Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team









The Girl Scout Pioneers

or

Winning the First B. C.


By Lillian C. Garis


Author of "The Girl Scouts at Bellair," "The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest,"
etc.


Illustrated




CONTENTS

CHAPTER

    I.   GIRLS AND GIRLS

   II.   WOODLAND THRILLS

  III.   A NOBLE DEED UNDONE

   IV.   PATHS DIVIDING

    V.   A FRIENDLY ENEMY

   VI.   A NOVEL JAIL

  VII.   TENDERFOOT ADVENTURES

 VIII.   CLUE TO THE MISSING

   IX.   TRIBUTE OF ROSES

    X.   TELLING SECRETS

   XI.   THE TANGLED WEB

  XII.   TESSIE

 XIII.   BROKEN FAITH

  XIV.   WOODLAND MAGIC

   XV.   VENTURE TROOP

  XVI.   MORE MYSTERIES

 XVII.   JACQUELINE

XVIII.   DAISIES AND DANGERS

  XIX.   THE FLYING SQUADRON

   XX.   CLEO'S EXPERIMENT

  XXI.   FORGING AHEAD

 XXII.   THE WHIRLING MAY-POLE

XXIII.   RAINBOW'S END




CHAPTER I

GIRLS AND GIRLS


It was much like a scene in a movie play. The shabby dark room lighted
by a single oil lamp if any light could make its way through the badly
smoked glass that served as a chimney, the broken chair, and the table
piled high with what appeared to be rags, but which might have been
intended for wearing apparel, the torn window curtain hanging so
disconsolately from the broken cord it had one time proudly swung from,
and the indescribable bed!

Like some sentinel watching the calamitous surroundings, a girl stood
in the midst of this squalor, her bright golden hair and her pretty
fair face, with its azure blue eyes, marking a pathetic contrast to all
the sordid, dark detail of the ill-kept room. She took from the side
pocket of her plaid skirt a bit of crumpled paper, and placing it
directly under the lamp, followed its written lines. Having finished
the reading, she carefully folded the worn slip again, and returned it
to her pocket. Then she threw back her pretty head, and any frequenter
of the screen world would have known instantly that the girl had
decided--and further, that her decision required courage, and perhaps
defiance.

With determination marking every move, she crossed to the tumbled bed,
and stooping, dragged from beneath it a bag, the sort called
"telescope," and used rarely now, even by the traveling salesman, who
at one time found the sliding trunk so useful. It would "telescope,"
and being thus adjustable, lent its proportions to any sized burden
imposed upon it. Into this the girl tossed a few articles selected from
the rummage on the table, a pair of shoes gathered from more debris in
a corner, and on top a sweater and skirt, taken from a peg on the door.
All together this composed rather a pretentious assortment for the
telescope.

But the girl did not jam down the cover in that "movie" way common to
runaways, rather she paused, glanced furtively about the gloomy place,
and finally taking a candle from a very high shelf, lighted the taper,
evidently for some delicate task in the way of gathering up her very
personal belongings.

In a remote corner of the room an upturned orange box served as sort of
stand. The front was covered and festooned with a curtain, dexterously
made of a bright skirt, hung over the sides, and draped from a knot at
the top. The knot was drawn from the waist band of the skirt, and tied
with the original string into a grotesque rosette. All over the box top
were such articles as a girl might deem necessary in making a civilized
toilette, except at the knot--where the table cover irradiated its
fullness into really graceful folds, falling over the orange box-here,
on account of the knob, no article was placed, and the rosette stood
defiant over the whole surrounding.

The girl placed the candle on a spot made clear for that small round,
tin stand, and then glancing anxiously at the door, stole over to make
sure that the bolt was shot, hurried back and proceeded to untie the
knot of string responsible for the drapery over the orange box. By the
glare of the candle's flame her fingers could be seen stained with oil,
and grim, as they expertly worked at the tied-up skirt, and finally
succeeded in pulling apart the ragged folds. Quickly she slipped one
small hand beneath the calico, and, obtaining her quest, drew back to
examine it.

One, two, three green bills. Her savings and her fortune. Lights and
shadows crossing the youthful face betrayed the hopes, and fears
mingling with, such emotions as the girl lived through in this crowded
hour, but no sooner had she slipped the small roll of bills into the
flaring neck of her thin blouse, than a shaking at the door caused her
to kick the telescope bag under the bed, hastily readjust the cover of
the orange box, blow out the capering candle flame, and then open the
door. A woman young in face but old in posture scuffled in. She wore a
shawl on her head, although the season was warm April, and the
plentiful quantities of material swathed in her attire proclaimed her
foreign.

"Oh, Dagmar. I am tired," she sighed. "I thought you would come down to
fix supper for papa. You do not change your skirt? No?"

"I was going to, so I locked the door," replied the girl Dagmar. "But
I, too, was tired."

"Yes, it is so. Well, the mill is not so bad. It has a new window near
my bench, and I breathe better. But, daughter, we must go down. Keep
the door locked as you dress. Those new peoples may not tell which is
the right room." With a glance at the fair daughter, so unlike herself
in coloring, the working mother dragged herself out again, and soon
could be heard cliptrapping down the dark stairs that led to the
kitchens on the first floor of the mill workers, community lodgings.

Dagmar breathed deeply and clasped her hands tightly as her mother's
tired foottread fell to an echo. Love filled the blue eyes and an
affectionate smile wreathed the red lips.

"Poor mother!" she sighed aloud. "I hate to--"

Then again came that look of determination, and when Dagmar slipped
down the stairs she carried the telescope and her crochetted hand bag.
Her velvet tarn sat jauntily on those wonderful yellow curls, and her
modern cape flew gracefully out, just showing the least fold of her
best chiffon blouse. Dagmar wore strickly American clothes, selected in
rather good taste, and they attracted much attention in the streets of
Flosston.

Once clear of the long brown building, through which spots of light now
struck the night, out of those desperate rows and rows of machine-made
windows, Dagmar made her way straight to the corner, then turned
straight again to another long narrow street, her very steps
corresponding to that painful directness of line and plan, common to
towns made by mill-owners for their employees. Even the stars, now
pricking their way through the blue, seemed to throw down straight
lines of light on Flosston; nothing varied the mechanical exactness,
and monotonous squares and angles of streets, buildings, and high board
fences.

One more sharp turn brought the girl within sight of a square, squatty
railroad station, and as she sped toward it she caught sight of the
figure of another girl, outlined in the shadows. This figure was taller
and larger in form than herself, and as Dagmar whistled softly, the
girl ahead stopped.

"Oh, you got my note," said the other. "I am so glad. I was afraid you
would not come."

"I'm here," replied Dagmar, "bag and baggage, mostly bag," kicking the
accommodating and inoffensive telescope. "I hate to carry this thing."

"Oh, that's all right," replied the taller girl, who, under a street
lamp, showed a face older than Dagmar's and perhaps a little hard and
rough. Just that bold defiant look, so often affected by girls
accustomed to fighting their way through the everyday hardships of
walled-in surroundings.

"Tessie, I am afraid," confessed the younger girl. "I almost cried when
Mama asked me to fix supper."

"Oh, baby! You are too pretty, that's all's the matter with you. But
just wait. Hush! There's that crowd of nifty-nice, preachy, snippy
scout girls. Duck, or they'll be on our trail," and she dragged her
companion around the corner of the high fence, where, in the shadow of
its bill-posted height they crouched, until the laughing, happy girls
of True Tred Troop, just out from their early evening meeting at Sunset
Hall, over the post-office, had passed down into Elm Street.

"I think they saw us," whispered Dagmar, "I heard one girl say some one
was hiding by the signboard."

"We should worry," flippantly replied Tessie. "I guess they are too
busy thinking about their old wigwagging to notice mill girls."

"Oh, you're mean, Tessie. I think they are real nice. They always say
hello to me."

"That's because you are pretty," snubbed the older girl, with something
like common spite in her voice.

"Here they come back! Guess they lost something."

"We'd better be moving the other way, then. Pshaw! We will sure be late
if they keep up their trailing around. Come along. Just be so busy
talking to me they won't get a chance to give you their lovely hello.
It would be all up with us if they spied us." With a persuasion not
entirely welcome to Dagmar, Tessie again dragged her along, this time
turning away from the dim lights that showed through the window of
Flosston station.

Presently the group of scout girls could be heard exchanging opinions
on the possibility of finding something lost. One thought it might have
dropped in the deep gutter, another declared she would have heard it
fall if it hit the many stones along the sidewalk, and still another
expressed the view that it would be impossible to find it until
daylight, no matter where it had fallen.

"But I just got it, and wanted to wear it so much," wailed the girl
most concerned. "I think it is too mean--"

"Now, we will be sure to find it in daylight," assured the tall girl,
evidently the captain. "I will be around here before even the mill
hands pass. Don't worry, Margaret. If we don't find it, I shall send to
headquarters for another."

"But I shall never love it as I did that one," and tears were in the
voice. "Besides, think of all the lovely time we had at the
presentation!"

"Now come," softly ordered the tall girl. "No use prowling around here,
we can't see anything with matches. I promise you, Margaret, you shall
have another badge in time for the rally if we do not find this," and
reluctantly the party of searchers turned again in the direction of the
village.

Watching their opportunity, the two mill girls came out from the
shadows of the high fence they had been trusting to shield them from
the view of the scouts. With quickened step they now turned again
towards the station.

"Dear me!" exclaimed Tessie. "Haven't we had awful luck for a start?
Hope it won't follow us along."

"Well, the more we delay the more I want to go back home," Dagmar
replied rather timidly. "Tessie, I am afraid I will not be able to look
at things your way. I seem to have different ideas."

"Now, Daggie. Don't go getting scary. I don't care whether you think my
way or not. I won't fight about it. Let's hurry," and with renewed
protestations of real companionship, the older girl grasped the arm of
the younger, as if fearful of losing her hold on the other's confidence.

"Oh, please don't call me Daggie," objected Dagmar, freeing herself
from the rather too securely pressed arm grasp. "You know how I hate
that. Always makes me feel like a daggar. Call me Marrie. That's
American, and I am an American, you know."

"All right, little Liberty. I'll call you Georgianna Washington if you
say so, Marrie. That's like putting on airs for Marie. But just as you
say," evidently willing to make any concession to have the younger girl
accept her own terms.

"Wait! My foot struck something," exclaimed Dagmar, just reaching the
spot where burnt matches left the trail of the girl scout searchers.
"There, I found the badge."

"Oh, let's look! Is it gold?" They stopped under the street lamp to
examine the trinket.

"No, it isn't gold, I think, but isn't it pretty?"

"Kinda," urging Dagmar along. "Say, kid, what is this anyway? A
stopover we've Struck? Are we going tonight or some other night?"

"I'll have to give this badge back."

"Why will you? Didn't you find it? Isn't it yours?"

"Of course not. It belongs to the girl who lost it."

"Oh, I see. That's why I should call you Georgianna Washington," with a
note of scorn in her voice. "Well, if you want to go back, and get some
one to go out ringing the town bell with you, you may find the nice
little girl scout who lost her baby badge. As for me--I'm going."

Sheer contempt now sounded unmistakably in the voice of the girl called
Tessie. She shook herself free from Dagmar, and darted ahead with
determination long delayed, and consequently more forceful.

For a moment the young girl hesitated. She sort of fondled the little
scout badge in her hands, and might have been heard to sigh, if a girl
of her severely disciplined temperament ever indulged in anything so
weakly human as a sigh.

But as the fleeing girl more surely made her tracks to the station,
thus leaving the other alone in the night, Dagmar, too, quickened her
steps.

"Tessie," she called finally. "Tessie, wait. I can't go back now."

That was all Tessie wanted. She waited, and when again they took up
tangled threads of their adventure it was scarcely possible either
would allow any further interruptions to delay them.

And Dagmar clutched in her tightly clasped hand the lost scout badge.




CHAPTER II

WOODLAND THRILLS


It was Margaret Slowden who lost the Badge of Merit. The pretty gilt
wreath, with its clover leaf center on a dainty white ribbon hanger,
had been presented to Margaret on such an auspicious occasion, that the
emblem meant much more to the girl scout than its official value of
rank indicated.

The True Tred Troop of Flosston had been organized one month when
Margaret won the medal. Shortly after the holidays, an event of unusual
importance occurred in the mill town, when its small company of service
boys returned from "Over There." They were royally welcomed by the
entire town folks, together with the many officials of the silk
industries, from whose ranks the boys had marched away.

With the lads returned was Margaret's brother Tom. He was handsome and
a Marine, and well might Mrs. Slowden and Margaret take pride in the
honor their soldier brought them. On the night of the Great Welcome
Home, the scout girls, then newly organized, assisted with ushering and
attending to the platform needs of the speakers and honored heroes,
each of the latter receiving a special small, gold military cross, the
gift of the silk mill magnates. This insignia was presented by the most
famous authorities of army and navy available, and Tom Slowden was
given the special honor of a real military presentation of the D. S.
C., he being the only member of Flosston recruits to receive such a
notable tribute.

As might have been expected this gave real distinction to the Welcome
Home, and Margaret was suffused with pardonable pride. But when she
took her place in the check room, to attend to the coats and other
belongings of the distinguished visitors--she was forgotten by her
troop, and she remained there all during Tom's presentation. She never
heard a word of major's wonderful speech, when the people fairly roared
for Tom's glory. There she was, downstairs in the dark, lonely cloak
room.

"Oh, my dear!" deplored Captain Clark. "I never meant that you should
stay down here at this time."

"But it was my task," returned the melancholy Margaret.

"I would not have had you miss your brother's presentation for the
world! Such a thing can never come again. Why did you not call some of
the girls to relieve you?"

"If Tom did anything like that he could never have received the D. S.
C., and I am a Scout and pledged to honor commands," returned Margaret
nobly.

For that sacrifice she received from the same platform, one week later,
her own badge of merit, and the occasion was a real rally, with
officials from headquarters, and all the neighboring troops
participating.

Was it strange then that Margaret should lament her loss?

No other badge could actually take the place of that one, and while
Captain Clark would immediately advise headquarters of the loss, and
order a new one, the brave little scout girl would still feel she had
lost that one vested with the special presentation honors.

On the morning following the loss, the girls of True Tred were seen out
on the road so early, the station master, old Pete, hurried to his
window, and got ready for business, surmising an excursion or at least
a local convention imminent.

But no such occurrence was probable, it was only the troop out looking
for the badge, and inevitably they did not find it. Signs made by
Captain Clark were posted in the station, the post-office, and at
prominent corners, but Margaret was disconsolate. She had called her
badge the "D. S. C." because of its connection with Tom's insignia, and
though the big brother had promised the scout sister all sorts of
valuable substitutes, offering her the little hand carved box he had
brought for "another girl," and which Margaret had openly coveted, even
this did not seem adequate compensation.

All day at school the girls of True Tred planned and contrived little
favors for their unhappy sister, and it was noticeable those of the
classes who usually scoffed at the scouts and their activities, could
not well conceal their admiration for the spirit of kindliness
displayed.

The True Treds had members in the seventh and eighth grammar grades,
and the girls' ages ranged from thirteen to fifteen years. Margaret
Slowden was fifteen, Cleo Harris fourteen and Grace Philow and Madaline
Mower were thirteen. This group was most active in the scout girls'
movement, and although the organization was only three months old in
Flosston, few there were in the town who had not seen and admired the
smart little troopers, in their neat uniforms, always ready to assist
in the home or in public at any task consigned to them. It was to be
expected they would meet opposition in the way of criticism from such
girls as are always indifferent to team play, and the best interests of
the largest numbers, but the scouts knew how much they enjoyed their
troop, and realized how beneficial was the attractive training they
were receiving from its rules and regulations.

Grace and Madaline were still in the tenderfoot class, and wore the
little brooch at the neck of their blouses. Margaret and Cleo were
already in the first class, and permitted to wear the left sleeve
badge, while others showed their rank in the Tenderfoot, the first and
third class, three patrols of eight members each making up Flosston
troop.

The real work of the scouts is so interesting in character that the
writer has no idea of detracting from it, by relating the detail,
feeling the charm and significance is best expressed in a real story of
the live girls as they live their characteristic scout life.
Nevertheless, it may not be amiss to call attention here to the value
of such training given almost in play, and without question in such
attractive forms as to make character building through its influence an
ideal pastime, a valuable investment, and a complete program, for
growing girls, who may emerge from the "bundle of habits" as strong
members of society, progressive business women, or nicely trained
little helpers for the home, or for the more sheltering conditions in
whatever path of life they may be selected to tread.

That schools or even homes cannot compete with such training is
evident, when one considers that a girl is creative, and should have
ample chance to develop her character without force or rigid self
defacing, instead of self creating rules; also it must be apparent that
guidance is only successful when imposed gently, and with that subtle
persuasion, ever aiming to show the result of correct training, and
thus affording the principles of freedom for selection, with a
knowledge of what that selection will result in.

What sensible girl will deliberately choose to go her own careless way,
when she realizes that nothing satisfactory can be expected from such a
choice, and that the very freedom coveted makes her a slave to the most
cruel limits of prospects or attainments?

But we will not sermonize; even at this distance we may hold out the
strong arm of influence, assuring our readers that the highest aims of
writers and publishers are for the advancement of the younger girls,
whose minds, for the moment, are entrusted to our keeping.

Coming back to our group of Girl Scouts, now holding conclave in the
school yard of Flosston grammar grades, we find Grace and Madeline
forming themselves into a committee of two, with the avowed intention
of getting lip a hiking party for their own special benefit. These
younger girls must soon undergo the test necessary for their
qualification as second class scouts, and a hike on this lovely spring
afternoon would aid them greatly in acquiring the outdoor knowledge
necessary.

Margaret was rather inclined to dissent when the jaunt was proposed,
she did not feel quite as hiky as usual, and she promptly remembered
she had promised her mother some assistance in the little kitchen
garden both were developing.

"Oh, come on," pleaded Grace. "If you say you want to go, I am sure
Captain Clark will agree. I know where we can get the loveliest
watercress."

This lure won Margaret, who had now fully recovered her scout cheer,
and was trying bravely to forget the loss of her cherished badge".

"Mother loves watercress," she conceded, "and I would go, if we are
sure to be back by five. I have to go call for the mail before dark."

"Oh, goody-good!" sang out Grace. "Now I can surely get my nature work
all nicely covered. I'll tell Madaline. She is over there coaxing
Cleo," and with a risky flourish of her red tie, a hop, skip and a
jump, the Tenderfoot pranced across the big green schoolyard, in a
fashion that belied her limitations on the tenderfoot basis.

"Yes, I'll go," Cleo was agreeing, "but I am afraid we can't get
Captain Clark. I know she is going out to Kingsley to form a troop.
Maybe we can get Lieutenant Lindsley. She is free from Normal at four.
They have a lecture after two-thirty almost every day."

"Oh, Lieutenant Lindsley would be lots of fun. She knows everything in
hill and dale, and is not afraid of snakes or cows. But do you think we
should notify the other girls? It is rather hard to get in touch with
them in time," Grace ranted on.

By this time Margaret and Madaline had joined the group, and now all
the scouts in seventh and eighth grammar grades were discussing plans
for the precipitous hike. There were Mable Blake, also a tenderfoot,
Adaline Allen and Mildred Clark, second grades, and the McKay twins,
first class scouts. All of these willingly agreed to make the foot trip
out to the Falls.

The afternoon school session received scant attention from the
prospective hikers, the Tenderfoots especially being absorbed in the
prospects of a spring afternoon in the woods.

So interested were Grace and Madaline they exchanged preparatory notes
in the five minute rest period, although that time was set aside for
real relaxation, and no one was supposed to use eyes or fingers during
the short rest.

When school was finally dismissed the girls arranged to pass the homes
of most of the group, as many of them lived on the same Oakley Avenue,
and thus notify parents of their scout plans for the hike, and when
Lieutenant Lindsley was eventually picked up from the practicing
department of the Normal School, the ranks were filled, and the hike
moved off towards the River Road.

It was a glorious afternoon, in late April. The peach blossoms were
just breaking into pink puff balls, and the pear trees were burdened
with a crop of spring "snow," fragrant in their whitest of dainty
blossoms.

But the still life beauties were not more attractive than the joyous,
happy, romping girls, who capered along from the more noisy town
streets, into the highways and byways of the long green stretch of
country leading to the river brink, and to the woods on its border.

"I'm going to do something really great," declared Grace. "I don't care
just what it is, but I want to have a real record, when I am called up
to take my degree test. I am not afraid of anything in daylight, so
beware! I may do something very desperate and rash this afternoon."

"Spare us," pleaded Madaline. "I have seen some of our courage worked
out in the woods before. Remember the time you nearly set fire to the
river? Well, don't, please, go try anything like that today."

"No, it must be something for which I should receive a badge of
courage, if I were in the first class. I want to blush with fitting
modesty when Captain Clark invests me with the next degree, and I shall
only blush when reminded of my noble deed this afternoon."

"Since you are not particular about what deed shall be the noble one,
won't you just give me a hand, and help me save this heel of mine from
a blistering shoe? The shoe was all right in school, but just now it
has picked up a snag, somehow, and between the shoe and the snag, my
life is not worth living."

"Poor Madie," soothed her chum. "Let us sit right down here and
diagnose the case. I'm first rate at diagnosing anything but why my
bureau can't stay fixed. It has chronic upsettedness, and all my
operations are of no avail. There go the girls down into the hazel nut
gully. Let's sit on this lovely mossy couch, and look after the heel.
Doesn't moss grow beautifully smooth under the cedars? I wonder how it
ever gets so velvety?"

At the twined and natural woven seat, wrought from the uncovered roots
of a great hemlock, the girls caressed and patted the velvet moss that
formed a veritable carpet--no--it was softer than carpet, a silken
velvet throw, over a natural cedar divan. Even the suffering heel was
forgotten, in the joy of nature study, in green, with the darker green
canopy of cedars, and the music of a running river at the foot of the
sloping hill. Here the scent of watercress vied with the hemlock and
cedar, for its place as nature's perfume, and only such mingling of
wild ferns, trailing arbutus, budding bush, and leafing vine, could
produce the aroma of incense that just then permeated the woody glen.

"Don't let the girls get too far away from us," cautioned Madeline. "I
wouldn't like to get really lost, even for the joke of having you find
me, Gracie."

"But you would do a little thing like that to help me out on my
personal bravery stunt?" teased her companion. "I wonder why only the
first class girls are permitted to do all those wonderful things and
get all the really high honors?"

"Because they have gone through all the necessary trials and
examinations," replied Madaline sagely. "You and I can get credit for
our deeds, but we must show our full records to get the highest B. C.
That's fair. You can't make a major out of a private. He has got to go
up by degrees."

"Well, maybe it is fair, but I just love the glory of presentations. I
am so sorry for Margaret. I would have dug up the town today to find
that Merit Badge she lost last night."

"I like the way she braved it out, though," added Madaline. "She felt
badly enough, and it did mean so much to her," finished the sympathetic
scout.

"Oh, yes, I suppose so," rather reluctantly agreed the ambitious Grace.
"But I shouldn't relish the feeling that some grimy mill girl was
wearing the badge in a smoky factory."

"Oh, Grace, shame! That's not scouty. You must not speak so of the mill
girls. We hope to take some of them in our troop before long. We would
have no right to public support if we did not do something definite for
others, and the mill girls have so few chances. So don't, Gracie dear,
ever speak like that again."

"I won't if you say so, also if it isn't scouty. I am out to win the
goal, and I don't mind what I may have to do to get my scout good
conduct ball into the official basket. Now, how's the heel? Did the
little pad of soft leaves help to keep the pressure off?"

"Yes, that was a fine idea, and I shall see to it that some day, when
original work is called for, you get credit for the nature-aid heel
pad. Rather a clumsy title, but when we explain how easy it is to get
soft leaves to make pads for suffering feet, I am sure it will be
welcome news to many an ambitious hiker."

"Oh, Madie dear," suddenly exclaimed Grace. "Where are the girls gone?
They are not in the hazel nut clump, and I can't hear a sound!"

"Oh, my! Suppose they have gone looking for us the other way?"

Both girls in alarm, now scurried through the woods, calling and giving
the "Coo-ee" call, but not a sound answered them. Birds were flitting
about from limb to branch, and the strange stillness of the woods
frightened the little Tenderfoots.

"You go along the bank, and I'll scour the elderberry patch. This wood
is so dense in spots, and so clear under the hemlocks, it is easy to
lose and hard to find anyone in it," declared Grace. "I'm glad I
brought my big rope. I intended to tie every knot in the course, and
cut them all out to fetch back finished, and I haven't even unwound the
rope."

"If there is anything easier than getting lost in the woods it must be
getting caught at whispering in the eighth grade," grumbled Madaline.
"I wish my old heel had behaved itself."

"And all the plans for my brave stunt gone to naught," put in the now
breathless Grace. "I would never have made up the hike if I had not
determined to get a glory mark out of it. Now see where we are! Miles
from home, and darkness coming on at each end. Where could those girls
have gone to?"

"Sure as shooting they have gone on searching for us. There's the
reservoir road, going in the opposite direction, and also Chestnut
Hill. To go either of those roads meant getting entirely away from the
foolish little scouts who stopped to chatter and chin. Just shows what
we can do when we don't know we shouldn't."

For some moments they brushed their way through the thicket, beating
down briars with their stout sticks, then coming to a broad clearance
they found themselves in a great grove of pines, clean as a floor,
except for the layer of savory pine needles, and almost dark as night
from the density of the pine canopies.

"My, how lovely!" exclaimed Grace.

"Yes, if we could only enjoy it," demurred Madaline.

"Grace! What's that? Over under that thick tree!"

"A man! Let's run!"

"And there is a big bag beside him," whispered Grace. "See the things
sticking out of it!"

"No, I don't want to see anything. Run, I tell you!"

"Wait! Maybe I could make this my bravery act. Suppose I tie him with
my strong rope?"

"Grace Philow! Are you crazy?" and the more frightened girl attempted
to drag the other away. "Please--don't speak loud. If he wakes I shall
die."

"No, don't you dare! Just keep still. I am going to see if I can tie up
one town tramp. There are plenty loose, and this is my golden
opportunity!"




CHAPTER III

A NOBLE DEED UNDONE


"Now Grace! If you attempt to go near that dreadful man I shall scream
and wake him up," threatened Madaline, in real alarm.

"No, you won't either. You would be afraid to. Hush, keep still. I want
to see if I can lasso his old bag. Wouldn't it be fine if I could
rescue Mrs. Johnston's washing? You know it was stolen off her line two
nights ago." With this the daring girl stole up more closely to the
sleeping figure.

The quiet lull of the flowing river, as it fell over a little cascade,
was acting as a potential lullaby to the wayfarer at the foot of the
tree. His figure was grotesque, but at the distance the girls were
viewing him from it was not possible to discern more than a figure--it
might be that of almost any sort of a man, for all they could tell.

Grace untied her nice clean coil of rope, while Madaline besought her
in every kind of cabalistic sign she could summon to her aid, to desist
in her reckless intention of tieing the man to the tree. But the
temptation was evidently too much for the frolicsome Grace, for as
Madaline cast a wild eye over her shoulder in her flight from the spot,
she could just see Grace, tip-toeing up to that figure.

A few seconds later came a stifled cry!

"Wait, oh, Madie, wait!" called Grace, and, stopping in the briar path,
Madaline glimpsed the imperturbable Grace, making her way through the
thicket and dragging something heavy behind her!

"Mercy me!"' exclaimed Madaline. "What can she be tugging along!"

"Wait, help me!" now called Grace in a bolder voice.

"No, I will not! Grace Philow, are you crazy?" gasped Madaline.

"Crazy, not at all," sang out Grace in a laughing voice. "I've got it!"

"Got what?" Madaline cried anxiously.

"Mrs. Johnston's wash!"

"Oh, Grace, you will get us both arrested."

"For recovering stolen property! You have a fine sense of scout laws,"
Grace retorted. "If you don't help me get out of the briars I shall
report you to the captain--if we ever find her," and another laugh
grated on the frightened ears of Madaline.

"I can't help you, Grace," Madaline replied in a more conciliatory
tone. "The briars are so thick here, they almost tore off my shoe--it
is not laced tight, you know."

"Well, they are tearing up Mrs. Johnston's wash," admitted Grace, still
tagging at the trailing bag, that could not be seen in the thicket and
brambles she dragged it over.

"Oh, Grace! There he comes!" screamed Madaline, as a moving figure
could be outlined in the shadows of the low brush, and tall swamp berry
trees, that just towered high enough to hide the form that bent and
broke the impeding young birches. It was the swish and motion of the
brush that indicated his advance and location.

"Mercy!" yelled Grace, alarmed now in spite of her boasted courage.
"Let's run. But I won't drop this wash. I don't care if he follows me
into the post-office for it," and at that, she gave the rope one more
terrific jerk, the force of which brought the trailing obstacle out
into the path where it had a clear track to follow the girl, who held
madly to the other end of the rope.

No words were wasted as the girls scampered and scurried through that
wood. Grace held firmly to the rope, and could feel that it still
dragged her quarry, while Madaline never turned her head to see whether
or not the pursuing man was at their heels. That they had not been
struck down was enough, to be thankful for, thought Madaline.

And in all of this, no trace of the other members of the hiking party
was discovered. More than once the girls heard something they decided
ought to be their "Coo-ee" call, but each time it turned out to be
nothing more friendly than the astonished birds, either laughing at the
scouts, or rooting for their successful escape from the pursuer.

Beaching the big rock that covered the path, and always had to be
climbed over "by hand," the girls scrambled up, then down, and when
Grace gave a necessarily vigorous tug at her rope it sprang up to her
face in a real caress! In fact it actually coiled around her like a
friendly thing.

Mrs. Johnston's wash was gone!

"Oh, he grabbed it!" wailed Grace. "He got hold of my rope when we had
to stop to make the rock and now--he has got it again!"

"Don't you dare stop one minute!" panted Madaline. "You have almost
murdered us as it is," she proclaimed in her excitement, which always
banished her ordinarily sparse supply of reasonable language.

"Nice way you help a sister," mocked Grace. "I thought you were going
to help me win honors," and she gathered up her delinquent rope with a
much disturbed expression on her pretty face.

"I think I have helped you save your life, if you only knew it,"
Madaline managed to articulate. "The idea--"

"All the same I did tie him up," admitted Grace, bolder now that she
could see the end of the woods. "I don't see how he got loose. I used
the running bow-line, and a couple of clove hitches. Our old knots came
in useful, but they didn't hold evidently. Hark! Wasn't that a whistle!
Sounded like Margaret's trill."

"Yes, and it's away over on the Avenue. Whatever will Captain Clark
say?"

"Now, Madie, you just promise you will say nothing about my man and
Mrs. Johnston's wash. I tried to do something noble and it didn't pan
out, so if you are a good little pal, and a first rate sport, you will
keep mam as a clam, won't you, please, Madie?"

"Well, since it did not end in a tragedy I suppose I may keep quiet
without breaking honor, but you know, Gracie, I am six months older
than you, and I would be held accountable at a trial."

"Don't you fret," and Grace was now shaking her curly head and throwing
her blazing cheeks up to the clearance light, with, renewed defiance.
"I certainly had a lovely time while it lasted."

"There are the girls!" exclaimed Madaline joyously. "It would have been
dreadful if they were obliged to go all the way into Flosston without
us. They would have come back with the mill bell man looking for us."

"Whoo-hoo!! Coo-ee, Coo-ee!!" trilled Grace, and back came the welcome
answer.

"Coo-ee! Coo-ee! Whoo-hoo!"

Realizing the lost was found, Lieutenant Lindsley stood on top of the
little hill, just over the turn of the macadam road, that outlined
Oakley Avenue, the one street of distinction that ran through the
country and gave tone to little Flosston on its way. She was an
attractive figure standing there in her plain serge suit, and soft
tam-o'-shanter on her finely poised head, and even at a distance one
would be correct in describing Romaine Lindsley as an attractive,
fine-looking young girl.

Around her were the other members of the hiking party, all of whom had
come to an abrupt halt, at the call of Grace and Madaline from the
woodlands.

"Don't run to meet them," cautioned the lieutenant, "that might mean
another mixup," and she gave a double quick trill to notify the
delinquents they were expected to report promptly. "After all there
appears to be no harm done, other than the loss of an afternoon's
sport."

"But I did not get my watercress," wailed Winnie, the blonde of the
McKay twins.

"And I lost a perfectly good side comb mother just received from
Philadelphia," complained Cleo. "I wanted this kind and could not get
them around here. Now one is lost and the other useless."

"But we must not complain, Cleo," admonished the lieutenant pleasantly.
"It isn't good scouting, you know."

By this time the runaways, or lost sheep, had caught up with the
awaiting contingent. That they would be deluged with questions, and all
but stampeded for answers, was to be expected.

"It was an accident," Grace managed to inject finally. "Madie's foot
went blistered--and I hunted around for some--some medicated leaves,"
this was said in an apologetic tone, "and when the heel was all fixed
we were thoroughly lost."

Madaline sighed and smiled alternately, and agreed without venturing to
say so.

"Well, we are glad you met with no mishap," declared the lieutenant, to
whom girls lost in the woods was not a new adventure. "We were going
back for you just now. The trouble was we took the left road to look
for you, when, of course, you were hugging due right. Didn't you see
our trail?"

"Yes, after we struck it," responded spokes-man Grace. "We were so deep
in the cedar grove we had no chance to strike trails. Oh, girls, you
should see the wonderful picnic grounds we discovered!" she enthused,
with the very evident intention of getting Madaline's mind off the man
and the bag of wash. "It is a perfect little park, all carpeted with
pine needles, and canopied with the loveliest trees--"

"All right, Grace," cut in the lieutenant. "But come along. We must be
making tracks. No time just now for a panoramic view. We will certainly
have to take this hike all over again to compensate the girls for their
disappointment. However, no doubt we have learned something."

"You bet," Grace whispered to Madaline, as she fell into step for the
homeward march. "I learned that the bow-line will slip."

"Hush," begged Madaline. "I am not sure yet but that--you know--may be
after us."

"Wish it--you know, was," defied the other.

"What ever were you two up to?" asked Margaret, falling back to take
step with the refugees. "I am sure you were never fixing a single foot
all that time."

"We each had feet, you know," Grace quickly made answer. "And really
there are the most interesting things in that wood. I am going back
first chance--"

"You do!" threatened Madaline, with a glance Grace rightfully
interpreted. "I will never, as long as I live, go into the Cedar grove
again. It's too scary for words."

"I loved it," drawled Grace. "I am going again. See if I don't. Want to
come, Maggie?"

"Maybe, but just now I want an alibi for mother's promised watercress.
Grace, you are a great scout! You lure us all out here, with the most
tempting offer of prize watercress, and here we go home with a bunch of
last year's cattails. What shall we say to all our loved mothers, who
allowed us to cut house work for this wonderful afternoon?" asked
Margaret.

"Say that I, Grace Gollivar Philow, will go back first chance I get,
and fetch watercress for the whole community. Only next time I go, I am
going to fetch a gun--"

Margaret laughed, but Madaline shivered. Scout girls were supposed to
know how to use a gun, but fortunately Grace was still in the
Tenderfoot class. Perhaps before she could possibly get permission to
try gunning, she would have outgrown her tendency to capture tramps
with ostensibly stolen washes. Madaline sincerely hoped so.

When almost in town Grace gained an opportunity to whisper to Madaline:

"Now remember, Madie. Never a word. I am not sure my man got away, you
know. He may be tied up there yet. And also, I may get someone to go
with me and reclaim Mrs. Johnston's wash. I know about where it broke
loose."




CHAPTER IV

PATHS DIVIDING


But the happenings in the woods were quickly forgotten, at least so far
as the scout girls were concerned, by the unexpected development in the
case of the two girls, Dagmar and Tessie, who had stolen out of
Flosston.

In that section of the town where the girls lived, the Americanized
foreigners had little in common with such families as those of the
girls of True Tred Troop. In fact, few happenings in the mill community
ever reached the ears of the so-called "swells," that inappropriate
term being applied to those whose fathers held some executive position
in the great silk industries of Flosston.

Thus it was easy to understand why the scouts had heard nothing next
day of the mysterious disappearance of Dagmar and Tessie.

A contrary situation existed in Millville, however. Here the families
of both girls were causing a search to be made in that peculiar fashion
of confusion and excitement, usually ending in making the condition
more complicated, and giving rise to absolutely no clues worthy of
attention.

Mrs. Brodix, Dagmar's mother, good, kind mother that she was, spent her
time wringing her hands and rolling her big black eyes, otherwise in
extolling the hitherto undiscovered virtues of the lost daughter.

In her distress she forsook the English tongue, and lapsed into a
conglomeration of Polish and Yiddish made intelligible only through the
plentiful interpretation of dramatic gesticulation.

"Oh, my beautiful Dagmar!" she wailed. "It is that vile street runner
Theresa, who has carried her away!" was the burden of her lamentations.

"The smartest girl in all Millville was my Tessie," insisted Mrs.
Wartliz. "It was that baby-faced kitten, Dagmar Brodix, who coaxed her
off. She would earn as much money as me" (good enough English for Mrs.
Wartliz), "and she had money in the bank, too."

It was probably this last fact that really led the girls to seek what
they considered was a broader field for their talent. If Tessie's money
in the bank had been a joint account with her mother's name, she would
not have been able to draw out the funds for her escapade, but what did
Mrs. Wartliz know about such supervision for a daughter, who was
absorbing America at one end--the attractions--and ignoring America at
the other--honorable conduct?

What actually happened was this. When Dagmar ran after Tessie, who was
threatening to leave her to her own resources, that dark night when
both had planned to shake the dust of Millville from their well worn
shoes, the older girl finally agreed to take Dagmar along if "she would
quit her babying, and act decent."

"Now the train is gone," scolded Tessie, "and we have to take that
horrid old jitney out to the junction. Like as not we will meet some
one who will squeal on us."

"Tessie," pleaded Dagmar, afraid to speak, and fearful of the
consequences if she did not make her appeal. "Why can't we go to
Franklin? There is a fine mill there and it is nearer home--"

"Say kid" exclaimed the rougher girl, "if you want to go home you have
a swell chance right now, but if you want to come with me quit simping
and come," and she picked up her own bag in bad temper, gave her
brilliant scarf a twist and started off for the jitney, leaving Dagmar
to take the unattractive choice she had just mentioned.

Dagmar was too frightened to notice the grimy mill hands who were
crowded into the old bus, making their way to another settlement in
search of an evening's recreation, but Tessie slunk deep down in her
corner, burying her face in her scarf and hiding her eyes with her tam.
She knew better than to run the risk of having her cross father
discover her in flight. After she had succeeded in getting away Lonzo
Wartliz would not spend time to go after her, but while she was "on the
wing," so to speak, he would have no trouble in bringing her back. A
day's time from the mill would be too costly a sacrifice to make, while
a police call to "fetch back my girl" would cost him nothing. Also
there was the thought that Tessie might fix it at home by sending a
letter filled with glowing promises of good money--but she would
require at least one day to mail her promise to Flosston.

So Dagmar sat with a melancholy expression on her face while Tessie hid
her silent chuckles in her wearing apparel.

"Here we are," whispered the latter, as the jitney jolted to a
standstill. "Don't forget your Saratoga."

Dagmar dragged the hated "telescope" after her, as she dropped down
from the rickety high steps of the old motor wagon. It was very dark
now, and she was more frightened than she had any idea of betraying to
her companion. "Come on, kid," called the other. "We have got to hunt
up something. We may not get out of this great white way to-night."

"Oh, Tessie! How could we stay in a place like this?"

"Just like the other folks. Do you think they are goin' to spread out a
wedding canopy for you? Oh, be a sport, Daggie. Tomorrow is yet to
come."

The training this young girl had received in the local movies was now
developing in a rather dangerous way. She was breathing heavily in her
new found adventure, she was out alone, or as good as alone, in a
strange place on a dark night, and perhaps she would be kidnapped? In
spite of the danger Tessie fairly thrilled with the possibility, and it
was with a very pronounced degree of scorn that she regarded her weaker
companion.

Not that the "movies" were exerting any better influence on Dagmar. In
fact it had been their uncertain propaganda that first created in her
breast the feeling of unrest, that first told her Millville was mean,
shabby, and an unfit place for an ambitious girl to try to exist in.
Her very love for her mother and father, to say nothing of her
affection for the other members of her family, seemed a spur to her
ambition "to get away and be somebody."

But the getting away was by no means the pleasant dream she had
pictured it. Here they were, two young, inexperienced girls in a
strange town, without the slightest knowledge of how they might find a
safe place in which to stay for a single night, and even they, with
their minds open for adventure, realized how promptly trouble comes to
those who openly seek it.

"Let's go down this street and see what it runs into," suggested
Tessie. "Hope it doesn't flop off into a ditch."

"I think we ought to ask someone," put in Dagmar.

"Ask them what?" rudely demanded Tessie.

"Where we can go for the night? Are you sure we can't get a train? We
could sleep in the cars."

"Oh, say, you want a Pullman, you do, the kind we see go by the factory
with the coons all dolled up in dish towels," she sneered, now
seemingly set upon making things as unpleasant as possible for poor,
little, frightened Dagmar. But the latter was not altogether a coward,
and the blustering tone of Tessie was not too deep to penetrate. Dagmar
pulled herself together and dropped the "telescope."

"You may do as you please, Miss Wartliz," she exclaimed. "But I am not
going to tramp these streets all night. I don't want to end up in a
nice little rat-ridden police cell. We don't have rats over our way."

"And I suppose we do. Well, Miss Smarty, what do you propose to do?
Maybe you wouldn't mind letting your friend in on the game!"

"You know, Tessie, I don't mind slang, and I am not a goody-good, but I
am nervous, and I think we would get along better if we both dropped
that street stuff. It gets on my nerves."

"Oh, my sakes alive! Gettin' nerves!" and she dropped her voice into
the deepest tones of contempt. "I might-a known it. You would be apt to
have them with that face. Well, kid, what do you want to do? I don't
see no hospital for nerves out this way."

"Tessie! See that man!"

"Sure I do. He's a cop, too. Stop your whimpering and trot along. We're
goin' to grandma's," and Tessie grabbed the arm of the trembling Dagmar
as she started off with a determined step, indicating a particular
objective being sought for.

But the officer of the law could distinguish runaway girls without a
full confession from their painted lips. And he promptly started after
them.

"He's followin' us," whispered Dagmar.

"As if I thought he was playin' hop-scotch," scoffed the tantalizing
one. "Keep movin', we will give his legs a treat, even if he intends to
beat us out."

And they did walk very briskly indeed--all the more reason why the
officer should follow them!

"Makes me think of tryin' to get away from a strange dog," Tessie had
the temerity to interject. "The faster we ran the surer he is to keep
snappin'."

"He is sure to catch us," Dagmar said. "Why don't you stop and ask him
where we can go?"

"You poor simp. Want him to tell you?" and she almost laughed outright.

"Wait--a minute--wait--a minute!" came the summons. "What's your big
hurry?"

They both stopped. Each knew enough for that. The man of the law,
shaking that treacherous stick on its red cord, was now beside them. He
pushed his cap back to make sure nothing interfered with his gaze. This
he fixed scrutinizingly on the two girls. Dagmar flinched, but Tessie
smiled in a foolish attempt to gain his good will.

"Where are you two trottin' off to all alone?" he asked finally.

"We're goin' to grandma's," said Tessie, so ridiculously that she
almost burst out laughing. She had no idea the answer would sound so
silly.

"Oh! you be," he returned, his voice thick with irony. "Is the old lady
expectin' you?"

"Well, we didn't say we would be there tonight," Tessie had the
audacity to reply.

"No, I thought not," and he twirled that formidable stick almost into
Dagmar's scared face. "Well, shall we send her word?"

"Oh, we can find our way," put in Tessie again, attempting to start off.

"Maybe so. But here in Franklin we have a curfew law, and we don't
allow little girls out alone so late."

"No?" sneered Tessie. "Lovely town. We expect to take the rest cure
here."

"Now, my young lady," in severe tones, "I'll show you where we give
that self same cure. Come--along--with--me!"

Quick as a wink Tessie grabbed her bag, and started to run. The officer
was so surprised he required a moment to realize she was running away.
When he did he sounded his whistle.

And there stood Dagmar, alone, and as the "movies" say, "Forsaken!"

"Oh, Tessie," she called weakly. "Come back. You have my pocketbook!"

But the fleeing girl did not stop to listen to Dagmar's cry or to the
shrill whistle the officer again sent out into the night. She was
making tracks so successfully, the minion of the law knew very well his
whistle would never summon help--the only other officer in town being
"out of town" to his personal knowledge. So Tessie went, and with her
Dagmar's pocketbook and the Girl Scout Badge!




CHAPTER V

A FRIENDLY ENEMY


"Now, don't you worry, little girl. You are not like that one running
away. I can see that by your manner," said the officer kindly, as
Dagmar pressed her handkerchief to her wet eyes. "I don't have to take
you to the calaboose, unless I set fit, and I don't."

He touched her arm kindly. Jim Cosgrove hated to see anyone cry, and
his kind heart never seemed to interfere with the fulfillment of his
duty. When he was kind he had reason to be, and never yet had the
higher officials questioned his wisdom.

"Oh, thank you," said Dagmar, when she could find the words. "We
haven't done anything wrong."

"Well, it isn't exactly right for young girls to run away from home,
and I don't have to wait for all the particulars to decide that is what
you are both aiming to do. However, let us go along. My wife doesn't
mind takin' a girl in now and then, to save her name from the records."

Dagmar breathed easier. She might even find a place to sleep! Why
hadn't Tessie waited?

In spite of the rather unpleasant situation, there was comfort in the
thought she would not have to go to some dreadful hotel, or boarding
house, and perhaps undergo all the hardships dealt out to runaways in
the "pictures." So Dagmar walked along with the officer, unmindful of
the sharp looks of the few passersby who happened to be out in that
section of the rather quiet town.

"Of course you will go straight back home in the morning?" asked and
answered the officer.

"Oh, I did so want to try something else," almost pleaded the girl.
"You see, mister, it is awful in the mill end of Flosston."

"Not very good, I'll admit," replied he, "but it will be my duty to
send you back."

They walked along in silence after that brief conversation. Dagmar was
thinking how difficult it would be to go back home on the morrow, and
in the company of an officer! As if the man divined her thoughts, he
said presently:

"We will see how we make out when we get to my house. My old woman is
as good a help to me as the other man on the post, and better. She
helps me a lot with the girls, and I often say she should have had a
uniform. Maybe we can fix it so she will take you back home."

"Oh, that would be better," replied Dagmar. "I would hate to go with a
man."

"Course you would and I don't blame you. But I must hurry and put you
up with Mary. If I don't find your pal I will have to give the word to
the next town. Can't have a girl like that running around loose all
night."

"I wish she had stayed. Tessie is--not really wild, but she has so much
freedom at home. All her folks seem to care for about her is her money."

"Lots of folks are foolish as that, then they have to spend a good lot
to make up for getting a little. And the funny part of it is, the
girls, who seem so wise, are the easiest fooled. Now, she acted like a
real grown-up, but I'll bet my badge she would go along with the first
person who offered her a hot pancake for breakfast. They have so much
nerve it dries up all their common sense."

"I do wish she had not run away. She is always making fun of me and
calling me a baby. But I think, as you say, mister, it is better not to
have too much nerve."

"You're right, girl. But here we are. Don't you be the least bit afraid
of my wife. She is big and blustery, but has a heart of gold."

The rugged outside of this man evidently hid a heart of his own not far
from pure gold, and Dagmar could not help thinking he was the nicest
policeman she had ever heard of, and that she had encountered him
seemed nothing short of wonderfully good luck.

Turning in at the gate, which even in the night could be seen to form a
little arch in vines and bushes, Officer Cosgrove tapped lightly on the
door, which was opened before the echo of his last tap had died away.

"Here we are, Mary," he announced to the woman standing in the portal.
"I just brought you a little girl--who--is lost. Take care of her while
I go after the--other. She didn't take so kindly to Jim as this one
did," and with a friendly little push, he ushered Dagmar into the
narrow hall, and turned out into the roadway, from whence his light
footfall could immediately be heard hurrying over the cinder-covered
path.

"Come in, girl," ordered Mrs. Cosgrove. "What happened to you?"

Dagmar was bewildered. What had happened to her? What should she answer!

"I am--away--from home," she managed to reply. "The officer said I
could go back tomorrow."

The inadequacy of her reply sounded foolish even to Dagmar, but she was
constrained to feel her way. She could never blurt out the fact that
she had actually run away from home!

"Oh, I see," said Mrs. Cosgrove with a tone of uncertainty. "Run away,
eh?"

"Yes'm," said Dagmar defencelessly.

"Too bad. Didn't your folks treat you right?"

"Oh, yes," hurried Dagmar to correct any such impression as that
question conveyed. "But I wanted to help them--all, and I thought
I--could!"

Tears were running over now, and Dagmar's courage was at lowest ebb.
The motherly woman took the ever-present "telescope," and setting it
down in a corner of the pleasant room, directed Dagmar to a chair near
the little stove, in which a small light glowed, quite suitably opposed
to the chill of early spring.

"Just sit down and I'll get you a bite. Of course you are hungry."

"Not very," gulped the girl, who had not tasted food since she snapped
the cover on her lunch box that eventful noon day, when the girl,
having agreed with Tessie to leave Milltown, had eaten the dark bread
and bologna, for what she supposed would be the last time. So Dagmar
was hungry, although her emotion for the time was choking her, and
hiding the pangs of actual hunger.

"All the same tea tastes good when we use up nerves," insisted the
woman, leaving the room, and presently clicking dishes and utensils in
the kitchen. Left alone for a moment Dagmar recovered her composure and
glanced about the room. It seemed almost fragrant in its clean
freshness. She had never occupied such a room, with that peculiar,
bracing atmosphere. The small mantel with its prim vases looked a
veritable home shrine, and the center table with the sprigs of budding
lilacs, seemed to the forlorn girl something to reverence. The rag rugs
under her feet were so spotless, the curtains so white--it suddenly
occurred to the girl these things could not exist in the smoke and grim
of a mill town. It was the mill--always the mill found to blame for her
misery.

"Come on, girl--what is your name?" came a voice from the kitchen.

Dagmar responded and took her place at the table with its white
oilcloth cover, and a snowy napkin neatly smoothed under the one plate
set for her.

"Molly has gone to Flosston to a Girl Scout meeting," announced Mrs.
Cosgrove, helping Dagmar to a dish of home-made pork and beans. "She
loves the Scout affairs, and wouldn't miss a rally, even if she has to
come home a little late. Martin, that's my boy, will meet her at the
jitney."

"Gone to Flosston?" repeated Dagmar. "That's where I came from--that is
the corner we call Milltown, it is out where the factories are."

"Oh, I know the town well. Not too nice in spots. But start right in.
Drink your tea and eat up your bread and jelly. I'll finish what I was
at, and be back by the time you have cleaned your plate."

Dagmar realized this action was taken out of sheer delicacy. And she
was very thankful to be left alone with her food. After all it was not
so bad to be arrested, if all jail sentences were served in such nice
clean kitchens, thought the girl.

But the reflection of a girl scout meeting at Flosston, and the
stinging memory of the honor badge, picked up that night and carried
off by the reckless Tessie, would torture her in spite of the more
important issues in the girl's experience.

Where would Tessie go? Where would she stay and what would become of
her? No doubt, as the officer had remarked, such a girl would easily
become the prey of the unscrupulous, and at this thought Dagmar
shuddered. What dreadful things always happen to runaway girls in the
movies? Again the standard asserted its power.

Next moment the opening door announced Mrs. Cosgrove was back, and
Dagmar had "cleaned her plate."

"There now, you will feel better," and the woman quickly gathered up
the tea dishes. "Come in the other room, and tell me your story before
Jim comes back; sometimes a woman can help a girl more than a man can,
and, as Jim says, I am sort of a wedge between the law and the victim,"
and she laughed lightly at the idea of interfering with her husband's
business.

Dagmar told her story. She did not spare herself or attempt to cover
her mistakes. She had left home because she was tired of Milltown and
because she thought she would be better able to help her folks by
getting out of the factory. Yes, she had listened to Tessie, and Tessie
was different. Her mother allowed her out late nights, and had no
objections to her going to dances in the factory hall, without brother
or father. When Dagmar went her brother Frank always accompanied her.

"Well, that's encouraging," spoke Mrs. Cosgrove when Dagmar paused.
"When folks have that much sense you can always talk to them. Now, when
Molly comes we will talk it over with her. I wouldn't mind leaving off
my work to-morrow, although I did plan to clean the cellar, and I could
go out and see your mother--that is, if Molly thought there would be a
chance for work for you here, and perhaps we could fix it so you could
stay for a while anyway. I don't believe it would do you good to go
right back in that crowd again. What you need is new chums."

"Oh, I couldn't give you all that trouble," objected Dagmar. "I am
willing to go right back in the morning."

"It's right you should say so," continued the wise woman, "but you see,
my girl, when you go back, you get right in the same rut again, and all
those mill girls would just make life miserable for you. I am not
encouraging you to stay away from home, but as Molly says, she is a
leader in the scout girls you know--she always says when a thing goes
wrong in one place it is best to try it in another. That is if the
thing must be done, and, of course, you must work. However, wait until
Molly comes in. She has learned so much since she has tried to teach
others that I do believe she knows more than I do."

"You say she is a scout lieutenant?"

"Yes, they only take girls eighteen or over for that office and my
Molly was eighteen two days before she was elected," and at the thought
Mrs. Cosgrove indulged in a satisfactory chuckle.

It was all very bewildering to Dagmar, but just how it happened that
she did not return to Flosston immediately was due to a very
interesting plan made by Molly and co-operated in by her official
father, and finally worked out by the near-official mother.




CHAPTER VI

A NOVEL JAIL


Thus it was that the girl scouts of Flosston and Lieutenant Molly
Cosgrove of Franklin stumbled over the same case of a sister in need.

Returning from the big rally at the County Headquarters on that
eventful evening, Molly Cosgrove found more than her usual hot cup of
tea awaiting her. There was the strange young girl with the wonderful
blue eyes, around which a telltale pink rim outlined the long silky
lashes.

Molly thought she had never seen a prettier girl, while in turn Dagmar
decided Molly Cosgrove was the very biggest, dearest, noblest girl she
had ever seen. Formalities over, talk of the rally quickly put the
stranger at ease.

"We had a wonderful rally," Molly enthused, "and at a business meeting
held before the open session, it was decided to start obtaining
recruits from the mills."

"Oh, that will be splendid!" exclaimed Dagmar, who now felt quite at
home with the Cosgroves. "We have always wanted to know about those
girl scouts."

"Well, you will soon have an opportunity," continued the girl, whose
cheeks still glowed with rally excitement, "and I am a member of the
committee appointed to visit the mills."

"That is just the thing," declared Mrs. Cosgrove, "for your boss always
lets you follow the Troop orders, and by going into Flosston you may
fix it for this scared little girl to stay here for a while."

"There, Mother, I always said you should be on the pay-roll. Isn't she
the loveliest cop?" Molly asked Dagmar. "No wonder the Town Council
thanked Mrs. Jim Cosgrove for her work among the women and girls! Why,
Mom, you are a born welfare worker, and could easily have my position
in the Mill. You see, I am what they call a welfare worker," again
Molly addressed Dagmar directly.

"Oh, yes, I know. We have one in the Fluffdown Mill. Her name is Miss
Mathews but she hardly ever comes in our room," offered Dagmar.

"Well, now Molly," said Mrs. Cosgrove very decidedly, "I just mentioned
we might see that the girl got work in new surroundings, with you and
me to keep an eye on her, so she could cut away from that crowd. What I
have been able to find out is not much to its credit and there's
reasons (with a look that pointed at Dagmar's beauty) why a girl like
this should not run wild. It seems to me," smoothing out her big apron,
by way of punctuation, "that it has all happened for the best. We can
fix it so Pop won't make it an arrest after all, then you can get leave
to go to Flosston first thing in the morning, can't you?"

"Oh, yes, the welfare work of all the big mills is co-related," replied
the daughter, while the mother put her feet on the little velvet
hassock, and seemed glad of the chance to draw her breath after the
long speech.

Dagmar was sitting in one of the narrow arm chairs of the old-fashioned
parlor suite. Her long, rather shapely hands traced the lines and
cross-bars in her plaid skirt, and the sudden shifting of her gaze,
from one speaker to the other, betrayed the nervousness she was
laboring under.

"All right then, that's one more thing settled. And do you think the
girl--say, girl, I don't like that name you have, what else can we call
you?" she broke off suddenly with this question to Dagmar.

"My name is Dagmar Bosika, and I like Bosika best," replied the little
stranger.

"All right, that's number three settled. You will be Bose. I can say
that, but I never could think of the other queer foreign name."

"And we will have to change your last name, too, I guess," put in
Molly, "as some one from Flosston might recognize it. We can just leave
off the first syllable and have it Rose Dix or Dixon. I think Dixon
would sound best."

"We are settling quite a few points," laughed Mrs. Cosgrove, "if some
one doesn't upset them. I have no fears from Pop--"

"Oh, Pop is putty in our hands," went on the resourceful Molly, "no
danger from his end. But how about your folks, Rose?"

Dagmar smiled before she replied. The new name struck on her ear a
little oddly, but it pleased her, she had never liked Dagmar, and
utterly despised the mill girls' nickname "Daggie."

"Mother and father have always said they would let me do what I thought
would be best for me," she said at length. "I never did anything they
told me I should not, and we often talked of my getting in a store or
something like that. Mother works in the mill in another room, and she
was always worried about me being away from her."

"A store would be no good for you," objected Mrs. Cosgrove, again
including the girl's beauty in her scrutiny. "You would be best off
within the reach of a welfare worker like Molly. But look at the time!
Martin will be in from the club, and even Dad will be comin' around for
his midnight coffee, before we call this meetin' to a halt. I say,
Molly, we are runnin' an opposition scout meetin' it seems to me," and
she got up with that finality, which plainly puts the period to all
conversation.

A few moments later Rose had washed face and hands, brushed her hair,
as Molly kindly hinted she should, and taking her shabby, washed, but
unironed, night dress from the famous "telescope," she said her prayers
and was ready for bed. How comfortable the room seemed! How strange she
should be in it? And where was the unfortunate, headstrong Tessie?

A prayer for the safety of the wandering one sprung from the heart of
this other girl, now away from home the very first night in her young
life. That her mother would believe her at a girl's home, according to
the little note left stuck in her looking glass, Rose was quite
certain, so there was no need to worry concerning distress from the
home circle, at least not yet, and tomorrow morning young Miss Cosgrove
would go to the mill and very quietly arrange everything with her
mother.

"The girl scouts are better than the police," she decided, not quite
understanding how both could work so intimately, along different lines,
yet each reaching the same result to assist wayward girls.

This was, surely, a queer sort of arrest, a lovely kind of cell, and a
most friendly pair of jailers, the little runaway had fallen among, and
that she dreamed wonderful dreams, glowing with roses and fragrant with
perfume, was not to be wondered at, for Mrs. Cosgrove's linen was sweet
enough to induce even more delicious fancies.

But what of poor, lost, erring, headstrong Tessie Warlitz? Rose
imagined her in all sorts of wild predicaments, but with that kindness
so marked in girls who have themselves suffered cruel
misunderstandings, Rose determined not to betray her chum, but rather
to do her utmost to find her, and win her back to good standing among
girls--somehow. Thus really began in so subtle a manner her own
interest in the principles of the Girl Scouts.

"To help an erring sister" is a fundamental of the cause, but Rose
little knew what that silent consecration would cost her. When all was
quiet, late that night, young Martin Cosgrove sauntered along home and
giving the familiar "three dots and a dash" whistle notified his mother
of his approach. The light in the sitting-room window had in its turn
told Martin his mother awaited him.

"S-s-sh!" whispered the mother, opening the door very softly. "Don't
make any noise."

"What's up or who's sick?" asked the good-looking young man, pinching
his mother's plump arm.

"There's a little girl asleep in the spare room. Don't wake her,"
cautioned the mother, who, to prevent even a hat falling, had secured
Martin's things and was putting them on the rack.

"Friend of Molly's? Some new girl scout?" he asked, when they reached
the seclusion of the kitchen.

"Well, no, not just that, but a poor child Dad found lost," she
compromised.

"Lost, eh! And Chief of Police Mrs. Cosgrove rescued the lost
chee-il-dd--as usual! Mom, you're a great cop, and I hear Molly is
following in your fair footsteps!"

"Stop your nonsense, Marty, and be off to bed. It's awful late! There's
your fresh shirt for the morning. Take it along with you."

"Thanks, Mom, and you have the Chink beat in his line, too," giving the
freshly ironed cambric shirt an approving pat. "Tell Molly to go easy
out at Flosston. Those True Tred Girl Scouts are a pretty lively little
bunch from what I hear."

"What do you mean?" asked the mother. "What did you hear about
Flosston?"

"Oh, just heard the boys talking. Nothing very much, but some girls ran
away, not scouts, mill girls, mill detectives on their trail, and the
Girl Scouts went on a hike and lassoed some poor guy by mistake. Oh,
you know a lot of stuff like that, everybody hears and no one knows the
real sense of. Only I thought Molly, just taking up with the Flosston
work, ought to keep both eyes open, and wear good sensible shoes.
Night, Mom!" and he kissed her very fondly. Mrs. Cosgrove indulged in
two special brands of real pride--her boy and her girl!




CHAPTER VII

TENDERFOOT ADVENTURES


The ends of this story are winding out like the strings of a Maypole,
and just like those pretty dancing streamers, do the story lines all
swing from the pole of the Girl Scout activities.

The Flosston rally was held for the purpose of planning a broader
program, and as told by Lieutenant Cosgrove, the arrangements there
were made to afford the mill girls a chance to enjoy the meetings, and
to participate generally in the regular membership. These plans had
already thrown their influence over an entire chain of the big
factories of Eastern Pennsylvania.

Most of the plants employed one or two women welfare workers in their
ranks, following the campaign waged by progressive women in the
interests of better conditions among women wage-earners. This
qualification pertained to girls as well as adults.

So it was that young Molly Cosgrove, an assistant welfare worker, would
be allowed to go from one mill to another in carrying out the new
movement of Girl Scouts for mill workers between the ages of sixteen
and twenty-two years. No girl under sixteen was supposed to be at work
in mills, and if any such was found she must have been listed at the
required minimum, sixteen.

The sensational news of two girls having run away from the Fluffdown
mills was now quickly making its way through Flosston and near-by
communities. The Wartliz family had done its part in spreading the
scandal, while the Brodix people said little, wagged their heads and
grieved sincerely, for their Dagmar was a cherished daughter, and her
loss had sadly strained the humble home circle.

The fact that Miss Cosgrove had arrived at Fluffdown and talked with
Mrs. Brodix was known only to those workers directly at that particular
bench, and they quickly surmised the welfare worker was making
inquiries about Dagmar.

Instead, she had brought to the alarmed mother the news of her
daughter's safety and secretly a plan had been made, whereby this
little black-eyed woman would soon come out to Franklin on an evening,
to see Dagmar, now known as Rose, and so make sure that the kind
offices of the new found friends would be thoroughly understood, and
likewise agreed to by Mrs. Brodix.

Not even the talkative Kate Jordan, who worked next to Mrs. Brodix and
kept her eyes and ears attentive during Molly Cosgrove's visit to the
afflicted mill hand, guessed any of this, while the escape of Tessie
Wartliz, from the very grasp of Officer Cosgrove, remained a secret
with those who directly encountered the business end of that experience.

Meanwhile the girls of True Tred were radiant with the prospect of
their work--that of assisting the mill girls and actually taking part
in real Americanization. To the younger girls, especially Cleo, Grace
and Madaline, the plan opened a field of exciting adventure, for they
had never been allowed to visit the mills, and were not encouraged to
make acquaintance among the workers.

"Now," said Cleo, when the three Tenderfoots got together after school
was dismissed, "we will have as much real fun with live girls as we
have ever seen played out in the pictures. Some mill girls do the
queerest things, talk so funny, you can scarcely understand them, and
they act--well, just like a play. Florence Hayden says so, she helped
with their Christmas Sunday School entertainment last year."

"Oh, well," demurred Madaline more kindly, "they never went to our
schools. Some of them went to the Town Hall night school, but they only
met their friends there and never got a chance to learn our ways."

"You're a real good little home missionary, Madie," commented Grace,
"and I'll vote for you when the mill committees are made up, only," and
she puckered her pretty mouth into a rosette intended to express deep
scorn, "of course we're too young, and we are only in the Tenderfoot
Class."

"I suppose Margaret will be picked," said Cleo, "she is fifteen and
first class and has had a merit badge."

"But she lost it," Grace reminded the trio.

"And is going to get another from headquarters, Captain Clark said so."

"Well, she deserves it, I'm sure," protested Cleo.

"Oh, of course she does, but I would, too, if my plan worked out the
other day," went on Grace.

"What plan?" demanded Cleo, while Madaline pulled a long, serious face.

"Oh, I wanted to do something noble and I tried to, but it did not just
work out," faltered Grace, "but--I--am going--to try it again!" and her
eyes blazed defiance at Madaline.

"You just do, Grace Philow, and I'll--"

"Who cares!" interrupted the unconquerable Grace, while Cleo looked a
whole volume of inquiries.

The McKay twins were romping over from a near-by playhouse, a little
tepee made of cast off "shutters" the janitor had put outside after
wrenching them from hinges, and the girls had promptly availed
themselves of the material for a most attractive playhouse.

"Hello! hello!" called both. "Who wants a ride home? Mother is sending
the big car."

"Oh, we all do, of course," spoke Cleo, the first to mingle words with
her delight. "Who wouldn't love a ride in that big, spiffy limousine!"

"Well, thank you just the same, but I don't, just today," Grace
surprised them with answering. "I have an appointment with Brother
Benny."

"Oh!" said Winnie McKay significantly.

"I see!" drawled her sister Norma.

"Suit yourself," deprecated Cleo.

"If you can't, you can't," philosophized Madaline.

"That's exactly it," amplified Grace. "I can't, so I can't. Thank you,
Winnie and Norma, for the lovely invitation, and please let me put it
down to my credit account? I would like a refund," and she laughed her
irresistible explosive outburst, in which the whole party joined,
whether willingly or from acute inflection.

A few moments later the party, all but Grace, climbed into the lovely,
softly lined car, and when Winnie told the chauffeur to drive to the
post-office first, Cleo was delighted to find she had a postal card to
drop in the box. That would give every one around the Green a chance to
see the style of the McKay twins and their school chums.

And while the big car rolled smoothly over Oakley Avenue, Grace and
Bennie were hurrying about--over a woodland road too rough and too
narrow for other traffic than just nimble, willing feet.

"You're crazy!" declared Benny, halting at the prospect of the long
winding path Grace led him to, and insisted was the "right way."

"That's what the girls say," answered the sister, "but really, Benny, I
am not at all. Just as sane as--Libby Lintot, and you know every one
says she is as crazy as a loon. But all the same if we follow this path
we will come to my tree, and maybe we will find a lovely dead tramp all
buried in the spring pine needles, tied up by Grace Philow Tenderfoot!"

"Grace Philow lunatic!" answered the brother. "Nice thing to make a
fellow miss a whole afternoon on marbles, just to hunt a tied-up tramp!"

"Would you rather hunt tigers'?" asked Grace, running along like a wild
squirrel, jumping over rocks and springing across the perpetual little
streams and brooklets.

"Sure I would, wouldn't you? What's an old tramp?" sneered Bennie.

"Wait till you see him," promised Grace, "he's lovely. That is I think
he is. I didn't exactly see his face, I was so busy tieing him up,"
explained the sister.

Benny, two years younger than Grace, went forth on the man hunt, armed
with his pop gun and water pistol. It was actually two days after the
eventful experience of Grace and Madaline in River Bend Wood, when the
latter had made such a desperate attempt to rescue the alleged "Mrs.
Johnston's wash," but though many hours had passed, Grace was still
haunted with the awful possibilities of her beloved tramp dying there,
all tied up with clove hitches and running bowlines, while the birds
scattered spring blossoms over his handsome face. True, she had hoped
today, on this second expedition, to recover the lost wash, but to get
to that big tree, and relieve the gnawing anxiety, was her first
determination; dead or alive she must have a look at the tramp! Nothing
could be worse than this awful uncertainty!

"That's the grove over there! See the big straight tree! That's my
tree!" she exclaimed, dragging along the erstwhile brave Benny, who
just now showed an inclination to come to a full stop. "Come on, Benny,
hold on to me. I'll peek first, from the other big tree back of the ivy
stump. Then we can see without being seen."

Like a pair of chipmunks they hopped from tree to tree, being careful
to keep well in the shadow of one before risking a new position behind
another.

"Just like shadow tag," Benny made chance to whisper. "Gee, Sis, this
is some little scouting."

"Better than your Boy Scouts' games, isn't it, Benny?" Grace
apologized, for indeed it was no easy matter to inveigle the big boy
into a little girl's sport. Benny felt much bigger, and decidedly more
mature than Grace--that is, he felt that way.

"Oh, Ben, see!" exclaimed the sister. "There's something
flying-over--maybe over a grave!"

"Swell chance he had to--make--his own grave!" in contemptuous tones
from Benny.

"Well--it is a red flag, flying over something!" Grace whispered
emphatically.

Benny sprang out from his tree and with one hand on the
automatic-loaded water pistol, and the other on the lead-loaded pop
gun, he confronted the hypothetical grave!

"Come on out, Sis," he invited the frightened Grace. "It isn't no
grave. It's just a red handkerchief on a stick."

Glancing furtively in the direction of the road, which ran parallel
with the river path, and near enough to it to carry a voice from the
woods to the road should emergency demand outcry, Grace stepped very
gingerly out from her hiding into the open space in front of the famous
"inhabited" tree.

Yes, there was the red flag! "Wasn't that a signal for war? The flag
was a red handkerchief, and it swayed from a stick cut from a
variegated birch.

"Oh!" sighed Grace, relief and excitement finding an outlet in that
short syllable.

"Look at the signal!" called Benny, now going straight up boldly to the
flag of fury. "See, it's a wig-wag, pointing to that big rock. Let's
look!" and he followed the pointing stick which, tied to the top of the
improvised flagpole plainly meant--due west--to any one who understood
the scout wig-wag code. "Here!" shouted Benny, now casting caution to
the light winds of murmuring pines. "Here's more trail. See? It's our
secret code of turned over sliver leaves, and it leads to--let's see."
Benny was visibly excited and Grace was almost pulling him down from
the rock in her eagerness to follow the signs. He turned over a rock
which showed loose soil, and dried leaves clinging to its jagged sides.
"Here it is, Grace! Sure enough! Here is a letter from your dead tramp.
Maybe he died right after he wrote it," and even the small boy found
humor in the queer uncanny situation.

"Take it out by the roadway," suggested Grace, to whom the woods were
now a little treacherous. She glared at as many trees as two brown eyes
could embrace. "We can read it out under the big maple. Come on,
Benny," she begged, dragging him forth again away from all the woodland
mysteries.




CHAPTER VIII

CLUE TO THE MISSING


So many and such exciting sequels are divulged through helpless little
letters! How innocently the page of paper carries the silent words, yet
how powerful is the influence to cheer or sadden!

Grace had read her mystic letter, but beyond confiding in Benny, whose
word of honor in secrecy she had exacted, not one single syllable of
that note was to be divulged to any one.

She had hopes that something really wonderful would develop from her
remarkable experience, and while she would have liked to tell Madaline
and Cleo, she feared antagonistic opinions, and, as it was entirely her
own personal secret, and not a matter of girl scout business, or even
chums' interest, it seemed decidedly better to keep her own precious
counsel.

"I'll tell them all when it happens!" she assured herself, by no means
being certain just what she hoped "would happen."

So the mystic letter was tucked away in the tiny, pink silk vanity bag,
which Cleo had given Grace the Christmas before, and in the days
following only her starry eyes threatened to betray the interesting
fact, that the little Tenderfoot harbored a dark, delicious secret.

Meanwhile Rose had taken her place in the Franklin mill and was being
cared for by the benevolent Mrs. Cosgrove as a member of her family.

"It was really providential," Molly told her mother one day at lunch,
after having seen for the second time the parents of Dagmar Brodix,
"for the family had to leave Pennsylvania, and it would have been very
hard for them to take Rose along. It seems Mr. Brodix would not join
the union, and both he and his wife had to be discharged to appease the
labor men. Rose, too, would have been ordered out, as the whole family
come under the ban imposed on the father."

"Poor folks!" deplored Mrs. Cosgrove. "Those unions won't let anybody
think for themselves! Where are they going?"

"Away down east to a big silk mill," replied the daughter. "Mr. Brodix
knew the superintendent in his own country, and got in the shop without
a union card. But it is much better for Rose to stay with us until they
get settled at least."

"I took such a fancy to that child the moment I set eyes on her!" Mrs.
Cosgrove explained to Molly.

"You always do, Mumsey!" laughed the daughter, "but I entirely agree
with you this time. Where is Rose now?"

"Just gone to the post-office. She came in at twelve and finished her
dinner in time for a bit of fresh air before going back. How is she
getting on in her work?"

"First rate, the forelady reports. Rose is naturally quiet, and as you
predict, Mother, it is very important for her to be among new
companions. A girl's pretty face is not always a help to her best
interests."

"Exactly, Molly. Everybody seems to pick on a pretty girl, while they
leave the homely ones to tend their own business. But your dad is much
worried about that other damsel who got away. There is no trace of her
at all."

"Yes, she made a clear escape. I heard one of the mill detectives
making some inquiries. He did not have to question Rose. I gave him our
end of it. I am afraid that other girl has gotten herself into more
trouble. The detective did not say so outright, but I judged so from
his line of questions."

"Your father said as much, but like the detective, our own 'cop' isn't
giving us all the information he holds. I'm glad the mill officials see
the value of the girl scout movement. It's the only fair way to reach
the girls without forcing them. Let them take a hand in their own
interest--I always say."

"The mill men see the wisdom of that. I would not have been engaged as
a welfare worker if I had not been a scout lieutenant. Well, I must run
along. We have a meeting in Flosston tonight, and I am going to take
Rose with me."

"I would. The girls of the troop have never met her to know her, and,
at any rate, their training will check any possible criticism.
Good-bye, girl. Better take your umbrella. We will have rain before
sunset," and with this word mother and daughter separated for their
respective afternoon tasks.

Meanwhile Rose had called at the post-office. Her anxiety concerning
the wayward Tessie constituted the one flaw in her otherwise happy new
days. That she could not at once be with her parents was clear and
reasonable to the girl, reared in hardship, and accustomed to many
personal sacrifices, but that an incriminating letter would surely one
day come from Tessie kept her nervously anxious.

Rose had contrived to visit the post-office daily, hoping when the
dreaded, yet longed-for, letter would come, she might receive it
personally and thus avert possible complications with the Cosgrove
family, who had official reasons for wishing to locate the runaway girl.

With that keenness peculiar to foreigners when a matter vitally
concerns them, the Brodix people had readily adopted the more useful
name Dixon for their daughter, and today, when Rose inquired for mail,
a much-soiled letter addressed to "Rose Dixon, care of Mrs. James
Cosgrove," was handed out.

Not risking the publicity of opening the envelope until she was well
out of sight of observers, Rose hurried along, and turned an
unnecessary corner to seclude herself in a particularly quiet street,
there to open and read the letter. Somehow she felt it would contain
news of Tessie, and her premonition was correct.

"From mother!" she breathed affectionately, as the much handled little
sheet of note paper, with its queer foreign script, lay in her hand.
Then she noticed an inclosure. Yes! There was the note from Tessie!

So anxious was Rose to know where Tessie was, she glimpsed through the
little note without actually reading one word of it. She was just
looking for a clue as to the girl's whereabouts, but to her
disappointment none was given! Not one word showed the capital letter
at its face, that would have marked the name of any place! Tessie wrote
English well enough to make herself understood, and the brief note was
almost explosive in its choice of strong phrases. The "quarter whistle"
blew, announcing to Rose the fact that fifteen minutes of the precious
noon hour still remained, and as ten would be ample time for her to
reach the mill, in the five extra minutes she might read her letters.

Stopping at a little stone wall, which surrounded one of the oldest
houses in Franklin, Rose read first the note from Tessie. As she
expected, the "news" was more a compilation of strong slang than an
attempt to impart any real information, and although but a short time
removed from the acute influence of "chewing-gum English," Rose had
already developed a dislike for the more vulgar of such forms of
utterance. She read:

"Hello, kid! Where are you? Did you break loose from Grandpa? I had
some beatin' to do, but I done it and made a get-a-way good 'nough for
the movies. Don't ask me where I'm at, for it's a secret. But, say,
Kid. Oh, you scout badge! It's a miracle worker--and better than real
coin. I wouldn't give it up for a Liberty Bond. So long! can't tell you
just now what my private post-office box is but will later. My folks
are cross-eyed looking for me, but all they ever wanted was my
pay-envelope, so I should worry about them. Give my love to yourself
and if you're not out of jail yet for the love of molasses, don't be a
simp! Get busy!" It was signed "T. W."

And that was all; so like Tessie. Rose sighed audibly, then read her
mother's letter and while this was really interesting to the daughter
it now seemed tame in comparison, and it really was the letter from
Tessie that gave her blue eyes the preoccupied look all that afternoon.

So the lost and found scout badge was serving the runaway girl as a
passport. Perhaps she was using it for unworthy purposes, and it was
unlawful to wear a scout badge without authority. The offence was
punishable by law. Rose thoroughly understood all this, but how could
she reach Tessie to warn her! Even a dismissed scout must return her
badge and buttons to the organization, and there was Tessie Wartliz
forging her way on the strength of that special merit badge!

Such thoughts as these riveted the attention of Rose, when Molly
Cosgrove, passing through the room, whispered she could go with the
lieutenant to the Flosston meeting that night.

"All right. Thank you!" replied Rose to the invitation, but, somehow,
she dreaded its acceptance.




CHAPTER IX

A TRIBUTE OF ROSES


The little meeting room over the post-office in Flosston had served as
headquarters for True Tred Troop--and tonight Margaret Slowden was to
receive her new badge, to take the place of that much-prized little
gilt wreath with its clover leaf center, her merit badge lost some
weeks before.

"Hurry along!" called Grace, who was impatiently waiting for Cleo and
Madaline, both of whom seemed to enjoy lagging while Grace wanted to be
early rather than late. "Don't you know we have to take our tests and
Captain Clark ordered us to be at headquarters at seven-fifteen sharp?"

"All right," responded Cleo, "but here come Mable Blake and Mildred
Clark. We can all be together if you just wait half a second for us,
Grace."

"I don't mind seconds, but I hate hours!" retorted Grace. "I don't want
to be a moment late and give anyone a chance to think up hard questions
for my tests."

"Oh, you needn't worry," Cleo assured her. "I know you can beat us all
at knots."

That brought back to Grace her attempt to make a "clove-hitch" and a
"running bowline carry out her noble deed" and she flashed a
significant look at Madaline, who shared a part of her secret.

"Oh, yes, I know the knots," she replied. "But you just ought to see me
try to light my fire in the open, with two matches! More like two boxes
I guess."

"And my simple dish," contributed Mildred Clark, who now, with her
companions, had joined the group, and all were merrily making their way
to the meeting room. "I thought I would select the very simplest of the
simple, and I took pork and beans."

"You did!" exclaimed a chorus.

"Yes, and it is a real wonder I am here. I thought I never would get
out of that old hot kitchen. Martha told me I should have taken Irish
stew but--"

"But you preferred the Boston Bake," interrupted Mable Blake.

"Of course Mildred wouldn't have anything to do with the Irish!" teased
Madaline, who was well known to have "leanings" in that direction.

"Indeed, I will never scorn the Celts again!" sighed Mildred, "for I
had to brown the pork and it burned. I had to soak the beans all night
and they swelled up so I had to scoop them up on a dust pan next
morning. I didn't use those, of course," as the girls' looks protested,
"I had enough on the floor to plant a garden and I really did plant
them. Then, the big pan full I baked, and it took all day. Did you ever
know plain pork and beans constituted an exact science in the
preparation for the table? Why didn't I try milk toast, and get
finished in time for your ball game, girls? Don't you think I am a real
hero of the simple dish-pork and beans?"

"We surely do, Millie, and I hope you get a perfect mark for all that
work," spoke up Grace. "My real trouble came in making a bed. That
sounds so easy, but our beds have lace covers, and no sooner would I
get one end straight, than the other would be all draped up in little
cascades. Don't you all just hate to make beds?"

"Oh, no, I love to do it," declared Mabel. "But just let me show you my
flag. Doesn't it look like a crazy quilt design?" and from her scout
manual she unfolded a page of paper, with the required American flag
drawn and colored in crayons, and not really a poor illustration of her
beloved Old Glory.

"Well, you have all had your troubles, but I think mine was by far the
most complicated and exasperating," Cleo declared, coherent
conversation being made quite possible by the double file in which the
girls grouped themselves, as they walked along. "You should just see me
take my measurements. Of course I forgot to follow instructions and
'see card at headquarters,' as the little blue book directs."

"My sakes!" exclaimed Grace. "Do we have to have our measurements
tonight?"

"We must answer all test questions and that is one of them," replied
Cleo. "But when I got my height by using a pencil over my head on a
door-post, of course we all do that, I had a set of cords all knotted
up at points to show waist, chest, arm, etc., and our pet kitten,
Cadusolus, made a tackle for the whole bunch, and before I could
recover them she had taken her own measures on my marked strings. I
won't be sure of them now, for I had to finish them in a big hurry
after that."

"I know the Mariner's Compass by heart," called in Mabel Blake from the
rear line. "Brother Jack tested me, and he said I could sail an ocean
liner with my knowledge," she insisted proudly.

"We have our tests first, don't we?" asked Grace.

"Yes, of course, that all happens outside in the private troop room,
but I'll bet the other girls listen at the keyhole!" put in Mildred.

"And last time a lot of boys on the back fence could see in the
window," Madaline reminded the anxious aspirants.

"Oh, there go all the other girls, let's hurry," urged Cleo, and when
the candidates mounted the stairs over the post-office, they were but a
small part of the noisy crowd that pounded its way on the narrow and
rather uncertain steps.

All of the officers assisted in the examinations so that not more than
a half hour was consumed in that detail, and when the girls filed into
the drill room, their smiling faces announced the good news that all
had passed.

Quickly at the given signal all the troops "fell in" and the regulation
"horse shoe" was formed with Captain Clark and Lieutenant Lindsley in
the gap, when the salute was given and the other formalities complied
with and each candidate was conducted to the captain. After answering
the captain's questions and saluting, each candidate received her
staff, neckerchief and knot from the patrol leader, while the badge was
pinned on the blouse of the solemn-faced girls by the captain herself.

All of this was conducted with a striking degree of seriousness, and as
the exercises made Tenderfoots out of the newest candidates, our own
little friends looked on, with united dignity, while they awaited their
turn to receive degrees of the second and first class.

The tests for Tenderfoot were but simple, and consisted mainly of knots
made and the knowledge of scout laws, with a few civic questions, so
that the beginners shared no part of the anxiety experienced by Cleo,
Grace and Madaline, and those of their higher grades. The distinction
of advancement is the privilege of wearing the badge on the left
sleeve, second class below the elbow and first class above on the same
arm, so that ceremonial occupied but a brief space of time.

No conversation was permitted during the Investure, but the presence of
Rose, who sat in a corner looking on with wondering eyes, had not been
unobserved by the scouts. That she had come from Franklin with
Lieutenant Cosgrove was sufficient credential for the privilege of
being present during the ceremonial, but it was Grace who talked with
her eyes to Cleo, directing her interpretative glances from the pretty
little stranger, to the now duly installed second-class scout, her
message being, "See that pretty strange girl over there?" and Cleo
replying in turn with her glance, "Yes, isn't she pretty? Who is she?"

With all her light-heartedness, which was sometimes termed
"light-headedness," Grace was fast developing a new sense, somewhat
related to our old friend Common Sense. Ever since she tried her girl
scout knot in the woods, and had eventually received a real letter from
the actual victim, she had been planning to "confess" to the other
girls, and seek their advice. First, she made up her mind to tell
Madaline, as that friend already knew a part of the secret, but the
fact that Cleo was credited with better judgment swayed her toward that
counsel. Then came such a succession of busy days, busy afternoons and
busy evenings, Grace could find no available time for the portentous,
confidential conventions of chums. So no one but Benny had, as yet,
heard anything of the mysterious letter found in the holly rock in
River Bend Woods.

But this evening during all the scout ceremony Grace and her conscience
were having a silent battle on the score of the prolonged secrecy.
Grace wished to wait a little while longer but her conscience fought
for immediate confession. Only the importance of Captain Clark's speech
seemed sufficiently strong to drag her attention from this mental
conflict.

"In striving for honors," the captain was now stating, "Girl Scouts
must be careful to use prudence and wisdom. It will not do to rush into
personal danger to do something that may seem to be brave and noble,
when a less hazardous means of accomplishing the same end may be found,
if intelligently sought for."

Grace sank back in her seat. The captain's eyes seemed to be directed
straight at her! Could anyone have told Captain Clark?

"All our special honor and merit badges are tokens of noble deeds, done
for humanity according to the principles laid down by our rules, and
explained in our manual, but none of these should be interpreted as
involving unnecessary risk to us, or the use of our guns, our ropes,
our staffs in any violence which might be avoided!"

"Ropes!" repeated Grace under her breath. "We should not--use--our
ropes--"

"Grace!" whispered Madaline. "See that big bunch of roses over there!"

"Yes!" nodded Grace.

"They are for Margaret Slowden when she gets her new merit badge, and
nobody knows who sent them!"

"Uh-hum-m!" breathed Grace in assent.

When Captain Clark finished her practical talk, the ceremony of
bestowing the substitute badge on Margaret was the nest feature of the
evening's exercises.

"You all recall our lovely ceremony on the evening of Margaret's
original presentation of her merit badge," the captain said, "but this
time we have merely to call attention to that great occasion and our
minds are filled with its pleasant memories. The noble deed done to
acquire this badge was one of unusual heroism and peculiar wisdom," she
went on, "for Margaret stayed at her post in a dreary, lonely room,
guarding her hats and cloaks with the same spirit of attention to duty
which at that same hour was bringing her distinguished brother his
consecrated D.S.C. We will now pin upon Margaret's breast--a badge to
take the place of that one, lost some time ago, and we all hope she
will be doubly rewarded by the second badge of merit!"

There was a stir in the audience and Margaret was conducted to the
platform by her patrol leader. Captain Clark then pinned on her coat
the new badge, with the words of commendation, and this concluded, an
usher advanced with the bouquet. The captain glanced at the card before
indicating that the testimonial be presented. It was inscribed
merely--"A Friend."

Everyone was puzzled. It was very unusual to give hot-house flowers in
May. Then a side door was heard to creak on its hinges and the pretty
stranger, Rose Dixon, was just seen passing out.

"I wonder why she left?" Madaline asked Grace.

"Oh, I don't know, but I would like to leave myself," unexpectedly
retorted Grace.

"Sick?" persisted Madaline.

"No--just tired," and no one knew better than Grace what a conscience
prodder such a meeting as this proved to be--that is "no one" except,
perhaps, Rose Dixon.




CHAPTER X

TELLING SECRETS


Determined to wait no longer than the very next afternoon, Grace asked
both Cleo and Madaline over to her front porch directly after school,
assuring their acceptance to her invitation by the lure of "a big
secret to tell them." Needless to say, they came, and there, in the
shadow of the yellow and white honeysuckle blossoms, with busy bees
buzzing in and out of the honey-filled cups, Grace disclosed the story
of her second trip to River Bend Woods.

The girls were fascinated. To think the tied-up man had written a
letter!

"Yes, but," argued Grace. "I am a little timid ever since. See, he says
he hopes he can lasso me some day with my own rope! Just suppose he
does!"

"Oh, I am sure he was just joking there," wise little Cleo ventured.
"He just said that to tease you, for teasing him."

"Maybe," replied Grace rather tonelessly.

"Let me see it again," begged Madaline, reaching for the well-fingered
little sheet of paper. "But he says," she read, "he liked your courage,
and he hated to spoil all your nice scout knots. That must mean he is a
good friend."

"Oh, it might just mean the opposite," gloomed Grace, who had read the
letter so many times every syllable weighed a clause to her. "He may
have meant that merely in sarcasm."

"Who ever do you suppose he was?" asked Madaline foolishly.

"Is, you mean," corrected Grace. "He didn't die, so he still is."

"Of course, that's what I mean. Only he isn't there now, so he was, I
think," insisted Madaline, without taking any offence at the crispness
of Grace's manner.

"Whether he is or whether he was, we might get along better if we tried
to guess who he could possibly be," Cleo assisted. "Have you the least
idea?"

"Not the slightest. You see, that sheet of paper came out of a
notebook, and anyone could own a notebook or even find one," Grace
speculated.

"Let me read the whole letter through?" asked Cleo. "We can't make
sense out of single sentences."

Grace handed over the much-criticized little missive. She read aloud:

"LITTLE SCOUT BANDIT:

"I hate to spoil all your pretty knots, but I can't stay tied up any
longer. I am taking the rope along, and some day I hope to lasso you in
return. You gave me a merry chase after my bag--quite a little runner
you are. When I chance this way again I will look for an answer in our
hollow rock. Good luck, Scout Bandit--

"THE VICTIM."

"There!" exclaimed Madaline, "only an educated man could write that!"

"But many wicked men are wonderfully educated!" Grace insisted on
worrying.

"He seems jolly," mused Cleo.

"All tramps joke," said Grace.

"Well, if you want a tramp, have one," laughed Cleo. "We won't mind,
Gracie."

"I'm not Gracie, and I hate tramps. I tried to be nice to one when I
was a little girl. Mother was giving him pie and coffee, and I said it
was hard for men to be tramps. He turned right around and hissed:
'You're too gabby!' That's the way tramps appreciate kindness."

"And you called him a tramp to his face!" exclaimed Madaline.

"Oh, girls, leave the old tramp alone and let's get to the new
wild-westerner," begged Cleo. "I'll tell you what we'll do. Let's write
an answer to his letter, and explain we only wanted to do something
brave for our Scout honors, but we understand better now, and Grace, do
you want to say you're sorry you tied him up?"

"No, indeed I do not!" snapped Grace. "Why should I, when I was trying
to get Mrs. Johnston's wash!"

"Oh, Cleo doesn't know about that," Madaline reminded Grace. "We forgot
that. You see, Cleo," she continued, "the man had a bag of clothes
beside him, and Grace got a hook made of a good strong stick. She tied
this to her rope (she had a lot of ropes with her to practice her
knots, you know), but when she saw the bag, and thought she saw things
like Mrs. Johnston's wash, why, of course, she just tried to get it."

"And I did, too," insisted Grace, "I dragged it all the way to the big
rock. Then we heard some one coming, but I held fast, I never lost it
until the bag got stuck behind the rock. I wanted so much to get poor
Mrs. Johnston's wash," she lamented.

"Well, shall we write the letter?" Cleo followed up.

"I have to say I am afraid to go in the woods now," admitted Grace.
"Suppose he should capture us all!"

"We could make some excuse to bring a lot of girls along," Madeline
suggested. "He couldn't capture a whole troop."

"Wouldn't it be better to get some big strong boy to fetch the letter
out there for us?" proposed the practical Cleo.

"Whom could we trust?" Grace asked.

"I wouldn't depend on brothers. They are too tricky. But how about Hal
Crane? He is always interested in our troop doings, and besides he's a
good scout himself. I think I would ask him," Cleo determined.

"All right," agreed Grace, "and Cleo dear," with her arms around the
girl at the end of the bench, "won't you be a darling and write the
letter?"

"And get lassoed?" laughed her chum. "Well, I don't mind. I think he
must be a very nice man, and maybe I shall adopt him for my hero."

"You may. I would be very glad to get rid of him," Grace confessed. "I
was so worried all this time, and I couldn't get a chance to tell you a
word about it."

"And I can imagine every rope you saw you just imagined was coming your
way," teased Cleo.

"Just about. But say, girls, another thing. Did you see that pretty
girl who came in last night with the lieutenant from Franklin?"

"Oh, yes, the pretty blonde with the blue crocheted tam, I saw her. I
guess everyone did," Madaline replied.

"Well, she was so pretty I couldn't help watching her, and I am sure
she acted awfully nervous when the flowers were sent up to Margaret."

"She went out directly the ushers took up the bouquet," Madaline added.
"And never came back for the ice cream," went on Grace. "Well, what I
wanted to say is, I have seen that pretty girl before and I sort of
think she was the one who used to be with the dark-eyed girl they say
ran away."

"Why, she came with Lieutenant Cosgrove, and surely wouldn't be a
companion to a runaway mill girl!" protested Madaline.

"You forget, newly second class, that we are taking in the mill girls
in our troop, and are all pledged to do our best to help them," Grace
declared. "I know more than one very nice girl in Fluffdown. Daddy is
one of the superintendents there."

"Yes, of course," Cleo acquiesced. "And my daddy is in charge of the
main office."

"I am sure we should be interested in that line, and our scouting is so
practical. I understand Lieutenant Lindsley is going to call a special
meeting of True Tred to make definite plans. Some of our girls need
education in social latitude, quite as much as do the mill girls, she
told us last night, and, judging from the way Hattie Thompson laughed
when a mill girl slipped in the mud the other day, I think some of the
girls need a special course in common politeness," said Madaline.

"There come Ben's boys," Grace announced. "Let's go out on the lawn and
have a game of 'Heel and Toe.'"

"I can't, Grace. I have some shopping to do for mamma, and we have been
talking nearly an hour," Cleo declared, glancing at her wrist watch.
"You stay, Madaline. Don't go because I have to."

"I really must go," Madaline also insisted. "But be sure, Grace, that
Cleo understands all about the letter," she added.

"I will write it and call a meeting of this committee to consider it,"
proposed Cleo. "Isn't it lovely and exciting?"

"You may think so, but I am glad I no longer have to lug that secret
around all alone," said Grace, as the girls were preparing to leave.

"Almost as heavy as Mrs. Johnston's wash," teased Madaline. "Well,
good-bye, Grace. We will do all we can to find--you know."

Benny was almost close enough to hear the parting words, but in his
boyish head, chuck full of sports and frolics, he had little room for
girls' secrets, and even the knowledge thrust upon him by Grace in her
trip to the woods had long ago gone the way of his lost game of "Bear
in the Pit." Boys have a wonderful way of forgetting failures, and it
is that trait which later entitles them to the claims of being good
sports, using the title "sport" in its best and most vigorous
application.

"Well, that's over, thank goodness!" breathed Grace, referring to her
"confession," as she smilingly turned to her piano practice, a duty
indifferently done since her encounter with the writer of the
mysterious letter.




CHAPTER XI

THE TANGLED WEB


While the Girl Scouts of Flosston were arranging to extend their troop
activities so that they would include the girls from Fluffdown mills,
who wished to join, two other girls were becoming more and more
involved in an influence, seemingly subtle, but surely sufficiently
powerful to "win out" eventually.

Tessie Wartliz was enmeshed in that oftquoted "tangled web," coincident
with the first attempt at deception.

"Oh, what a tangled web we weave When first we practice to deceive!"

Reading those lines mean very little to the girl who has never been so
unfortunate as to know their fullest meaning, but Tessie knew not the
lines, it was their threat she felt, their dark story she was living
through.

Rose returned from the rally of the True Tred Troop with deeper blue in
her eyes and brighter pink in her cheeks. It had been so wonderful! To
see all those girls promising to do so much, not only for one another,
but for all girls, then the inspiring ceremony, the lovely exercises,
the music! It did not seem possible that all this came to the good
fortune of some girls in that mill town, while others struggled to gain
advantage over their companions, as they worked in gloomy surroundings,
prone to some sort of rebellion.

And to think Rose had been asked to help carry this new story to her
former companions, and to those with whom she was now associated!

Sitting for a few precious moments in her little room at Mrs.
Cosgrove's, although her light had been extinguished, and it was too
late to enjoy the tempting reverie, Rose, even in the dark, could feel
the comfort and sense the luxury of that simple, well-ordered home. How
strange that she should have been picked up from the peril of
waywardness, and become so safely sheltered by these benevolent
strangers! Was it because Molly Cosgrove, too, taught and practiced the
girl scout principles, and because Mrs. Cosgrove was a pioneer from
whom such principles emanate?

Gradually Rose sensed the difference in American and foreign ideals,
and now it was as if the curtain had lifted, and her own mind was
cleared of the confusing doubts and suspicions she had heretofore
struggled with.

The soft, sweet air of young summer wafted from the flowery vines,
caressed her pretty face as she stared out of the low window into the
velvet night, and she was glad, so glad she had sent those roses!

"If only I could have returned that badge!" she pondered; "why did
Tessie run off with it!"

The dark thought immediately cast a shadow over her happiness just at
that moment, a vagrant cloud in a sky almost untarnished, deliberately
sailed into the moon, and blackened the window through which Rose gazed.

"I guess that means bed!" she decided and promptly slipped between the
grateful covers. But not to sleep. The thoughts of Tessie and her
insinuating letters were too persistent to be immediately banished. Try
as she might, Rose could find no key to the problem of how to reach the
girl and reclaim the innocent badge, now serving as a baneful influence
in the uncertain career of Tessie Wartliz.

"If only I could talk with her just a few minutes," Rose kept
repeating, and that wish became the source of a plan, from which sprung
a new resolve.

She must see Tessie!

Fixed in her brain, that resolve actually took root, and even in sleep
it seemed to grow, to get stronger with the hours, and to mature with
courage silently imparted through tired nature's sweet restorer. Balmy
sleep!

Troubled dreams discovered the runaway girl in strange surroundings,
now working in a dark gloomy mill, and flashing her black eyes like
lighted coals at every word of correction offered by her superiors,
again Tessie seemed to be enjoying the soft luxury of some favored
home, a wild flower in a garden of hot-house blooms.

But it was all a dream, and Rose knew nothing of Tessie's adventure,
beyond the suspicions conveyed in the two sketchy letters sent since
the escapade.

A few days later the Leader, an evening paper, contained a story
startling to the girls of Flosston, and positively shocking to Rose
Dixon. This told of a young girl claiming to be a girl scout, running
off with a lot of ticket money, the funds she had obtained by
pretending to assist an entertainment being conducted for the benefit
of the Violet Circle of Shut-ins.

That a girl scout should rob cripples! And that a clue should lead back
to Flosston, inferring the culprit might belong in that town! Instantly
Rose knew the mystery meant Tessie, and that the purloined badge had
served as her scout credential!

Panic seized her! She had seen the paper on her way home from work, and
at table, when Molly Cosgrove discussed the item, Rose felt her own
guilt must be obvious to those around her. Yet no one knew Tessie had
taken the badge. No one knew Rose had found the pretty emblem!

"How could a girl scout act so dishonorably?" Molly questioned
indignantly.

"And she actually got away with the money," Mrs. Cosgrove repeated.
"Some young bold girls can cover their tracks better than hardened men."

Rose felt her cheeks pale. She had never known the antics of nervous
chill, but just now a series of "goose-flesh-flashes" chased all over
her.

"You must be very tired, Rose," remarked Molly keenly. "Better go to
bed early and omit the meeting. Mrs. Brennen, the welfare leader at
Conit, is coming over, but you can hear her another time. You had
nervous work on those scarfs to-day. I heard the girls say that floss
stuck like chiffon."

"It was sticky," Rose was glad to comment, "and I guess I won't go over
to the school house if you don't mind. Perhaps I will just take a walk
in the air and later write a few letters."

"The fresh air is what you want," Mrs. Cosgrove unconsciously assisted
in the plans seething through the troubled brain of Rose. "I've noticed
you are a bit pale lately. But we can't expect to make a robust Rose
out of you all at once. You feel all right, don't you?"

"Oh, yes, thank you. I have a little headache, the reds and pinks glare
so, I guess they hurt the eyes a little," Rose qualified.

"They do indeed," agreed Mrs. Cosgrove. "Have you heard from your
folks?"

"Yes, I had a letter to-day," answered Rose truthfully. "They are
getting along splendidly, and father says he thinks he will soon have a
good place for me."

"That's fine. We are glad to have you with us, Rose, but with your own
folks will be better, when things get all nicely fixed up."

"Yes," put in Molly. "When you go off to take your own place now, Rose,
you will understand American ways much better than you did when you
came. And wherever you go, I am going to send word ahead to the Girl
Scouts so that you may join at once and keep up your training. Our own
troop is going to organize to-morrow night. We are going to call
ourselves the Venture Troop, as we will be the first troop yet formed
in a manufacturing plant."

"Then the Franklin's will be organized before the True Treds take in
the mill girls of Flosston?" queried Rose.

"They also meet this week to initiate a group of a dozen girls from
Fluffdown. These are to be scattered in two troops and they will try
the plan of putting the strangers in with the girls who have had scout
experience. You see, we have no troop at all in Franklin, and I am
ambitious to have the first formed of our own girls exclusively. They
are very enthusiastic."

"I will be sorry if I have to go away," Rose murmured, and her eyes
darkened into violet tones with deeper emotion.

"And I can't tell you how I shall miss you if you do have to go," spoke
Molly. "But you are not gone yet. At least you will be made a troop
leader before you go from Franklin. Then, in your new surroundings you
will be able to assist others to do what you have seen done here."

"I never knew how much girls could help girls until I saw the scouts at
that meeting the other night," said Rose, a note of sadness in her
subdued voice. "If only I had such a chance before--before--"

"No regrets. Remember all our trials bring compensations. For instance,
if you had not made the mistake of leaving home that night, you would
never, perhaps, have met the Cosgroves," and she smiled happily in an
attempt to cheer the drooping spirits of the girl sitting opposite, who
had not touched her cake or even sipped her tea.

"Yet I did not do it. My mistake was not the--the real clue," Rose
managed to say, her hold on useful English betraying its uncertain
foundation. "It was your mother's good nature, not my mistake," she
clarified.

"I'll accept the honors. Drink your tea and take your cake. It is not
much of a compliment to turn aside from the cake I gave up the home
lecture this afternoon to bake for you two. Marty is gone out of town
on business, and won't be back for three days, and our big officer
wants pie, and scorns cake. So you see it is the plain duty of you two
to eat this," and Mrs. Cosgrove helped herself to a real sample of the
iced pyramid.

"I cannot help thinking of that girl who ran off with the crippled
children's money," Molly reverted to the earlier conversation. "I don't
believe she was a girl scout at all," she declared emphatically.

"But the paper said she was," Rose spoke, fearing her voice would shake
her into a full confession of her own conspiracy to shield Tessie.

"Oh, no, it did not state she was a scout," Molly corrected, "the
paragraph read she claimed to be. There is a great difference."

"Well, it is very queer our own good officer," meaning Jim Cosgrove,
"never found trace of that girl. She must have covered her tracks in
some unusual way," declared Mrs. Cosgrove, "for Jim is not one to be
easily fooled. So Rose, if you are not going out I am sure you will be
glad to help with the tea things. Molly, I pressed your waist when I
had the irons for Marty's neckties, so I treated you as well."

"Momsey, you are perfect in your plans. Never use an iron for one
without applying it to the other. And I will be joyous in my fresh
blouse. Rose, please put a tag on my piece of cake, I'll enjoy that end
when I come in. I have only a little time to get ready now, as I must
make out a programme for our preliminary drill. I'll tell you all about
it, Rose. Take a walk when you finish helping mother. You don't get any
too much air, you know," and Molly hummed her newest waltz song as she
capered around in preparation for the evening's activities. Molly was
always jolly, if not singing she would be "chirping" as her brother
Martin termed the queer sort of lispy whistle she indulged in, and even
while dressing, it was a practice of hers to vary the operations with
home-made jazz.

During all this Rose was making up her mind to go straight out in the
big world and find Tessie Wartliz. She did not know just how she would
set about it, but her mind was made up on the one important point,
namely, that the finding must be undertaken and at once. Rose could no
longer stand the misery of secrecy concerning the lost scout pin. Every
headline in a paper glared out at her as if threatening to expose her
guilty knowledge. Every letter she received through the busy little
post-office sent a frightened chill over her delicate form, and now she
felt certain her benefactors, the Cosgrove family, must know she had
heard from the runaway girl, and they were too generous to ask a single
question concerning the matter. They trusted her, and she must deceive
them!

"I will have to say that mother has sent for me," she decided after a
bitter hour alone in her room, "and when I find Tessie----"

She paused. She was baffled! What would she do if she did find Tessie?




CHAPTER XII

TESSIE


Again our scene shifts, and, as in the screen play, that retrospective
distant picture brings one back to an earlier vision, so from the
distance we now see the runaway, Tessie.

Step by step, along the dark, uncertain road of offences which in
themselves were trivial, but which brought such dire results upon the
erring girl as to make her all but an outcast, Tessie, after the first
foolish blunder, found herself confronted with a seeming necessity for
keeping up the false role she had almost unwittingly assumed. The girl
was not wicked. Her untrained and unrestrained tongue was her worst
enemy, and it very often belied her honest, generous heart.

In inducing Dagmar to leave home she actually believed she was
assisting a friend--her intention was to better that friend's
circumstances, but the methods! How could she know that right could not
result from deliberate wrong! That doctrine had never been made a part
of such education as she had the opportunity of acquiring. True, the
girl learned right from wrong, also her religion was very clear on the
point, but she could not then believe it was wrong to fly from the
horrors of mill drudgery, made unbearable by the more intimate
environment of a miserable home.

So Tessie Wartliz was suffering from an inherited disease commonly
called "Greed." Her parents were greedy for money, and she was greedy
for good times. She wanted much of anything she enjoyed, and had little
care how that abnormal amount was obtained.

The fatal night she and Dagmar (now our own Rose Dixon) landed so
suddenly in Franklin, where the jitney dropped them almost into the
arms of Officer Cosgrove, Tessie, as we will remember, escaped, and
carried with her the pocketbook she had been carrying for her
companion, and in that little soiled purse was the much-prized, lost
and found, scout badge of merit.

Tessie at first thought little or nothing of the trinket. As she had
scoffed at its purpose, when Rose respected it, so she brushed it aside
as of no importance when she emptied the pitiful pittance of her
forsaken companion into her own pocketbook, when forced to use the
funds or beg from strangers.

On the step of the last jitney that rumbled through Franklin making no
stops, and being entirely unoccupied by passengers, Tessie managed to
hide as the car slowed up at a turn, and later she crawled inside, when
the sleepy driver, his day and night work finished, allowed the motor
to "take its head" as we might say to a horse-drawn vehicle. Her heart
almost ceased beating when the officer who commanded the line between
the two villages, stopped Frank and demanded to know if he carried any
passengers.

"Three empty dinner pails that came out full of supper," the driver
called back, and Tessie actually under the seat, felt free to breathe
again and keep watch for some turn where a kindly house light might
gleam out to save her from a dreaded night, under a tree or behind some
rugged, wild world shelter.

Just as Frank, the driver, slowed down, preparatory to turning for the
big shed, under which the modern carry-all would be laid up until
daylight next morning, Tessie decided she would ask this rustic to
assist her. Believing that most men, especially those not too old, were
apt to be kind-hearted or maybe "softhearted," she climbed from her
hiding place, and timidly tapped Frank on his astonished shoulder.

"Gosh!" he exclaimed, "where'd you come from?"

"I lost my way!" she answered not altogether untruthfully. "Can you
help me? Where do you live?"

"Say," Frank challenged, "you look pretty near big enough to talk to
traffic cops. How'd you get in this boat, anyhow?"

His voice was not friendly. That anyone should have climbed into the
"Ark" without signalling him was evidently opposed to his sense of
humor. Tessie did not reply as glibly as she had intended to. Instead
she threw herself on his mercy, as actors might say in melodrama.

"Honest I did get lost. I'm on my way to the Woolston mills, and I
missed so many trains, and caught so many jitneys I lost count. Then,
when I saw you come along I was so glad I almost--well, I just flopped.
I was dog-tired. First I hailed you, but you were dozing I guess, then
I was scared to death you would jolt by and leave me, so I had to climb
on."

"Oh," replied Frank, not altogether convinced, but evidently on the way
to conviction. "I did fall off a little, I'm out since four A.M. Now,
young lady, what's your idea of fixin' for the night? My old lady,
meaning a first-rate little mother, is awful strict about girls ridin'
in this bus not accompanied by their parents, and I don't see my way
clear to tote you home at this unearthly hour. I see by--the make-up"
(with an inclusive glance over the now thoroughly frightened Tessie)
"that you are a mill girl, and I know they are takin' on new hands at
Woolston's, so that sounds natural, but findin' you like this in the
Ark--even mother might think that a little bit stretched."

"Well, tell me the name of some one out this way, and I can say I'm
goin' there, and you can fix it by objectin' to takin' me. Say, you
didn't know when I got on how far I wanted to go."

"Some cute little fixer, you are," Frank admitted, and this was the
story Tessie clung to when Frank Apgar brought the girl into his
mother's house a few minutes later.

Thus began her adventure weeks ago. Each day and every night adding new
and more serious complications to the seemingly innocent quest for a
broader life than could be lived in the mill end of Flosston, Tessie
was compelled to add falsehood to fabrication, to bear out her original
story, and save herself from being "picked up" and forcibly returned to
her parents.

She knew the Franklin officer would trace her easily if she went by
frequented ways, so instead of looking for work in a mill she sought
and obtained employment in a family of rather influential suburbanites.
The scarcity of domestic help assisted her in this enterprise, and
being really skilled in handling machinery and materials, it was not
difficult for her to follow orders, and assist a cook who was overjoyed
to have help of any sort in the big country residence.

But the little human butterfly had tried her wings, and she very
quickly found life at Appleton too tame for her liking. Directly upon
receiving pay for her first two weeks of service, Tessie (her assumed
name meant nothing to her or to us) said good-bye to Rebecca the cook,
and taking no chances with members of the family who were "interested
in her," she left Appleton and journeyed forth again.

She had now acquired a new accomplishment. She could serve as waitress
or second girl, and this advantage almost assured her of success in any
sort of well-built community.

But it would be tame, slow, as Tessie figured it out, and only a big
city could possibly satisfy her ambition "to be somebody."

Then came the temptation which resulted so disastrously.

Out in Elmhurst, her next stop, a troop of girl scouts was drilling
when she stepped off the train. New clothes and a better appearance,
the result of that first pay at housework, had converted the mill girl
into quite an attractive young lady, and as she waited at the pretty
little square, watching the girl scouts drill, something like envy
possessed her.

Why did they always seem so settled, so prosperous and satisfied! What
was there in a mere society that could do all that for any girl?

This question she asked almost audibly, for her lips moved and her face
betrayed a puzzled and aggressive look of defiance.

It was always that way with Tessie. She fought first and investigated
later. This unfortunate characteristic was responsible for much of her
perversity. She set herself against conditions instead of trying to
overcome them.

Never had her unhappy self felt more aggressive than now, as she
watched those girl scouts drill, every peal of laughter they sent over
the velvet green seemed to hiss at her, and every graceful valiant
maneuver of wig-wagging or physical drill added deeper envy to her
smoldering jealousy.

"That's the kind of thing Dagmar likes," she told herself. "Pity some
movie man couldn't get that picture. It would go fine at a Sunday
School mixup."

This last was another thrust at organized authority, but the thought of
Dagmar recalled the scout badge.

"Humph!" she scoffed. "Guess I could fool them if I wanted to. I'll bet
none of them has this grand marshall headlight!"

Her hand was on the little bag wherein lay that badge. Its pin was
entangled in threads of torn handkerchiefs, and its pretty clover leaf
was enameled with caked face powder and candy dust.

For a few moments she considered slipping her hand in the bag and
quickly pinning the badge on her pretty rose-colored sweater. Then she
could walk over to the drilling troop, and introduce herself as a
visiting scout, sure to be made welcome in Elmhurst.

"But they might catch me on their sign language," she decided. "Guess I
better wait until I get on to some of their deaf and dumb stuff."

So for the moment she was saved, but the temptation was too alluring to
be easily vanquished. It was certain to return, and that in an hour
when seeming necessity offered a more urgent excuse for its
fulfillment. The scout badge in hands unconsecrated was like a holy
thing surrounded by evil--it would maintain its own pure character
unsullied, but evil mocked it--and the good, like a frightened little
fairy, hid itself deep in girl-scout idealism, waiting for rescue.

Tessie was restive and unhappy. She had failed to gain by all her risks
and daring adventure. Not only had she lost her place, but she had
likewise lost her companions, and while unwilling to admit it the girl
felt keenly the separation from Dagmar.

"All the same," she declared, taking a last look at the girls in their
brown uniforms on the green square, "I'll be one of them some day. They
don't have to be too particular about girls they are supposed to help.
I'll give them a good chance to help little old Tessie," and with that
prophetic statement, more important to her than the unhappy girl had
any way of guessing, Tessie tried for one more "place" to earn a little
more money, that she might eventually make her way toward a big city.




CHAPTER XIII

BROKEN FAITH


Following the directions given in her little printed slip cut from the
"Help Wanted" column in the Leader, Tessie had no trouble in finding
the place offered in such glowing terms. Every sort of inducement was
held out in the printed lines, for obtaining help was a problem
affording the most original methods of advertising, and each month
wages seemed to climb another round in the ladder of higher salaries.
The term "wages" went by the boards when the fifty-dollar-a-month notch
was knocked in prosperity's payroll.

The position, it was not the old time "situation," demanded little of
the applicant in the way of reference, and Tessie, already wise in her
new craft-knew well a telephone call from Mrs. Elmwood to Mrs. Appleton
would be sufficient guarantee of her honesty. She had been strictly
honest even to the point of picking up a few scattered dimes,
ostensibly dropped accidently, but really set down as "bait" to test
her honesty. She was also very wise for so inexperienced a girl.

So with affirmative smiles the erstwhile employer engaged the
nice-looking, bright-looking young girl, whose olive skin and dark eyes
made her pretty, if a bit foreign and rather saucy.

"If Dagmar could see me now!" she mocked, patting the lace butterfly
cap on her neat hair and smoothing the lace sample of an apron in the
most approved screen world style. "This dress must have been made for
me, it fits so well," she commented, twirling around in front of the
modern mirror furnished in the second maid's room, "and this house
suits me very well," with a glance at the fine fixings all about her.
"Now for the china and silver. I'll bet I'll surprise this shebang with
my knowledge of right and left, and my juggling with the forks and
spoons. A new place is all right while it's new, but it gets old awful
quick after--well, after pay day."

The black dress was stylishly short and gave Tessie a very chic
appearance, in fact although she was seventeen years she looked much
younger in the uniform, and she knew it.

Inevitably among the members of that household were two young girls
from the scout troop she had seen drilling that afternoon, and quite as
inevitably the table talk was entirely of the drill and other scout
activities.

It was all so simple after that. There in the sisters' rooms were scout
manuals, and these little blue books gave Tessie all the information
she needed. Each day while arranging the rooms she was able to learn a
lesson, and just when her statement was sure to make the best effect
she treated the girls to a story of her "girl scout work." It was just
like real fiction to Tessie, while Marcia and Phillis Osborne could
hardly believe their pretty puff-hidden ears that they should have
right in their own home a real girl scout who had won a merit badge!
Tessie positively declined to discuss the "brave deed" she had
consummated to obtain that badge, also she refused just as positively
to take any part in the scout work of Elmhurst. It was delectable to
have the girls beg her to come to drill, and assure her no one need
know she was employed as a waitress.

But Tessie "adored the pose" as she learned to think herself, and she
had no idea of being caught in the official net of a scout meeting,
where all sorts of questions might be asked, the answers to which could
not even be hinted at in a scout manual.

Alma Benitz was the name she chose that night when Frank Apgar escorted
her from his "ark" to his mother's hospitality, and that means of
identification was serving her beautifully in the home of Mrs. J.
Bennington Osborne, Terrace End, Elmhurst.

It was all perfectly thrilling and Tessie felt each day she mingled her
"better days' smile" with a sob or a grin, for the benefit of her
sympathetic spectators, she would have given a week's pay to have
Dagmar seen the "hit" she was making.

"They'll be giving me French lessons if I don't watch out," she told
her looking-glass one night, and the confidential mirror noticed the
new girl actually sounded her "gs." Tessie was an apt pupil, but brains
more than hands need training to execute exact science of "putting
things over" all the time.

Also a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and the weakest
link in this adventurer's chain was the fact that she had no means of
communicating with her own folks or Dagmar, and receiving any reply
from them. She knew her own father too well to risk letting him know
anything of her whereabouts, and her two letters to Dagmar could not be
answered for lack of address. Now Tessie had new clothes, and she would
soon have more money--if only she could get hold of Dagmar, and start
off again on that trip to the big city.

"Maybe the poor kid's in jail," she reflected. "She's just the kind to
get sent up to one of those dumps where they train girls! Train them!"
she repeated mockingly. "Swell training a girl gets behind bars!

"But it would cost twenty-five dollars for both of us, and I'll never
live through earning that here," she followed. This general summing up
of the situation took place in her room, the night before her first
"afternoon off" and suppose--just suppose she took a bunch of those
scout tickets, and went out to the next town and sold them! She might
use that money to send to Dagmar and replace it with her next week's
pay!

So there was the temptation.

And she did not realize its dangers.

Nothing had ever been easier. Everyone wanted tickets for the Violet
Shut-in Benefit and every ticket brought fifty cents to the attractive
girl wearing the scout badge of merit.

"I call this luck, the kind that grows on bushes," she was thinking, as
in that strange town she hurried from door to door with the violet bits
of pasteboard that were printed to bring cheer to the Shut Ins.

"Of course I'll replace this at once," she also decided. "I wouldn't
really touch a cent of this, even for one day, only I must get Daggie
out of her trouble wherever she is. It isn't fair to leave her all
alone to face the music."

Then came the thought of the possible joy she might experience if she
could but surprise Phyllis and Marcia with the sale of all their
tickets!

Still another consideration. Each girl was obliged to sell in a certain
territory and she was covering enough ground for the whole troop.

"I guess I'm out of luck," she decided, "but this isn't so bad. I
believe I'd make a hit as a first rate book agent. Maybe I'll try that
next."

It was important that all her ground should be covered before the
public school would be dismissed, hence she quickened her steps, and
she had but two more tickets to dispose of when the rumbling of a
jitney attracted her attention.

It was Frank Apgar on the high front seat of his Ark.

"Without thought of danger, and only the prospect of a pleasant chat
with someone she knew, Tessie hailed Frank and climbed to the seat
beside him.

"Oh, I'm so glad to see you, Frank! How's the good old lady who saved
my life? I'll always remember her as my guardian angel. And boy, those
flap-jacks!"

"Mother's fine and she always asks if I see you. Now I'll have a report
to make," and he stared so at Tessie she felt uncomfortable.

"What are you looking at?" she asked, her tone of voice condoning the
rudeness of her words.

"I'm just thinkin' you look a lot like some one I've been asked to
watch for. Did you light in from Flosston the night you crawled on this
Ark without botherin' the gong or brakes?"

For a single second Tessie felt her fright would betray her. Then
recovering her poise, with the keen necessity so obvious, she laughed a
merry laugh empty in ring, but full enough in volume.

"Flosston!" she repeated. "Say, when I get enough money I'm going on an
excursion there. I've always had a feeling it must be the original rest
cure. But say, Frank, if you want to know more than I can tell you
about my history, I have a little book with all the facts in, and even
a few baby pictures, I'd like to show you. I have a swell place living
out down in Como (opposite direction to the Elmhurst address) and if
you tell me what time you're due here tomorrow I'll fetch along my
illustrated pedigree!"

"Say, Sis, do you think you're funny, or is it some disease you've got?"

"No, really, Frank, I'm not fooling. I have an album with my name and
all that in it, and when I come out for an airing to-morrow I'll just
bring it along."

How glad she was she had hidden the scout badge and the two unsold
tickets! The velvet bag rather heavy with silver, the proceeds of
ticket sales, Tessie handled carefully to avoid jingling.

Here was real danger! If Frank should decide she was the girl from
Flosston--runaway Tessie Wartliz!

"Well, all the same," Frank added, turning on the gas after a slow-down
for an old lady with a small boy and a large bundle, "I have some
regard for a girl who wants to cut loose and make good. Can't see why a
boy always gets away with it, and a girl is slammed behind the shutters
if she happens to disagree with the opinions of the town council on the
sort of toothbrush best for grown girls! Now, Alma, I promised Jim
Cosgrove I'd keep a lookout, and sure thing you do tally with his
illustrated funny page he's been handin' out every trip I made since
that stowaway ride. I'm durned glad I didn't mention the stowaway. He'd
be apt to tear the gears apart to make sure you're not distributed in
the lubricating oil. He is sure set on findin' the girl who gave him
the slip. Can't stand a little thing like that against his golden
record."

Tessie determined to slip off the car at the next side street, and make
a detour to hide the route she must take to return to the Osborne home.

"Well, so long, Frank. Here's where I detrain. Maybe I'll see you
to-morrow. Give my love to your mother, and I hope you find the runaway
girl," and she waved a merry good-bye that seemed to burn the tips of
the fingers she shook it from. Tessie was frightened, she was panic
stricken! The whole situation was becoming more and more dangerous! She
was using an assumed name, she had run away from home, she had deceived
the girl scouts, had sold their tickets and--oh, what would she do now
if Frank should tell that officer!

Just in time to don her black dress and white cap, Tessie reached the
Osborne home. She was so nervous the silver rattled and the china
clicked, but the color in her cheeks was ascribed to the "long walk"
she had taken "away out Pembroke way."

During dinner Marcia and Phyllis talked continuously about the benefit,
and made all their plans for ticket selling. It would be a notable
benefit.

Later that evening Mrs. Osborne paid Tessie her first week's wages and
complimented her on her "splendid service." She was a woman imbued with
the wisdom of a keen appreciation of values, and she knew well the
value of encouragement to a young girl like Tessie, but the latter was
very miserable, and could scarcely hide the fact.

Now why did the ghost of a small mistake have to haunt her just when
everything looked so rosy?

If only her mother and father could be counted on for a reasonable
understanding of the whole matter, but the loss of their daughter's
wages for so long would surely enrage the avaricious father and anger
the unreasonable mother. Not much hope crept into poor Tessie's heart
as late that night she packed her little bag, and with many misgivings,
overcome only by the strongest resolutions to pay back the money, did
she put the ticket proceeds beside her week's wages in the well-worn
purse.

The scout badge fairly begged her to reconsider. Its little wreath and
clover emblem, the meaning of which Tessie had learned from Marcia's
manual, mutely pleaded the cause of honor, and urged her to sacrifice
instead of deceit.

But Tessie was frightened and untrained, so that the new reverence,
with which she folded that badge in her best ironed handkerchief, was
not yet strong enough to call louder than the voice of mockery which
hissed of dangers and threatened disgrace.

It was very early next morning that the dew on the hedge was shocked by
a passing form making a rude getaway through the hawthorne blossoms,
and not even the gardener saw the girl who jumped across the little
creek instead of passing over the rustic bridge.

"Something has happened to that girl," insisted Mrs. Osborne. "I am not
often mistaken, and I know she is not a common thief. Marcia and
Phyllis, you may refund the ticket money privately, and I will consult
with father about following up the child." This was the verdict in the
Osborne home upon the complex discovery of stolen tickets and missing
maid; but in spite of the mother's warning, some one must have trusted
some one else with the story, for a brief account was used in the
LEADER that night.

So this was the story that surprised the Girl Scouts of Flosston and
shocked Rose Dixon.

Surely the strings of our mythical May-pole are winding in a circle of
promise and surprise, for Tessie is gone and Rose is going!

Coincidently, out in Flosston our own little girl scouts, Cleo, Grace
and Madaline, are worrying their pretty little heads over the mystery
of the woodsman who wrote the queer letter.

Would they risk writing and awaiting a reply from the hiding place in
the dark little cave of the hollow stone?




CHAPTER XIV

WOODLAND MAGIC


"Oh come on, girls! Don't bother waiting for the big girls. They're
going to drill. I can't wait to see the letter, Cleo. Did you get Hal
Crane? And will he surely take it for us?"

It was Grace who, dragging Cleo and attempting to lasso Madaline with
her book strap, besought her friends to hide away from their companions
that they might read the wonderful letter, and then dispatch it to its
post box under the stone in the River Bend Woods.

"I'm so excited," Grace confessed. "I honestly do feel, girls,
something wonderful will come from our woodman mystery. His letter
proves he is nice."

"So you have given up the tramp idea, Grace," Cleo smilingly remarked.
"I'm glad of that. I didn't just fancy writing my best stationery
letters to some hobo."

"I'm perfectly sure he is a nice clean man," declared Grace, "for there
wasn't a smudge on that little note, and I have noticed since that the
paper is a fine quality. Oh, I am perfectly sure he is a very nice
young man," and the bright-eyed, pink-cheeked girl laughed at her own
deductions.

"But Mrs. Johnston's wash?" Madaline reminded her. "What about that?"

"Why, perhaps he didn't steal that at all. He might even have rescued
the bag from a real tramp," replied the resourceful Grace.

"Hal is going to meet us at three-thirty down at the stone wall,"
injected Cleo, "and if you girls want to see this letter before he
flies off with it you had best come along. Of course he is coming on
his bicycle."

"Oh, yes, let's hear it," pleaded Grace. "I'm sure it's splendid. I
never could have answered that note myself."

Cleo accepted the compliment and the three little second-grade scouts
hurried along in the direction of the young willows, behind which an
ancient stone wall gave historic prestige to the now modern Flosston.

Nimbly they sprang the wall and quickly they devoured the letter. It
read, from the hands of Grace, as follows:

"DEAR WOODSMAN: We girl scouts of True Tred Troop have decided to
answer your letter. Perhaps you need friends. If you do, could we help
you? Our rules oblige us to assist all fellow beings in distress. Are
you in need of help? You see, we not only can assist others, but in
doing so we earn promotion. When one of us tied you up she thought it
was brave to do so, but now we feel that may have been a mistake."

Grace paused. She did not like the idea of admitting a mistake even
thus remotely.

"Couldn't we leave that out?" she asked Cleo.

"Why, no, how could we apologize and expect to make friends with him if
we didn't try to fix that tieing-up business?" Cleo inquired.

"Oh, all right. I like the letter, Cleo. I was only wondering if we
couldn't forget that. I'll read the rest. Where was I? Oh, yes, now
listen!" and she continued:

"If there is any way we can help you or if you know any girls who would
like to join our troop, please leave another letter in this same place.

"Very truly, THREE GIRLS OF TRUE TRED."

There was no time to discuss the last few paragraphs, for Hal Crane was
now seen flying along the macadam road.

"Be sure he knows just where to go," Cleo warned Grace, who had sealed
the letter and now stood waiting the courier.

"What's the idea, anyhow?" demanded Hal. "Isn't the post-office good
enough for your troop?"

"Oh, you see, Hal," Grace explained, "maybe our friend can't leave the
woods."

"Got something the matter that makes him hide out there, and you don't
mind exposing me to it?" Hal was laughing good-naturedly. He evidently
was just as keen on the adventure as were the girls.

"Now, you have promised to keep our secret, you know, Hal, and we are
sure we will find out something awfully interesting if he answers this
letter."

"Suppose he gobbles me up?" returned the big boy, thrusting out his
right arm expectantly.

"Oh, you know you have scoured and scouted these woods lots of times,
and I suppose you know every squirrel by name," Madaline said. "But go
on, Hal, and we'll wait here for you till you come back. There may be
another letter under the stone," and her cheeks fairly burned in
anticipation.

"Well, so long! Take a good look at me, girls. Your cave man may turn
me into a monkey or some other forest creature," and waving his free
hand, Hal Crane sped off like the modern boy-scout courier he was.

"Nothing could possibly happen to him, do you think?" Grace asked just
a little anxiously. The memory of her own thrilling experience in those
woods had grown to something like a big black shadow that dragged from
her the bag supposed to contain Mrs. Johnston's wash. And Grace also
recalled the mysterious note pointed out the fact that the writer still
held on to the historic piece of rope Grace had left around the figure
at the tree, and, just suppose the man should take revenge on Hal!

"Oh, goosey!" Cleo replied to her expressed fear. "Don't you suppose a
boy scout like Hal can take care of himself! Why, when the men went out
hunting for little Angelo Botana, Hal was the very bravest of all. He
even waded in the swamp knee deep when the men couldn't manage the big
drag nets. Why, Hal is as strong as any man," Cleo valiantly insisted.

It was not now a simple matter for the scout girls to occupy their time
while awaiting the return of the messenger, even walking the stone
wall, and jumping the breaks, usually a popular pastime, seemed flat
and uninteresting now to them.

"Let's hunt four-leaf clovers," suggested Madaline, "and we will give
any we find to Captain Clark as a new pledge, like our own clover-leaf
badge."

"But ours are three-leaf, not four," Cleo reminded her. "Suppose we
hunt the oddest, the prettiest, and the biggest number of varieties?
See these lovely variegated ones. They come with the pink blossoms. We
might mount a whole display of leaves on one of brother's butterfly
glasses. I think it would do for a nature study, also."

"Oh, yes, that's a perfectly splendid idea," applauded Grace. "I
haven't added a single discovery to my list this whole week."

So absorbed did they become in this newly invented task no one noticed
a wheel-chair being driven along the pleasant country footpath. In the
chair was a little girl about the age of the scouts--perhaps fourteen
years. Her pretty face betrayed not the slightest hint of the infirmity
which compelled her to recline in that chair, in fact her cheeks were
as pink as the much-lauded color Grace was so often complimented upon,
but which to herself seemed rudely healthy.

Directly in line with the three scouts who were crawling through the
grass, hunting clovers, the nurse propelling the chair drew her little
passenger to the roadside and stopped.

All the girls hunched up on their knees like human "bunnies" and the
little girl in the wheel chair laughed outright.

Cleo stared her surprise.

"Oh, please excuse me for laughing," spoke the child, "but you look too
cunning--just like--like colored animals," she faltered.

Cleo smiled her forgiveness, while at that moment Madaline shouted the
find of the first four-leaf clover.

"And such a lovely big fat one!" she qualified, now skipping over the
tall grasses quite kangaroo fashion.

"A four-leaf clover!" exclaimed the girl in the wheel chair as her
nurse moved on.

"Oh, why didn't we show it to her!" lamented Cleo. "She can't walk to
pick them!"

"But she didn't tell us who she was," objected Grace.

"I don't care. I'm just going to run after her and give her this
four-leaf clover," declared the warm-hearted Madaline. "I think we were
awfully stiff and snippy," and without waiting for approval she hurried
after the disappearing chair, just as it turned into the avenue.

"Would you like this!" offered Madaline, almost breathless as she
overtook the two strangers.

"Oh, I should love it!" exclaimed the little girl, the sincerity in her
voice and expression vouching for the truth of her simple words.

Madaline wanted to say something else, but feared to touch on the
delicate subject of the little girl's infirmity. So she merely smiled,
and said she could find plenty more, and that she was a girl scout
doing a little nature work.

"Oh, a girl scout!" exclaimed the little invalid, her eyes fairly
blazing enthusiasm.

"Yes," replied Madaline, edging away. "We have a lot of fun being
scouts. Good-bye!" and she ran off without affording herself a chance
to say anything else.

"Did she take it!" asked Grace unnecessarily.

"Yes, and she just loved it. But I couldn't think what to say, and I
said we had fun in being scouts, when I saw she couldn't move for any
kind of fun. Wasn't that awful?" wailed Madaline.

"No," the practical Cleo assured her embarrassed companion. "It is
always well to speak of scout work. Perhaps she will take an interest
in it now. But look! Here comes Hal. Oh, I wonder what news he has!"

The girl in the wheel chair was quickly forgotten with the approach of
the boy.

"Oh, he has a letter! See how he wags his head!" exclaimed Grace.

"Yep, I got one!" the boy called, now near enough to make himself
heard. "Do I hear the good news?" he inquired, handing over the yellow
envelope.

"It's for me!" Grace insisted, making sure of the prize.

"It's addressed to the 'Scout Bandit'" announced Hal. "I don't know
that I would stand for that, Grace," but the girl, nervously attempting
to open the yellow envelope, paid no attention to the insinuation.
"Thank you so much, Hal," Cleo had the politeness to express. "Come on
over to the bridge, and maybe we will tell you what's in the letter."

"No, thank you," he refused. "I'm due at a baseball practice and late
now. So long, girls. Hope you make your points, whatever they are, by
all that woodland stuff," and with commendable disregard for possible
thrills, Hal turned his wheel in the direction of the ball field.

Now what girl could possibly have resisted the chance of sharing the
woodland secret? Yet, being a boy, Hal ignored the offer and happily
raced off to his belated ball practice.

"We can all squat down in this patch of grass," suggested Madaline,
who, as yet, had not even glimpsed the envelope Grace had passed on to
Cleo. "Do let's read it!" she begged impatiently.

"All right!" and Grace did squat down beside the others on the little
patch of grass that hung over the deep gutter. "Now listen!" (Needless
admonition.)

"'Little Bandits,'" she began, "'if you find this I will know you are
going to play our game. First I must tell you I have to keep my
identity secret for some time yet. My reason for doing so is a worthy
one, which I will some day make clear to you. But I am not a lazy
tramp, nor a wild woodsman in the ordinary sense, so, if you will keep
faith, we can play a wonderful game.'"

Grace paused and breathed audibly.

"There!" she exclaimed. "I knew he would be nice."

"After you decided not to have him a horrid old tramp," teased Madaline.

"Oh, read it, Grace," Cleo insisted. "What does he want us to do?"

She resumed reading the rather broad sheet that might have been called
typewriter paper, if the girls had been familiar with its style.

"Let me see. Oh, yes. 'Will you do something for me?'" she continued
reading. "'If you have any little book of your rules and plans, and if
you will leave one in the hollow stone for me, some day I will repay
you for your confidence.

"'Your victim, "'THE MAN BY THE TREE.'"

"Oh, what can he want a scout book for?" eagerly asked Grace, folding
the letter.

"We couldn't give it, without permission--unless, it would be too bad
to give away our secret to get permission," pouted Grace.

"We might get permission without telling all about it," suggested Cleo
adroitly. "We could say we wanted to influence a stranger, and besides,
anyone can buy a manual in the stores."

"Of course," decided Madaline, happy that the secret would not be
spoiled. "Perhaps he wants--"

"To be a scout!" roared Grace in one of her gales of laughter.
"Wouldn't it be too funny if he were to fall in love with Captain
Clark!"

"And marry her!" topped off Cleo.

"Then your noble deed, Grace, would be noble indeed," added Madaline.

"I guess Miss Clark can marry whom she pleases. She's very pretty."

"And her dad is rich too, so I don't believe we can solve our mystery
that way," finished Cleo, and none of the three had quite decided just
how she would like to end it when the five o'clock bell from the "Home"
out Clinton way chimed a warning hour.

"So late!" exclaimed Grace, "and I have to practice before tea."

"And I have to help mother, for Martha's out," added Madaline.

"Let's run," suggested Cleo, and those who happened to see the trio
scampering along never could have guessed they guarded so carefully the
mystery of the woodsman's letter.




CHAPTER XV

VENTURE TROOP


The girls of Franklin Mills were finally organized and began work just
as Molly Cosgrove had planned. Venture Troop immediately became a band
of active, enthusiastic and withal capable girls, bringing to the scout
movement a new vigor and promise, the result of individual
self-discipline and the indispensible power of personal responsibility.

It must be understood here that girls employed in factories may lack
social education, but they are always more self-reliant, more capable
of handling emergencies and difficulties, and more surely skilled in
precision and mechanical accuracy than are the girls of same age
situated in the more fortunate walks of life, the difference in
comparison being always in favor of normal conditions, and general
education, because of the balance and mental ability acquired through
our modern schools and progressive methods.

But the mill girl is never an inferior, and in the exact science of
skill, she can easily and at any time outdistance the most brilliant
high-school graduate, for skill is her education, and she handles, and
fingers, and computes sometimes many thousands of delicate threads, or
intricate bits of metal, the slightest fumble of which might throw out
of gear a powerful machine. This is applied mathematics, is it not? She
uses no pencil nor paper, but counts by allowing one line to overlap
another at every five hundred cards, done in some fine print work, and
when ten five hundred cards show that almost invisible margin, she
knows she has pasted five thousand!

Thus we may realize at the outset that the Venture Troop of Franklin
Scouts comprises a formidable array of certain talent, and this must be
respected, while education in broader lines is recorded through our
little story.

Rose now felt her responsibility with a thrill of delight. Even her
anxiety concerning Tessie was allayed in this newly found service. It
was no longer a question of one girl, but the matter of many; nor would
Rose attempt to desert her post as patrol leader, when the young,
eager, enthusiastic members of that troop looked to her for a
leadership expected from one who so thoroughly understood their
characters.

Lieutenant Cosgrove, now Captain of the Venture Troop, had impressed
upon the girl her duties in leading, gently but firmly, along the scout
lines, which had been modified to fit in reasonably with the scheme of
Americanization.

While it was perfectly true that the parents of Rose would welcome her
in the Connecticut town, they had not urged her to leave Franklin, in
fact a late letter hinted labor conditions around the Brodix family
were not as yet all satisfactorily adjusted, but Dagmar (Rose) "could
come if she wanted to," her brother had written. This meant it would be
wise for her not to go just yet.

Leaving the meeting room that evening after the organization, and in
company with a number of her patrol, Rose quite forgot Tessie, and the
stigma of publicity concerning that ticket money, and the possible
unlawful use of the lost merit badge.

Buzzing like bees, asking volumes of questions, and pouring out enough
suggestions to furnish programmes for troops rather than planning for a
single patrol, the girls surrounded Rose with such confidence as to
almost sweep the little blonde off her feet. Perhaps her intimacy with
Captain Cosgrove placed her in this preferred class, at any rate as a
patrol leader Rose found herself both popular and influential.

Mary Furniss insisted on planning a hike for the following Saturday
afternoon. Dora Silber believed a long trolley ride would be more
enjoyable, while Mona Markovitz urged the formation of a girls' ball
team to rival the players of Branchville.

"It's just like having our own union," remarked Jennie Dupre, a pretty
little Canadian, "only we are sure to be safe from picket duty in the
scouts."

"We're not either," corrected Marie Engelka. "We may have to patrol in
case of any local trouble. Wouldn't we look swell in our uniforms?" and
she marched on ahead with arm thrust bolt upright in lieu of a gun,
while Dora Silber sounded the tattoo of a drum on Mona Markowitz's new
straw sailor hat. Mona was short and had to stand the consequences.

"And all the brave things we have to do! Say, Rose, what did you do to
get by all those tests?" demanded Erica Jentz.

"Oh, I just studied," faltered Rose, "and then I did without things to
send money to the folks. I don't like to talk about sacrifices, but I
am only trying to show you what you can do to make good," she finished
rather lamely. There was one brave act Rose longed to accomplish, but
just then the chances for its undertaking seemed remote.

"Our folks better watch out," cautioned Mary Furniss, "I'm to learn
bed-making, and I have to leave home at six-thirty. That means an early
dumping for sister Jane, who goes to English School. We always used to
call her Jennie, but now she's Jane," and Mary mocked the plain
American title with a shrill rising inflection.

"Wasn't it funny how we all laughed on the question of earning fifty
cents," remarked Jeanette. "Looked as if we thought earning money was a
big joke."

"No, that wasn't it, Jean," corrected Dora. "It was making it fifty
cents. Why, that wouldn't tip the 'chink' who irons our shirtwaists,"
and the original laugh was encored.

"Are your folks all gone from Flosston, Rose?" Mary Furniss inquired,
just as the little procession was about to break ranks for respective
individual "barracks."

"Oh, yes. Father got good work in Connecticut, and I may go soon,"
replied Rose frankly.

"You've got a swell boardin' house," commented Nora Noon, the one Irish
girl in the new patrol, "and I heard some one say Mrs. Cosgrove was
going to start a big lunch-counter for us girls. They call it a
cafeteria. Can you picture little Nora sittin' up against anything like
that for her corned beef and cabbage!" and the joke epidemic went the
usual rounds.

"If anyone could make a lunch counter go, it surely ought to be Mrs.
Cosgrove," affirmed Erica Jentz, "for she just keeps her tea-pot going
all the time, and my mother says she never lets her cake run out for
fear some one would come in between meals."

"Well, it's a sure thing if they come in at meals, they need cake, and
if they come in between meals they would be glad to have cake, so it
seems to me on that plan Mrs. Cosgrove must need a home bakery,"
analyzed Dora Silber. "But I'll say, girls, a cafeteria, whatever it
is, would be lots better than a lunch-box, and I hope we get it. So
long, scouts. Here's where I turn in. Rose, I'll be ready for drill any
time you say, if I'm not eatin' or sleepin'. Don't worry about the
other 'dooties' of life. S'long, girls! Olive-oil, Jean! That's French
for good-bye, isn't it?" and while Jean insisted au revoir was no
relation to the term used, the girls paired off, and left Rose with
Nora to finish her two more blocks to the Cosgrove cottage.

"I think it will be great for all of us," Nora conceded. "You know,
Rose, they're all a jolly lot, but they don't have a great deal of fun.
They can laugh at almost anything, but that's because they're so
healthy and good natured. I often lend them books. Father has a lot of
them, and I do believe our club will be just the thing for all of us,"
and the girl called Irish, but who was really a solid little American,
emphasized her statement by kicking over the only loose stone in the
well-tended driveway that bordered the "big house" at Oak Corners.

"Yes, I think it will be fine," agreed Rose. "But I hope I will be able
to--to be a wise leader," she qualified.

"That's why Captain Cosgrove selected you," said Nora. "We are to be
self-governing, and every member must be a business girl. That's better
than being just mill girls," Nora declared. "But it's lots nicer to
have a leader who just knows all about us. It will give the girls more
courage and all that! Don't you worry about being wise enough. If there
is anything to be learned you can count on a double quick education
from us, Rosie. Good-night. Tell Mrs. Cosgrove we can smell the
doughnuts all ready!" and Nora skipped off in the direction of a gentle
light that shone from the reading lamp of Thomas Noon, one time
caretaker of a famous Celtic estate, but now plain worker as gateman in
Franklin Silk Mills.

Alone for the few moments occupied in reaching the Cosgrove's home,
Rose turned the problem of Tessie over and over in her troubled mind.
She felt keenly the need of confidence, but could not bring herself to
tell this story now to Molly Cosgrove.

"How could I make her understand why I delayed all this time?" she
reflected. "No, I must wait for another letter. Perhaps I'll get one
to-morrow. Anyhow our new troop is just fine, and I mean to be a real
patrol leader," decided the girl, imbued with the same enthusiasm that
seemed to permeate the entire girl-scout movement.

Have you ever been called upon to lead others?

Do you know the joy of using your own personal power in a
well-organized and carefully directed plan?

If so, you may share the enthusiasm of Rose Dixon, the young patrol
leader of Venture Troop of Girl Scouts.

Back once more with her own congenial companions, she almost wished she
had not so altered her name. True, Rose Dixon was not far removed from
Dagmar Rosika Brodix. Rose was Rosika, and Dixon from the last syllable
of Brodix with the usual suffix "on" did not really seem so far from
the original, and in the sensational days, when the two towns were
stirred up with the gossip of the runaway girls, the change seemed the
only plan, but now Rose felt a shadow of deceit in the use of the
American name.

"At the same time," she decided finally, "lots of people change to more
simple-sounding names, and it was better to start out without that
mistake following me. I suppose Tessie has changed her name as often as
she does her sleeping places. Poor girl! I do wish she could come back
and get a start such as I have."

And another girl in another town was thinking just that in another way.




CHAPTER XVI

MORE MYSTERIES


"I know what we'll do," decided Grace as the three young scouts
discussed the secret correspondence with the man o' the woods. "We must
tell Margaret Slowden. She knows best and Margy wonders what we are
whispering about all the time."

"Yes," promptly agreed Madaline. "I think that is the best plan.
Margaret said the other day we were acting as if we had a troop of our
own instead of being True Treds."

"We would be perfectly safe in telling Margaret," Cleo followed. "And
she can help us best because she has already received a merit badge."

"And lost it," added Grace.

"Received another," amended Madaline.

"I feel a little timid about all the woodsy part," admitted Cleo,
"because we haven't any way of finding out about our cave man except
spying on him, and that would be so risky it would demerit instead of
meriting us. You know we all had to promise to be prudent," she
finished.

"But we won't tell the twins," Grace restricted, "that would spoil the
whole secret."

So it was arranged that Margaret Slowden should be admitted to the
inner circle, and after school that afternoon the marvelous story was
told.

Margaret finally gasped. She swallowed something like a tiny bug with
the intake. The girls were all squatted in the little tepee made from
the school-house shutters, and Margaret always chewed clovers and sweet
grass. After a coughing fit she was able to hear the remainder of the
weird story of Grace and her man o' the woods.

"And why couldn't you see him?" demanded Margaret.

"Why!" exclaimed the indignant Grace. "Do you think you would be able
to take notes on appearances with a coil of rope in one hand and a big
slip knot ready to work off in the other, when you had to run around a
tree without waking the man!"

"But what did he look like?" demanded the inquisitor.

"All I could see was feet--no, it was shoes--and a hat pulled down."

"All movie men have their hats pulled down," interrupted Margaret.
"Maybe some one was working a camera on the other side of a tree."

"You're just horrid, Margaret," Grace pouted, "and I won't tell you
another word about it!"

"Why, Grace, I'm not teasing! You know, all big things like that turn
out to be movie stunts--making the pictures, you know. Although, of
course, your mystery may be real. But what are you going to do about
it?"

"We planned to send the scout book just as, he asked, and then wait,
also as he asked, until something happens we don't know what. Then we
expect he will reveal his identity," and this last clause had a very
dignified tone to the girlish ears.

"That seems perfectly all right," Margaret rendered her verdict, "and
none of our rules in any way could oppose that. The only thing is, we
girls would be obliged to shun the woods because we are ordered, you
know, to avoid unnecessary danger, and cave men are supposed to be very
wild and woozy."

Details were all finally arranged, and Hal Crane was to pay one more
trip to the woods, there to deposit the small blue book of scout data
in the big hollow of the charmed rock.

"Suppose he turns out to be some great man who might give us a new park
or something like that," ventured Madaline rather hazily, "then we
would all come in for honors, wouldn't we?"

"I would rather come in for the park," Cleo inserted. "We need a few
more if we are going to do much drilling this summer."

"That man might be a writer, camping out there, who wants material,"
speculated Margaret. "You know, the River Bend Wood is considered very
romantic. An artist painted the falls once."

"Too snaky for camping, though," objected Cleo. "Well, at any rate,
girls, we have got to practice wig-wagging this afternoon, so let's
wiggle along. Have you heard all about the Venture Troop, of Franklin?
That awfully pretty little blonde girl, who was at our meeting one
night, you know, is a patrol leader, and they have wonderful things
planned."

"I heard something the other day that gave me the creeps," confessed
Margaret. "I wasn't going to say anything about it, but since you all
have mysteries, I might as well share mine."

"Oh, what's it about? Scout stuff?" demanded Grace, her cheeks toning
up to the excitement key.

"Yes, of course. You all remember the night I lost my precious badge?
Well, that was the same night two girls ran away from Flosston. Mother
offered all sorts of rewards for the return of my badge, for I did
prize it so," and the brown eyes glinted topaz gleams at the memory.

"Oh, yes. We called it your D. S. C. because you got it for guarding
the cloakroom the night your brother received his decoration," recalled
Cleo.

"Yes, and it was very strange in this town, where every one knew all
about it, that I never heard from it since," went on Margaret with a
show of considerable importance. "Now here is my mystery. One day last
week I received an anonymous letter, just two lines long. It said,
'Don't give up. You will get your badge back some day soon.' Now, why,
do you suppose, anyone who has it is holding it?"

"Maybe some of the boys just playing a joke," suggested Grace.

"Oh, no, the boys wouldn't wait all this time for their joke; besides,
there's no fun in that," analyzed Margaret. "Please don't say anything
about it, girls, but since you told me your secret, I thought I ought
to tell you mine. There come the other girls. Come on for the
wig-wagging. I just love to stand up on the library steps and wave.
Hope Captain Clark gives me that place," and the quartette were off to
join forces with others of the True Treds, with their signal flags of
red and white.

It was usual to have spectators on wig-wagging practice days, and this
afternoon an unusual number seemed to take time to stop and notice the
picturesque scouts. The troop girls had worn their uniforms, to school
that afternoon, so as to be ready for an early start, and in the
glorious sunshine, striking in golden rays through the deep green elms
for which the village was noted, the troop girls, with their signal
flags, made an attractive picture.

Captain Clark stood far off on a mound of green, waving her
"questions," and each girl answered the code as the messages were
relayed and transmitted. The younger girls were promptly qualifying,
and it was very evident the coming tests for higher degrees would find
our especial little friends ready to advance.

Coming down from the terraces where they had been stationed, Grace and
Cleo observed a handsome limousine drawn up to the curb where the
occupants could have viewed the wig-wagging to advantage.

"Oh, there's that lovely girl that was in the wheel-chair!" exclaimed
Madaline.

"I believe she would speak to us if she were near enough," commented
Cleo.

"What a stunning car!" added Madaline. "What a pity the little girl
cannot walk."

"That's about the way generally," finished Cleo vaguely. "But run!
There go Margaret and Winnie McKay," and the bright-eyed, pink-cheeked
child, so eagerly watching the girl scouts through the open window of
the big gray car, was soon forgotten in the more urgent demands of the
wig-wag report.

The lesson had been noted "Satisfactory" and Captain Clark had good
reason to be proud of her True Treds.




CHAPTER XVII

JACQUELINE


The words of Frank Apgar still rang in the frightened ears of Tessie,
when she stole away from the Osborne place, so very early the following
morning. Now her continued failures were assuming discouraging
proportions indeed, and she knew the result of "borrowing" that ticket
money. She could never hope for a good word of recommendation from Mrs.
Osborne, and without it she could not obtain employment. To seek work
in the mills now would be equivalent to throwing herself on the mercy
of the public, for she knew perfectly well every mill had been notified
to watch for her.

To her obsessed mind her faults were now serious beyond belief--she had
actually stolen money! What at first seemed a mere matter of
"borrowing" until she could work one more little week to pay it back,
had suddenly become a crime impossible to atone.

Desperately she tramped through the long country roads, tugging her
bag, using it often as a stool to rest on. No one noticed the
girl--maids often left employment in Elmhurst and journeyed out to the
trolley line just as she was doing.

Childish laughter and the capering of a very white toy poodle dog
attracted Tessie's attention, as she stopped in front of the entrance
to a very handsome estate. Through the iron rails of a very high fence
could be seen the girl responsible for the silvery laughter. She was
seated in a small wheel-chair, and at her feet lay a young man lounging
on the velvet grass, that was cropped so close the blades looked like a
woven tapestry of magic green.

"Now, Jack," Tessie heard the young man say, "I will do all the things
thou badest me, but please don't ask a fellow to climb trees. I'm too
big for the limbs, and I should hate to break the pretty branches.
Necks don't count, of course." His voice was so jolly Tessie listened
behind the iron post of the open gateway.

"Well, all right, Prince Charming. I won't ask you to climb the tree,
but Jerry--I can hardly wait. Oh, isn't it too wonderful?" and the
pretty little girl clapped her hands quite like any ordinary youngster.

Here was Tessie's chance. These were a different sort of people and
perhaps they would take her on without any reference!

Acting on the moment's impulse, she picked her bag up and entered the
gate. The young man sat bolt upright and seemed inclined to laugh.

"Oh, wherever did you come from?" asked the girl in the chair. "We were
just telling fairy stories," and she smiled as if Tessie had been a
sequence to the tale.

"I'm looking for work," spoke Tessie bravely, "and this seemed such a
big place, do you know if they need any extra help?"

The child shot a volley of meaning glances at the young man. Anyone
could have interpreted the code as signifying interest and pleasure.

"We would have to consult the housekeeper," the young man answered
quickly. He gave his head a defiant toss, contradicting the joy
expressed by his sister.

"Oh, but perhaps--" faltered the girl. "Gerald, don't you think maybe
you and I might manage to take this nice girl to work? I'd just love to
have a very young person to talk to when I can't have you," and the big
blue eyes rolled oceans of appeal into the face of the handsome brother.

"Jack, you know I'm your slave," he answered. "But even I cannot always
manage Mrs. Bennet. But we can ask her," smiling at Tessie. "Come
along!" He sprang to his position at the wheel-chair. "Mrs. Bennet
should be glad enough to grant any favor on so perfect a morning."

"Then don't forget our plans, Jerry," the sister cautioned
mysteriously. "If it all works out as I am dreaming, brother, oh, what
a glorious time we will have! Come on"--to Tessie--"I'm just going to
make Mrs. Bennet take you on. She's awfully particular, but since I
haven't been able to walk I just impose on brother Gerald. And he has
been so kind," patting the hand resting round her chair, "and couldn't
you and I have good times together? What shall I call you?" she asked
naively.

"Stacia Wertz," replied Tessie, assuming another name to cover her
knowledge of the Osborne situation.

"That's from Anastasia, isn't it?"

"Now, Jacqueline," spoke the brother, "I have to run in town early this
morning, so if we are going to storm the Bennet we had best mass for
the attack. Suppose we sit here," as they reached a rustic bench, "and
prepare our story."

A half-hour later, in spite of all protests from the particular Mrs.
Bennet, who as housekeeper for Gerald Douglass and his young sister
Jacqueline, had good reason to value her reputation, Tessie (now
Stacia) was engaged. Her especial duties were to be with Jacqueline,
and Mrs. Bennet deplored to Mr. Gerald the fact that this young girl
brought no reference.

"But she is so young, Margaret," he had replied. "I am sure we can
supervise. And you know, Jack has been taking a lot of my time lately.
Yet the doctor says her ultimate cure depends on her cheerful frame of
mind, and she is getting along so beautifully. He expects to try the
strength of her limbs in ten days more."

It was this arrangement that won the day for Tessie, and once more the
black clouds of anxiety rolled away to disclose a rift of new interest,
and a gleam of new-found joy. No one could touch the life of Jacqueline
Douglass without sharing its delight. The child, temporarily disabled
through an acute ailment, had been enjoying every delight her handsome
big brother could procure for her, and even in this almost unbelievable
paradise "Jack" remained unspoiled, and her active brain was still
capable of inventing new wonders.

The home was nothing short of paradise to Tessie. Even the lovely
Osborne home seemed unimportant compared with Glenmoor, the country
estate of wealthy Gerald Douglass and his pet sister.

The house was of stone and brick, its trimmings beautifully grained oak
and its decorations, all in mellow golds and browns, were as soft yet
as varied as the tones of the early chestnut burr. Jacqueline was a
russet blonde, just gold enough in her hair to deepen the glints, and
with the blue eyes and that incomparable complexion so often associated
with "red gold hair," it seemed to Tessie nature had been very partial
indeed in bestowing her gifts when Jacqueline Douglass was fashioned.

It was the second day of her service at Glenmore that Tessie overheard
her young mistress use the name "Marcia" when calling over the
telephone.

"Marcia! Might it be Marcia Osborne!" Tessie almost gasped. Then when
she heard further a "good-bye, and Jacqueline hoped they would all have
a lovely trip west," Tessie breathed freely. Yes, the Osbornes had
planned a trip west, and no doubt they were going. This seemed to
Tessie rare good luck. Marcia, Phillis and Mrs. Osborne were surely off
for their trip.

"Now I'm going to write Dagmar," decided Tessie--"poor little kid! I
feel like a quitter to have left her alone all this time. I wonder if I
couldn't go out there and look for her? Everything seems to be blown
over, and even mother and father might be glad to see me."

With a girl's unqualified impulse, Tessie quickly wrote an effectionate
letter to her mother and sealed in it a five-dollar bill. This would
surely prepare the way. Then she wrote a second letter, this one to
Dagmar, care of the Flosston post-office, and as the mail for Rose
Dixon and Dagmar Brodix was promptly mailed to Mrs. Cosgrove at
Franklin, Tessie planned better than she knew in hoping thus to reach
her abandoned companion. Her letters finished, Tessie (for the time
Stacia) slipped down the palatial hall to the door of Jacqueline's
sunset room, to inquire if the young mistress needed any attention. It
was one of those prolonged days in early summer when night seems unable
to break in on the soft, pelucent shadows of sunset meeting twilight.
Tessie found Jacqueline sitting in her Sleepy Hollow chair, the shaded
green robes tossed about giving the picture such tones as a pastel
might embody.

"Oh, do come in, Stacia," called Jacqueline. "I am just reading this
girl scout manual and can't understand these signal tests. Did you ever
see one of these manuals?" and again Tessie was confronted with the
persistent little blue book which had so conspicuously affected her
life.

"I have something you would just love!" exclaimed Tessie, taking
impulse from Jacqueline's enthusiasm. "I--that is, a friend of mine
found it. It's a merit medal," she had declared almost before she
realized what she was about.

"Oh, a real merit badge?" asked Jacqueline. "Not really a genuine badge
of merit? Those are all registered and can only be used by the original
owners."

"I'll show you," agreed Tessie, and now there was no turning back. The
girl, too helpless to share in scout activities, was examining and
fondling that merit badge a moment later, and seeing her delight,
Tessie felt amply repaid for her generosity.

"I'll tell you!" decided the child, pinning the little wreathed clover
leaf on her silk negligee, "I'll keep it carefully, and every day you
and I can make our scout pledges. Then, when I know you long enough to
be awfully sure you understand it, I am going to let you into a
wonderful secret. Won't that be splendid?" and her blue eyes begged
confidence from the brown eyes, as both girls thrilled with scout magic.

"Oh, yes, I would love to know your secret," Tessie felt obliged to
reply, "and maybe some day we will find the girl who lost the badge."

This ended the transfer of the much-prized emblem, and in giving its
story Tessie succeeded in covering the detail of locality by vaguely
stating "a girl friend found it and gave it to her." So Jacqueline had
no means of knowing of its connection with the Girl Scouts of True Tred
Troop.

That night Tessie felt a peculiar relief. It was as if some great
burden had been lifted from her. To give to dear Jacqueline anything
worthy of her was in itself a thing worth doing, and to make good use
of the badge was also an important consideration.

"I never had any luck since I carried that around with me!" she
decided, but that was a false statement. There never is, nor never was
any question of "luck." The real fact of the matter was simply that
Tessie, while in possession of the little badge, was continually
reminded of its purpose, and the ideals it stood for, so that in her
rather reckless career the emblem confronted her with constant mute
appeal.

Meanwhile, Jacqueline refused the urgent demands of her nurse that she
retire.

"No, nursie dear. Do be lovely to me tonight," she pleaded, "and let me
wait for Jerry. I have the most glorious news for him."

"If all of this nonsense does you good, Jacqueline, I am sure I shall
not oppose it," replied the nurse. "But personally, it is beyond my
experience. There is Mr. Gerald now. Just ring when you want me."

So Jacqueline was left to tell the handsome big brother about her
wonderful acquisition.

The merit badge of True Tred Troop!




CHAPTER XVIII

DAISIES AND DANGERS


In the week following Tessie made a number of acquaintances about
Glenmoor, not the least among such being Frank Pierson, the grocer boy,
and glad to see a young girl on the big estate, Frank promptly asked
Tessie to take a ride out in the country with him some afternoon, and
quite as promptly, Tessie accepted the invitation.

"I have to deliver out Flosston way tomorrow," said Frank. "What do you
say to coming along?"

"Flosston!" repeated Tessie. She hesitated. Would she risk taking a
look at the town in the mill end of which were still located the
deserted members of her family?

"What's the matter? Don't you want to go?" pressed Frank, as she
withheld her reply.

"Oh, yes, of course I'll go," Tessie answered then, and having said she
would go, the question of caution seemed to have solved itself. After
all, the grocer would have no business in the factory district, and it
would be so good to see the familiar places again. Since her coming to
Jacqueline's everything seemed so much brighter, her old fears of
capture and perhaps detention in a corrective institution, had almost
disappeared, and the prospect of a country ride with Frank Pierson
afforded pleasant speculation indeed.

"You may bring me a big bunch of daisies," Jacqueline told her, in
granting permission for the afternoon out. "Since you came I have
almost lost Jerry. But then, he was so very good, I am sure he should
have been given a vacation."

The little grocery wagon did not have to delay for its passenger when
next afternoon Prank, with a clean blouse and his cap at exactly the
right tilt, called to deliver goods and "collect" Tessie.

Starting out along the broad avenue, Gyp, the brown horse, jauntily
drew the light yellow wagon, holding his head up quite as proudly as
any flashy cob that passed with the fancy equipage in turn-out for the
lovely afternoon driving. Presently, from the fashionable thoroughfare
Frank turned into the "Old Road," that wended along railroad and river
lines out Flosston way.

"You can drive here," he conceded, handing the reins to Tessie. "I
don't have to make another stop for half a mile."

"I used to drive long ago, when I was a little girl with pigtails," she
answered, taking the lines. "Gyp is gentle, isn't he?"

"Yep, mostly he is. But he scares up, once in a while. Doesn't like an
umbrella shot up under his nose, and I've seen him dance at a postal
card flaring up with the wind."

Entering Flosston, Tessie felt more emotion than she expected to
experience. That last night in the town, when she and Dagmar waited at
the station; their dispute over the road they should take; the finding
of the badge, and the return of the girl scouts in search of it: all
this surged over her like a cloud, covering the bright sunshine that
danced through the trees. Frank evidently observed her preoccupation,
for he made frantic efforts to be especially entertaining.

Once, when the post-office clerk emerged from the drug-store, Tessie
pulled her hat down until the pin at back tugged viciously in her coil
of black hair. That clerk might recognize her, and her folks surely
called for mail occasionally. But the clerk never raised his head, as
Gyp sauntered along, and it was a relief to make sure that her new and
different outfit was a complete disguise. No one would now recognize
her as Tessie Wartliz, of Fluffdown Mills.

"I have to get Miss Douglass some daisies. See that lovely field over
there! Could we stop long enough for me to gather a bunch?" she asked
Frank presently.

"Sure thing!" replied the boy merrily. "I only have to turn in a few
more boxes, and then my time's my own. Sometimes I take my sister
Bessie when I come out here, and once mother came. But she wanted to
knit. Can you beat that: knitting on a grocery wagon?"

"Oh, folks who like it knit in their sleep, I guess," replied Tessie,
giving the reins to Frank that he might turn safely into the field over
the rough little hill at the roadside.

"And say," went on Frank, "I put a chair in back for ma, and rode along
the avenue as innocent as a lamb. Of course I was whistling and can you
guess what happened?"

"Mother went out the back way?" asked Tessie.

"Surest thing you know. I looks back, and there went ma and her
cane-seat chair, doing a regular cake-walk, along the boulevard. Oh,
man! What she didn't say to me!" and Frank shouted a laugh that made
Gyp jump clear over the last hillock.

"Best to sit on stationary seats when one goes grocery riding,"
commented Tessie. "Now I'll pick daisies, and you can whistle all you
like."

"But I'm goin' to pick," insisted Frank. "I'll race you," and with the
boy's proverbial love of sport, even picking daisies became a novel
game.

It took but a short time to fill arms with the plentiful white
blossoms, tacked on their green stems with gold buttons, and presently
Tessie was ready to embark again, after Frank had deposited both
bunches of daisies in an empty box back of the seat.

Out on the road once more, Tessie caught sight of a girl she knew well.
It was Nettie Paine, who sold spools of crochet cotton in the little
fancy shop, and how glad Tessie would be to stop and buy a few spools
just now! She could make such a pretty camisole top--but--no, it would
be foolish to take such a risk. So she reluctantly turned her head away
from the fancy-goods store.

"Now, just one more stop!" Frank announced. "I have to buy some things
at the stationers. You hold Gyp in, Stacia. We're quite near the track,
and he doesn't love the Limited Express."

But Stacia (or Tessie) allowed the reins to lay loosely in her lap as
she watched a girl scout in uniform approach. She was alone and tramped
with a sure tread that might have marked her a True Tred had Tessie any
knowledge of the troop's name. "Those girls are everywhere," she told
herself, and then fell to day dreams of girl scout possibilities.

Buried in thought, Tessie forgot Frank's warning to look out for the
express, until a shrill whistle rent the air and Gyp sprang forward,
almost tossing the girl from her seat on the wagon.

Frantically she yelled at the little horse to "Whoa!" But on he dashed,
and the gates were down directly ahead!

Realizing her danger and leaning forward in her panic of fear,
something happened to the rein, for she felt it fall, and even the
power of pulling on Gyp's head was now lost.

And the express could be seen rounding the curve!

Prayers rose to Tessie's lips while terror gripped her heart.

Moments were like hours, yet time had no proportion in the fear of
death that seemed almost certain.

Then just as the frightened little animal shied clear of a telegraph
pole, and with head high in the air seemed to make a final dash, he was
suddenly pulled back. The jolt threw Tessie against the side curtain.

The little girl scout--she whom Tessie had noticed but a few minutes
before, was now hanging on the reins!

But Gyp was dragging her on. Would she, too, be killed? If some man
would only come to their rescue!

Then everything seemed to whirl before Tessie's distorted vision.
Things "got black and went out." Next, she felt herself tumble back in
the box of daisies.

But Gyp had stopped! The girl scout had pulled him up somehow, and now
Frank was there talking, and shouting, and praising the girl who had
saved Tessie's life.

"And she wouldn't even give her name," he was calling to Tessie. "Some
narrow escape, I'll say. Why, that express no more than shot by when
you touched the gates. If you hadn't looked so dead, I might have got
that girl's name, but she's in one of those cottages by now. Well,
we'll beat it for home," and he turned cautiously into the broader
roadway. "Gyp, you'll go on a light diet for this, see if you don't!"

But all the joy of her lovely ride was erased in the perilous
experience. And again the influence of the girl scouts forced its way
into her uncertain life. Truly the little heroes in that modest uniform
deserved such merit badges as the one so lately given to Jacqueline
Douglass.

But it would not be wise to recount to the invalid child anything of
this wild adventure. This Tessie felt instinctively. Nevertheless, when
that night Jacqueline was placed in her dining chair, and while
chatting with her brother she proudly displayed the clover leaf pin in
a new little velvet case, Tessie wondered what could have been the
original feat of heroism for which this badge had been bestowed.

"And the girl who saved my life deserves the highest award," she
reflected, "although no one will ever know, I suppose. She risked her
own life in the attempt." Such was Tessie's decision, while that little
scout was congratulating herself on having really saved a life "without
anyone knowing who did it." She had HER secret now and it was
delightful to cuddle so securely in her happy little heart.




CHAPTER XIX

THE FLYING SQUADRON


"Oh, Grace, what do you think?" Thus asked Madaline without hint or
warning.

"Think? This is no time for thinking," answered Grace, who was busying
herself with a complicated system of cords. "I'm trying to puzzle out
the best way to demonstrate a sheep-shank knot," and she kept on with
her endeavor, flipping the cord ends this way and that, while Madaline,
all impatience, looked down at her chum.

"Trying to tie a sheep-shank!" gasped the Bearer of tidings, as she
presently proved herself to be. "Why, the very idea! You passed that
test long ago--you're no tenderfoot!"

"I know it, but Captain Clark said she was going to ask me to show a
new group of candidates some knots, and I thought I'd practice a bit."

"Practice!" repeated Madaline, "well, to use your own words, this is no
time to practice. Oh, Grace! I can hardly tell you!"

"Don't tell me it's anything bad!" exclaimed the manipulator of the
knots. "Has anything happened? Is Cleo or Margaret--"

"No, no! It isn't anything like that. Cleo and Margaret are all right,
and they'll be here in a little while. I ran on ahead to tell you, and
Captain Clark is coming, too, with them."

"Well, of all things!" Grace burst out, laying aside the strings.
"Something simply must have happened. Do you mean to say the delegation
is waiting on me, to inform me that I have been picked out for some
signal honor, ahem!" and she rose, bowing elaborately.

"We have all been picked out for signal honor!" bubbled Madaline. "You
aren't the only one. Put up that knot business. You can show the
tenderfeet when you get back."

"Oh, are we going away?" asked Grace. "Mystery piled on mystery. Do
tell me!"

"I thought I'd get you anxious," laughed Madaline. "Well, it's just
this, and it's simply glorious! We're going camping!"

"Camping? Who? When? Where? What, and all the rest of it?" and she
fired the questions in a well-aimed volley at her friend.

"Just we four and the Captain, of course," resumed Madaline, seating
herself on a mossy log beside Grace, who had selected this seat in the
woods as a silent seclusion, there to evolve a scheme for imparting
primary knowledge of Girl Scout work, to a group of younger members who
had lately joined.

"We called at your house to tell you," continued Madaline, "but your
mother said you were over here in the woods, so we came to find
you--all four of us. I just ran on ahead--I couldn't wait for the
others."

"I'm so glad you did," said Grace, warmly. "But how does it come that
we four are picked out from all the troop?"

"Well, I fancy it's because we sort of out-did ourselves in the tests,
and helped to get such, a satisfactory report. Captain Clark said she
wanted to reward us in some way, and the opportunity came, so she
pounced on it, or seized it or grasped it--you know--whatever you
properly should do to an opportunity."

"Grasped is the word, I believe," Grace decided. "But what is the
opportunity?"

"To go camping," retorted Madaline.

"Friends of Captain Clark have offered her the use of their perfectly
gorgeous camp in Allbright Woods. It's a place none of us has ever
visited, and well just have scrumptious times. We're to spend the
week-end here--just Captain Clark and we four. She asked some of the
other girls, but they couldn't make it. Now drop all this knotty
business, be joyous, hurry, and get ready. They'll be here in a minute.
Isn't that good news?"

"The best ever," assented Grace, and then, as she gathered up her
strings, there appeared, coming through the grove of trees, Captain
Clark, Margaret and Cleo.

"Whoo-oo!" came the gleeful greeting, and hands fluttered as if
conveying, in wig-wag talk, the joyous message.

"Did she tell you, Grace?" cooed Cleo.

"Wasn't that what I sprinted on ahead for?" demanded Madaline.

"And do say you can go!" begged Margaret.

"Is it really so, Captain?" asked Grace, a bit timidly, as if she
feared to trust the good news. "Are we going camping?"

"As if a true Girl Scout ever joked!" mocked Madaline.

"Well, I know you of old, before you became a G. S.," retorted Grace.

"Yes, my dear, we are really to spend a week-end in the woods if you
can manage it," replied Captain Clark. "Some generous friends of mine,
who have been unexpectedly called away from their place for a time,
have offered to let me use it. And I could think of no better way of
rewarding you four for your faithful work, than to give you this
opportunity. I am sorry more could not manage to go, but it could not
be arranged. So, Grace, if you will come back with us, and see if your
folks will not object, we shall begin our preparations at once."

"Oh, they won't object--not when I talk to them!" declared the girl, in
a tone that made the others laugh. "But how do we go; by train!"

"No, we are going in an auto, and all you need to take will be your
personal belongings. The camp is stocked with food, and there is even a
cook and a caretaker, a colored man and his wife."

"Say, this is camping de luxe!" exclaimed Cleo. "Wouldn't it be more
fun to rough it?"

"It will be rough enough," asserted the Captain. "We shall be allowed
to cook for ourselves if we choose, but the helpers are there in case
of emergency."

"In case the eggs refuse to scramble," murmured Margaret.

"Something like that, yes," assented Captain Clark.

As had been expected and hoped, there was no objection raised at the
home of Grace, and two days later found the happy four, under the
guidance of Captain Clark, on their way to Camp Nomoko, in the
Allbright Woods. It was the best reward that could have been devised
for the girls, and they expressed genuine sorrow at the fate of others
of True Tred who must be left behind for one reason or another. But the
girls of the troop were not to be exactly desolate during the days
their more fortunate friends were camping--Flosston in itself offered
many happy opportunities.

"Are the Allbright Woods very wild?" asked Grace, as the auto left the
main road and began the trip along a less frequented highway, the day
following the inception of the plan.

"Wild enough, I fancy you'll find," said the Captain. "My friends think
it an ideal outdoor place in many respects. I hope you will like it."

"Don't worry, please, we shall," declared Margaret.

Each girl took along a small suitcase, filled with such belongings as
she thought she would need. These, of course, included their complete
scout uniforms, while they wore dresses of plain but serviceable
material, which would almost serve the purpose of their khaki outfits,
in case they were obliged, for any reason, to lay those aside in camp.
It was decided two outfits were necessary, and the uniforms packed
easiest.

Captain Clark's friends had even sent their car for the girls to make
the trip to Nomoko, so there was really little for the quartette to do
except pack up and start. As Cleo had remarked it was almost camping de
luxe.

The journey, though enjoyable, was almost lost in the real joy of
camping anticipation.

"Here we are!" announced the Captain, after a ride of about four hours
in the car, during which time no worse mishap occurred than a blowout,
and for this the chauffeur was ready with an already inflated "spare,"
so little time was lost in replacing the tire.

"Does he stay with us--at camp, I mean?" asked Cleo in a whisper,
pointing to the driver, as the car swung into a rough wood road.

"No, he is to go back to his own duties as soon as he leaves us at
Nomoko," answered Captain Clark in a low voice. "But he will bring us
home Tuesday, when my friends return to their tents."

"And will we be left all alone in the camp, without means of getting
out of the woods if we want to go?" asked Margaret.

"Well, I believe there is a branch railroad line about ten miles away,"
said Captain Clark, "and if we have to--"

"We can walk, of course!" interrupted Cleo. "That's a mere sprint. A
ten-mile hike is a trifle."

"Did you say triffle or truffle?" asked Grace.

"Truffles don't grow here, nothing but mushrooms and toadstools," broke
in Margaret. "All Girl Scouts ought to know that!" "Thanks for the
information," retorted Grace. "Oh, what a perfectly scrumptious place!"
she exclaimed as, after some rather severe jolting and swaying from
side to side, the auto came to a stop in the depths of a grove of
trees, amid which were pitched several tents and a slab-sided shack;
from the stovepipe of the shack smoke drifted, and with it emanated the
most appetizing odors.

"This is Nomoko," said Captain Clarke, as she nodded a greeting to the
colored caretaker and his wife, the latter appearing in the door of the
shack, with a red bandanna handkerchief tied around her kinky head. "I
have been here before."

"Are you all right?" asked Zeb, the colored man. "No accidents or
nothin'?"

"Nothing at all, Zeb, I'm glad to say," was the Captain's answer. "We
are here right side up with care. And will you tell Mrs. Nelson that
for me," she went on to the chauffeur who, with the help of Zeb, was
lifting out the baggage and valises.

"I will; yes'm," was the reply. "I am to bring them back here Tuesday
morning, and get you. I hope you enjoy your stay."

"Thank you, I know we shall," and the Captain's words found echo in the
hearts of the girls.

"Let's go fishing! I see a stream that ought to have fish in!" cried
Cleo.

"Let's get our uniforms on and go for a hike. I've never been in these
woods before!" cried Margaret.

"Let's see if we can find any specimens--fossils or the like," came
from Cleo, who had lately developed a collecting fever.

"Let's eat!" declaimed Grace. "I'm starved!"

"I think the last suggestion is best," decided Captain Clark. "We can
soon change into our uniforms, and after a meal, which I judge should
be called dinner instead of lunch, we may take a walk, or fish, or
hike, or fossilize, as you then elect."

"De dinnah am 'mos' ready," announced Alameda, the colored cook.

"Oh, where have I heard them joyous words before?" cried Cleo,
pretending to faint into Margaret's arms.

"I golly! Dem suah am lively li'l gals! Dey suah am!" declared Zeb, as
he went off to get a fresh pail of water at the spring.

Soon the jolly little party, having the really well-appointed camp to
themselves, sat down to a wild-wood meal. To say they enjoyed it is
putting it mildly--far too mildly; they were "transported with joy,"
Grace insisted.

"I declare! It's a shame to stay here any longer!" announced Cleo
finally, although the joy had not been entirely consumed.

"Do you mean you're ashamed of eating so much?" asked Grace.

"No, but it's a pity to waste this glorious day in, just staying around
camp. Let's go down to the brook, river or whatever it is."

"And may we fish?" asked Margaret.

"I think so. I'll ask Zeb if there are some rods that may be trusted to
amateurs," replied the Captain.

There were, as it developed, and presently equipped with all that was
needed for the sport, the little party set off through the woods,
following a direction Zeb gave them to locate the best fishing place.

It was no new experience for the quartette, led by the Captain, to hike
through the woods, but something really new awaited them this time, as
they soon discovered to their sorrow.

Cleo was in the lead and, after plunging through a rather thick growth
of underbrush, she suddenly uttered a cry.

"What is it--a snake?" asked Margaret, who followed.

"If it is, don't get excited," warned the Captain, who heard the
exclamation. "There are absolutely no poisonous snakes in this
vicinity, and any other kind is more frightened of you than you can
possibly be of him, girls," she insisted.

"It isn't snakes!" cried Cleo. "I almost wish it were. Oh, aren't they
horrible! Run, girls, run back, or you'll be eaten up!" and she beat
such a hasty retreat, meanwhile wildly flinging her arms up and around
her head, that she collided with Margaret, and nearly toppled her into
a sassafras bush.

"Oh, I feel 'em, too!" Margaret cried. "Oh, what pests!"

"What in the world is the matter?" demanded Grace, from the rear. "If
we're ever going to fish let's get to the water."

"I'm never going to fish if I have to fight such things as these!"
cried Cleo. "Back! Back to the tents!"

"What is it?" cried Captain Clark. "Are you girls fooling?"

But a moment later, as she felt herself attacked on hands and face, she
realized what it was.

"The flying squadron!" she exclaimed. "We must retreat, girls, and get
ammunition. I forgot about these."

"The flying squadron? What does she mean?" murmured Cleo, to whom
knowledge had not yet come.




CHAPTER XX

CLEO'S EXPERIMENT


Only a moment or two longer were necessary to acquaint Cleo with the
cause of the precipitate retreat not only of her three chums, but
Captain Clark as well.

"Go on, Cleo! Turn around and hurry back to camp," directed the
Captain. "We must get the citronella bottle."

"I doubt if that will be of any use," said Margaret, beating herself
frantically on the face with her hands. "These are terrible--worse than
mosquitoes."

"Oh, it's bugs, is it?" asked Cleo. "Ouch! I should say it was! What
are they?" she cried, as she felt stinging pains on her hands and face.

"Not bugs, merely black flies," declared Captain Clark. "I did not know
there were any in these woods this year, but this must be a sudden and
unexpected visitation of them. My friends said nothing about the pests.
We simply can't go on if they are to oppose us."

So back they went to camp, the pesky black flies buzzing all around
them, biting whenever they got the chance, and that was frequently
enough--too much so the girls voted.

"Dat ar citron stuff ain't gwine goin' do much good, ef dey is de real
black flies," asserted Zeb, when he heard the story.

"What is good, then?" asked Margaret. "A smudge," promptly answered
Cleo. "Don't you know what it says in our hand book? If citronella
won't work, try a smudge, and make it of green cedar branches."

"Good memory in a good cause," said Captain Clark, rubbing her smarting
areas. "But any sort of smoke will drive them away. A brisk breeze is
the best disperser of flying squadrons, though, whether they be of
mosquitoes or black flies. That beats even a smudge, and is much more
pleasant."

"Yes, I don't care to look like a ham or a flitch of bacon," murmured
Grace. "Oh, how they sting!"

"Better put some witch hazel on," advised Zeb. "Dat's whut we uses heah
in camp fo' all kinds of bites, 'ceptin' bee stings, and den ammonia's
de only t'ing."

"Don't tell me there are bees here, too!" gasped Margaret.

"Oh, dey don't bodder you much," chuckled Zeb, as he brought out what
Cleo described, later, as the germs of a drug store.

There were several bottles, one--containing oil of citronella, and
another witch hazel. This last was applied to the girls' wounds first,
and did relieve, in a measure, the sting of the bites of the black
flies. Then a film of citronella was spread over hands and faces, and a
bottle of the pungent mixture was carried along as the Girl Scouts took
the trail again, since it was voted that a fish of their own taking
must be served for supper.

"It would never do to go back from camp and tell the other girls we
didn't catch anything," declared Grace, and the others readily agreed.

The black flies had not followed them back to camp, perhaps because the
tents were in the open, where the breeze could sweep around them. But,
in spite of the citronella, the party was again attacked by the "flying
squadron" as they started for the fishing place.

"It's no use! We can't make it. No sense being all bitten up for a few
fish!" declared Madaline, as she made use of the bottle of oil Captain
Clark handed her. "They seem to like it!"

And, really, the black flies did. Mosquitoes are not quite so fond of
this oily extract of an Indian plant, and if the user does not object
to the odor, he can keep himself pretty well protected from the
mosquitoes by frequent applications of the stuff.

Black flies, however, are not always affected by it, and a smudge is
then the only answer to the problem.

"But maybe Zeb can tell us a place to fish where there aren't so many
of the pests," said Captain Clark, as they turned back. "It is simply
impossible to go on this way."

Zeb and his wife listened to the stories of the Scouts with sympathy,
and Zeb declared that while the place he had selected for them was the
best fishing spot, another might be tried, which was more in the open,
subject to the grateful sweep of breezes, and, in that case, not so
likely to be infested with the pests. The clouds of bites they seemed
to greet the girls with, had been nothing short of an air raid, or
bombardment.

"Well, let's try it," suggested Cleo. "I don't care as long as I catch
one fish, and maybe the new place will be fortified."

"I wishes yo' luck!" murmured Zeb.

So they set off this time in another direction, which led them to a
clearing, and there, to their delight, they found no black flies. There
were a few mosquitoes, but the citronella took care of them, or, rather
drove them off, and soon the lines were in the water, with the bobs
floating about.

For the True Treds were not yet in the scientific fishing class, and a
cork float was voted the best means of telling when one might have a
bite. It seemed the girls were scarcely settled when the signal came.

"I've got one!" suddenly cried Cleo, and she did manage to land,
flapping on the grass back of her, a good-sized chub.

"Oh, you're perfectly wonderful!" cried Grace. "However did you do it?"

"My hypnotic eye!" laughed Cleo, as she proceeded, not without some
difficulty, to unhook her fish, string it through the gills and put it
on a string in a quiet pool to keep fresh. "You can all do it, if you
just make goo-oy eyes at them," she joked, casting out again.

It would be going too far to say that they all made catches at once,
for Madaline and Captain Clark were out of luck, but the others each
caught two, and the Captain declared this would suffice for all.

"There is no use catching more of anything than you actually need," she
declared, bribing her girls to leave the fascinating sport.

"And may I cook one of my fish just as I please?" asked Cleo, when they
were on their homeward way.

"Why, yes, I suppose so, if Alameda does not object," Captain Clark
answered. "But what is your way, Cleo, dear? If you intend to fry it in
deep olive oil, I'm afraid--"

"Oh, nothing as elaborate as that," was the laughing reply. "It's just
an experiment I want to try. And yet it isn't exactly an experiment,
either, for I read how to do it in a camping book. It's baked fish in a
mud ball."

"A mud ball!" cried Grace. "That doesn't sound very enticing!"

"Well, it isn't exactly mud, but clean clay," Cleo explained. "And
before you plaster the clay around the fish, you cover him with green
leaves from the sassafras bush, or some spice leaves. It sounds awfully
good, and I think it will look quite artistic."

"Much better than it did at first," agreed Margaret, laughing. "Fancy
muddy fish!"

And when camp was reached, much to the amusement, and the unspoken
indignation of Alameda, Cleo was allowed to try her experiment. Zeb
cleaned the fish for her--that was all she asked. Then Cleo dug a hole
in the soft earth and built in it a fire.

"What I'm going to do," Cleo explained, "is to put a lump of butter
inside the whole, cleaned fish. Then I wrap him in leaves and outside
of that I put a ball of wet clay. Then I put the fish, clay and all
down in the fire, cover it with embers and let it bake."

"A sort of fish-ball," commented Madaline.

"Well, you'll see," said Cleo.

She completed her arrangements, though it was rather messy work,
especially the clay covering, but finally she finished and the lump of
"mud," as Alameda called it, was put to bake in the fire hole, hot
ashes and embers being piled on top.

"Dat's de craziest notion whut I eber hearn tell on," grumbled Alameda
to Zeb. "I'se gwine cook do odder fish in mah own style."

"I guess mebby as how yo' better had," he agreed.

Preparations for the evening meal went on, while Captain Clark and her
True Treds tidied themselves after the fishing excursion. Cleo was
ready first and took a little run down to where her fire smouldered in
the pit.

"How do you tell when it's done?" asked Grace, joining her. "You can't
stick a straw in through that clay as you stick a splint in a cake."

"No," admitted Cleo, "but I guess it must be ready now. The book says
it doesn't take more than an hour before the fish is baked to a turn,
whatever that is."

The four girls stood about the fire hole, wondering how Cleo's
experiment would succeed. Captain Clark joined them. She was just going
to suggest that perhaps the process was completed, when suddenly there
was a loud explosion in the hole.

Up in the air flew blazing and half-burned sticks, ashes and portions
of a clay ball, mingled with something white, in flakes.

"Look out!" cried Margaret. But there was no need. All the girls ducked
for cover.

"What--what was it?" asked Grace, when the shower of ashes and embers
was over, without any casualties.

"I rather think that was the completion of Cleo's experiment," said
Captain Clark. "The clay ball exploded, girls."

There was no question about that. Steam, generated inside the mass of
wet mud Cleo had plastered about the fish had caused the ball to burst,
and it scattered into a hundred fragments, blowing the fish to flakes
that were scattered about the surrounding trees and bushes.

"Oh, dear!" sighed Cleo. "I just remember now, I should have made a
little hole to let the steam out. Oh, my lovely fish!"

"Never mind," consoled Captain Clark. "You have learned something."

"Yes," sighed Cleo.

"An' hit's a mighty good t'ing I saved de rest ob de fish t' cook in
mah own way," murmured Alameda, as she served supper a little later.

And then, amid laughter at Cleo's experiment, they all sat down in the
dining tent, and as they ate, evening settled down over camp.

To say that their stay at Nomoko was a delight to the girls is putting
it very faintly indeed. They hiked and fished and finally Cleo
succeeded in baking a specimen in a clay ball and it was voted most
excellent, and credited to her scout record as "home cooking in the
woods."

The weather remained delightful, so that the week-end dashed by almost
as a single day, so replete was the time with woodland joys.

Tuesday morning came, all too soon, and it was with genuine regret that
they pulled up stakes to the extent of pecking grips for the home trip.

"Seems to me," almost grumbled Madaline, "a few days in the woods just
about make me want a whole month. Think of going back to Flosston after
just learning how to hunt, fish, chase flies--"

"And blow up dug-outs!" assisted Captain Clark. "Well, we really have
learned a lot and had a good time, besides, you have each proved
valiant to the extent of not being afraid of anything in the woods by
day or by night, and that was well worth the trip."

"Please don't give us a bad mark on the black fly contest," pleaded
Cleo. "Because you know, in the end, we did conquer them."

The Captain nodded a smiling assent.

In a few minutes they were on their way, making speed time back to
Flosston, where the jolly week-enders were soon again plunged into home
scouting, just about where they had left off.

That they knew nothing of Jacqueline and Margaret's badge did not
signify any lull in their interest of the new troop members among the
mill girls, and the fact that Tessie, alone and unknown, was struggling
with Scout influence for weal, not for woe, did not deter the little
girls of True Tred from unconsciously winding their capering steps in
her direction. We left Jacqueline rejoicing over her merit badge and
Tessie pondering on her increasing perplexities.




CHAPTER XXI

FORGING AHEAD


Venture troop over in Franklin was making such rapid strides in good
scouting that Captain Clark, of True Tred, had reason to warn her troop
members to look to their laurels. The advantage of having only one
afternoon each week, Saturday, free, rather than being able to plan for
any afternoon, seemed to have a stimulating effect, resulting in highly
concentrated effort.

Realizing the advantage this movement was bringing to their employees,
the directors of the Franklin mills had at last listened to the
importunities of Molly Cosgrove, their welfare worker, and the
establishment of a cafeteria for the girls' lunchtime was now assured.

And Mrs. Cosgrove was going to direct it!

"Now I'll tell you, Molly," insisted this very popular and good-natured
lady. "I'll need some one to handle the cash register, and why can't I
have Rose for that neat little piece of work? She's not rugged enough
for work in a factory, and you know how splendidly she has turned out.
When we first took that child in, without any training and nothing but
the inheritance of an honorable disposition, I had my own fears. But I
tell you, after all, to be born with character is a wonderful start."

"Indeed it is, Mother," and Molly laughed outright at the well-aimed
compliment that sprang back and hit the mother "square in the eyes."
With her arm thrown around her mother's neck, Molly admitted her own
inheritance in that line had been guaranteed. "It's going to be a
wonderful thing for the girls," went on their captain. "The
Americanization plan of the scouts is admitted the best we have yet
tried out. You should see how eagerly they study now, and how well
filled the night classes are! And slang has already been checked up as
foolish. Really, Madre mia, I almost fear for our own fortunate
American-born classes when I see those of foreign extraction making
such progress."

"It is splendid, but after all, daughter, we know America best. How are
you making out with the plans of bringing the Brodix family back? I
will be glad for Rose's sake when they can be all together again."

"Our superintendent, Mr. Potter, has made inquiries about the standing
of both father and son, and they have excellent records," replied
Molly. "We hope, of course, the mother won't have to go into the
factory again."

"And Rose found that little cottage she was so in love with will be all
fixed up by next month. I'll tell you, daughter, your dad will have to
hustle to beat you and me, I'm thinking," and with pardonable pride the
mother, who had often been termed "Chief of Franklin police," went on
with the mending of socks and thrifty patching of fresh clean
undergarments.

"I am convinced now the child is cured of her worries," added Molly.
"For a time I fancied she was unhappy with us, but now, since she
expects her folks back, I almost have to hold her in from buying new
furniture and fancy fixings. She is so enthused with the idea of having
a real home."

"That's her Americanization sprouting," replied the mother, "but you
haven't said what you thought of the plan of making her my cashier."

"Just the thing, of course. I thought you understood that. I'll speak
to Miss Nellson to-morrow. To-night we have our first tests. I am
anxious to learn how my Venture Troop makes out. Rose has been a
faithful little leader."

So it was that broad, generous daylight was breaking in on the
anxieties Rose had been suffering from, and almost all her real worries
were being dispelled--all but the fear that Tessie might be found
guilty of taking that ticket money!

Also the memory of the lost badge never ceased to torment the girl who
had so unfortunately handed it over to Tessie with her own modest purse
on that eventful night when they both turned away from the
much-despised millend of Flosston. It was Rose who gave Margaret
Slowden the bunch of roses, we remember, on the occasion of the second
presentation of the badge of merit, and it was Rose who wrote that
anonymous note to Margaret only a few weeks ago.

Returning from a very dull day at her work, with some cheer at the
prospect of an evening at Scout Headquarters, Rose was delighted to
receive two letters at the post-office. One was from her brother, who
wrote in a happy strain, replying to his sister's inquiries concerning
the family's return to Pennsylvania. Both he and his father had been
offered their old places back in the Flosston mills, as the labor union
had adjusted its difficulties, he wrote, but a better offer had been
made from the Franklin mills, and this they had decided to accept. So
the Brodix family would not only return, but would take up their places
under improved conditions.

"And we will have the dear little old house with all the vines and
flowers! Won't mother and father love it!" thought Rose. Two of the
girls passing at that moment guessed correctly when they remarked:
"Good news in that letter. Sure thing!" for Rose was so occupied with
her mail she never noticed the friends passing.

The second letter was from Tessie, as we may have surmised, for it was
written two evenings earlier, posted on the day in the evening and
therefore had that evening arrived in Franklin. With some anxiety Rose
tore open the envelope, and was surprised to see how good quality of
the paper upon which the letter was written. A faint scent of perfume
added to the pleasant effect, and for a moment Rose was almost
bewildered at the change in Tessie's form of correspondence. Could she
have seen the circumstances under which the note was written, however
her puzzle would have been solved, for the maid's room in the home of
Jacqueline Douglass was fitted up with correct stationery for its
occupant.

Scanning quickly through the brief note, Rose read that Tessie "had a
wonderful place" and if only she knew how Dagmar (Rose) was getting
along there would be hardly anything left to worry about.

"I have written to mother," the note continued, and Rose marvelled at
the choice of English, "and some day very soon I am going straight back
to Flosston. But there is one big thing I have to do first." (She did
not hint it was the refunding of that scout money she must attend to.)
"Then, dear old chum, I am coming to have the dandiest reunion with
you, you have ever dreamed of! As you see, I have learned a lot of new
words--so maybe you won't understand me. Better borrow some one's
dictionary and be ready for your swell old pal--Tessie."

"Oh, what a lovely surprise!" Rose could not help exclaiming. "Now I
can tell Molly," and only the fact that Molly Cosgrove had gone out
early to get ready for tests prevented Rose from immediately putting
that resolution into effect.

"But I won't tell Mrs. Cosgrove first," she decided. "It seems more
upright to confide in my scout captain."

"You look as if some one had left you a lot of money, Rose," Mrs.
Cosgrove joked, as the girl fairly danced around, preparing for her
evening at headquarters. "Good news from home, I guess."

"Yes, splendid!" exclaimed Rose. "The folks are all coming back and
they have promised not to bring any of the old furniture except the
brasses. You know, father's brass candlesticks and flagon are as
precious to us as family silver plate is to Americans."

"Oh, I know. Molly is always trying to get a samovar. But your folks,
not being Russian, do not use that sort of teapot."

"No, ours is much simpler, but of course I think it is prettier. Well,
you know how much I thank you, Mrs. Cosgrove. This house has been
like--like a boarding-school to me!" Rose exclaimed, her voice heavy
with sincerity.

"That's a fine idea!" and Mrs. Cosgrove laughed heartily. "I never
thought of this being a girls' seminary, but if I wasn't so busy with
my cafeteria I might take up the question," she concluded. It was not
yet time to inform Rose she was to be made cashier of the girls'
lunchroom, so that good news was for the moment withheld.

But somehow joy permeated the whole atmosphere, and even at the tests
Rose's cheeks fairly burned with suppressed excitement.




CHAPTER XXII

THE WHIRLING MAY-POLE


"Oh, isn't it too mean!" deplored Grace, talking to her chums, Cleo and
Madaline, after succeeding in diverting the troublesome brother Benny
over to his ballfield. "Hal Crane drove out on his wheel to the woods,
as he promised, you know, and not a letter, nor a line, nor a scrap was
there," and she dropped her dimpled chin down on her soft white dimity
collar, until the top of her curly head slanted like a toboggan hill.

"That isn't what worries me most," interposed Madaline. "It is the
fact--the solemn fact," and she rolled her round eyes as if expecting a
mote to sail out on a tear--"that not one of our troop has done
anything big enough to win the B. C."

"How do you know?" queried Cleo mysteriously. "We don't each of us know
what every single member of the troop has done, do we?" "Oh, but we
would be sure to hear of anything big enough to win the Bronze Cross,"
Grace assisted Madaline's argument. "And the True Treds are all so
brave and such a fine set of girls! Land knows, I tried hard enough
with tieing my man to the tree!" and she indulged in one of her
unpredicted gales, "and now to think even he has deserted us!"

"He may--have had to go off for supplies or something," suggested Cleo.
"We can hardly expect a cave man to be always so punctual. But isn't it
lovely about our new member?"

"Yes," answered Grace. "Captain Clark told us last evening every single
one passed her tests! Daddy says the mill owners are simply delighted
with the change in the employees. You see, the men and boys always had
organizations to cheer them along, but the girls and women were not
treated like human beings." Grace was usually strong for her own rights
and she had developed considerable individuality competing with Benny.

"Here's Margaret. I suppose she expected some--wonderful news, too.
Really, girls," gloomed Madaline, "I fear our cave man has deserted us."

Margaret came blithely along, her tam-o'shanter being a little late in
seasonable style, but so becoming that the detail was forgotten in the
entire effect.

"Heard the news?" she inquired indifferently. Her indifference
indicated real importance, always.

"What news?" chorused the trio.

"We're going on a picnic!"

"Where?" encored the chorus.

"Out to River Bend," replied Margaret, making herself picturesque on a
tree stump. The conference was being held in a shady lane directly back
of the home of Cleo Harris.

"River Bend!" a unanimous exclamation from the others.

"Certainly, why not?"

"Because that's our secret place," protested Grace, the first to come
out in solo, "Why couldn't some other place have been chosen?"

"Ask Captain Clark," replied Margaret, with tantalizing exactness, "and
of course she won't tell you. You don't suppose one little hollow rock,
or even one big wood-man comprises all the natural beauty of River
Bend? Think of the canoes out there now! And we may even have a ride in
them!"

"That's so, of course," agreed Grace. "The Bend is a lovely pine picnic
grove. Who's going?"

"All True Treds. We are going to make it Saturday afternoon so as to
include the entire troop" (the term mill girl was studiously avoided),
"and besides," continued Margaret, glorying in the importance of her
post, "we may have the Venture Troop of Franklin with that pretty
little leader, Rose Dixon. All the girls rave about her."

"We never knew how pretty those other girls were until we got a
close-up view. That's a movie term, of course, but it fits," Cleo
analyzed. "We poor mere Americans can never hope to compete with the
girls of foreign parents in the way of eyes. Did you ever see such big,
deep, dark eyes as Olga Neilson carries around?" and Cleo exercised her
own blue-gray orbs in emulation.

"One lovely thing about our picnic," commented Grace, "we will all wear
uniform and look so alike. We will have to depend on our eyes for
especial distinction, and as Benny would say, 'I see our finish!' At
any rate, since we can't get any more mail from the woods, I guess it's
a good idea to go out there and explore again. Perhaps we'll discover
the secret of the stone man. Don't you remember, our history tells us
the first records were made in crude carvings on stone? Maybe he's the
original stone-cutter!" and the laugh that answered did credit to the
joke.

Meanwhile preparations for the picnic were being made in a number of
localities, and the strings of this story's may-pole are again
encircling a broad territory!

Keen with anticipation, Rose and her constituents were trying their
uniforms on this the night previous to the "June Walk," and if there
had been any doubt concerning the popularity of the scout movement, it
must have been dispelled when Venture Troop drilled that Friday night.

Molly Cosgrove was proud of her troop. Never had Americanization seemed
so definite in its results. The mothers of many of the girls attended
the drill, and it was held in the Public School auditorium to
accommodate all the numbers. The foreign women in their queer garb
formed a most picturesque background for the uniformed troop, and
viewing the scene from the gallery, one might have fancied it the
picture of some European reconstruction field, with the battalion of
uniformed girls led by Captain Molly Cosgrove "on patrol."

Nora Noon made opportunity to whisper in the pink ears of Rose Dixon
the fact that "awards and badges" were going to be conferred on "some
of the girls" next day, and Rose felt a suspicion of anxiety at the
news.

Had she done anything worthy of award? Was there not always that
unhappy memory of the merit badge found in Flosston, and so
unfortunately lost again? She was relieved now that an attempt, at
least, had been made to acquaint Molly Cosgrove with some few of the
facts regarding the disappearance of Tessie Wartliz, but Molly hadn't
seemed the least bit surprised, rather she laughed the subject off, as
if Rose were making a mountain out of a mole hill. So no mention was
made of the Merit Badge.

But now with Nora's news the matter assumed a different aspect. Rose
had done her best to develop her patrol, and what if the leaders should
offer recognition for this? How awful it would be to have to refuse and
confess!

"Break ranks!" rang out the clear voice of the captain, and the call
aroused Rose to the situation demanding attention.

Everyone buzzed and chattered, the recreation hour to-night fairly
threatened a stampede in jollity, and suppressing the insistent
apprehension, Rose joined the merrymakers.

Another circle of "our may-pole" now swings out to the home of
Jacqueline Douglass. Here preparations are being made for the most
mysterious event, and even Tessie cannot guess the sequel. The nurse
has warned Tessie to "keep Miss Jack as quiet as she can," but to
follow her instructions rather than oppose her. Mr. Gerald has imparted
the same orders, and both chauffeurs have been busy all day, carrying
mysterious bundles to the big cars, then dashing off towards town with
them.

The epochal Saturday morning had now blazed its trail on the June
calendar in a perfect day. Jacqueline received her indispensable
attention from Mrs. Bennet and the nurse with a show of impatience.

"Be sure, Stacia (Tessie), my small chair is all ready for the car--the
collapsible one, I mean. We must leave for our wonder trip directly
after lunch," she cautioned Tessie.

Mr. Gerald Douglass was rambling about, keeping step to his own
extemporaneous whistle. He tapped at the door of his sister's dressing
room and poked his handsome head in.

"All ready, Sis! Remember your catalogue of promises! You wouldn't have
poor Jerry courtmartialed by old Doc Blair, would you? And you know,
Jack, I am taking an awful lot of responsibility in this!"

"Don't you worry one little bit, brother mine," replied the girl whose
soft light hair was receiving its last touch from skilled hands. "I'll
be so good you won't know me, and I feel so splendidly well. When did
that old doctor say I could stand up?"

"Very soon, but not just to-day. All right, Jack. I'll be on hand. Any
orders?" and he imitated the honorable butler in pose and manner, his
thumbs just touching the seams of his trousers and his head thrust back
as if complying with the savage demands of a high-priced dentist.

"The car at two," ordered Jacqueline, and with a "well butlered bow"
Gerald took himself off.

"You are not to wear your black dress--no uniform to-day, Stacia,"
Jacqueline told Tessie. "Put on the nicest summer dress you own, that
one with the pink flowers. You are to be my companion to-day--and I
hope you have a lovely time."

"I'm sure I shall," replied Tessie respectfully, but the whole
proceedings were becoming so mysterious she wondered if the plan really
did involve Fairyland.

"You look as if you wanted to say something. What is it, Stacia?" asked
Jacqueline.

"Oh, I couldn't bother you with it now," replied Tessie, but an
envelope in her hand spoke more intelligently.

"No bother at all. I have lots of time. What is it, Stacia?"

"I overheard you say, Miss Jacqueline, that you were treasurer of the
Violet Shut Ins, and I have some ticket money belonging to their last
benefit. Could I give it to you?" asked Tessie.

"Why, of course you could. Isn't that lovely!" taking her envelope from
Tessie's trembling hands. "I always knew we would hear from those lost
tickets, and now my accounts are all perfectly straight. Won't Cousin
Marcia be pleased!"

"Cousin Marcia!" Tessie could not help repeating, as she all but
stumbled from the room in her confusion.

To be rid of that nightmare. To have made complete amends for that
ticket money!

Now she could face the world! Now she could go back to Flosston and
find Dagmar Brodix!




CHAPTER XXIII

RAINBOW'S END


It was a gala day in Flosston. True Tred Troop and Venture Troop Girl
Scouts seemed to comprise a veritable army, as the girls in their brown
uniforms congregated and scattered, then scattered and congregated, in
that way girls have of imitating the "inimitable" bee.

Long before the hour set for assembly on the green, knots and groups
gathered there, and when finally Captain Clark and Captain Cosgrove
appeared (we prefer to call each her separate captain), both True Treds
and Venture troops were ready and eager to start for River Bend Woods.

Grace, Cleo, Madaline and Margaret had managed to "fall in" in one
line, so that the march out was unspoiled by difficulties in
conversation, which would have followed any other formation.

"If only--if only--" faltered Grace; then she laughed rather sheepishly.

"But we may see him," surmised Cleo.

"Any man or beast in that woods will come out of his lair when we get
there!" predicted Margaret.

"Oh, what a lovely showing! Just look back!" exclaimed Madaline, "and
how finely the boy scouts drum and fife. Will they eat all our picnic
stuff, do you suppose?"

"Surely Hal Crane is entitled to some," replied Grace, "and there's
Benny. He helped me before we got Hal. I shall have to share with him,
of course."

"We're starting!" cautioned Cleo. "Look out for your feet. Don't let
our line get out of step!"

"The boys aren't going all the way out," said Grace presently. "I just
heard a girl say they are only going to escort us to the city line."

"Then we won't have to feed them," Madaline remarked, her words being
discounted by the joking tone of her voice.

It was an imposing spectacle, and all Flosston seemed to appreciate the
occasion, for windows were jammed with faces, doors were blocked with
figures, and even low roofs were spotted with waving, shouting
energetic youths. Not since a wartime parade had there been so much
excitement, and only a word from the superintendent to the engineer of
Fluffdown mills prevented the latter from blowing the big whistle.

"It might make it look too much like a labor parade," the
superintendant decided.

Crossing the line from the borough into the county, the escort of boy
scouts switched off to Oakleigh, where they were to take up their own
special activities, the principal feature of the afternoon being a ball
game with the Marvels.

From this point it was but a short distance to hike to River Bend
Woods, and nearing the noted territory the four scout girls experienced
a sort of thrill. Grace felt something must happen to clear the mystery
of her cave correspondent, and the other girls sincerely hoped
something would happen.

Just before entering the pine grove the two captains, Clark and
Cosgrove, halted their troops and issued instructions.

No girl was to leave the ranks, no girl was to make any advance, and no
girl was to disobey the slightest order until the call for break ranks
would be sounded.

These orders were given with precision which indicated some very
particular program, and served to "thrill" the quartette with new
expectations.

"Some one else is having a picnic!" whispered Grace. "I see a lot of
bright things through the trees!"

"Hush!" cautioned Margaret, for the patrol leaders were inspecting each
line.

"Now, girls!" called Captain Clark. "When I blow the whistle you are to
follow your leaders, and rush forward. No one is to push, or crowd, but
to advance in a solid line, battle formation. Then when I blow three
whistles, halt instantly!"

The ground was quite clear at this entrance to the woods, and at the
command a grand rush forward was so cleverly executed it seemed the
line scarcely lost step making the dash.

Then the whistle sounded three times and behold!

"Oh! oh! oh!"

The woods rang with the cries!

What a sight! A woodland play or Fairyland let loose!

Quickly as astonished eyes could separate the view into its component
parts, Grace realized the stage was set on her hollow rock!

Then Madaline recognized the Queen seated on her throne was none other
than the little girl to whom she had given her four-leaf clover!

While the next moment a figure came from behind the big tree, the tree
Grace had tied her victim to, and this was surely the very same man!
His suit was that exact brownish mixture--and sure enough he was waving
the very piece of rope Grace had tied him with.

It was all glorious, beautiful! The fairy queen was seated on the
rock--the throne simply lost in flowers. She wore a robe that sparkled
with something like spangled crystals, and she held in her hand a
golden wand.

Seated at the foot of the rock was a girl dressed simply and
representing the Wayfarer.

And now we have guessed these characters are none other than Jacqueline
and Tessie!

"What a perfectly beautiful picture!" On every lip and tongue were such
exclamations, when suddenly from the "victim at the tree" a weird sort
of whistle music, made on the most artistically shaped instrument, like
the pipes of Pan, sounded through the woodland.

"Oh!" was all Grace could articulate, and with its ejaculation had
pinched Cleo's arm into a promising "black and blue!"

After the piper had played his tune Captain Clark gave the signal for
the troops to be seated, then she stepped forward and stood on a stone
by the side of the Queen's throne.

"This is the end of the rainbow!" began the captain, "and I am sure we
are satisfied now that all Fairyland is not limited to books. I want to
introduce Miss Jacqueline Douglass," indicating the queen, "and her
brother, Mr. Gerald Douglass," pointing to "Pan." "Last spring we took
a hike to this wood and one of our members tried to do a humane service
by making a capture!"

(Grace felt her cheeks would ignite, but Cleo was trying to reassure
her.)

"It is not always what we do, but it is always what we try to do," went
on Captain Clark, "and Grace Philow tried to capture a tramp. In the
attempt she made fast a staunch friend, for Mr. Douglass now stands as
our ally, rather than our victim!"

A shrill blast on his pipes signified "Pan's" agreement, and the troops
applauded until the echo came back from the other side of the river.

"I heard the bandit say she was after Mrs. Johnston's wash," Pan
declared, with Captain Clark's permission, "and she gave me a merry
chase after my 'gob bag.' Little sister Jack and I had been spending an
afternoon in the woods, and while she went out to the road in her chair
I was to lug the bag. You really are an expert little highwayman,
Bandit!" he finished, addressing Grace, who stood right at the end of
the line.

"And now I shall ask a word from our queen," announced Captain Clark.

Jacqueline smiled and the girls could not help but exclaim how pretty
she was.

"You see I have been unable to walk since last winter," spoke the
queen, "and when brother Gerald told me about the woodland girls, I
begged him to play out the game, and you see he did. He wrote the
letters, and hid them in this rock, then the girls sent the scout I
wanted, and oh, it has been altogether so wonderful! We will have to
have a real rally to tell you all about it, for the doctors say I will
be all right again very soon."

Cheers greeted this news and Jacqueline waved her wand in appreciation.

During all this Tessie was not the one least surprised. In fact, she
was so astonished she could no longer keep her place on the rock, and
she now whispered to Jacqueline she would like to speak to a friend in
the troop.

At almost the same time Rose had discovered Tessie, and she, too,
stepped aside when the girl left the rock, and the next moment the two
girls were clasped in each other's arms.

"Dagmar!"

"Tessie!"

Girls looking on knew nothing of the story of this reunion, but it was
plain the captains were in the secret, and they did not call the
stranger and the patrol leader back to their places. The emotion these
girls were experiencing surely deserved consideration, and so they were
left almost to themselves, a little distance from the troops.

"And now we have some True Tred awards to make," again announced the
captain. "Venture Troop will make theirs later."

"To Cleo Harris goes the first Bronze Cross awarded our troop!"

There was a shout, cheers, then questions!

"Not only did she save a human life by stopping a runaway horse a few
feet from a railway crossing, down the tracks of which was dashing an
express, but she thought she had entirely succeeded in hiding her
identity. She did not want the world to know of her deed, but we have
discovered it!"

Then, completely dumfounded, Cleo was urged forward, and she acted as
she felt, like a girl in a dream, when Captain Clark pinned on her
blouse the highest award, the Bronze Cross hanging from its bright red
ribbon.

She had won the first B. C.!

Scarcely had the confusion subsided when Grace was called up to receive
the merit badge for "successfully spreading scout influence and
bringing joy into the life of a disabled child."

Jacqueline had insisted mention be made of the "joy" the woods play had
brought to her. So the award was made in that way.

Madaline was admiring Cleo's cross when she heard her name called.
Captain Clark announced: "A tiny four-leaf clover picked and bestowed
in love as a nature gift is not too small to be recognized, and when
Madaline Mower hurried after the wheel-chair of this little queen she
touched a secret spring. An honor badge' must mark the result," and the
much-astonished Madaline also received an award from the queen.

"And who in this troop lost a merit badge?" joyously asked the queen,
as soon as her words could be heard through the growing excitement.

"Oh, I did!" almost shouted Margaret Slowden, rushing forward without
waiting to be called.

There was the much-prized merit badge! The one originally bestowed upon
her on such an auspicious occasion.

When Captain Clark again pinned it on Margaret's breast it seemed like
a blessing that had grown greater by reason of its loss. And how
delighted the girls were! It was a clear case of "No questions asked."

Over on a little moss-covered tree stump Tessie and Rose alone knew the
complete story of that lost badge, and only their eyes attempted to
give an expression to the details.

The call to "fall in ranks" was not sounded for a full hour later, for
such a picnic as these girls enjoyed had never been heard of in River
Bend Woods.

All the wealth and generosity of Gerald Douglass seemed poured out in
his sister's woody banquet; and as we have guessed he was by no means a
stranger to the attractive Captain Clark. In fact, the way these two
worked to "lay out the spread" caused even the experienced Captain
Cosgrove to raise an inquisitorial finger.

And now our mythical May-pole has swung around until its pretty ends
all entwine the staff like a monument of mirth.

Rose and Tessie were reunited and nothing but the insistance of
Jacqueline that Stacia (this name now became permanent, as did the
brief title Dagmar had chosen) stay with her, kept the two companions
even temporarily separated by the short distance of two intervening
villages.

As Stacia was assisting the queen back to earth, and thence to her big
limousine late that afternoon, she overheard Jacqueline telling Captain
Cosgrove about the completion of her accounts for the Shut In Benefit.

"Cousin Marcia Osborne went to the coast a week ago," Jacqueline said,
"and she told me before she went she knew the returns would be made all
right in time. So when Stacia handed me the envelope the other day I
wrote her immediately that it was all settled by now."

Then Pan blew a reveille on his pipes and the troops left the woods, so
we must leave them, to meet again in the next volume of the Scouts, to
be called "The Girl Scouts at Bellair: or, Maid Mary's Awakening."

THE END










End of Project Gutenberg's The Girl Scout Pioneers, by Lillian C. Garis