Just before it reached camp it drew in and discharged a pa.s.senger, which Agony could see was a girl.
Then the canoe put off again, and as it crossed a moonlit place Agony saw that it was painted bright red, the color of the canoes belonging to the Boy"s Camp located about a half mile down the river. Agony realized what the presence of that canoe meant. One of the girls of Keewaydin had been out canoeing on the sly with some boy from Camp Alamont--a thing forbidden in the Keewaydin code--and was being brought back in this surrept.i.tious manner. Who could the girl be? Agony grimaced with disgust. She waited quietly there in the path where the girl, whoever she was, must pa.s.s in order to go up to her tent. In a few moments the girl came along and nearly stumbled over her in the darkness, crying out in alarm at the unexpected encounter. Agony"s swiftly adjusted flashlight fell upon the heavy features and unpleasant eyes of Jane Pratt.
"O Jane," cried Agony, "you haven"t been over at that boys" camp, have you? You surely know it"s forbidden--Dr. Grayson said so distinctly when he read the camp rules."
"Well, what if I have?" Jane demanded in a tone of asperity. "Dr.
Grayson makes a lot of rules that are too silly for words. I have a friend over at Camp Altamont that I"ve known for years and if I choose to go canoeing with him on such a gorgeous night instead of going to bed at nine o"clock like a baby it"s n.o.body"s business. By the way, what are _you_ doing here?" she demanded suspiciously. "Why aren"t you in bed with the rest of the infants?"
"I came out to get my hat," replied Agony simply.
"Strange thing that your hat should get lost just in the spot where I happen to come ash.o.r.e," remarked Jane sarcastically. "How long have you been spying upon my movements, Miss Virtue?"
"I haven"t been spying on you," declared Agony hotly. "I hadn"t any idea you were out. To tell the truth, I never missed you this evening when we were on the river."
"Well, I suppose you"ll pull Mrs. Grayson out of her bed now to tell her the scandal about Jane Pratt," continued Jane bitingly, "and tomorrow morning at five o"clock there"ll be another departure from camp."
"O Jane!" cried Agony, in distress. "Will she really send you home?"
"She really will," mocked Jane. "She sent a girl home last year who did the same thing."
"O Jane, how dreadful that would be," said Agony.
"And how sorry you would be to have me go--not," returned Jane derisively.
"Jane," said Agony seriously, "if I promise not to tell Mrs. Grayson this time will you promise never to do this sort of thing again? It would be awful to be sent home from camp in disgrace. If you think it over you"ll surely see what a much better time you"ll have if you don"t break rules--if you work and play honorably. Won"t you please try?"
The derisive tone deepened in Jane"s voice as she answered, "No I will _not_. I"ll make no such babyish promise--to you of all people--because I wouldn"t keep it if I did make it."
"Then," said Agony firmly, "I"ll do just as we do in school with the honor system. I"ll give you three days to tell Mrs. Grayson yourself, and if you haven"t done it by the end of that time I"ll tell her myself.
What you are doing is a bad example for the younger girls, and Mrs.
Grayson ought to know about it."
Jane"s only reply was a mocking laugh as she brushed past Agony and went in the direction of her tent.
CHAPTER IX
AN EXPLORING TRIP
"Miss Amesbury wants us to go off on a canoe trip with her," announced Agony, rushing up to the Winnebagos after Craft Hour the next morning.
"Wants who to go on a canoe trip with her?" demanded Sahwah in excitement.
"Why, us, the Winnebagos," replied Agony. "Just us, and Jo Severance.
She wants to take a canoe trip up the river, but she doesn"t want to go with the whole camp when they go because there will be too much noise and excitement. She wants a quieter trip, but she doesn"t want to go all alone, so she has asked Dr. Grayson if she may take us girls. He said she might. We"re to start this afternoon, right after dinner, and be gone over night; maybe two nights."
"O Agony!" breathed Migwan in ecstacy, falling upon Agony"s neck and hugging her rapturously. "It"s all due to you. If you hadn"t done that splendid thing we wouldn"t be half as popular as we are. We"re sharing your glory with you." She smiled fondly into Agony"s eyes and squeezed her hand heartily. "Good old Agony," she murmured.
Agony smiled back mechanically and returned the squeeze with only a slight pressure. "Nonsense," she replied with emphasis. "It isn"t on account of what--I--did at all that she has asked you. It"s because you serenaded her the other evening. That was _your_ doing, Migwan."
"But we wouldn"t have ventured to serenade her if she hadn"t been so friendly with you," replied Migwan, "so it amounts to the same thing in the end. That"s the way it has always been with us Winnebagos, hasn"t it? What one does always helps the rest of us. Sahwah"s swimming has made us all famous; and so has Gladys"s dancing and Katherine"s speechifying."
"And your writing," put in Hinpoha. "Don"t forget that Indian legend of yours that brought the spotlight down upon us in our freshman year. That was really the making of us. No matter what one of us does, the others all share in the glory."
A tiny shiver went down Agony"s back. "And I suppose," she added casually, "if one of us were to disgrace herself the others would share the disgrace."
"We certainly would," said Sahwah with conviction.
Agony turned away with a dry feeling in her throat and walked soberly to her tent to prepare for the canoe trip.
"Have you noticed that there is something queer about Agony lately?"
Migwan remarked to Gladys as she laid out her poncho on the tent floor preparatory to rolling it.
"I haven"t noticed it," replied Gladys, getting out needle and thread to sew up a small rent in her bloomers. "What do you mean?"
"Why, I can"t explain it exactly," continued Migwan, pausing in the act of doubling back her blanket to fit the shape of the poncho, "but she"s different, somehow. She sits and stares out over the river sometimes for half an hour at a stretch, and sometimes when you speak to her she gives you an answer that shows she hasn"t heard what you said."
"I _have_ noticed it, now that you speak of it," replied Gladys, straightening up from her mending job to give Migwan a hand with the poncho rolling. Then she added, "Maybe she"s in love. Those are supposed to be the symptoms, aren"t they?"
"Gracious!" exclaimed Migwan in a startled tone. "Do you suppose that can be what"s the matter with her. I hadn"t thought of that."
"It must be," said Gladys with a quaint air of wordly wisdom, and then the two girls proceeded to forget Agony in the labor of rolling the poncho up neatly and making it fast with a piece of rope tied in a square knot.
When Agony reached Gitchee-Gummee on her errand of packing, there was Jo Severance waiting for her with a letter.
"Letter from Mary Sylvester," she called gaily, waving it over her head.
"It just came in the morning"s mail and I haven"t opened it yet. Thought I"d bring it down and let you read it with me."
An icy hand seemed to clutch at Agony"s heart, and she gazed at the little white linen paper envelope as though it might contain a bomb.
Here was a danger she had not foreseen. Mary Sylvester, even though she had left camp, corresponded with her bosom friend, Jo Severance, and very naturally she might make some reference to the robin incident.
Agony gazed in fascinated silence as Jo opened the envelope with a nail file in lieu of a paper cutter and spread out the pages. Little black specks began to float before her eyes and she leaned against the bed to steady herself for the blow which she felt in her prophetic soul was coming. Jo, in her eagerness to read the letter, noticed nothing out of the way in Agony"s expression. Dropping down on the bed beside her she began to read aloud:
"Dearest Jo:
"When I think of you and all the other dear people I left behind me in camp it seems that I must fly right back to Keewaydin. It still seems a dream, my coming away so soon after arriving. I have done nothing but rush around since, getting my things together. We are in San Francisco now, and sail tonight." ...
So the letter ran for several pages--descriptions of things she had seen on the trip west, and loving messages for her friends at Camp, and closing with a hasty "Goodbye, Jo dear." Not a word about the robin. The choking sensation in Agony"s throat left her. Weak-kneed, she sank down on the bed and lay back on the pillow, closing her eyes wearily.
Unnoticing, Jo departed to show the letter to the girls to whom Mary had sent messages.
Agony lay very still, thinking. Even if Mary had not mentioned the robin incident in this letter, she might in a later one; the danger was never really over. And on the other hand, Jo Severance, dear Jo, who had become so fond of Agony in the last few weeks, would certainly tell Mary about the robin when she answered her letter. Jo had already written it to her mother and to several friends, she had told her. Jo never grew tired of talking about it, and displayed a touching pride in having Agony for an intimate friend. Yes, without doubt Jo would write it to Mary, and then Mary would write back and tell the truth. Agony grew hot and cold by turns as she lay there thinking of the certainty of exposure. What a blind fool she had been. If only she had told the story the minute she got home that day, instead of keeping it to herself, then the moment of temptation would never have come to her. If only Mary hadn"t been called away just then!
Could she still take the story back, she wondered, and tell it as it really had been? Her heart sank at the thought and her pride cried out against it. No, she could never stand the disgrace. But what if the truth were to leak out through Mary--that would be infinitely worse. Her thoughts went around in a torturing circle and brought her to no decision. Should she make a clean breast of it now and have nothing more to fear, or should she take a chance on Jo"s never mentioning it to Mary?
While she was debating the question back and forth in her mind Bengal Virden came running into the tent. Bengal was beginning to tag after Agony as she had formerly tagged after Mary Sylvester. Agony often caught the younger girl"s eyes fastened upon her with an expression of worship that fairly embarra.s.sed her. It was the first real crush that a younger girl had ever had on Agony, and although Agony laughed about it to her friends, she still derived no small amount of satisfaction from it, and had resolved to be a real influence for good to stout, fly-away Bengal.
The girl came running in now with a leaf cup full of red, ripe raspberries in her hand, and laid it in Agony"s lap. "I picked them all for you," she remarked, looking at Agony with an adoring gaze.