Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains | Page 3

patrols.
As if realizing their purpose, the circle around the camp fire was broken
at a point nearest the newly arrived invaders, and an avenue of
approach was formed by the lining up of some of the girls in two rows
extended out towards the Boy Scouts. In double file a hundred and fifty
boys marched in and around the campfire; then faced toward the outer
ring of Camp Fire Girls and bowed acknowledgment of the courteous
reception.
* * * * *

CHAPTER II.
THE BOY SCOUTS' INVASION.
That was a grand surprise that the Boy Scouts of Spring Lake academy
"put over" on the Camp Fire Girls of Hiawatha Institute. They had been
planning it for several weeks, or since they first received information of
the Grand Council Fire as a closing event of the first semester of the
girls' school. The two institutions were located in municipalities only
fifteen miles apart, connected by both steam railroad and electric
interurban lines.
Spring Lake academy, located on a lake of the same name at the
southern outskirt of Kingston, was originally a boys' military school,
and it still retained that primal distinction. But the success of Hiawatha
Institute as a Camp Fire Girls' school set the imaginative minds of some
of the leaders of the boys at Spring Lake to work along similar lines,
with the result that the faculty's cooperation was petitioned for the
organization of the student body into a troop of Boy Scout patrols. The
scheme was successful, and as it served to inject new life into the
academy, the business end of the institution had no ground for
complaint.
This innovation at Spring Lake was due largely to the activities of
Clifford Long, one of the students. He was a cousin of Marion Stanlock,
and naturally this relationship served to direct his personal interest
toward Hiawatha Institute. Not a few other students in these two
schools were similarly related, some of them being brothers and sisters.
And so it is not to be wondered at if these two places of learning
became, as it were, twin schools, with much of interest in common and
many of their activities interassociated. They had rival debating teams
between which were held more or less periodic contests, and in the
numerous social events there were frequently exchanges of invitational
courtesies.
The boys plotted their big surprise on the girls in true scout fashion.
There was no real secret in the fact that the Camp Fire Girls of

Hiawatha Institute were planning a big event, but girl-like they affected
secrecy to stimulate interest. The result was more than could have been
expected, although the girls did not realize this until after it was all over.
The curiosity of the Spring Lake boys was thoroughly alive as soon as
they learned of a mysterious "something big" going on at the institute.
True to the character of real scouts they delegated emissaries,
commonly denominated spies, to visit the stronghold of the Camp Fire
Girls, get all the details of their plans discoverable and report back to
headquarters. Greater success than that which rewarded their efforts
could hardly have been wished for. Half a dozen boys went and
returned and then put their heads and their reports together with the
result that the Scouts of the school had all the information they needed.
They mapped out their plans and scheduled their prospective
movements by the calendar and the clock. They chartered an interurban
train for the run to and from the Institute. The arrival on the scene of
the Grand Council Fire was, as we have seen, a complete surprise to the
girls. The Scouts well knew that their presence would not be regarded
as an intrusion, for a Grand Council Fire, according to the handbook,
"is for friends and the public."
The interruption of the program by the marching of the Boy Scouts
within the circle of the Camp Fire Girls was permitted to continue for
ten or fifteen minutes, while a number of short speeches were made by
some of the boy leaders, in which they gloried over the way they had
"put one over on the girls."
"And we're not through yet," announced Harry Gilbert prophetically.
"Some of us are going to put over another surprise just about as
thrilling as this, and we want to challenge you to find out what it is."
Of course this statement produced the very result the boys desired.
Naturally they wished the girls to think they were pretty bright fellows.
They got just what they were looking for as a result of their "surprise,"
namely, volumes of praise. To be sure, this did not come in the form of
undisguised admiration. That isn't the way a clever girl signifies her
approval of this sort of