The Outdoor Girls Around the Campfire by Laura Lee Hope (top 10 best books of all time TXT) 📕

silent for some time while they both trudged through the woods, climbing bowlders that got in their way, crashing through heavy underbrush, with now and then a stop to catch their breath and enjoy the beauty of the wild woodland about them.

It was during one of these rest periods that Grace again spoke of what was in her thoughts.

“I wonder if the boys will surely come up over the week-end,” she said, pulling a piece of tall grass and chewing it reflectively. “It would be just like them to have too much work to do.”

“I guess they’ll all be here—all but Allen, anyway,” was Mollie’s reassuring reply. “He may be kept on that case he’s trying to straighten out.”

“That one about the stubborn old boy and his will?” said Grace, wrinkling her pretty forehead in an attempt to bring back the details of the case. “I remember Allen acted pretty mysteriously about it. I only hope he won’t be silly enough to let work interfere with pleasure.”

“That’s just what he will do, being Allen,” replied Mollie, promptly. “That’s one of the things that makes him most popular—he sticks close to a job till it is finished right. And I suppose he won’t think he can take a vacation till he has straightened out the case of this old man’s will to his satisfaction.”

The girls went on again for a short distance but then, finding themselves confronted by a veritable fence of intertwined vines and brambles, decided they had gone far enough and turned back toward camp.

After a lunch which tasted like nectar and ambrosia to them, they were at a loss what to do with themselves and finally decided to go fishing.

“Since we didn’t have sense enough to bring regular fishing tackle,” grumbled Mollie, as she carefully picked out two supple young branches which had fallen to the ground, “we’ll have to fish the way the farmer boy does at the old swimming pool.”

“We haven’t even got an old swimming pool or fishing hole, or whatever it is we need,” said Grace. “I imagine that’s even more important than the tackle we use.”

“Oh, well, we’ll find one, a hole I mean,” promised Mollie. “There must be a deep spot in that brook somewhere, and all we have to do is to follow it to find out.”

“Sounds easy,” agreed Grace, adding, as she laughingly held aloft her branch with the string attached to it: “Now that we have our bent pins firmly in position, shall we go?”

“You bet,” said Mollie gayly. “Mark my words, we’ll come back with enough fish to last us a week.”

But alas for her high hopes. They caught not one fish, though they spent a cramped motionless afternoon on the banks of as pretty and promising a fishing pool as one would ever want to see.

“I guess,” said Grace, with an attempt at persiflage as they returned wearily to camp, “Betty’s fake pistol would have done as much damage as our fishing lines, Mollie.”

“Couldn’t have done much less,” agreed Mollie, adding with a chuckle: “Lucky we didn’t depend on that fish for our dinner.”

“In that case, Betty and Amy would have found only our starved remains when they returned,” said Grace, adding eagerly, as their improvised tent came in view: “I say, how about a can of pork and beans to-night?”

“Perfectly topping, perfectly topping, old thing,” returned Mollie, in her best English manner. “An inspiration, that. No other word would fit it, truly.”

And then they giggled and went merrily about the preparation of the “inspiration.” Later they built another campfire and sat beside it for a long time. They did not acknowledge to each other how reluctant they were to “turn in” that night.

For although they had carefully refrained from speaking of the scare Mollie had given them early that morning, they had not forgotten it and the night shadows made them uneasy.

However, as even a campfire can lose some of its charm if gazed upon too long, the girls finally found their eyes closing from weariness. A day like this spent entirely in the open always made them very tired, and at last the moment came when they could not put off the business of “turning in” for another second.

“The tent will seem pretty large for the two of us,” said Grace as, a few moments later, they rolled themselves in their blankets.

“Shouldn’t wonder if we’d rattle around some,” agreed Mollie. “But it’ll be nice to have plenty of room anyway.”

Strange that, lying there quiet, waiting for sleep to come, the girls heard so many more noises than they had heard on the night before.

It seemed to them that the entire woodland was alive with flutterings and queer crunchings and snapping of twigs, and once Grace even raised herself on her elbow, so sure was she that something was sniffing about the door of their tent.

But there was nothing there, and at Mollie’s impatient command she lay down again. Her fingers stole under the edge of the blanket where she had hidden something. It was Betty’s toy pistol!

Toward the middle of the night Grace’s eyes sprang wide open as though she had touched a spring. The moment before she had been heavily asleep, now she was as wide awake as though she had never slept at all.

What was it that sent terrified chills chasing up and down her spine? Was it the rhythmic patter-patter of rain on the tautly stretched tarpaulin? That would be enough to wake her surely.

But no, that was not all. She had heard a noise, a peculiar, shuffling noise that had penetrated even through her sleep, a noise like some man or animal circling the tent.

At first it seemed almost impossible for her to move. She felt as though she were in the grip of a nightmare where she had no control whatever over her muscles. She tried to call to Mollie, but her voice died in a weak little gasp in her throat.

By a great effort she finally succeeded in dragging herself to a sitting position. Then she waited, her hand at her throat, her eyes striving to pierce the gloom behind the smoldering embers of the fire.

She saw nothing, heard nothing but the rhythmic drip-drip of the rain. The night seemed suddenly and curiously still as though, like her, it were holding its breath to listen.

Then the silence was broken by Mollie’s voice, soft and husky with sleep.

“What in the world——” she began, but Grace caught her arm in a tight grip.

“Listen!” she commanded.

Wondering, Mollie obeyed and then suddenly she too was sitting upright, her body rigid. For once again came that shuffling sound like a heavy body stealthily encircling the tent.