Camp Fire Girls The in the Woods Part 5

From the inn there was a shout of anger.

"Gee! He's found out already," cried Jack. "Come on! Don't be scared! I'll show you where to hide so he'll never find you. Run -- run, just as fast as you can!"

And they were off, while Farmer Weeks shouted behind them.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SHELTER OF THE WOODS.

For the first few minutes as they ran, the three of them were too busy to talk, and they needed their breath too much to be anxious to say anything. Jack, his little legs flying, covered ground at an astonis.h.i.+ng pace. Zara had always been a speedy runner, and now, clutching Bessie's hand tightly, she helped her over some of the harder places.

They were running right into the woods, as it seemed to Bessie, and more than once, as she heard sounds of pursuit behind, she was frightened. It seemed to her impossible that little Jack, mean he never so well, could possibly enable them to escape from angry Farmer Weeks, who, for an old man, seemed to be keeping up astonis.h.i.+ngly well in the race. But soon the noises behind them grew fainter, and it was not long before the ground began to rise sharply. Jack dropped to a walk, and the two girls, panting from the hard run, were not slow to follow his example.

"This is like playing Indians," said Jack, happily. "It's lots of fun -- much better than playing by myself. Here's my cave."

"Don't you think we'd better go on, Bessie?" panted Zara. "We're ahead of them now, and they might find us here."

"No, I think we'd better stop right here. Would you ever know there was a cave here if Jack hadn't uncovered the entrance? And see, it's so wild that we'd have to stick to the path, and we don't know the way. I'm afraid they'd be sure to catch us sooner or later if we went on."

"Listen!" said Jack. "They're getting nearer again!"

And sure enough, they could hear the shouts of those who were following them, and the noise was getting louder. Bessie hesitated no longer, but pushed Zara before her into the cave. Jack followed them.

"See," he said, "I can pull those branches over, and they'll never see the mouth of the cave. They'll think these are just bushes growing here. Isn't it a bully place? I've played it was a smuggler's cave, and all sorts of things, but it never was as good fun as this."

"Just think that way," said Bessie to poor Zara, who was trembling like a leaf. "When we get back with the girls, we'll think this is just good fun -- a fine adventure. So cheer up, we're safe now."

"But how will we ever get back to them, even if they don't catch us now?" asked Zara. "We'll be seen when we go out, won't we?"

"No, indeed," said Bessie. "I'll bet Jack's thought about that, haven't you, Jack?"

"You bet!" he, said, proudly. "They'll go by, and they'll keep on for a long way, and then they'll think they've gone so far that a girl couldn't ever have done it. And then they'll decide they've missed her, and they'll turn around and come back again, and hunt around near the hotel. And when they do that -- "

"Hus.h.!.+" said Bessie. "Here they come! Keep quiet, now, both of you! Don't even breathe hard -- and don't sneeze, whatever you do!"

And then, lying down close to one another, at full length on the floor of the cave, which Jack, for his play, had covered with soft branches of evergreen trees, they peeped out through the leafy covering of the cave while Farmer Weeks went by, snorting and pulling angrily, like some wild animal, his eyes straight ahead. He never looked at the cave, or in their direction, but the next man, one employed about the hotel, seemed to have his eyes fixed directly on the branches. Bessie thought he looked suspicious. She was sure that he had spied the device, and was about to call to Farmer Weeks. But, when he was still a few feet off, he tripped over a root, and sprawled on his face, and, if he had ever really had any suspicions at all, the fall seemed to drive them from his mind effectually. He picked himself up, laughing, since the fall had not hurt him, and, after he had shouted back a warning to two men who followed him, he went on, dusting himself off.

The root had been good to the fugitives, sure enough, for the men who followed kept their eyes on the ground, looking out for it, since they had no desire to share the tumble of the man in front, and neither of them so much as looked at the cave.

"My, but they're brave men!" said Jack. "Three of them, all to chase one little girl!"

Zara, her fears somewhat relieved, laughed as she looked at her rescuer.

"I'm bigger than you are," she said, smiling.

"Yes, but you're a girl," said Jack, in a lordly fas.h.i.+on that would have made Bessie laugh if she hadn't been afraid of hurting his feelings. "And I've rescued you, haven't I? Did you ever read about the Knights of the Round Table, and how they rescued ladies in distress? I'm your knight, and you ought to give me a knot of ribbon. They always do in the books."

Zara looked puzzled.

"Haven't you ever read about them?" said Jack, looking disappointed. But then he turned to Bessie. "You have, haven't you?"

"I certainly have, Jack, and Zara shall, soon. They were brave men, Zara, who lived centuries ago. And whenever they saw a lady who needed help they gave it to her. Jack's quite right; he is like them."

Jack flushed with pleasure. He had liked Bessie from the start and now he adored her.

"You're Zara's true knight, Jack, and she'll give you that ribbon from her hair. But you mustn't let anyone see it, or tell about this adventure, unless your father asks you. You mustn't say anything that isn't true, but only answer questions. Don't offer to tell people, or else you may be punished, because Farmer Weeks would say we were bad, and that it was wrong to help us."

"I wouldn't believe him, and neither would my pop, I know that. He's the greatest man that ever lived -- greater than George Was.h.i.+ngton. And he'll say I was just right if I tell him. I just know he will."

"But maybe he and Farmer Weeks are friends, Jack. Then he'd think it was all wrong, wouldn't he?"

"My pop wouldn't have him for a friend, Bessie, don't you believe he would! My pop would never lock a girl up in a room by herself without her dinner, even if she'd been bad."

"I wonder why they're so long coming back," said Bessie, finally. "Won't they miss you, Jack?"

"Not if I get back in time for supper. They don't care what I do when it's a holiday, like this. They know I know my way around here, and there aren't any wild animals. I wish there were!"

"Wouldn't you be afraid of them?"

"Not a bit of it! I'd have a gun, and I'd shoot them, just as quick as quick!"

"Even if they weren't trying to hurt you?"

"Yes, why shouldn't I? Everyone does, in all the books."

"But we don't act the way people in books do, Jack. We can't. Things aren't just that way. Books are to read, to learn things, and for fun, but we've got to remember that real life's different."

"Well, I bet if I saw a lion coming through that wood there I'd kill him."

"Suppose he ate you up first?" asked Zara.

"He'd better not! My pop 'd catch and make him sorry he ever did anything like that! Say, it is taking them a long time to come back. Maybe they've lost their way."

"Could they around here?"

"You bet they could! Lots of people do, from the hotel, and we have to send out and find them, so's they don't have to stay out all night. Say, did you hear something just then?"

They listened attentively, and presently Zara's keen ears detected a sound.

"There's someone coming, " she said. "Listen! You can hear them quite plainly now."

They were quiet for a minute.

"They must be quite close," said Zara, then. "We heard them much further off than that when they were coming after us. I wonder why they got so near before we heard them this time?"

"That's easily explained, Zara," said Bessie. "When they were going the wind was behind them. Now it's in front of them. And they were going up hill, too, so there may have been an echo, because they were shouting toward the rocks upon the hill. Now that's changed, too."

"Say, you're a regular scout!" said Jack approvingly. "I knew all that, but I didn't suppose girls knew things like that. Say, when. I get old enough I'm going to be a Boy Scout. That'll be fine, won't it? I'll have a uniform, and a badge, and everything."

"Splendid, Jack! We're going to be Camp Fire Girls, and we'll have rings, and badges, too."

"What are Camp Fire Girls? Are they like the Boy Scouts?"

"Something like them, Jack. Sometime, when I know more about them, I'll come back and tell you all about it. I know it's nice -- but I don't really know much more than that yet."

Then they had to be still again, for the voices of the returning hunters were very plain. They could hear Farmer Weeks, loud and angry, in the lead.

"Ain't it the beatin'est thing you ever heard of?" he was asking one of his companions. "How do you guess that little varmint ever got away?"

"Better give it up as a bad job, old hayseed," said another voice. "She's too slick for you -- and I can't say I'm sorry, either. Way you've been goin' on here makes me think anyone'd be glad to dig out and run away from a chance to work for you."

"Any lazy good-for-nothing like you would -- yes," said Farmer Weeks, enraged by the taunt. "I make anyone that gits my pay or my vittles work -- an' why shouldn't they? If you'd gone on, like I wanted you to, we'd have caught her."

"We ain't workin' for you, an' we never will, neither," said the other man, laughing. "Better be careful how you start callin' us names, I can tell you. If you ain't you may go home with a few of them whiskers of your'n pulled out."

"You shut your trap!"

"Sure! I'd rather hear you talk, anyhow. You're so elegant and refined like. Makes me sorry I never went to collidge, so's I could talk that way, too."

They couldn't make out what Farmer Weeks replied to that. He was so angry that he just mumbled his words, and didn't get them out properly. Zara was smiling, her eyes s.h.i.+ning. But then the old farmer's voice rose loud and clear again, just as he pa.s.sed the cave.

"I'll git her yet," he said, vindictively. "I know what she's done, all right. She's gone traipsin' off with that pa.s.sel of gals that Paw Hoover sold his garden truck to yesterday. I heard 'em laughin' and chatterin' back there on the road where I found her. She'll go runnin' back to 'em -- and I'll show 'em, I will!"

"Aw, you're all talk and no do," said the other man, contemptuously. "You talk big, but you don't do a thing."

"I'll have the law on 'em. That gal's as good as mine for the time till she's twenty-one, an' I'll show 'em whether they can run off that way with a man's property. Guess even a farmer's got some rights -- an' I can afford to pay for lawin' when I need it done."

"I s'pose you can afford to pay us for runnin' off on this wild goose chase for you, then? Hey?"

"Not a cent -- not a cent!" they heard Farmer Weeks say, angrily. "I ain't a-goin' to give none of my good money that I worked for to any lowdown s.h.i.+rkers like you -- hey, what are you doin' there, tryin' to trip me up?"

A chorus of laughter greeted his indignant question, but he seemed to take the hint, for the fugitives in the cave heard no more talk from him, although for some time after that the sounds in the direction the pursuers had taken on their return to the inn were plain enough.

When the last sounds had died away, and they were quite sure that they were safe, for the time, at least, Bessie got up.

"Suppose we follow this trail right up the way they went?" Bessie asked Jack. "Where will it bring us?"

"To the top of the mountain," said Jack. "But if you want to go off that way I'll walk a way with you, and show you where you can strike off and come to another trail that will bring you out on the main road to Zebulon."

"That'll be fine, Jack. If you'll do that, you'll help us ever so much, and we'll be able to get along splendidly."

"We'd better start," said Zara, nervously. "I want to get away as soon as ever I can. Don't you, Bessie?"

"Indeed I do, Zara. I'm just as afraid of having Farmer Weeks catch us as you are. If he found me he'd take me back to Maw Hoover, I know. And she'd be awfully angry with me."

"I'm all ready to start whenever you are," announced Jack. "Come on. It gets dark early in the woods, you know. They're mighty thick when you get further up the mountain. But if you walk along fast you'll get out of them long before it's really dark."

So they started off. Little Jack seemed to be a thorough woodsman and to know almost every stick and stone in the path. And presently they came to a blazed tree -- a tree from which a strip of bark had been cut with a blow from an axe.

"That's my mark. I made it myself," said Jack, proudly. "Here's where we leave this trail. Be careful now. Look where I put my feet, and come this same way."

Then he struck off the trail, and into the deep woods themselves where the moss and the carpet of dead leaves deadened their footsteps. Although the sun was still high, the trees were so thick that the light that came down to them was that of twilight, and Zara shuddered.

"I'd hate to be lost in these woods," she said.

Then, abruptly, they were on another trail. Jack had been a true guide.

"You can't lose your way now," he said. "Keep to the trail and go straight ahead."

"Good-bye, Jack," said Bessie. "You're just as true and brave as any of the knights you ever read about, and if you keep on like this you'll be a great man when you grow up -- as great as your father. Good-bye!"

"Good-bye and thank you ever so much," called Zara.

"Come again!" said Jack, and stood there until they were out of sight.

It was not long before they came out near the main road, and now Zara gave a joyful cry.

"Oh, I'm so glad to be here!" she exclaimed. "Those woods frightened me, Bessie. They were so dark and gloomy. And it's so good to see the sun again, and the fields and the blue sky!"

Bessie looked about her curiously, as she strove to get her bearings. Then her face cleared.

"I know where we are now," she said. "We're still quite a little distance from where we stopped for lunch and Farmer Weeks got hold of you, Zara. We'll have to go up the road. You see, it brought us quite a little out of our direct way -- going back in the woods as we did. But it was worth it -- to get away from Farmer Weeks."

"I should think it was!" said Zara. "I'd walk on my hands for a mile to be free from him. He was awful. He drove up just as I got down to the road, and as soon as I saw him I started to run. But I was so frightened that my knees shook, and he jumped out and caught me."

"What did he say to you?"

"Oh, everything! He said he could have me put in prison for running away, and he asked me where you were, but I wouldn't say a thing. I wouldn't even answer him when he asked me if I'd seen you. And he said that when I came to work for him, he'd see that I got over my laziness and my notions."

"Well, you're free of him now, Zara. Oh!"

"What is it, Bessie?"

"Zara, don't you remember what he said? That he'd find us through the Camp Fire Girls? He knows about them! If we go right back to them now, we may be walking right into his arms. Oh, how I wish I could get hold of Miss Eleanor -- of Wanaka!"

They stared at one another in consternation.

CHAPTER IX.