The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point

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THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT BLUFF POINT

Or

A Wreck and a Rescue

by

LAURA LEE HOPE

Author of "The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale," "The
Moving Picture Girls," "The Bobbsey Twins,"
"Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue," "Six
Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's," Etc.

Illustrated

New York
Grosset & Dunlap,
Publishers
Made in the United States of America

* * * * *

BOOKS FOR GIRLS

BY LAURA LEE HOPE

12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS SERIES

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS OF DEEPDALE
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT RAINBOW LAKE
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A MOTOR CAR
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A WINTER CAMP
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN FLORIDA
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT OCEAN VIEW
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS ON PINE ISLAND
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN ARMY SERVICE
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT THE HOSTESS HOUSE
THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT BLUFF POINT

THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS SERIES

THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS AT OAK FARM
THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS SNOWBOUND
THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS UNDER THE PALMS
THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS AT ROCKY RANCH
THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS AT SEA
THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS IN WAR PLAYS

THE BOBBSEY TWINS SERIES

(Twelve Titles)

THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES

(Eight Titles)

SIX LITTLE BUNKERS SERIES

(Five Titles)

GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK

* * * * *

Copyright, 1920, By
Grosset & Dunlap

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT BLUFF POINT

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I TO THE FRONT 1

II BAD NEWS 11

III MAKING PLANS 17

IV GRACE SURPRISES HER CHUMS 27

V A PROBLEM SOLVED 37

VI LIFE AND DEATH 47

VII THE RACE 56

VIII RED RAGS 65

IX THUNDER AND MUD 75

X THE KNIGHT OF THE WAYSIDE 85

XI MYSTERY 95

XII NEARLY AN ACCIDENT 104

XIII OUTWITTING A CRANK 114

XIV BLUFF POINT AT LAST 123

XV THE TELEGRAM 132

XVI THE SHADOW OF DISASTER 142

XVII JOE BARNES AGAIN 152

XVIII SERIOUSLY WOUNDED 162

XIX BETTY CONFESSES 170

XX MISSING 180

XXI A NARROW ESCAPE 187

XXII DARKNESS BEFORE THE DAWN 197

XXIII THE SHADOW LIFTS 207

XXIV HIS THREE SWEETHEARTS 217

XXV JOY 227

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT BLUFF POINT

CHAPTER I

TO THE FRONT

"I know it's utterly foolish and unreasonable," sighed Amy Blackford,
laying down the novel she had been reading and looking wistfully out of
the window, "but I simply can't help it."

"What's the matter?" asked Mollie Billette, raising her eyes reluctantly
from a book she was devouring and looking vaguely at Amy's profile. "Did
you say something?"

"No, she only spoke," drawled Grace Ford, extricating herself from a
mass of bright-colored cushions on the divan, preparatory to joining in
the conversation. "I ask you, Mollie, did you ever know Amy to say
anything important?"

"Why yes, I have," said Mollie unexpectedly. "In fact, she is about the
only one of us Outdoor Girls who ever does say anything
important--except Betty, perhaps."

Amy withdrew her gaze from the landscape and looked at the speaker with
a twinkle in her eyes.

"What will you have, Mollie?" she asked whimsically. "When you become
complimentary, you are apt to rouse my suspicions."

"Well, whatever you were going to say, please say it, and let me get
back to my book," returned Mollie, ignoring the imputation. "I was in
the most interesting part--"

"Why, I'm just plain homesick," said Amy, adding quickly, as the girls
looked at her in surprise. "For Camp Liberty and the Hostess House, you
know. I miss the work and the long hours of entertaining and cheering
people up. I feel," she looked around at them as though finding it hard
to explain just what she meant, "sort of--lost."

The three chums, Mollie Billette, Grace Ford, and Amy Blackford were
gathered in the comfortable library of Betty Nelson's home--Betty being
the fourth of the merry quartette, dubbed the "Outdoor Girls" by the
people of Deepdale, because of their love of the open and of outdoor
sports.

The girls, as my old readers will doubtless remember, had helped
establish a Hostess House at Camp Liberty, and since then had given all
their strength and time and youthful enthusiasm to the great work of
cheering our young fighters, entertaining their loved ones, and, in the
end, sending them with fresh courage and happy memories to the "other
side" for the great adventure.

And now the girls, completely worn out in their loving service to
others, had been sent, much against their will, home to Deepdale for a
rest that they sorely needed.

To-day they had gathered in Betty's house to discuss the rather hazy
plans for their brief vacation. And Amy had simply voiced what was in
the thoughts of all the girls. They were, undeniably and heartily,
homesick for Camp Liberty and their work at the Hostess House.

"Lost?" Mollie repeated Amy's expression thoughtfully. "Yes, I guess
that would pretty well describe the feeling I've had for the last few
days. Sort of restless and aimless--wondering what to do next."

"Goodness!" cried Grace whimsically, stretching her arms above her head
and smothering a yawn, "this is terrible, you know. If we don't look
out, we'll be forgetting how to enjoy ourselves."

"That would be queer, wouldn't it?" agreed Mollie, with a chuckle as she
started to resume her reading. "Especially for the Outdoor Girls, who
used to know how to enjoy themselves remarkably well."

A brief silence followed, broken only by the rustle of paper as one of
the girls turned a page. Then, so suddenly that Mollie jumped nervously
and Grace almost upset a box of chocolates at her elbow, Amy threw down
her book and sprang to her feet.

"I can't stand it another minute!" she exclaimed desperately. "Girls, I
must get out and do something--this loafing is getting on my nerves."

"Goodness, the child's mad," declared Mollie, looking at her chum with a
mixture of amusement and sympathy in her eyes. "What do you want to do,
Amy, start a fight, or set the town on fire? Whatever it is, I'm for
you, as Roy would say."

"Oh, I guess I must be crazy," said Amy, subsiding and seeming a little
ashamed of her outburst. "Only, after so much band music and parades and
bugle calls--everything in Deepdale seems so quiet."

"Well, if all you want is noise, we'll easily fix that," said Mollie
briskly, running to the piano and gathering in Grace and Amy on the way.
"Sing," she commanded, "and I'll make as much noise as I can on the
piano."

Half laughing, half protesting, the girls obeyed while Mollie
conscientiously made good her threat with the piano, and it was into
this uproar that Betty Nelson stepped a moment later.

"Have mercy!" she screamed above the noise, both hands clapped over her
ears while she laughed at them. "I thought they had turned the house
into a lunatic asylum or something."

The music, if such it can be called, stopped so suddenly that Betty's
last words rang out with absurd distinctness.

"Or something," Mollie mimicked, whirling around and catching the
newcomer in a bear's embrace. "Come over to the couch, Betty Nelson, and
explain yourself. Where have you been and why did you keep us waiting?"

Laughingly the Little Captain, as she was often called by the girls
because of her talent for leadership, permitted herself to be dragged
over to the couch by the impulsive Mollie, while Amy and Grace seated
themselves on the arms.

"What would you?" protested Betty, looking from one accusing face to
another. "I said I would meet you here at two-thirty, and it is only
quarter past now."

"Only quarter past!" exclaimed Amy.

"Oh, is that all?" asked Mollie, in astonishment, adding, as Betty
lifted her wrist watch for inspection: "Goodness, I thought we had been
waiting ages."

"I'm glad you wanted to see me so much," chuckled the Little Captain,
adding, with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes: "I imagine you would
have been still more impatient if you had known--" she paused wickedly
and just looked at them.

"Don't tease, Betty! What is it?" they implored in chorus, fairly
pouncing upon her, while Grace added, eagerly:

"Is it possible you have anything really interesting to tell us?"

"I shouldn't wonder if you would think so," Betty teased, adding quickly
to forestall the outburst she saw was coming, "It really isn't anything
at all--only--I met the postman on my way--"

"Betty!" they cried, unable to contain their impatience another moment.
"You have letters! Letters from our soldier boys!"

"How did you guess it?" said Betty, her eyes dancing as she brought from
a convenient pocket three--yes, three--fat letters, each containing the
longed-for foreign postmark.

"How much will you give me?" teased Betty, holding the precious missives
behind her back.

"Not one other word, Betty Nelson!" they cried, and after a merry but
brief struggle the letters were seized and delivered to their rightful
owners.

"Now I wonder," drawled Grace with a twinkle, as she hastily tore open
her envelope, "who could possibly be writing to us from the other side?"

"Now I wonder," chuckled Betty, as she happily drew from the convenient
pocket the last, but in her estimation decidedly not the least, fat
letter and proceeded to devour its contents without delay.

And indeed the Outdoor Girls had little reason to wonder who their
correspondents might be, for as regularly as clockwork those precious
letters with the strange foreign postmarks were delivered to their eager
hands.

There were other letters with that foreign postmark, too, for in
addition to their work at the Hostess House, the girls had faithfully
kept up a large correspondence with the brave boys who had already
crossed the water and were waiting impatiently for their chance "at the
Huns."

But the four special letters were from their closest friends--boys who
had lived in Deepdale before the war and were now in France preparing
for the last stage of their journey.

Allen Washburn, on his way to make a great name for himself in the law
before the war put a temporary check upon his ambitions, had been in
love with the Little Captain for--oh, yes, ever since he could remember,
while Betty--but Betty would never really admit anything, not even to
herself.

Then there was Will Ford, Grace Ford's brother, who was not only devoted
to his pretty sister, but, in spite of Amy's flushed protestations to
the contrary, to Amy Blackford, also--although in quite a different
manner!

Frank Haley was a high school chum of Will's, who from the time of his
first meeting with Mollie Billette had seemed inclined to become her
shadow, to the latter's secret gratification and outward indifference.

The last of the quartette was Roy Anderson, one of the Deepdale boys,
who was chiefly distinguished by his very open admiration for Grace.

The boys had shared in many of the adventures of the Outdoor Girls, and
of course had been among the very first to volunteer to help "lick the
Boche" as they slangily but ardently put it. The girls had gloried in
their patriotism, and it was their assignment to Camp Liberty that had
first given Betty the idea of working in the Hostess House there.

They had been very happy, fired as they were by enthusiastic patriotism,
until the fateful day had come when the boys had entrained for
Philadelphia and from there to the Great Adventure. Then for the first
time the girls had had the real and terrible meaning of war brought home
to them. And the boys, so merry and care-free when they had first
entered the service, had seemed suddenly older, more important, more
manly, only the fire of enthusiasm in their eyes showing their
indomitable youth.

Several months had passed since that day of mingled tears and pride and
heartache, and the girls had had time to get used to the separation a
little--a very little. And now Betty had brought them the letters they
were always hungry for, anxiously eager, yet always, at the very back of
their hearts, a little haunting fear of what they might contain.

For several minutes they sat engrossed while occasionally one of them
read a funny or characteristic extract over which they laughed happily.

"Listen to this," chuckled Mollie, while the girls looked up
expectantly. "Frank says that Roy is getting terribly fat in spite of
all the exercise--"

"Horrors!" interjected Grace.

"And when he, Frank, ventured to remonstrate with him the other day and
advised him to cut down on his chow, Roy said: 'Nothing doing! I've got
a definite end in view, old man. This khaki outfit has acquired so much
terra firma it's beginning to stand alone, but if I get so fat I can't
wear it they'll have to give me another one--see?'"

The girls laughed, but there was just a shade of wistfulness in their
laughter, for they knew that the boys were only skirting the outer edge
of the hardships they would be called upon to encounter later on.

Then suddenly Betty gave a little cry of dismay.

"Oh, girls," she cried when they looked up at her fearfully, "it's come!
What we've been dreading so long! The boys have been ordered to the
front!"

CHAPTER II

BAD NEWS

The girls stared wide-eyed at Betty while slowly the color drained from
their faces. It was true they had been dreading just this news for a
long, long time, yet now that it had come they felt strangely quiet and
numb. They had much the same feeling as one who had received a stunning
blow. Until the paralysis had passed there could be no pain. That would
come later.

"How do you know?" asked Mollie at last, in a voice that sounded strange
even to herself. "Frank hasn't mentioned it."

"He will probably, toward the end," Betty explained, while slowly her
heart contracted and the tears welled to her eyes. "Allen didn't--not
till the last sentence. It's only a line, but th-that's enough. He says
not to be alarmed if his letters are delayed--it may be hard to get them
through."

"They are going to the front," Amy repeated dazedly, as if she found it
hard to really believe. "When--did he say when, Betty?"

"No, he didn't," said Betty slowly. "But you know Allen. He wouldn't
have said anything about it if the time hadn't been pretty close at
hand."

"Why," cried Grace, catching her breath as though the thought had just
occurred to her, "they may be in the front line trenches now! They may
be--they may be--"

And while the girls gazed at her in tragic silence, imagining terrible,
unbelievable things, a moment will be taken to sketch briefly for the
benefit of new readers the various exciting or amusing adventures which
had befallen the Outdoor Girls in the days before the grim shadow of war
had spread itself over the land.

In the first volume of the series, entitled "The Outdoor Girls of
Deepdale," the girls had formed a camping and tramping club and had
tramped for miles over the country, meeting with many interesting
adventures on the way.

After this, one good time had followed hard on the heels of another,
first at Rainbow Lake, then at a winter camp where they had novel and
interesting experience on skates and ice-boats.

At Ocean View some time later the Outdoor Girls had cleared up a mystery
centering about a strange box they had found in the sand. Then had
followed that splendid summer at Pine Island, when the girls had
accidentally discovered a gypsy cave and had succeeded not only in
rounding up the band of gypsies but in recovering several valuable
articles that had been stolen from them. The four boys who were now
facing the enemy in France had shared in their fun that summer, pitching
camp near the bungalow of the girls.

Their next adventure found the girls and boys again at Pine Island, but
under greatly altered circumstances. America had just entered the great
war, and the four boys had responded eagerly to the bugle call. Later
they were sent to Camp Liberty for training, to which the girls soon
followed them to work in the Hostess House.

Will Ford, the brother of Grace, had caused the girls, and especially
his sister, anxiety and uneasiness because of his failure to enlist with
the other boys. In the end he justified himself, however, by delivering
a German spy to justice and enlisting in the service of his country
immediately afterward. The girls also recovered some valuable jewelry
that the spy had stolen from them.

Then in the volume directly preceding this, entitled "The Outdoor Girls
at the Hostess House," the girls had befriended an old woman who had
been knocked down by an unscrupulous motorcyclist. They later learned
the secret tragedy in the life of their little old lady.

Now the girls had come home to Deepdale for a much needed rest, only to
be confronted with the terrible, though, naturally, expected, news that
the boys had been ordered to the front.

"Yes they may be, probably are, facing death at this minute," said
Mollie slowly, finishing the broken sentence. "Perhaps at the very
minute we were playing and singing and enjoying ourselves--"

"Mollie, don't!" cried Amy brokenly. "I don't feel as if I could ever
enjoy myself again."

"Well, we've got to, whether we can or not," said Betty, striving to
control her quivering lips and tilting her little chin at a brave angle.
"We can't just lie down at the very first shot, you know."

"You talk as if we were on the firing line," said Grace hysterically.

"I suppose in a way we are," returned the Little Captain slowly, wishing
desperately that those troublesome tears would stay where they
belonged--her eyes were so misty she could hardly see Grace! "Only ours
is a harder kind of battle, because it's made up mostly of waiting and
working without any of the thrill and excitement of the real fight to
help us. But I'd like to know," and there was a little ring of pride and
renewed courage in her voice, "what the real fighters would do without
us anyway. We're just as much soldiers as they are, and if we don't do
our share, they can't do theirs."

"Of course you are right, Betty dear, you always are!" cried Mollie,
taking heart and even smiling a little. "We can't do anybody good by
moping."

"No," added Grace with a philosophy unusual in her. "That's why we have
the hardest share, I guess--because we have to keep gay and bright, no
matter how we feel."

"And we still have our work at the Hostess House," Amy reminded them.
"Maybe," she added, a little wistfully, "if we work hard enough we'll be
able to forget--"

"What's all this about working and forgetting?" cried Mrs. Nelson,
coming gayly into the room. "I thought you had come home for a
vacation."

The girls explained, and Mrs. Nelson looked pityingly at their grave
young faces.

"So that is it," she was beginning, when Mollie sprang to her feet with
a cry. She was staring at the paper that Mrs. Nelson had carelessly
thrown on the table.

"What is it?" they cried, as she snatched it up and read the glaring
headlines.

"The Hostess House!" gasped Mollie. "Gone! Burnt up! Read this!"

Dazedly the girls obeyed, the big type seeming to strike them in the
face as they read:

"Great Fire at Camp Liberty! Hostess House and Several Barracks
Buildings Burned to the Ground!"

CHAPTER III

MAKING PLANS

"I can't seem to get used to it," sighed Mollie several days later, as
she ran up the steps of her porch and opened the screen door for the
girls. "To think that no matter how much we want to go back to the
Hostess House--"

"There is no Hostess House to go back to," finished Grace, sinking down
in a luxurious porch swing and plumping the cushion behind her back.
Grace always had a gift for finding the soft places. "It is rather
discouraging."

"Just as we were going to work hard and forget how unhappy we were,
too," added Amy plaintively.

"Goodness, but we're not going to be unhappy," put in Betty, rocking
vigorously. "I thought we decided that three days ago."

"I know. But when we think--"

"But we musn't think," Betty interrupted quickly, adding with a little
twinkle: "About being unhappy, that is. All we have to do is just hold
on to the belief that the boys are coming back a year from now, maybe
less--coming back without a hair less than they had when they went
away."

"We didn't count 'em," said Mollie drolly. "The hairs, that is, so how
can we tell?"

"Isn't she funny?" drawled Grace, catching the pillow Mollie threw at
her and depositing it calmly behind her back. "Thanks, old dear," she
said. "I just needed another one."

"I thought we came to talk over the plans for our vacation," Amy put in
mildly, adding with a little laugh: "We have to take one now whether we
want it or not."

"But we haven't the slightest idea what we're going to do," protested
Grace. "I guess we'd just better stay at home and do nothing."

"My, aren't you encouraging?" cried Mollie, looking up indignantly from
the pair of socks she was knitting. "You might at least suggest
something."

"Ooh, there you are!"

They turned suddenly to see a mischievous little face peeping at them
from around the corner of the porch.

"Dodo, you little wretch, come here," cried Mollie, trying to look
severe and failing utterly.

"Now what mischief have you been up to?"

"No," protested Dodo, shaking her curly head vigorously, as she
reluctantly abandoned her vantage point and came slowly toward Mollie.
"No mischief 'tall. Me an' Paul jus' playin'."

This was Dora, nicknamed Dodo, and Paul, Mollie Billette's small brother
and sister, who were nearly always getting into some sort of mischief
from the time they stepped their little feet out of bed in the morning
till the time they slipped the same little feet, tired out with getting
into trouble, into bed at night.

"You darling!" cried Betty, catching the little figure to her and
administering a bear's hug. "You're terribly bad, but we can't help
loving you."

"Uh-uh," denied Dodo, wriggling free of Betty's embrace and looking at
her earnestly. "Me's never bad--only Paul."

"Ooh, Dodo Billette!" cried Paul, bursting in upon them from no one
could quite tell where. "You's a big story teller!"

"You's the big 'tory teller," cried Dodo, coming sturdily to the rescue
of her reputation. "You just go 'way. Mol--lie, oh, Mollie, make him go
'way!"

"Oh, dear!" cried Mollie, half amused and half vexed as she put aside
her knitting and took Dodo on her lap. "I thought you and Paul promised
to play with the bunnies all the afternoon and not bother sister. Can't
you see she has company?"

"Yes," smiled the little girl, reaching up to pat Mollie's cheek
ingratiatingly. "Me an' Paul got tired playin' wiv bunnies an' came to
see you. We want," she added succinctly, "tandies!"

"Well, you won't get any, not this time," said Mollie definitely, trying
not to smile, while the other girls were not even trying. It was always
hard not to laugh at the twins, naughty as they often were.

"Why?" demanded Dodo severely.

"Never mind why," returned Mollie, putting the little girl down and
taking up her knitting again. "Now run off, both of you, we want to
talk."

"But we want tandies," repeated Dodo, looking surprised that Mollie had
not understood the first time. "Dive Paul an' me tandies--lots of
tandies--an' we'll go 'long. Shan't we, Paul? Ooh--" the question ended
in an anguished wail as Dora's eyes rested on her faithless twin.

The latter had extracted Grace's half-filled candy box from under a
cushion where she had hastily hidden it at the first threat of invasion
by the insatiable twins and was at the moment busily engaged in
devouring its contents. Grace had been too busy watching Dodo to notice
him.

"Ooh, you bad boy! You bad boy!" wailed the little girl, making a dash
for Paul, who deftly evaded her and took refuge behind Betty's chair,
"Div me dos tandies--dive 'em to me."

"Can't," mumbled Paul, his mouth full, adding by way of explanation a
convincing: "All gone."

"Paul Billette, come here this minute," commanded Mollie sternly, while
Betty and Amy tried hard to check their rising mirth and Grace looked
bereft. "Come here I say."

"Make Dodo go 'way then," bargained Paul, adding in an explanatory tone:
"Last time she pulled my hair."

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