The in the Mountains Part 9 (2/2)
To be sure, Gladys Cooper seemed to be a little frightened at the idea of bothering Miss Eleanor.
”Let's keep off until she's through,” Bessie heard Gladys saying. ”That's Miss Mercer--she knows my mother. We oughtn't to bother her. She comes from one of the best families in town.”
But Gladys was laughed down.
”She'll have to suffer for the company she keeps, then,” said a big, ugly-looking girl. ”Can't play favorites, Gladys! We want to make them see they're not wanted here. My mother only let me come here because we were told this was an exclusive place.”
And Miss Eleanor, like the others, was soon forced to beat a retreat to the float. Dolly was strangely silent for the rest of the day. Bessie, watching her anxiously, could tell that Dolly had some trick in her mind, but, try as she would, she could not find out what her plan was.
”No, I won't tell you, Bessie,” said Dolly, when her chum finally asked her point-blank what she meant to do. ”You're not a sneak, and I'm not afraid of your telling on me, but you'll be happier if you don't know.”
Bessie felt that whatever Dolly might try to do to the other girls would serve them right, but she was worried about her chum. And when Dolly slipped off by herself after dinner, Bessie determined that she would not let her chum run any risks alone, even if she was not a sharer of Dolly's secret.
It was not a hard matter to trace Dolly, even though Bessie let her have a good start before she followed. She knew that any plan Dolly had must involve going to the other camp, and she hid herself, moving carefully so as to avoid detection, in a place that commanded the approach. And in a very abort time she heard Dolly coming; and saw that she was carrying a large basket with the utmost care.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE SPIRIT OF WO-HE-LO.
Bessie stole along silently behind Dolly. She wanted very much to say something, but she was afraid of what might happen if she let Dolly know that she was spying on her. And she had made up her mind, anyhow, that she would do more harm than good by interfering at this time.
Whatever it was she was doing might be wrong, but, after all, she had a good deal of provocation, and she had been far more patient already than anyone who knew her would have expected her to be.
”I bet they're just trying to work her up to trying to get even,” Bessie reflected to herself. ”Gladys Cooper knows her, so she must know what a temper Dolly has, and she must be surprised to think that she hasn't managed to arouse her yet.”
That thought made Bessie gladder than ever that she had decided to follow Dolly. While she was not in the plot herself, she meant to be in it if Dolly got into trouble, or if, as Bessie half feared, it turned out that her chum was walking into a trap. Moreover, she was entirely ready to take her share of the blame, if there was to be any blame, and to let others believe that she had shared Dolly's secret from the first and had deliberately taken part in the plot.
Dolly's movements were puzzling. Bessie had expected her to go to the back of the camp, and when she heard laughter and the sound of loud talking coming from the boathouse, which was, of course, on the very sh.o.r.e of the lake, Bessie breathed a sigh of relief, since it seemed to her that the fact that the other girls were there would greatly increase Dolly's chance of escaping detection.
But instead of taking advantage of what Bessie regarded as a great piece of luck, Dolly paused to listen to the sounds from the boathouse, and then turned calmly and walked in its direction.
For a moment an unworthy suspicion crossed Bessie's mind.
”I wonder if she can be going to see them--to make up with them?” Bessie asked herself.
But she answered her own question with an emphatic no almost as soon as she had asked it. Dolly's anger the night before and that afternoon had not been feigned.
As she neared the boathouse, Dolly moved very cautiously. Even though she could see her, Bessie could not hear her, and she even had difficulty in following Dolly's movements, for she had put on a dark coat, and was an inconspicuous object in the darkness.
From the boathouse there now came the sound of music; a phonograph had been started, and it was plain from the shuffling of feet that the girls inside were dancing. Dolly crept closer and closer, until she reached one of the windows. Even as she did it a sharp, shrill voice cried out, and Bessie saw someone rush toward her from the darkness of a clump of trees near the boathouse. It was a trap, after all! Bessie rushed forward, but before she had taken more than a couple of steps, and before, indeed, her a.s.sailant could reach her, Dolly had accomplished her purpose.
Still running, Bessie saw her lift the basket she carried, and throw it point-blank through the window, first taking off the cover. And then the noise of the phonograph, the shout of Dolly's a.s.sailant, and all the noises about the place were drowned in a chorus of shrill screams of terror from inside the boathouse.
Bessie had never heard such a din. For the life of her she could not guess what Dolly had done to produce such an effect, and she did not stop to try. For the girl who had seen Dolly and rushed toward her, although too late to stop her, had caught hold of Dolly and was struggling to hold her.
Bessie rushed at her, however, and, so unexpected was her coming, that the other girl let go of Dolly and turned to grapple with the rescuer. That was just what Bessie wanted. With a quick, twisting motion she slipped out of the other girl's grip, and the next moment she was running as hard as she could to the back of the camp, where, if she could only get a good start, she would find herself in thick woods and so safe from pursuit.
She knew Dolly had recognized her at once. But neither had called the other's name, since that would enable whoever heard them to know which of the Camp Fire Girls was responsible for this sudden attack.
As she ran Bessie could bear Dolly in front of her, and she knew that Dolly must be able to hear her. Otherwise she was sure her chum would have turned back to rescue her. Behind her the screams of the frightened girls from the boathouse were still rising, but when Bessie stopped in ten minutes, she could hear no signs of pursuit.
”Dolly!” she cried. ”It's all right to stop now. They're not chasing us any more.”
Dolly stopped and waited for her, and when she came up Bessie saw at once that Dolly was angry--and at her.
”Much good it did you to try to stop me, didn't it?” said Dolly, viciously. ”You got there too late!”
”I didn't try to stop you, and I was right behind you all the time!” said Bessie, angrily. ”I was behind you so that if you got into any trouble I'd be there to help you--and I was. You're very grateful, aren't you?”
”Oh, Bessie, I am sorry! I might have known you wouldn't do anything sneaky. And you certainly did help me! I was going to thank you for that anyhow, as soon as I'd scolded you. But I knew you didn't want to try to get even with them, and I supposed, of course, that you were there to stop me.”
Suddenly she began to laugh, and sat down weakly on the ground.
”Did you hear them yell?” she gasped. ”Listen to them! They're still at it!”
”Whatever did you do to them, Dolly? I never heard such a noise in my life! You'd think they really had something to be afraid of.”
”Yes, wouldn't you? Instead of just a basket full of poor, innocent little mice that were a lot more frightened than they were!”
”Dolly Ransom!” gasped Bessie. ”Do you mean to say that's what you did?”
Bessie tried hard to be shocked, but the fun of it overcame her of a sudden, and she joined Dolly on the ground, while they clung to one another and rocked with laughter.
”I wasn't able to stop and watch them. That's all I'm sorry for now,” said Dolly, weakly. ”But hearing them was pretty nearly as fine, wasn't it?”
”Never heard of such a thing to do!” panted Bessie. ”However did you manage it, Dolly? Where did you get the mice?”
”Promise not to tell, Bessie? I can't get anyone else into trouble, you know.”
Bessie nodded.
”It was the guide--the Worcester's guide. He's just as mad at them as we are. It seems they've bothered him a lot, anyhow, and he didn't like them even before we came. He suggested the whole thing, and he was willing to do it. But I told him it was our quarrel, and that it was up to one of us to do it if he would get the mice. So he did, and put them in that basket for me. The rest of it was easy.”
”They'll be perfectly wild, Dolly. I bet they'll be over at the camp complaining when we get back.”
”Let them complain! It won't do them much good! Miss Eleanor is going to give me beans for doing it, but she won't let them know it! I know her, and she won't really be half as angry as she'll pretend to be.”
”It was a wild thing to do, Dolly.”
”I suppose it was, but did you think I was going to let Gladys Cooper tell all over town how they treated us? She'll have something to tell this time.”
”Well, you got even, Dolly. There's no doubt of that. We'd better hurry back now, don't you think? They're quieter down there.”
”I'm going to tell Miss Eleanor what I did just as soon as I see her,” said Dolly. ”She'd find out that it happened sooner or later, and I'm not ashamed of having done it, either. I'd do the same thing to-morrow if I had as good a reason!”
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