Chapter 18

ONE WAY TO FIND OUT

Nevertheless within a few days the story had been circulated about the camp. Not a word, however, had been spoken concerning it by Betty, Esther or Miss McMurtry, but poor Nan Graham had betrayed herself. For in her effort to gain sympathizers, unfortunately a wider suspicion was aroused.

Sore and unhappy over what she insisted was a totally unjust supposition, it was but natural that she should turn to another girl for consolation. Not to Polly, however; Nan said not a word to her, for Polly had given no evidence of having heard of her ill-timed visit to Betty's trunk, having been on her way to the village at the time the offence was committed, and above everything Nan desired to remain fixed in Polly's good graces. No, she confided the account of her interview first to Beatrice Field, making so tragic a tale of it that Bee, who was quite young and only a mischievous tomboy in her disposition and never having heard anything of Nan's past mistakes, was deeply indignant.

"A Camp Fire girl accused of stealing, well not exactly accused but suspected!" Honestly Bee had never conceived of anything so dreadful, and so straightway put the whole case before her sister, Juliet. Then to her surprise Juliet, who was a far more worldly wise person, did not accept the story from the same point of view, indeed Juliet became immediately indignant for Betty's sake, declaring that she was being a martyr in not spreading the news of her loss abroad and at least endeavoring to recover her lost property.

Something of Juliet's impression must have crept into Bee, for in her next conversation with Nan there was a certain cooling off in sympathy that made Nan feel the need of another partisan. This time she was more unwise in selecting Edith Norton, for Edith had always particularly disliked Nan's presence in the Sunrise Camp and, even while hearing her side of the story, had unhesitatingly revealed not only a want of pity for her but a plain lack of faith.

Nan had forgotten to require at the beginning of their conversation that Edith keep her confidence a secret and so the older girl made no pretence of doing so. In her bitterness Nan had not hesitated to say hard things of Betty, Esther and even of their guardian in speaking of the injustice of their attitude toward her, and these remarks Edith felt free to add to her own account. Not that she really meant to be cruel or unfair, but honestly feeling it best that Nan stay no longer in their camp she started a campaign toward that end. Perhaps because Edith was poor and self-supporting herself, unconsciously she resented the presence of another girl whose poverty was of so much less honorable a kind, for it is more difficult to be fair to persons almost in our own state of life than to those in far different ones.

Not long did Edith remain alone in her conviction, for the layer of real faith and affection for poor little Nan in camp was so thin that the first effort broke through it. In point of fact no one had actually wanted her at Sunrise Camp and had only been persuaded into it by Polly and Betty and by Miss McMurtry's approval, and really these three persons were still the only three who continued her champions.

Betty would not hear for an instant of Nan's being sent away, threatened to leave herself rather than be responsible for such an act of injustice. Miss McMurtry was equally firm, although she added that Nan was not to be condemned until further proof was secured against her. Meanwhile Polly O'Neill was really unaware for some time of the actual circumstances of the case. In the first place Betty had begged that the story be kept from Polly as Nan was her especial protegee, and seeing what a storm had been aroused in camp she herself felt more than sorry ever to have mentioned her loss. Of course Polly heard vaguely that Betty had lost something or other about camp, but she did not know exactly what, but then Betty had so many possessions that she was always losing something. Also she began to suspect, dimly at first, that the girls were in some kind of quandary, but as no one mentioned the cause to her, she felt rather too proud to inquire, besides having a problem of her own on her mind which taxed most of her waking hours, although she too kept her own counsel.

But now a sufficient time had gone by, until the date of the meeting of the August Council Fire had arrived when the original number of Camp Fire members were to be promoted to the rank of Fire-Makers and Esther was to be first of the Sunrise Hill girls to be given the highest Camp Fire title--Torch Bearer.

One of Miss McMurtry's plans for her camp was to leave to three girls each month the arrangements for the original features of their Council Fire and in August, the month of the Red or Green Corn Moon, it so happened that Mollie, Eleanor and Edith Norton formed the special committee. Just what their plans were no one knew until the morning before their meeting, not even the camp guardian, or Miss McMurtry might possibly have interfered, although I hardly believe it.

Shortly after breakfast, even before the other girls had a chance to disperse for their morning's work, Eleanor, Mollie and Edith Norton disappeared inside their tents.

Edith had been chosen to help at this meeting rather than any other because she was now having her two weeks' August vacation. Ten minutes later the girls came out again into the open air, arrayed in their ceremonial costumes and carrying three Indian baskets which were solemnly passed about from one girl to the other. And these baskets contained invitations to the evening Council Fire painted on bits of birch bark in crimson lettering by Eleanor Meade.

At the top of the scroll were the three words "The Maidens' Feast." Then below, the invitation read: "Sinopa the Little Sister, Apoi-a-kimi, the Light Hair, and Eleanor, the Painter of Sunrises, invite all the maidens of all the tribes to come and partake of their feast this evening at the close of the regular Council Fire ceremonies. It will be in the Sunrise Camp before the moon reaches the middle sky. All pure maidens are invited."