The in the Mountains Part 8 (2/2)
”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 fas.h.i.+on. 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 fas.h.i.+on 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.
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