The Lass of the Silver Sword

“How would you like to go to the North Pole now?” asked Cecily as, luncheon over, the girls lolled on the rocks above Jasper Falls.

“I’m ready for North Pole, South Pole, Equator, or anything,” declared Jean with enthusiasm.

“We’ll have to go to Christmas Cave, then,” said Cecily. “The pole’s inside it.”

“Is there really something here you call the North Pole?” asked Betty.

“Why, of course there is,” said Cecily.

“Come on, then,—let’s make a dash for the pole!” said Jean. Every one was ready to march, and Cecily led the party down the hill into the dense woods at its base to take the trail to the Arctic regions.

That trail, however, seemed to be hidden beyond all discovery.

“I can’t find it anywhere!” Cecily had to admit. “I’ll go a little farther and see if I can strike it.” She pushed on with Miss Hamersley and a few energetic explorers.

Jean, Frances and Betty, busy coaxing a chipmunk to be friendly, were among those who stayed behind with Fräulein Bunsen. Roderick Dhu had gone off on a hunt, and presently they saw a rabbit shoot across the path and into a thicket, the collie in pursuit.

“Rod—stop! come here!” called Jean, and she darted after the dog, hoping to prevent bloodshed. Frances and Betty joined the chase, but the three soon found themselves barred by the dense tangle that stopped even Roderick, yet proved a safe retreat for the rabbit.

“Listen, girls! What’s that rustling?” exclaimed Betty.

“A bear probably,” said Frances. “Sick ’em, Rod!” But the collie needed no urging. He dashed barking around the edge of the thicket.

“Oh, dear! What is it? Let’s run!” cried Betty, and she sped back to the others with a haste most unworthy of a battle maid.

Jean and Frances followed the dog, and stopped short. Confronting them stood a man, looking strangely dark in the deep shade,—a man at whom Roderick Dhu was growling suspiciously. The girls pulled the dog away.

“Come back to the others,” said Jean, and the two valiant amazons hurried after Betty. A rustling of leaves told them that the man was following.

“I’m scared!” giggled Frances, and Jean felt as if something eerie were pursuing them.

“Betty, your bear’s coming after us!” Frances announced as they rejoined their friends, and a minute later the stranger presented himself.

After all there was nothing uncanny about him: he was, on the contrary, a most picturesque figure. His swarthy complexion, jet black hair, restless dark eyes and handsome features, were well set off by his corduroy suit, blue flannel shirt and wide felt hat.

“Pray, kind sir, know you where lies de Christmas Cave?” asked Fräulein, who had studied Shakespeare when she was learning English and was apt to slip into Elizabethan phrases.

“Hey? What, marm?” asked the stranger.

“He understands me not. You ask him, Carol,” said Fräulein.

“You ought to have said, ‘Be thy intents wicked or charitable, thou comest in such a questionable shape that I will speak to thee.’ You’re forgetting your Hamlet, Bunnie, liebchen,” said Carol. Then she turned to the newcomer, saying, “We’re trying to find the trail to Christmas Cave. Do you know where it begins?”

“Christmas Cave? That’s about a mile from here,” the man answered. “I’ll show you the trail. Come right along this way.”

“Oh, thank you,” said Carol, “but we must wait for the rest of our party.”

The man seemed quite ready to enjoy repose and a chat, and he lounged against a tree with a careless grace.

“He’s a French count in disguise!” whispered Betty.

“Yes,” agreed Eunice. “He only said, ‘Hey? What, marm?’ to make us think he was a country bumpkin.”

“No, he’s a charming villain,” said Carol. “I’m morally certain he has a dagger hidden in each of his boots.”

“I guess you’re the folks that’s stayin’ with Mis’ Brook down to Black Bear Camp, ain’t you?” the stranger inquired.

“Yes, are you one of the guides?” asked Eunice.

“Well, kinder. I ain’t a reg’lar guide, but I know the business a good deal better than them guides at the inn. Their game’s to git the highest pay for takin’ you the shortest cut. All they care for is to git paid for savin’ their own shoe leather. But that ain’t my way. I charge jest half what the reg’lar guides do, and take you the prettiest trail every time. So I’m your guide whenever you want one.”

The explorers returned just then, and Cecily exclaimed, “Why, there’s Tony Harrel! How do you do, Tony? Do you know where the trail to Christmas Cave starts?”

“Jest waitin’ to take you there,” replied the gallant Tony. “I found the ladies was in a fix, an’ told ’em I’d show ’em the way. I’ll take you home by the new trail too.”

“Carol,” whispered Jean, “don’t you remember—Douglas said it was Tony Harrel that stole his rifle! This must be the same man.”

“I don’t like Tony a bit,” Cecily confided to Jean. “He will call me ‘Cissy,’ and he won’t say ‘Miss.’ But I’m glad we met him, so he can show us the way. His real name’s Mark Antony—isn’t that rich!”

Mark Antony led the way to where a narrow trail branched out from their path. Then he said to Cecily, who, with Carol and Jean, was in advance of the rest, “Say, Cissy, your mother’s lookin’ round for a boatman, ain’t she? I heard Eph Jones disapp’inted her, an’ I kinder thought I’d like the place, myself.”

“Oh, but I’m almost sure she’s going to engage Douglas Gordon,” Cecily answered.

“Oh, she’s goin’ to take that kid, is she?” Mark Antony smiled scornfully. “Well, I guess after she’s tried him for about one day, she’ll be lookin’ for somebody else.”

“Douglas has been very well recommended,” said Cecily with her most grown up air.

“Oh, well, he’s a mighty fine gen’leman, of course,” Harrel acknowledged. “Great on readin’ books, an’ that sort o’ thing; but when it comes down to doin’ chores, the work he knows how to do ’s to keep his hands clean. He’s boardin’ with us, so I know. I guess the folks at Big Pine Camp thought he was a little too much of a dude!”

“They didn’t at all!” burst out Jean. “He worked as hard as he could, and he only left because their man came back. And he doesn’t care one bit about keeping his hands clean! He’s in earnest, and he wants to work!”

“He’s a gen’leman, all right, though,” said Tony. “He’ll take good care never to kill himself workin’.”

“You don’t know anything about it!” cried Jean. “He’s too proud to depend on anybody. And a real gentleman is never ashamed to work!”

The man laughed, but his dark eyes shot a sneering glance at Jean. “Well,” he remarked, “he seems to know how to git around the girls, all right!”

“He doesn’t try to get around us!” began Jean indignantly.

“Hush, Jean, be careful!” With her low voice and warning look Carol checked the warrior-queen. Then turning to Harrel, she said, “Miss Brook will show us the way now, herself. We thank you for showing us the trail, but we prefer not to trouble you any longer. Good-afternoon. Girls, we must go back to the others.” Very quietly she spoke; but she looked unusually dignified and stately, and there was something in those clear eyes of hers that changed Mark Antony’s sneer to a stare of surprise, followed by an angry glance, and then caused him, shrugging his shoulders, to turn away without a word. They heard him whistling carelessly as they retraced their steps.

“The horrid, old, sneering thing!” exclaimed Jean. “I wanted to tell him gentlemen didn’t steal other peoples’ rifles! Why did you tell me to be careful, Carol?”

“The less you say to such a person, the better,” answered Carol. “I didn’t like his manner from the first.”

“I’m glad you called me ‘Miss Brook,’ and sent him marching,” said Cecily. “You can look like an empress, Carol! I don’t wonder he turned and fled. My, but you made him angry, though! Did you see how his eyes flashed? They say he has Indian blood.”

“He looked about ready to scalp me,” said Carol.

They joined the others, and then Cecily led the way along the trail to a mass of rock in which they saw the opening of a cave. “That’s Christmas Cave,” said she. “Wait here till I come back.” She vanished inside the cavern, reappeared, and threw something at Jean which hit her in the chest and burst as it struck.

“Snow!” gasped Jean. “Good gracious me! A snowball!”

“Yes, it was a snowball,” said Cecily. “Merry Christmas! Come and hang up your stockings.”

As many girls as could crowd in followed her into the cave and found themselves shivering in the chilly air of Jack Frost’s impregnable fortress. Patches of snow, the relics of last winter’s drifts, lay in crevices in the rocks. In the farthest recess was an accumulation of rough ice, and planted in its center stood a miniature Indian totem-pole with grotesque figures carved upon it and painted red, white and blue. A tiny American flag was fastened at the top of the pole.

“Hooray! There’s the North Pole, and it belongs to Uncle Sam!” cried Jean.

“He’ll own both poles before he’s done with it,” said Carol. “The stars and stripes forever!”

“Jack made the pole,” said Cecily. “Isn’t that a fine iceberg? It never melts all the year round.”

“Let’s have a snowball fight,” Frances proposed, and a battle ensued. The ammunition was scarce, but the girls kept remoulding their shot, every one who could find a bit of snow joining in the fray.

When everybody had enjoyed a taste of freezing, the campers trudged home to Huairarwee. They found Douglas Gordon on the veranda, talking with Mrs. Brook, and just as the supper-horn sounded, he came down and broke the good news to Jean.

“She’s engaged me for the whole summer! I’m going to get six dollars a week, and I start to-night. I’m going to build your camp-fire.”

That evening Douglas built a royal fire, and around it the merriest of revels took place. The girls of the Hazelhurst glee-club led the others in an open air concert, to the accompaniment of Carol’s mandolin. All the best-loved college songs were given, and the favorites of the school, ending with “Hazelhurst Hall forever!” set to the tune of the Eton Boating Song, and now rendered with an added verse in which it was “Halcyon Lake forever!” and “Cheer for the best of camps!” Charades followed and then good old-fashioned twenty questions.

“I decline to do any more guessing!” Carol declared, when Jean and Cecily, leagued together, had put the rest through mental gymnastics. “The Silver Sworders go too deep into history for the brains of an alumna! I remember that ‘King Arthur made a bag-pudding,’ and the immortal George chopped down a cherry-tree, but beyond that I’m rusty. And when it comes to having to guess the one hundred and first hair that turned gray on Oliver Cromwell’s head—that’s altogether too violent a cerebral strain!”

“I agree with you,” said Nancy. “Let’s drop twenty questions and tell an alphabetical story. Some one gives a sentence—or as much more as her brains are equal to—with all the words beginning with A; then when she breaks off, some one else takes up the story all in B’s, and so we go on down the alphabet. It’s better not to go around in turn,—but to answer up as our names are called,—then we sha’n’t know beforehand what letters we’re to have.”

“Worse than Oliver’s hair!” groaned Carol. But Jean cried eagerly: “Let’s play it!”

“I’ll call out your names,” said Miss Hamersley. “Dorothy!”

“Give me time!” gasped Dorothy Stone. “Let me see:—a—a—Oh, wait! I’m getting it! An attractive—amiable—athletic—assembly—ambled artlessly along a—a—I’m stuck!”

“Along a what, Ethel?” asked Miss Hamersley.

“Babbling brook. Blushing boarding-school beauties—bounded—blissfully,—brandishing birch-bark boomerangs! Bouncing Betty,—I’ve given out!”

With sighs, and petitions to the audience to “Wait a minute!” the rigmarole was spun out, sentence by sentence.

“Helen,” said Miss Hamersley, “what did bouncing Betty do?”

“Crept cautiously, clutching Cecily. Carol, chanting cheerily, climbed cliffs, crags,—crossed cataracts,—cleverly caught crabs,—I’m exhausted!”

“Ruth!”

“Dauntless Dorothy daringly darted down dark dangerous declivities.”

“Marion!”

“Eunice, eating eels, eschewed elegant edibles.”

“Nancy!”

“Frances frisked fairy-like, following fleeing fawns. Fräulein frantically fished for frogs.”

“Winifred!”

“Giddy Gladys glided gleefully, gyrating gracefully. Grace Gardner gloatingly gathered great, green grasshoppers.”

“Katrina!”

“Haughty Helen hallooed hysterically: ‘Help! help!’”

“Indicating irate Indian invaders,” said Hope La Monte, as her name was called.

“Gladys!”

“Jolly Jean jumped joyously, jesting jocosely.”

“Frances!”

“Katrina killed kittymounts,—catamount cubs, I mean,” said Frances.

“Pamela!”

“Louise liked luncheon-time, loving liquid lemonade.”

“Olive!”

“Mad Marion marched merrily ’mid mirthful mandolin music.”

“Carol!”

“Enchanting Nancy Newcomb encountered ninety-nine noxious gnats.”

“Carol, you cheat!” cried Nancy. “Pay a forfeit immediately.”

“I spell phonetically,” Carol replied calmly.

“Jean!” called Miss Hamersley.

“Omnivorous Olive ordered oysters, omelet, oatmeal, owl-on-toast,—olives.”

“Louise!”

“Pamela preferred perch,” Louise Phillips responded.

“Eunice!”

“Queenie quavered querulously: ‘Quinces, quails, quartered cucumbers!’”

“Cheating again! Betty!”

“Roderick—running rabid—rushed raging—round Ruth!”

“Grace!”

“Strenuous Silver Sword Sisters, slaying, slashing, slaughtering—.”

“Traced the terrible Tony through the tangled thicket,” said Cecily, the last of the twenty girls. “Now, Douglas, you’ll have to finish the alphabet.”

“U. V. W. X. Y. Z.—all of them?” asked Douglas, with a wry face. “I ought to have a dictionary. Let’s see.” He meditated. “Will this do? Ugly, underhanded villain wandered wobbling, excitedly yelling, ‘Zoological zigzag zebras!’” The camp boatman had acquitted himself nobly and was applauded.

“Now let’s play some writing-games; we have plenty of light,” Winifred Russell proposed.

“Winsome Winnie wishes we would write wise witticisms,” said Carol. “Impossible, Win,—but we can perpetrate some more nonsense.”

Pencils and paper were brought, and “gingerbread poetry” and verbarium were played by the firelight.

“Now I am going to beg for the old-fashioned game I used to love when I was Cecily’s age,” said Mrs. Brook. “First you each write the description of the hero of your story, fold it over and pass it on to your neighbor. Then you write the hero’s name; then how the heroine looked, and her name; then, where they met, what he said, what she said, what they did, the consequence, and what the world said. And each time you fold over what you’ve written and pass it on.”

Pencils flew busily, and when the papers were read aloud, the campers found themselves figuring as heroines in the most thrilling situations.

“Here’s a tragedy!” said Cecily, and she read the last paper.

“I? Racing in automobiles?” cried Fräulein.

Jean boxed Frances’ ears.

“You are very naughty girls to treat me so!” said Fräulein. “For punishment you must bring apples to roast and de kettle—vat you call him,—de Villiam?”

“The Billy,” laughed Carol.

The apples and the Billy were brought, and while the company feasted on chocolate, boiled over the camp-fire, and roast apples, a story-telling contest went on. Here Jean was in her element and told a blood-curdling tale of an Indian chief who in days of yore had pitched his wigwam where the bungalow now stood, had scalped his enemies wholesale, and finally, while kidnapping a beautiful squaw, had himself been tomahawked on Camp-fire Rock by the maiden’s betrothed. Since that time, Jean assured her hearers, his ghost had haunted Huairarwee.

“Enter the ghost!” Carol suddenly announced in a sepulchral voice. The other girls started, half a dozen screamed, and Roderick Dhu awoke barking. A dark figure was gliding stealthily through the trees on the bluff, with the noiseless tread of an Indian. Douglas ran up the bank to investigate.

“It’s only Tony Harrel!” he said. “Say, Tony, I’ll be home soon. Don’t lock me out!”

Mark Antony deigned not to reply. He vanished as noiselessly as he had come.