Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes

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"Yes."

"And that would give us some sort of guide for beginning our search. We
wouldn't have to use the names of the people we are looking for."

"That is excellent!" Miss Ladd exclaimed enthusiastically. "If you two
scouts use your heads as cleverly as that all the time, you ought to get
along fine in your work. But go on. What next would you do?"

"Go and find out where the people live. That needn't be hard. Then we'd
look over the lay of the land to see if there were a good place nearby
for us to pitch our tents."

"Yes," put in Hazel; "and if we found a good place nearby, we'd begin
the real work that we came here to do by going to the Graham house and
asking who owns the land."

"Fine again," Miss Ladd said. "I couldn't do better myself, maybe not as
well. I did think of going with you on your first trip, but I guess I'll
leave it all to you. Let's go back to the hotel now, and while you two
scouts are gone scouting, the rest of us will find something to
entertain us. Maybe we'll take a motorboat ride."

They started back at once and were soon at the hotel. Katherine and
Hazel decided that they would not even look for the address of the
Grahams in the directories at the hotel, but would go to a drug store
on the main business street for this information.

The other girls waited on the hotel portico while they were away on this
mission. They were gone about twenty minutes and returned with a supply
of picture postcards to mail to their friends. On a piece of paper
Katherine had written an address and she showed it to Miss Ladd. Here is
what the latter read:

"Stony Point."

"That's about three miles up the lake," Hazel said. "We thought we'd
hire an automobile and go up there."

"Do," said Miss Ladd approvingly. "And we'll take a motorboat and ride
up that way too, if we can get one. Oh, I have the idea now. We'll make
it a double inspection, part by land and part from the lake. We'll meet
you at a landing at Stony Point, if there is one, and will bring you
back in the boat. Now, you, Katherine and Hazel, wait here while I go
and find a motorboatman and make arrangements with him."

"I'll go with you," said Violet Munday.

The Guardian and Violet hastened down toward the main boat landing while
the other twelve girls waited eagerly for a successful report on this
part of the proposed program.

CHAPTER X.

A TRIP TO STONY POINT.

Miss Ladd and Violet returned in about twenty minutes and reported that
satisfactory arrangements had been made for a trip up the lake. They
were to start in an hour and a half.

Then Katherine and Hazel engaged an automobile for a few hours' drive
and before the motorboat started with its load of passengers, they were
speeding along a hard macadam road toward the point around which
centered the interest of their interrupted vacation plans at Fairberry
and their sudden departure on a very unusual and very romantic journey.

Twin Lakes is a summer-resort town located on the lower of two bodies of
water, similar in size, configuration, and scenery. The town has a more
or less fixed population of about 2,500, most of whom are retired folk
of means or earn their living directly or indirectly through the
supplying of amusements, comfort, and sustenance for the thousands of
pleasure and recreation seekers that visit the place every year.

Each of the lakes is about four miles long and half as wide. A narrow
river, strait, or rapids nearly a mile long connects the two. Originally
this rapids was impassable by boats larger than canoes, and even such
little craft were likely to be overturned unless handled by strong and
skillful canoemen; but some years earlier the state had cleared this
passage by removing numerous great boulders and shelves of rock from the
bed of the stream so that although the water rushed along just as
swiftly as ever, the passage was nevertheless safe for all boats of
whatever draught that moved on the two lakes which it connected.

The lower of the twin bodies of water had been named Twin-One because,
perhaps, it was the first one seen, or more often seen by those who
chose or approved the name; the other was Twin-Two. Geographically
speaking, it may be, these names should have been applied vice versa,
for Twin-Two was fed first by a deep and wide river whose source was in
the mountains 200 miles away, and Twin-One received these waters after
they had laved the shores of Twin-Two.

The road followed by Katherine and Hazel in their automobile drive to
Stony Point was a well-kept thoroughfare running from the south end of
Twin-One, in gracefully curved windings along the east border of the
lake, sometimes over a small stretch of rough or hilly shoreland, but
usually through heavy growths of hemlock, white pine, oak, and other
trees more or less characteristic of the country. Here and there along
the way was a cottage, or summer house of more pretentious proportions,
usually constructed near the water or some distance up on the side of
the hill-shore, with a kind of terrace-walk leading down to a boat
landing.

The trip was quickly made. Stony Point the girls found to be a
picturesque spot not at all devoid of the verdant beauties of nature in
spite of the fact that, geographically, it was well named. This name was
due principally to a rock-formed promontory, jutting out into the lake
at this point and seeming to be bedded deep into the lofty
shore-elevation. Right here was a cluster of cottages, not at all
huddled together, but none the less a cluster if viewed from a distance
upon the lake, and in this group of summer residences appeared to be
almost sufficient excuse for the drawing up of a petition for
incorporation as a village. But very few of the owners of these houses
lived in them during the winter months. The main and centrally located
group consisted of a hotel and a dozen or more cottages, known as "The
Hemlocks," and so advertised in the outing and vacation columns of
newspapers of various cities.

On arriving at "the Point," Katherine and Hazel paid the chauffeur and
informed him they would not need his machine any more that day. Then
they began to look about them.

They were rather disappointed and decidedly puzzled at what they saw.
Evidently they had a considerable search before them to discover the
location of the Graham cottage without making open inquiry as to where
it stood. First they walked out upon the promontory, which had a flat
table-like surface and was well suited for the arousing of the curiosity
of tourists. There they had a good view up and down the bluff-jagged,
hilly and tree-laden coast.

"It's 11 o'clock now," said Hazel, looking at her wrist-watch. "The
motorboat will be here at about 1 o'clock, and we have two hours in
which to get the information we are after unless we want to share honors
for success with the other girls when they arrive."

"Let's take a walk through this place and see what we can see,"
Katherine suggested. "The road we came along runs through it and
undoubtedly there are numerous paths."

This seemed to be the best thing to do, and the two girls started from
the Point toward the macadam highway. The latter was soon reached and
they continued along this road northward from the place where they
dismissed the automobile. Half a mile they traveled in this direction,
their course keeping well along the lake shore. They passed several
cottages of designedly rustic appearance and buried, as it were, amid a
wealth of tree foliage and wild entanglements of shrubbery. Suddenly
Katherine caught hold of Hazel's arm and held her back.

"Did you hear that?" she inquired.

"Yes, I did," Hazel replied. "It sounded like a child's voice, crying."

"And not very far away, either. Listen; there it is again."

It was a half-smothered sob that reached their ears and seemed to come
from a clump of bushes to the left of the road not more than a dozen
yards away. Both girls started for the spot, circling around the bushes
and peering carefully, cautiously ahead of them as they advanced. The
subdued sobs continued and led the girls directly to the spot whence
they came.

Presently they found themselves standing over the form of a little boy,
his frightened, tear-stained face turned up toward them while he shrank
back into the bushes as if fearing the approach of a fellow human
being.

CHAPTER XI.

MISS PERFUME INTERFERES.

The little fellow retreated into the bushes as far as he could get and
crouched, there in manifest terror. Katherine and Hazel spoke gently,
sympathetically to him, but with no result, at first, except to frighten
him still more, if possible.

"Don't be afraid, little boy," Hazel said, reaching out her hands toward
him. "We won't hurt you."

But he only shrank back farther, putting up his hands before his face
and crying, "Don't, don't!"

"What can be the matter with him?" said Hazel. "He doesn't seem to be
demented. He's really afraid of something."

Katherine looked all around carefully through the trees and into the
neighboring bushes.

"I can't imagine what it can be," she replied. "There's nothing in sight
that could do him any harm. But, do you know, Hazel, I have an idea that
may be worth considering. Suppose this should prove to be the little boy
for whom we are looking."

"That could hardly be," Hazel answered dubiously. "Look at his
threadbare clothes, and how unkempt and neglected he appears to be. He
surely doesn't look like a boy for whose care $250 is paid every
month."

"Don't forget what it was that sent us here," Katherine reminded. "Isn't
it just possible that this little boy's fright is proof of the very
condition we came here to expose?"

"Yes, it's possible," Hazel replied thoughtfully. "At least, we ought
not neglect to find out what this means."

Then turning again to the crouching figure in the bushes, she said:

"What is your name, little boy? Is it Glen?"

At the utterance of this name, the youth shook as with ague.

"Look out, Hazel; he'll have a spasm," Katherine cautioned. "He thinks
we are not his friends and are going to do something he doesn't want us
to do. Let me talk to him:

"Listen, little boy," she continued, addressing the pitiful crouching
figure. "We're not going to hurt you. We'll do just what you want us to
do. We'll take you where you want to go. Will that be all right?"

A relaxing of the tense attitude of the boy indicated that he was
somewhat reassured by these words. His fists went suddenly to his eyes
and he began to sob hysterically. Hazel moved toward him with more
sympathetic reassurance, when there was an interruption of proceedings
from a new source.

A girl about 18 years old stepped up in front of the two Camp Fire Girls
and reached forward as if to seize the juvenile refugee with both hands.
She was rather ultra-stylishly clad for a negligee, summer-resort
community, wearing a pleated taffeta skirt and Georgette crepe waist and
a white sailor hat of expensive straw with a bright blue ribbon around
the crown. Hazel afterwards remarked that "her face was as cold as an
iceberg and the odor of perfume about her was enough to asphyxiate a
field of phlox and shooting-stars."

The boy ceased sobbing as he beheld this new arrival and his face became
white with fear, while he shrank back again into the bushes as far as he
could get. The girl of much perfume and stylish attire seemed to be
unmoved by the new panic that seized him, but took hold of him and
dragged him roughly out of his hiding place.

"Oh, do be careful," pleaded Hazel. "Don't you see he's scared nearly to
death? You may throw him into a spasm."

"Is that any of your business?" the captor of the frightened youth
snapped, looking defiantly at the one who addressed her. "He's my
brother, and I guess I can take him back home without any interference
from a perfect stranger. He's run away."

"I beg your pardon," Hazel said gently; "but it didn't seem to me to be
an ordinary case of fright. I didn't mean to intrude, but he's such a
dear little boy I couldn't help being sympathetic."

"He's a naughty bad runaway and ought to be whipped," the girl with the
cold face returned as she started along a path through the timber,
dragging the little fellow after her.

"Isn't that a shame!" Hazel muttered, digging her fingernails into the
palms of her hands. "My, but I just like to----"

She stopped for want of words to express her feelings not too riotously,
and Katherine came to her relief by swinging the subject along a
different track.

"Do you really believe that boy is Glen Irving?" she inquired.

"No, I suppose not," Hazel answered dejectedly. "You heard that girl say
he was her brother, didn't you? Well, Glen has no sister. But, do you
know, I really am disappointed to find that he isn't the boy we are
looking for, for my heart went right out to him when I first saw his
crouching form and white face. Moreover, I can hardly bear the thought
of leaving him in the hands of that frosted bottle of cheap Cologne."

Katherine laughed at the figure.

"You've painted her picture right," she said warmly. "Come on, let's
follow her. We have as much right to go that way as she has, and we must
go someway anyway."

"All right; lead the way," Hazel said with smiling emphasis on the "way"
to direct attention to Katherine's phonetic repetition.

The latter started along the path that had been taken by the girl and
her frightened prisoner, and Hazel followed. The two in advance were by
this time out of sight beyond a thicket of bushes and small trees, but
Katherine and Hazel did not hasten their steps, as they preferred to
trust to the path to guide their steps rather than the view of the
persons they sought to follow. In fact, they preferred to trust to the
element of chance rather than run a risk of arousing the suspicion of
the cold-faced girl with the perfume.

Only once did they catch sight of the boy and his captor in the course
of their hesitating pursuit, and this view was so satisfactory that they
stopped short in order to avoid possible detection if the girl should
look back. A turn in the path brought them to the hip of the elevation
where the ground began to slope down to the lake and near the downward
bend of this beach-hill was a rustic cottage, with an equally rustic
garage to the rear and on one side a cleared space for a tennis court.
At the door of the cottage was the girl with the pleated skirt and white
sailor hat, still leading the now submissive but quivering youth.

"Fine!" Katharine exclaimed under her breath. "Things have turned out
just right. If that should prove to be the Graham home we couldn't wish
for better luck. Come on; let's back through the timber and approach
this place from another direction. They mustn't suspect that we followed
that girl and the little boy."

CHAPTER XII.

THE MAN IN THE AUTO.

Cautiously Katherine and Hazel withdrew from the path into a thicket and
thence retreated along the path by which they had approached the house.
They continued their retreat to the point where the path joined the
automobile road and where grew the thicket within which they had
discovered the frightened runaway child.

"Now, I tell you what we ought to do," Katherine said. "We ought to
follow this road about a mile, maybe, to get a view of the lay of the
land and then return to this spot, or near it. We can get the
information we want after we learn more of the camping possibilities of
this neighborhood and can talk intelligently when we begin to make
inquiries."

"And when we get back," Hazel added, "we'll go to some neighboring house
and ask all about who lives here and who lives there, and, of course,
we'll be particular to ask the name of the family where that icy bottle
of perfume lives."

"That's the very idea," Katherine agreed enthusiastically. "But we
haven't any time to waste, for it is nearly 12 o'clock now, and we have
only a little more than an hour to work in if the motorboat arrives on
time. We'd better not try to walk a mile--half a mile will be enough,
maybe a quarter--just enough to enable us to talk intelligently about
the lay of the land right around here."

They walked north along the road nearly half a mile, found a path which
led directly toward the lake, followed it until within view of the
water's edge, satisfied themselves that there were several excellent
camping places along the shore in this vicinity and then started back.
They had passed three or four cottages on their way and at one of these
they stopped to make inquiries as planned.

A pleasant-faced woman in comfortable domestic attire met them at the
door and answered their questions with a readiness that bespoke
familiarity with the neighborhood and acquaintance with her neighbors.
Katherine and Hazel experienced no slight difficulty in concealing their
eager satisfaction when Mrs. Scott, the woman they were questioning,
said:

"The people who have the cottage just north of us are the Pruitts of
Wilmington, those just south of us are the Ertsmans of Richmond, and
those just south of the Ertsmans are the Grahams of Baltimore, I think.
I am not very well acquainted with that family. I am sure we would be
delighted to have a group of Camp Fire Girls near us and you ought to
have no difficulty in getting permission to pitch your tents. This land
along here belongs to an estate which is managed by a man living in
Philadelphia. He is represented here by a real estate man, Mr. Ferris,
of Twin Lakes. He probably will permit you to camp here for little or
nothing."

The girls thanked the woman warmly for this information and then hurried
away.

"We don't need to call at the Graham cottage now," Hazel said as they
hastened back to the road. "We have all the preliminary information that
we want. The next thing for us to do is to get back to the Point and
meet the boat when it comes in and have a talk with the other girls. I
suppose our first move then ought to be to go to Twin Lakes and get
permission from that real estate man, Ferris, to pitch our tents on the
land he has charge of."

The two girls kept up their rapid walk until within a few hundred feet
of the drive that led from the main road to the cottage occupied by the
Grahams. Then they slowed up a little as they saw an automobile
approaching ahead of them. The machine also slowed up somewhat as it
neared the drive. Suddenly Hazel exclaimed, half under her breath:

"It's going to stop. I wonder what for?"

"Yes, and there's something familiar in that man's appearance,"
Katherine said slowly. "Why----"

She did not finish the sentence, for the automobile was so near she was
afraid the driver would hear her. But there was no need for her to say
what she had in her mind to say. Hazel recognized the man as soon as
she did.

"Be careful," Katherine warned. "Don't let him see that we know him.
Just pass him as you would a perfect stranger."

But they did not pass the automobile as expected. Although slowing up,
the machine did not stop, and for the first time the girls realized the
probable nature of the man's visit to Stony Point.

"O Hazel!" Katherine whispered; "he's turning in at the Graham place."

"I bet he's come here to warn them against us," Hazel returned.

"It must be something of the kind," Katherine agreed, and then the near
approach to the automobile rendered unwise any further conversation on
the subject.

The girls were within 100 feet of the machine as it turned in on the
Graham drive and found that they had all they could do to preserve a
calm and unperturbed demeanor as they met the keen searching gaze of the
squint eyes of Pierce Langford, the lawyer from Fairberry.

CHAPTER XIII.

A NONSENSE PLOT.

Katherine and Hazel walked past the drive, into which Attorney
Langford's automobile had turned, apparently without any concern or
interest in the occupant of the machine. But after they had advanced
forty or fifty yards beyond the drive, Hazel's curiosity got the best of
her and she turned her head and looked back. The impulse to do this was
so strong, she said afterward, that it seemed impossible for her to
control the action. Her glance met the gaze of the squint eyes of the
man in the auto.

"My! that was a foolish thing for me to do," she said as she quickly
faced ahead again. "I suppose that look has done more damage than
anything else since we started from Fairberry. And to think that I above
all others should have been the one to do it. I'm ashamed of myself."

"Did he see you?" Katherine inquired.

"He was looking right at me," Hazel replied; "and that look was full of
suspicion and meaning. There's no doubt he's on our trail and suspects
something of the nature of our mission."

"Oh don't let that bother you," Katherine advised. "There's no reason
why he should jump to a conclusion just because you looked back at him.
That needn't necessarily mean anything. But if you let it make you
uneasy, you may give us dead away the next time you meet him."

"I believe he knows what our mission here is already," was Katharine's
fatalistic answer.

"If that's the case, you needn't worry any more about what you do or say
in his presence," said Hazel. "We might as well go to him and tell him
our story and have it all over with."

"I don't agree with you," Katherine replied. "I believe that the worst
chance we have to work against is the probability of suspicion on his
part. I don't see how he can know anything positively. He probably
merely learned of our intended departure for Twin Lakes and, knowing
that the Grahams were spending the summer here, began to put two and two
together. I figure that he followed us on his own responsibility."

"And that his visit at the Graham cottage today is to give them warning
of our coming," Hazel added.

"Yes, very likely," Katherine agreed. "I'd like to hear the conversation
that is about to take place in that house. I bet it would be very
interesting to us."

"No doubt of it," said the other; "and it might prove helpful to us in
our search for the information we were sent to get."

"Don't you think it strange, Hazel, that your aunt should select a bunch
of girls like us to do so important a piece of work as this?" Katherine
inquired. This question had puzzled her a good deal from the moment the
proposition had been put to her. Although she had received it originally
from Mrs. Hutchins even before the matter had been broached to Hazel,
she had not questioned the wisdom of the move, but had accepted the role
of advocate assigned to her as if the proceeding were very ordinary and
commonsensible.

"If you hadn't restricted your remark to 'a bunch of girls like us', I
would answer 'yes'," Hazel replied; "I'd say that it was very strange
for Aunt Hannah to select a 'bunch of girls' to do so important a piece
of work as this. But when you speak of the 'bunch' as a 'bunch of girls
like us,' I reply 'No, it wasn't strange at all'."

"I'm afraid you're getting conceited, Hazel," Katherine protested
gently. "I know you did some remarkable work when you found your aunt's
missing papers, but you shouldn't pat yourself on the back with such a
resounding slap."

"I wasn't referring to myself particularly," Hazel replied with a smile
suggestive of "something more coming." "I was referring principally to
my very estimable Camp Fire chums, and of course it would look foolish
for me to attempt to leave myself out of the compliment. I suppose I
shall have to admit that I am a very classy girl, because if I weren't,
I couldn't be associated with such a classy bunch--see? Either I have to
be classy or accuse you other girls of being common like myself."

"I'm quite content to be called common," said Katherine.

"But I don't think you are common, and that's where the difficulty comes
in."

"Won't you be generous and call me classy, and I'll admit I'm classy to
keep company with my classy associates, and you can do likewise and we
can all be an uncommonly classy bunch of common folks."

"If we could be talking a string of nonsense like this every time we
meet Mr. Langford, we could throw him off the track as easy as scat,"
said Hazel meditatively. "What do you say, Katherine?--let's try it the
next time he's around: We'll be regular imp--, inp-- What's the
word--impromptu actors."

"We mustn't overdo it," Katherine cautioned.

"Of course not. Why should we? We'll do just as we did this time--let
one idea lead on to another in easy, rapid succession. Think it over and
whenever you get an idea pass it around, and we'll be all primed for
him. It'll be lots of fun if we get him guessing, and be to our
advantage, too."

Hazel and Katherine reached the Point in time to see the motorboat
containing the other members of the Fire approaching about a mile away.
They did not know, of course, who were in the boat, and as it was deemed
wise not to indulge in any demonstrations, no one on either side did
any signalling; but they were not long in doubt as to who the passengers
were. A flight of steps led from the top of the point to the landing,
and the two advance spies, as they were now quite content to be called,
walked down these and were waiting at the water's edge when the boat ran
up along the pile-supported platform.

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