The Camp Fire Girls at Camp Keewaydin Part 22

"Monty's a pest!" Miss Judy exploded wrathfully. "I don't see why father ever told him he could come. He's under no obligations to him--we're only third cousins, and Monty considers us far, far beneath him at best. But you know how father is--hospitality with a capital H. So we're doomed to a visitation from Monty."

"When is he coming?" asked Katherine, smiling at Miss Judy's lugubrious tone.

"The day after tomorrow," replied Miss Judy. "The Thursday afternoon boat has the honor of bringing him."

"'O better that her shattered hulk should sink beneath the wave,' eh?"

remarked Katherine sympathetically.

"Katherine," said Miss Judy feelingly, "_vous et moi_ we speak the same language, _n'est-ce pas_?"

"We do," agreed Katherine laughingly.

That evening when all the campers were gathered around the fire in the bungalow, listening to Dr. Grayson reading "The Crock of Gold" to the pattering accompaniment of the raindrops on the roof, Miss Judy went into the camp office to answer the telephone, and came out with a look of half-humorous exasperation on her face.

"What is it?" asked Dr. Grayson, pausing in his reading.

"It's Cousin Monty," announced Miss Judy. He's at Emmet's Landing, two stops down the river. He decided to come to camp a day earlier than he had written. He got off the boat at Emmet's Landing to sketch an 'exquisite' bit of scenery that he spied there. Now he's marooned at Emmet's Landing and can't get a boat to bring him to camp. He decided to stay there all night, and found a room, but the bed didn't look comfortable. He wants us to come and get him."

"At this time of night!" Dr. Grayson exclaimed involuntarily. He recovered himself instantly. "Ah yes, certainly, of course. I'll go and get him. Tell him I'll come for him."

"But it's raining pitchforks," demurred Miss Judy.

"Ah well, never mind, I'll go anyhow," said her father composedly.

"I'll go with you," declared Miss Judy firmly. "I'll run the launch." As she pa.s.sed by Katherine on her way out of the bungalow she flashed her a meaning look, which Katherine answered with a sympathetic grimace.

In the morning when camp a.s.sembled for breakfast there was Cousin Egmont sitting beside Dr. Grayson at the table, notebook in hand, looking about him in a loftily curious way. He was a small, slightly built youth, sallow of complexion and insignificant of feature, with pale hair brushed up into an exaggerated pompadour, and a neat little moustache.

In contrast to Dr. Grayson's heroic proportions he looked like a Vest Pocket Edition alongside of an Unabridged.

"Nice little camp you have here, Uncle, very," he drawled, peering languidly through his huge spectacles at the s.h.i.+ning river and the far off rolling hills beyond. "Nothing like the camps I've seen in Switzerland, though. For real camps you want to go to Switzerland, Uncle. A chap I know goes there every summer. Of course, for a girl's camp this does very well, very. Pretty fair looking lot of girls you have, Uncle. All from picked families, eh? Require references and all that sort of thing?"

Dr. Grayson made a deprecatory gesture with his hand and looked uneasily around the table, to see if Egmont's remarks were being overheard. But Mrs. Grayson sat on the other side of Egmont, and the seat next to the Doctor was vacant, so there was really no one within hearing distance except the Lone Wolf, who sat opposite to Mrs. Grayson, and she was deeply engrossed in conversation with the girl on the other side of her.

Monty prattled on. "You see, Uncle, I wouldn't have come up here to observe if I thought they were not from the best families. Anybody I'd care to write about--you understand, Uncle."

"Yes, I understand," replied Dr. Grayson quizzically. "Have you taken any notes yet?" he continued.

"Nothing yet," Monty admitted, "but I mean to begin immediately after breakfast. I mean to flit un.o.btrusively about Camp, Uncle, and watch the young ladies when they do not suspect I am around, taking down their innocent girlish conversation among themselves. So much more natural that way, Uncle, very!"

Dr. Grayson hurriedly took a huge mouthful of water, and then choked on it in a very natural manner, and Miss Judy's coming in with the mail bag at that moment caused a welcome diversion.

"Ah, good morning, Cousin Judith," drawled Monty. "I see you didn't get up as early as the rest of us. Perhaps the fatigue of last night--"

"I've been down the river for the mail," replied Miss Judy shortly. Then she turned her back on him and spoke to her father. "The weather is settled for this week. That rainstorm last night cleared things up beautifully. We ought to take the canoe trip, the one up to the Falls."

"That's so," agreed Dr. Grayson. "How soon can you arrange to go?"

"Tomorrow," replied Miss Judy.

"Ah, a canoe trip," cried Monty brightly. "I ought to get quant.i.ties of notes from that."

Miss Judy eyed him for a moment with an unfathomable expression on her face, then turned away and began to talk to the Lone Wolf.

All during Morning Sing Monty sat in a corner and took notes with a silver pencil in an embossed leather notebook, staring now at this girl, now at that, until she turned fiery red and fidgeted. After Morning Sing he established himself on a rocky ledge just below Bedlam, where, hidden by the bushes, he sat ready to take down the innocent conversation of the young ladies among themselves as they made their tents ready for tent inspection.

Katherine and Oh-Pshaw were in the midst of tidying up when the Lone Wolf dropped in to return a flashlight she had borrowed the night before. She strolled over to the railing at the back of the tent and peered over it. A gleam came into her eye as she noticed that one of the bushes just below the tent on the slope toward the river was waving slightly in an opposite direction from the way in which the wind was blowing. Stepping back into the tent she stopped beside Bedlam's water pail, newly filled for tent inspection.

"Your water looks sort of--er--muddy," she remarked artfully. "Hadn't you better throw it out and get some fresh? Here, I'll do it for you.

I'm not busy."

She picked up the br.i.m.m.i.n.g pail and emptied it over the back railing, right over the spot where she had seen the bush waving. Immediately there came a curious sound out of the bush--half gasp and half yell, and out sprang Monty, dripping like a rat, and fled down the path toward the bungalow, without ever looking around.

"Why, he was down there _listening_," Katherine exclaimed in disgust.

"Oh, how funny it was," she remarked to the Lone Wolf, "that you happened to come in and dump that pail of water over the railing just at that time."

"It certainty was," the Lone Wolf acquiesced gravely, as she departed with the pail in the direction of the spring.

Cousin Monty flitted un.o.btrusively to his tent, got on dry garments, fished another notebook out of his bag, and set out once more in quest of local color. He wandered down to Mateka, where Craft Hour was in progress. A pottery craze had struck camp, and the long tables were filled with girls rolling and patting lumps of plastic clay into vases, jars, bowls, plates and other vessels. Cousin Monty strolled up and down, contemplating the really creditable creation of the girls with a condescending patronage that made them feel like small children in the kindergarten. He gave the art director numerous directions as to how she might improve her method of teaching, and benevolently pointed out to a number of the girls how the things they were making were all wrong.

Finally he came and stood by Hinpoha, who was putting the finis.h.i.+ng touches on the decoration of a rose jar, an exquisite thing, with a raised design in rose petals. Hinpoha was smoothing out the flat background of her design when Monty paused beside her.

"You're not holding your instrument right." he remarked patronizingly.

"Let me show you how." He took the instrument from Hinpoha's unwilling hand, and turning it wrong way up, proceeded to sc.r.a.pe back and forth.

At the third stroke it went too far, and gouged out a deep scratch right through the design, clear across the whole side of the vase.

"Ah, a little scratch," he remarked airily. "Ah, sorry, really, very.

But it can soon be remedied. A little dob of clay, now."

"Let me fix it myself," said Hinpoha firmly, with difficulty keeping her exasperation under the surface, and without more ado seized her mutilated treasure from his hands.

"Ah, yes, of course," murmured Monty, and wandered on to the next table.

By the time the day was over Cousin Monty was about as popular as a hornet. "How long is he going to stay?" the girls asked each other in comical dismay. "A week? Oh, my gracious, how can we ever stand him around here a week?"

"Is he going along with us on the canoe trip?" Katherine asked Miss Judy as she helped her check over supplies for the expedition.

"He is that," replied Miss Judy. "He's going along to pester us just as he has been doing--probably worse, because he's had a night to think up a whole lot more fool questions to ask than he could think of yesterday."

And it was even so. Monty, notebook in hand, insisted upon knowing the why and wherefore of every move each one of the girls made until they began to flee at his approach. "Why are you tying up your ponchos that way? That isn't the way. Now if you will just let me show you--"

"Why you are putting that stout girl"--indicating Bengal--"in the stern of the canoe? You want the weight up front--that's the newest way."

"Now Uncle, just let me show you a trick or two about stowing away those supplies. You're not in the least scientific about it."

Thus he buzzed about, inquisitive and officious.

Katherine and Miss Judy looked into each other's eyes and exchanged exasperated glances. Then Katherine's eye took on a peculiar expression, the one which always registered the birth of an idea. At dinner, which came just before the expedition started, she was late--a good twenty minutes. She tranquilly ate what was left for her and was extremely polite to Counsin Monty, answering his continuous questions about the coming trip with great amiability, even enthusiasm. Miss Judy looked at her curiously.