CHAPTER XVIII

A CALL IN THE NIGHT

Footsore and weary, but satisfied and happy, they finished the day of the carnival hike.

"Let's all help with supper," suggested Louise, who was off duty on the K. P. (Kitchen Police) for that day. "Then we can all go down to the dock and see the excursion boat go out."

"We are not hungry, a bit," replied Cleo, "but I suppose we must try to eat. Come on, girls, all join in this chorus. It will be lovely on the lake this wonderful evening."

And so it proved to be. Never had the waters of Hocomo taken on a more gorgeous costume. Velvets, satins and silks, in every rainbow hue, were flung in reckless splendor of draperies over the great, soft surface of the water, by a sunset as prodigious as it was profligate.

Among the parties leaving, one little tribe of excursionists stayed until the very last steamer insisted, with its thrill whistle, that they either come aboard or stay behind indefinitely.

"If only we could stay," murmured one pale-faced girl. She was standing near the Bobbies, who were watching the city children embark.

"Do you like it up here?" questioned Louise. She felt guilt in the banal query.

"Oh, it's like--Paradise," said the wistful one. "But we'll be glad enough if the firemen in the city turn the hose in the gutter to-morrow to make a lake for us."

Louise sighed. So many children like this one must stay in the city, she knew. Others equally sad and fully as wistful were reluctantly measuring each step of the little dock and gang-plank. How they hated to go back!

"Oh, girls!" whispered Cleo. "Why don't we try to do something for a little band of that sort?"

"What?" asked Grace.

"We could lend them our camp," went on Cleo bravely. "We all have cottages here."

"So we could, and there are two weeks yet before the general schools open," sang back Grace. "I would just love to let the most needy of a group like that have two weeks at Comalong."

"So should I," declared Louise. "Let's try to do it."

"There's the caretaker; get a name and address from her," suggested Julia hurriedly.

"Better have Mackey do it," said Corene, who promptly sidled up to the director with the proposition.

"I don't know," demurred Miss Mackin in answer, "but it won't do any harm to have a name and address." So she in turn stepped up to the director of the excursion party.

The children, she learned, were from a tenement district, and were not technically sick, but oh, how pitifully near it!

As each little victim passed along, the Bobbies' determination grew.

They would be happy to surrender their beloved camp for such a human cause as this.

One short hour later, around a friendly little campfire, the plans were made. Everything in the camp and the camp included would be turned over to the city troop (they should all be enrolled as Scouts before taking possession), and for the two weeks before school opened these slum children would come back to Paradise.

"You must realize," explained Miss Mackin, "this will mean at least the complete sacrifice of your bedding. You may take these blankets, and we will ask headquarters to send us bed covering, but the cots----"

"We will donate them to a mercy camp for next year," spoke up Julia. "I am sure the home folks will all be perfectly satisfied."

"And it won't hurt our lovely flag," reasoned Louise. "Of course we will turn everything except our personal belongings over to the organization, at any rate."

"Did you expect to make Comalong a regular summer Scout camp?" asked Miss Mackin.

"Surely," replied Corene. "We were just experimenting at first, but now we know it will be a real practical camp for any amount of summers."

"In that case," proposed Miss Mackin, "we will notify headquarters and have inventory taken at once. Are you perfectly sure you want to give up before the end of the month?"

"Positive," insisted Louise. "I couldn't enjoy this a week longer and remember that little wistful, woeful-faced girl, who said she hoped the firemen would be allowed to make a gutter-lake in the city for them to-morrow."

"Indeed, we couldn't," chimed in Corene. "And besides, just think what it will mean to give a real fresh air camp donation?"

"Yes, nothing could be better," assented the director happily. "And as you all can go to your home cottages it doesn't seem quite so gigantic a sacrifice."

"But camp is ideal," murmured Julia, putting one more small log on the dying embers; just enough to keep mosquitoes away.

"Perfect," joined in Cleo, her voice dropping or dripping with regret.

"That's the very reason we want to do this--to put a seal of a perfect summer on it all," declared Corene, who perhaps more than the others felt a really deep responsibility for that camp; from its very inception at the Essveay School, to its fullest day, that just closed on the carnival hike.

So it was all agreed and settled. Camp Comalong was to be turned over to the city children and their Social Service caretakers, by the end of the week.

Somehow it was a little saddening, however, and it was very evident that the Bobbies did not feel like singing the usual woodland Good Night, as they prepared for their sleep in the big canvas cradle under the stars.

"Dreaming!" minds dimly awoke with that vague idea.

"No, someone is calling," spoke Isabel, as if anyone had spoken before.

They listened. Came a cautious call:

"Girls! Bobbie! Grace!"

"It's Peg," exclaimed a chorus, and with that realization each felt just a little bit guilty that the new ideas of the evening before had so obliterated the troubles of Peg from their Scout consideration.

Bare feet instantly pattered on the bare boards. The night light was reached and turned up and the tent flap "unlocked."

And there was Peg with her Aunt Carrie!

"Oh, do come in," begged Miss Mackin, anxiously. "What has happened?"

"Nothing," replied Peg a trifle cynically, "but we were afraid something might happen to these," she indicated a box she carried and also an armful of what seemed to be rolled cardboard.

Quickly the girls made the night visitors welcome, and with skill acquired from a similar previous experience, they were now preparing to "double bunk."

Miss Ramsdell (Aunt Carrie) sighed deeply and sank down with very evident relief.

"I insisted that Peggie come down to you," she explained. "Ever since we got back from the hills yesterday afternoon, mysterious men have been prowling about our cottages," she explained.

"Perhaps just to frighten us," added Peg. "At the same time these papers are so precious I was very glad to bring them down, if we don't upset you too much?"

"We are simply delighted to have you come," said Corene, sincerely. "And we never could have induced you to if something like this had not happened."

"But I wanted to come more than you can ever know," said the girl with the wonderful black eyes and the glossy crow-black hair. "You see, I was guarding daddy's treasures. When he went there was no one left but me, and I was to finish his life's work. I have been trying to do it." Her voice tapered to a whisper, and no one attempted to intrude upon it.

Finally Aunt Carrie, from her grateful quarters, spoke:

"Tell them, dear, about the patent," she said.

"Let us make you comfortable first," suggested Cleo, considerately. "Here, Peg, this is where we keep our treasures. Do you want to put yours in here?"

She opened a very small door in a packing case that was hidden beneath extra blankets and some clothing.

"That's a splendid hiding place," replied Peg. "One would think it nothing more than a case of supplies. Yes, if I may, I'll put my things in there."

First she lifted in the box, that plainly was heavy; then she placed upon it the roll of stiff paper.

"Oh," she sighed wearily. "I believe if it had not been for Shag I should have lost these long ago."

"I thought to-night, however," added Aunt Carrie, "that faithful Shag was in danger of being shot. That is one reason why I urged Peggie to come down."

"Yes, I felt that way too," said the girl. "I heard a sniper's shot long after anyone would have been out hunting."

"Where is Shag?" asked Julia.

"Just outside our door here," replied Peg. "He won't leave until we do."

"We are glad to have him also," said Miss Mackin. "We have not felt the need of a watchman with Officer Porter around, but to-night----"

"We could not have ventured over the hill except for the officer's escort," said Aunt Carrie. "It was when we heard his whistle we decided to make a dash."

"Yes, we have been having quite a night of it," put in Peg with a girlish laugh. "You should have seen us, like a couple of movie ladies, armed to the teeth and posted behind our strongest door! If we had not been in such serious danger I should have thought it a wonderful joke," and she laughed lightly at the memory.

"Armed to the teeth!" repeated Grace hopefully.

"Yes, indeedy; I had the best and biggest revolver, and auntie held to a shotgun, and when we made sure we were really in danger of being bombed or burglared or something, we just loaded up and stood guard until we heard the officer's whistle. It seemed ages," she finished seriously.

"And haven't you even been to bed?" asked Julia, anxiously.

"Oh, no, indeed. You see, that Leonore began this attack yesterday, after you saw her prowling around," explained Peg. "Her dad claims a right--a business right to what my dad discovered. That's why we have had to act so mysterious and live behind bolted doors," she added. "One glimpse of dad's drawings would spoil everything for us," she finished.

"That's why!" exclaimed Grace; for in the simple statement had been disclosed the mystery of the hermit life of Peg and her Aunt Carrie.

"Yes, my dear brother, Peggie's father, was confident the machine he invented would bring us great wealth, and besides this he had many land claims about here that he felt would bring valuable ores."

"And _that's_ why you went to the hills so often," burst out Louise. "We wondered and wondered."

"Yes, that's why," agreed Peg.

"You don't think your robbers would follow you down here?" asked Isabel, not fearfully but rather confidently.

"No, we have covered our tracks," said Peg. "They might see Shag----"

"Bring him in," begged Cleo, who loved Shag or any other "nice dog" right next to her companions.

"There isn't really any danger of them following us," said Peg. "Besides, we will have a couple of extra watchmen in the woods between now and morning. But I know Shag will just love to come in."

So it happened the Bobbies had a company of three to billet--when finally Miss Mackin succeeded in inducing everyone "to quiet down and wait until morning" for the telling of the real story of Peg's fight to establish the rights her father had left her to struggle with.