A Campfire Girl's Test of Friendship Part 13

"Oh, that's easy! There are a lot of farms a little way inland, and we get all sorts of fine things from them."

"I wonder if Mr. Holmes will try to play any tricks on us down there, Dolly. He has about everywhere we've been since Zara and I joined the Camp Fire Girls, you know."

"I'm hoping he won't find out, Bessie. That would be fine. I certainly would like to know why he is so anxious to get hold of you and Zara. I bet it's money, and that there's some secret about you."

"Money? Why, he's got more than he can spend now! Even if there is a secret, I don't see how money can have anything to do with it."

"Well, you remember this, Bessie: the more money people have, the more they seem to want. They're never content. It's the people who only have a little who seem to be happy, and willing to get along with what they have. How about your old Farmer Weeks?"

"That's so, Dolly. He certainly was that way. He had more money than anyone in Hedgeville or anywhere near it, and yet he was the stingiest, closest fisted old man in town."

"There you are!"

"Still I think Mr. Holmes must be a whole lot richer than Farmer Weeks, or than all the other people in Hedgeville put together. And it doesn't seem as if there was any money he could make out of Zara or me that would tempt him to do what he's done."

"Do you know what I've noticed most, Bessie, about the way he's gone to work?"

"No. What?"

"The way he has spent money. He's acted as if he didn't care a bit how much it cost him, if only he got what he wanted. And people in the city never spend money unless they expect to get it back."

"Who's the detective now? You called me one a little while ago, but it seems to me that you're doing pretty well in that line yourself."

"Oh, it's all right to laugh, but, just the same, I'll bet that when we get at the bottom of all this mystery, we'll find that the chief reason Mr. Holmes was in it was that he wanted to get hold of some information that would make it easy for him to get a whole lot more than it cost him."

"Well, maybe you're right, Dolly. But I'd certainly like to know just what he has got up his sleeve."

"I think he'll be careful for a little while now, Bessie. He never knew that Miss Eleanor had that letter he'd written to the gypsy. And it must have damaged him a lot to have as much come out about that as did."

"I expect a lot of people who heard it didn't believe it."

"Even if that's so, I guess there were plenty who did believe it, and who think now that Mr. Holmes is a pretty good man to leave alone. You see, that proved absolutely that he had really hired that gypsy to carry you off, and that is a pretty mean thing to do. And people must know by this time that if there was any legal way of getting you and Zara away from the Camp Fire and Miss Mercer, he would do it."

"But he didn't get into any trouble for doing it, Dolly."

"He's got so much money that he could hire lawyers to get him out of almost any sc.r.a.pe he got in, Bessie. That's the trouble. Those people at Hamilton were afraid of him. They know how rich he is, and they didn't want to take any chance of making him angry at them."

"Yes, that's just it. And I'm afraid he's got so much money that a whole lot of people who would say what they really thought if they weren't afraid of him, are on his side. You see, he says that I'm a runaway, just because I didn't stay any longer with the Hoovers. And probably he can make a whole lot of people think that I was very ungrateful, and that he is quite right in trying to get me back into the same state as Hedgeville."

"They'd better talk to Miss Eleanor, if he makes them think that.

They'll soon find out which is right and which is wrong in that business. And if she doesn't tell them, I guess Mr. Jamieson will--and he'd be glad of the chance, too!"

"Let's not worry about him, anyhow. I hope he won't find out where we are, too. We haven't seen or heard anything of him since we went back to Long Lake from Hamilton, so I don't see why there isn't a good chance of his letting us alone for a while now."

They reached Windsor, the little town at the other end of Indian Gap, late in the afternoon, having cooked their midday meal in the gap.

"I know the people in a big boarding-house here," said Eleanor, "and we'll be very comfortable. In the morning we'll take an early train, so that we can get to Plum Beach before it's too late to get comfortably settled. I've sent word on ahead to have the tents ready for us, but, even so, there will be a good many things to do."

"There always are," sighed Dolly. "That's the one thing I don't like about camping out."

"I expect really, if you only knew the truth, Dolly, it's the one thing you like best of all," smiled Eleanor. "That's one of the great differences between being at home, where everything is done for you, and camping out, where you have to look after yourself."

"Well, I don't like work, anyhow, and I don't believe I ever shall, Miss Eleanor, no matter what it's called. Some of it isn't as bad as some other kinds, that's all."

Eleanor laughed to herself, because she knew Dolly well enough not to take such declarations too seriously.

"I've got some work for you to-night," she said. "I want you and Bessie to go to a meeting of the girls that belong to one of the churches here, and tell them about the Camp Fire. They found out we were coming, and they would like to know if they can't start a Camp Fire of their own.

"And I think they'll get a better idea of things, and be less timid and shy about asking questions if two of you girls go than if I try to explain. I will come in later, after they've had a chance to talk to you two, but by that time they ought to have a pretty clear idea."

"That's not work, that's fun," declared Dolly.

"I'm glad you think so, because you will be more likely to be successful."

And so after supper Bessie and Dolly went, with two girls who called for them, to the Sunday School room of one of the Windsor churches, ready to do all they could to induce the local girls to form a Camp Fire of their own. And, being thoroughly enthusiastic, they soon fired the desire of the Windsor girls.

"They won't have just one Camp Fire; they'll have two or three,"

predicted Dolly, when she and Bessie were walking back to the boarding-house later with Eleanor Mercer. "They asked plenty of questions, all right. Nothing shy about them, was there, Bessie?"

Bessie laughed.

"Not if asking questions proves people aren't shy," she admitted. "I thought they'd never stop thinking of things to ask."

"That's splendid," said Eleanor. "The Camp Fire is the best thing these girls could have. It will do them a great deal of good, and I was sure that the way to make them see how much they would enjoy it was to let them understand how enthusiastic you two were. That meant more to them than anything I could have said, I'm sure."

"I don't see why," said Dolly.

"Because they're girls like you, Dolly, and it's what you like, and show you like, that would appeal to them. I'm older, you see, and they might think that things that I would expect them to like wouldn't really please them at all."

"What's the matter with you, Bessie?" asked Dolly suddenly, as they reached the house. She was plainly concerned and surprised, and Eleanor, rather startled, since she had seen nothing in Bessie to provoke such a question, looked at her keenly.

"Nothing, except that I'm a little tired, I think."

But Dolly wasn't satisfied. She knew her chum too well.

"You've got something on your mind, but you don't want to worry us," she said. "Better own up, Bessie!"

Bessie, however, would not answer. And in the morning she seemed to be her old self. Just as they were starting for the train, though, Bessie suddenly hung back at the door of the boarding-house.

"Wait for me a minute, Dolly," she said. "I left a handkerchief in our room. I'll be right down. Go on, the rest of you; we'll soon catch up."

She ran upstairs for the handkerchief.

"I left it behind on purpose, Dolly," she explained, when she came down.

"I wanted them to go ahead. Ah, look!"

As they went along, with most of the girls fully a hundred yards ahead of them, a lurking figure was plainly to be seen following the girls.

"It's Jake Hoover!" said Dolly excitedly.