The Camp Fire Girls Across the Seas

Margaret Vandercook

Vandercook Margaret

The Camp Fire Girls Across the Seas

CHAPTER I

Two Years Later

A young man strode along through one of the principal streets of the town of Woodford, New Hampshire, with his blue eyes clouded and an expression of mingled displeasure and purpose about the firm lines of his mouth.

It was an April afternoon and the warm sunshine uncurling the tiny buds on the old elm trees lit to a brighter hue the yellow Forsythia bushes already in bloom in the gardens along the way.

Standing in front of an inconspicuous brown cottage was a large touring car, empty of occupants. Within a few yards of this car the young man paused, frowning, and then gazed anxiously up toward the closed door of the house. A short time afterwards this door opened when a girl, wearing a scarlet coat and a felt hat of the same shade pinned carelessly on her dark hair, hurried forth and with her eyes cast down and an air of suppressed excitement moved off in the opposite direction, without becoming aware of the onlooker. And although the bystander's lips moved once as if forming her name with the intention of calling after her, his impulse must have immediately died, for he continued motionless in the same spot until the girl had finally turned a corner and was lost to his view. Then the young man walked on again, but not so rapidly or resolutely as at first.

Indeed, he was so intensely absorbed in his own line of thought as to be unconscious of the other passers-by, until some one stopped directly in front of him and a familiar voice pronounced his name.

"Why, Billy Webster, where are you going?" Meg Everett demanded. "You look as if you were giving Atlas a holiday this afternoon and had transferred the weight of the world to your own shoulders."

Two years had changed the greater number of the old Sunrise Hill Camp Fire members from girls to young women, but they had not made a conspicuous difference in Margaret Everett. Her sunny yellow hair was tucked up, but today the April winds had loosened it, and though she was dressed with greater care than before the Camp Fire influence, she would never altogether approach her brother John's ideal of quiet elegance, as the Princess always had. Yet her eyes were so gay and friendly and her face so full of quick color and sympathy, that there were few other young men besides her older brother who found much to criticize in her. And certainly not the small boy at her side, who had once been "Hai-yi," the Indian name for "Little Brother," to the twelve girls at Sunrise Hill.

Returning Meg's interested gaze, Billy Webster, who was never given to subterfuges, had a sudden impulse to seek information and possible aid from her.

"Is it true, Meg," he asked, "that Miss Adams, the actress, is here in Woodford visiting her cousin and that Polly O'Neill has been going to see her every day and riding over the country in her motor car? I thought Mrs. Wharton had insisted that Polly was to have nothing to do with anything or anybody connected with the stage until three years had passed. It has been only two since Polly's escapade, and it seems to me that nothing could so awaken a girl's interest as being made the companion and friend of a famous woman. I thought Mrs. Wharton had better judgment. Polly had almost forgotten the whole business!"

As she shook her head Meg Everett's face wore a slightly puzzled look. For she was wondering at the instant if it could be possible that Billy had any special right to his concern in Polly O'Neill's proceedings. Mollie O'Neill was her dearest friend and for several years she knew Mollie and Billy had been apparently devoted to each other. Yet she would have been almost sure to have guessed had their old affection developed into something deeper. Moreover, Mollie was only nineteen and Mrs. Wharton would have insisted upon their waiting before agreeing to an engagement between them.

"Oh, I don't think it worth while for you and Mollie to worry over Polly," Meg retur