Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes | Page 2

would be delighted--dee-light-ed--get me?--dee-light-ed."
"Oh, I get you," Helen Nash announced, lifting her hand over her head with an "I know, teacher," attitude.
"Well, Helen, get up and speak your piece," Katherine directed.
"You referred to the way Theodore Roosevelt shows his teeth when he says he's 'dee-light-ed'; but we got you wrong. When you said you would tell us something that would 'Teddy Bear' our teeth, you meant b-a-r-e, not b-e-a-r. When Teddy laughs, he bares his teeth. Isn't that it?"
"This isn't the first time that Helen Nash has proved herself a regular Sherlock Holmes," Marion Stanlock declared enthusiastically. "We are pretty well equipped with brains in this camp, I want to tell you. We have Harriet, the walking dictionary; Katherine, the girl enigma; and Helen, the detective."
"Every girl is supposed to be a puzzle," Ernestine Johanson reminded. "I don't like to snatch any honors away from anyone, but, you know, we should always have the truth."
"Yes, let us have the truth about this interesting, Teddy-teeth-baring, dee-light-ing announcement that Katherine has to make to us," Estelle Adler implored.
"The delay wasn't my fault," Katherine said, with an attitude of "perfect willingness if all this nonsense will stop." "But here comes Miss Ladd. Let's wait for her to join us, for I know you will all want her opinion of the proposition I am going to put to you."
Miss Harriet Ladd, Guardian of the Fire, bearing a large bouquet of wild flowers that she had just gathered in timber and along the bank of the stream, joined the group of girls seated on the grass a minute later, and then all waited expectantly for Katherine to begin.
CHAPTER II.
A SPECIAL MEETING CALLED.
Fern hollow--begging the indulgence of those who have read the earlier volume of this series--is a deep, richly vegetated ravine or gully forming one of a series of scenic convolutions of the surface of the earth which gave the neighboring town of Fairberry a wide reputation as a place of beauty.
The thirteen Camp Fire Girls, who had pitched their tents on the lower hillside, a few hundred feet from a boisterous, gravel-and-boulder bedded stream known as Butter creek, were students at Hiawatha Institute, a girls' school in a neighboring state. The students of that school were all Camp Fire Girls, and it was not an uncommon thing for individual Fires to spend parts of their vacations together at favorite camping places. On the present occasion the members of Flamingo Fire were guests of one of their own number, Hazel Edwards, on the farm of the latter's aunt, Mrs. Hannah Hutchins, which included a considerable section of the scenic Ravine known as Fern hollow.
They had had some startling adventures in the last few weeks, and although several days had elapsed since the windup in these events and it seemed that a season of quiet, peaceful camp life was in store for them, still they were sufficiently keyed up to the unusual in life to accept surprises and astonishing climaxes as almost matters of course.
But all of these experiences had not rendered them restless and discontented when events slowed down to the ordinary course of every-day life, including three meals a day, eight hours' sleep, and a program of tramps, exercises and honor endeavors. The girls were really glad to return to their schedule and their handbook for instructions as to how they should occupy their time. After all, adventures make entertaining reading, but very few, if any, persons normally constituted would choose a melodramatic career if offered as an alternative along with an even-tenor existence.
All within one week, these girls had witnessed the execution of an astonishing plot by a band of skilled lawbreakers and subsequently had followed Mrs. Hutchins through a series of experiences relative to the loss of a large amount of property, which she held in trust for a relative of her late husband, and its recovery through the brilliant and energetic endeavors of some of the members of the Camp Fire, particularly Hazel Edwards and Harriet Newcomb. The chief culprit, Percy Teich, a nephew of Mrs. Hutchins' late husband, had been captured, had escaped, had been captured again and lodged in jail, and clews as to the identity of a number of the rest had been worked out by the police, so that the hope was expressed confidently that eventually they, too, would be caught.
"Mrs. Hutchins is very grateful for the part this Camp Fire took in the recovery of the lost securities of which she was trustee," Katherine announced by way of introducing her "great news" to the members of the Fire who assembled in response to her call. "Of course Hazel did the really big things, assisted and encouraged by the companionship of Harriet and Violet, but Mrs. Hutchins feels like thanking us all for being here and looking