Part 41 (1/2)
”I know what we can do,” said Lillie suddenly; ”we can row across the Lake to the camp!”
CHAPTER XXIV-THE WIRELESS OPERATOR
”Yes, that is the only thing we can do,” said Nathalie quickly, ”but suppose the doctor is not there! You know the boys said they were going on a two or three days' tramp this week.”
”Well, I'll tell you how we can settle that problem and make sure,”
replied Lillie, whose mind acted quickly. ”Suppose we row over while Edith goes on her wheel to Mrs. Hansen's and telephones to Boonton.”
”What, go all that distance alone in the dark?” protested the Sport in an appalled tone, ”and then I don't know what doctor to telephone to!”
”What, Edith, do you want us to think that you are really afraid?”
laughed Lillie; ”_you_, the girl who has never shown the white feather at any dare? Why, I-”
But Nathalie's cheery voice, like oil on troubled waters, interposed quickly, ”Of course she is not afraid, but it is an unpleasant thing to do to ride that distance alone at night. But we can't take chances, and we must have a doctor. And as to the one you telephone to, Edith,” she cried, turning to that young lady, whose face had brightened somewhat, ”call Dr. McGill, he's the little white-haired doctor who called on Dr.
Morrow the other day. He lives at Boonton.”
Without another protest Edith turned, and after running back to the cheer fire circle to inform Helen what the girls were going to do, she hurried after her wheel. A few minutes later, with the lantern fastened to the front of it, flickering like a firefly as she sped through the woods, she was on her way to the farm to telephone.
Lillie and Nathalie had hurried down to the boathouse, and in a flash of time had unfastened one of the row boats. Springing quickly in, they were soon out some distance from sh.o.r.e, rowing as rapidly as they could towards the opposite bank. It was a weird night, the sky seemed hung with heavy black curtains, the only light being that from the moon, as at rare intervals she darted swiftly through some opening between the clouds, or betrayed her presence by streaks of foamy silver on the edge of some unusually inky cloud.
But the path across the Lake was a familiar one, and ten minutes later the girls reached the opposite sh.o.r.es. ”Why, it looks as if there wasn't a soul about,” exclaimed Lillie, as, after drawing in their oars, the two girls stood up in the boat and peered anxiously through the bit of woodland that led to the camp, whose signal lantern glimmered dimly through the foliage of the trees.
”I guess you're right, Nathalie, the boys must be on a tramp,” said Lillie after several loud ”h.e.l.los!” the only reply to which had been a faint echo from across the Lake.
Putting her fingers to her mouth Lillie emitted several sharp whistles, but still no sign of life! ”Huh, it looks as if it was a case of Goldsmith's 'Deserted Village,'” she soliloquized dismally, but Nathalie was busy giving the Pioneer yell. This evoked such a strange medley of echoing sounds that the girls burst out laughing.
Nathalie's face soon sobered, however, as she exclaimed dolefully, ”O dear, it does seem as if we were destined to have bad luck. I wonder if they could have gone to bed!” burst from her in sudden thought.
”If they have, we'll soon rout them out,” declared Lillie, jumping on the bank. ”Come on, let's drag the boat up and then hike to camp.”
After slipping on pine needles, stumbling over gnarled roots and blackened stumps, they finally found the path, devoutly thankful that the moon had at last emerged from behind the clouds. Indeed, as they stepped from the shadows of the woods and stood on the campus-as the scouts called the level s.p.a.ce in front of the tents-the moon was s.h.i.+ning with a brightness that equalled the day.
As the girls' eyes traveled from the pots on the top pole suspended over what had once been a camp fire to the rows of tents, whose open flaps revealed that they were tenantless, Lillie uttered a sudden cry of delighted surprise!
The next moment she had shot across the campus, for she had spied a white paper fastened to one of the larger tents, directly under the glare of the lantern above the door.
”Hurrah! we're in luck,” she cried, wildly jubilant, pointing to the white paper as Nathalie reached her side. ”Read that!” The girl stepped closer and slowly deciphered from the big black letters in charcoal print:
”Have gone to the Scout Council at the rooms of the Wolf Patrol at Boonton.
”G. A. Homer, Scoutmaster.”
”But that does not help us any!” Nathalie said when she finished reading the notice, her face losing its eagerness as she faced her companion.
”Indeed it does, goosie,” replied Lillie stoutly, ”for the doctor has a wireless. So have the scouts at Boonton, for I heard one of the boys tell of a message one of them had picked up the other night, the night we had that awful thunder storm, don't you remember? So don't say we're not lucky, Nathalie Page, after finding that note. I'll warrant you, though, that some of the scouts did go on a tramp, and that the doctor left that word in case they returned before he did. But let's look for that wireless!”
Surmising that the tent with the note pinned on the flap must be Dr.
Homer's, the girls hastened in, and by the light from the lantern which Nathalie had taken from the pole by standing on a couple of soap-boxes she had found, it was soon discovered on a roughly-hewn table in a corner of the tent.