The Camp Fire Girls Behind the Lines

CHAPTER I

"El Camino Real"

A small cavalcade was slowly winding down a steep, white road.

The bare, brown hills rose up on one side like the earth's friars of St. Francis, while on the other, at some distance away, the Pacific Ocean showed green and still. Near the shore the waves broke into white sprites of foam against the deep, incurving cliffs.

A girl riding at the head of the column reined in her horse, afterwards making a mysterious sign in the air with one upraised hand.

In answer to her signal the other riders, a group of Camp Fire girls, also stopped their horses. Across many miles sounded faintly the deep-toned voices of old mission bells.

"I believe the mission is ringing a farewell to us," one of the girls remarked to the companion whose western pony had stopped nearest her own. "To me, of all the Spanish missions we have seen so far, Carmel was the loveliest. 'Carmelo' – why, the very name has an enchanting sound!

The girl who had been reciting possessed an odd, charming voice with a slightly hoarse note. She was small and had bright, almost copper-colored hair. Her slender nose, which had a queer little twist at the end, destroyed any claim she might otherwise have had to conventional beauty and yet curiously enough added to the fascination of her expression.

The other girl shook her head.

"I don't agree with you, Marta. You seem to me in as great a state of enthusiasm over everything we have seen in California as if you were a native. I confess to you I am a little weary of visiting old Spanish missions. Personally I shall be glad when we are in our summer camp. The missions are so empty and so sleepy these days with their queer, dreamy old gardens and no one to be seen except an occasional tourist and a few old monks. Nevertheless I liked your recitation. Sometimes I wonder, Marta, if you intend imitating our Camp Fire guardian's career?"

Gerry Williams spoke in a voice of amused superiority she often employed in talking with other girls.

Marta Clark's eyes, which had the strange characteristic of appearing to change in color according to her moods, now darkened slightly as she turned to gaze steadily at her companion.

"Do you know, Gerry, I have an idea the old missions would never have bored you, if you had any thought that a prince might come and discover you in one of them!"

"Certainly not," Gerry laughed.

Gerry was alluring. Her hat was hanging over the pommel of her saddle so that her fair hair was blowing about her face. Now that the sun and wind had tanned her delicate skin, her blue eyes looked bluer than ever.

Instead of replying, Marta Clark, at this instant, turned her horse with the intention of riding beside one of the other girls.

Marta Clark was the latest addition to the new group of Sunrise Hill Camp Fire girls. The summer before she had met them in Arizona where they were camping at the "End of the Trail." At that time she was living nearby in a tent with her brother who had been seriously ill. Her brother's health had improved and he had written a successful play. Afterwards his marriage to Ellen Deal, one of the older Camp Fire girls, had made it possible for Marta Clark to accept Mrs. Burton's invitation to join her Camp Fire group. As her guests they were now traveling along the Pacific coast, visiting the old Spanish missions.

The King's Highway, called in the old Spanish tongue, El Camino Real, stretches from northern California to the southernmost end.

One of the other Camp Fire girls turned her head as Marta came near her. All the horses were moving on again.

"I wonder why the automobile has not caught up with us?" Peggy Webster remarked. "I supposed the car would have passed us long ago. As it is time for tea, and I am already tired, I think it would have been more sensible if we had remained together."

The little riding party of six girls was accompanied by a large wagon filled with a camping outfit. The wagon was drawn by a small pair of gray mules and driven by a tall, raw-boned man, a typical western plainsman. Beside him sat a young fellow about seventeen years old. The wagon was following a few yards behind the riders.

"Then suppose we stop and have tea while we wait and watch for the others," Bettina Graham proposed, having overheard Peggy's lament.

"I don't believe they could have lost their way, since one has only to follow the guide posts of the old mission bells. Nevertheless Tante has a most eccentric fashion of suddenly deciding to explore along small byways. But they must surely come along here finally."

Peggy Webster shook her head.

"We had best ride on for a little while longer in order to make the distance we planned to make today. Perhaps by that time the car will have joined us. In any case we can find a better place to watch and to prepare tea."

At the present time on each side the road the mustard plants were blooming, making a broad field of the cloth of gold broken only by the long trail.

Further along down the slope of a hillside a miniature orange grove had been planted with trees no larger than would have comfortably shaded dolls' houses.

Then, as they rode on, the Camp Fire girls drew nearer to the fine of the coast. A fog was blowing in from the sea.

Finally, standing up in her stirrups for an instant, Peggy Webster pointed ahead.

"See those three rocks down there that look like 'the Big Bear, the Middle-Sized Bear and the Little Bear,' in the fairy story! Don't you think they would form a comfortable background for our tea party? At least they will be a protection from the wind. If we go on and the fog grows much thicker we shall not be able even to see each other."

Soon after the horses and the wagon halted and Dan Webster climbed down, bearing the tea basket. Mr. Simpson, who was continuing to act as guide, took charge of the horses.

The coast looked bare and wind-swept. There were no trees nearby and no driftwood along the shore.

However, nearly two hundred years before, when Father Juniper Serra founded and built the Spanish missions of California, he and his brother monks left behind them a golden harvest. In all their pilgrimages from land's end to land's end they flung the seed of the mustard plant along their route.

Leaving the other girls to unpack the tea basket, Marta Clark and Bettina walked quickly back along the road until not a quarter of a mile away they discovered another field of the omnipresent mustard.

Then the two girls began searching for the dried stems of the mustard plant in order to start their camp fire.

Bettina was standing with her arms filled with the long stems when Marta Clark came close up beside her. Both of the girls were knee deep among the golden flowers.

"You look like Ruth among the corn, Bettina," Marta remarked, surveying the other girl with generous admiration.

"Do you remember the story of Ruth in the Bible? 'So she gleaned in the field until even, and beat out that she had gleaned. And she took it up and went into the city.'"

Bettina shook her head. "No, I do not remember. It is wonderful to me, your ability to quote so correctly. If ever you are able to do the thing you desire, your memory will be a wonderful help. But I am not going to talk about it. I know you feel as embarrassed over your ambition as I do over mine."

In the past few weeks Marta Clark and Bettina were beginning to feel a deep interest in each other. This was but natural, for although they were unlike in character they had many tastes in common. Marta was quick and passionate, while Bettina was apt to appear almost too serene and self-controlled. Yet they both cared for books, for human beauty and the beauty of the great outdoors.

During the few moments the girls were talking the fog had been closing in more thickly about them until it was only possible to see the road a few yards away through a cloak of mist.

At this instant they distinctly heard the noise of an approaching motor car.

Mrs. Richard Burton, better known to the world as the famous actress, Polly O'Neill Burton, and guardian to the group of Sunrise Hill Camp Fire girls, had chosen to make the journey down the California coast in her automobile.

This afternoon her sister, Mrs. Webster, her nephew, Billy Webster, Vera Lagerloff and the maid, Marie, were traveling with her.

The plan had been that the Camp Fire girls should start on their riding trip several hours ahead and that they meet later and camp for the night at some agreeable place along their journey.

Marta and Bettina ran forward, intending to stop the approaching car. Both girls were thinking that the car was moving much more swiftly than usual.

Almost immediately they saw that the automobile coming toward them was not Mrs. Burton's, but a small khaki-colored roadster driven by a United States officer with another soldier on the seat beside him.

They were going along at full speed as if they were carrying information of great importance.

Then suddenly, without Marta or Bettina recognizing the cause, the car swerved, made a wide detour and quickly overturned. A few seconds later when the two girls, hoping to be of service, had reached the car, the young United States officer was crawling slowly out from beneath the wreck.

He tried to stand up and to smile reassuringly at Bettina, who chanced to be ahead, but the next moment if she had not put out her arm to steady him he would have fallen.

A little while after he was sitting unheroically amid the dust of the roadside, smiling somewhat quizzically up at his rescuer.

"I don't believe I am seriously hurt," he remarked cheerfully, "but as I know you are patriotic and would like to try your first-aid remedies upon me, please go ahead. I am Lieutenant Carson and at present I appear to be a somewhat unsuccessful Paul Revere. But would you mind explaining, while you are washing the dirt out of this plagued cut on my forehead, why you are wearing a costume that seems to suggest a combination of an Indian princess' outfit and a soldier's uniform?"

Marta Clark was devoting her attention to the other soldier, who did not appear to be hurt but only slightly dazed from his mishap.

Bettina for an instant regretted that she was unable to change places with Marta. She had studied first aid, of course, along with her Camp Fire work, but was not accustomed to masculine patients.

Moreover, Bettina considered that the young officer was showing an unwarranted personal interest in his first war nurse. As a matter of fact, she entirely refused to pay any attention to his questioning.

CHAPTER II

The Land of Romance

Two weeks later two women were walking up and down a garden path in the moonlight.

Across from them stood a long, low adobe house of a single story. The veranda, extending from one end to the other, was so thickly covered with a flowering vine that even in the moonlight one could get the reflection of its brilliant color. The air was scented with the fragrant perfume of roses and the blossoms of orange and lemon trees. From behind the soft shading of the vine across the road came the brilliant twanging of a guitar and a mandolin. Two voices were singing a Spanish love song.

Farther away under the deeper shadow of the moon a white cross arose above a mass of fallen stone.

"I declare, Mollie, this is the old world, not the new, isn't it? I feel as if we had traveled away from our own country today into a foreign land; but what land I cannot say, because this place tonight must be more beautiful and more romantic than even Spain itself. Yet one is not sorry to forget for a little while the present world and its tragedies!"

The other woman shook her head. The two sisters were the same height, had nearly the same character of features and the same coloring; nevertheless were curiously unlike.

One conspicuous difference was in their voices.

"Do you know, Polly, I think perhaps you have made a mistake in bringing the Camp Fire girls to spend the summer in so picturesque a place. We probably shall have a romance on our hands before the season is over," Mrs. Webster answered. "It is natural of course that you should be affected by such surroundings. But when a night like this has an influence upon a woman of my age with an almost grown-up family, it makes me feel extremely nervous when I consider the girls."

Mrs. Burton laughed.

"Nevertheless, my beloved Mollie, even if you have a grown-up family and I have no children, I don't see what difference the fact makes in our ages, as we happen to be twins. Besides, I never could see why age should destroy one's susceptibility to beauty! My only feeling is that perhaps we have no right to ease and enjoyment of any kind this summer, now that the United States has entered the war. I don't think I should have invited the girls on this long trip had I known beforehand. I feel I ought to be devoting all my energies to war work; however, we must do whatever we can out here. Richard seemed to think it impossible to have me near the southern camp where he is located."

Mrs. Webster sighed gently in response. She was unhappy over the war, too, but not so inclined as her sister to take deeply to heart the sorrows of the world when they did not touch her personally.

"Well, I am glad we can be together for a few months longer, Polly. I realize it is selfish of me, and yet I do rejoice that neither Dan nor Billy is old enough to be drafted. Dan's desire to volunteer is of course ridiculous! At least, I shall safe-guard my boys. I am also glad my husband is doing war work by increasing the amount of food raised upon our place, instead of entering the service as an ordnance officer as your husband has. Dear me, I really think it is very fine of Richard at his age!"

Shrugging her shoulders, Mrs. Burton smiled a little ruefully.

"You are determined to dwell upon our great age tonight, aren't you, Mollie mine? Please remember that your daughter Peggy bestowed her affections upon Ralph Marshall last summer when we were at the Grand Canyon and not in southern California. Yet I do feel that with the possibility of young soldiers and officers turning up at any moment in our midst, you and I will have to be unusually vigilant chaperons.

"But do let us go now and find what has become of the girls. We have had a long journey and should soon be in bed."

Mrs. Burton slipped her arm inside her sister's and drew her away from the old hotel garden across the gleaming road.

To the right of them, bathed in the half-tropic moonlight, was the old Spanish mission of San Juan Capistrano, named in honor of a warrior-saint of the Crusades. It was the loveliest place in all California.

As they walked slowly on Mrs. Burton recited in an undertone, and with the emotional sweetness which had captivated countless audiences and which never failed to thrill her sister:

They stopped a moment as if to let the beauty sink deep, and then the two women entered the gate of the old mission grounds.

Early in the afternoon the Sunrise Camp Fire party had arrived at the little half-foreign town of Capistrano, set midway, like a link with the past, between the two modern cities of San Diego and Los Angeles. For hours they had been exploring the old mission. Then, after dinner, the Camp Fire girls, with Dan and Billy Webster to act as escorts had asked the privilege of returning to remain in the old mission garden until bedtime.

Tonight, to Mrs. Burton's eyes at least, the mission looked like a half-ruined palace of dreams. Once the mission of San Juan Capistrano held a great stone church, a pillared court, a portico, a rectangle; here the Franciscan fathers had their cells, and many rooms for distinguished guests. It was the richest and most splendid mission in old California.

But at present only the ruins of its past remained.

Above, in one of the crumbling arches of the colonnade, an owl hooted so hoarsely that Mrs. Webster clutched her sister's arm in a tighter clasp. The greeting had sounded, not like a welcome, but a warning.

There was no one to be seen and the place was wrapped in a kind of ghostly silence.

"It is most extraordinary how the girls and Dan and Billy have disappeared," Mrs. Burton whispered plaintively, scarcely daring to speak in a natural tone.

She and Mrs. Burton had passed through one of the colonnades and were now in the old court in the rear. Along one side ran a line of forsaken cloisters.

"Wait a moment, Mollie, please," Mrs. Burton murmured.

Adding to the enchantment of the present scene she could hear again the sound of music. The two musicians who had been singing on the veranda across from their hotel also must have wandered into the mission grounds.

Then, almost at the same instant, Mrs. Burton and Mrs. Webster discovered the Camp Fire girls.

Beyond the enclosed space of the old mission lay a broad piece of open ground. Over it tonight poured the unbroken radiance of the moon. In time long past this ground had been devoted to the use of the Indians who were being taught Christianity and the habits of civilization by the Spanish fathers. In those days this ground was encircled by a row of Indian huts. One part was set apart for the Indian women and girls, and here the Indian maiden remained in seclusion until her wedding day.

But tonight, in some mysterious fashion, the past seemed to have came back, for a group of Indian maidens had returned to their former dwelling place.

"The picture is too lovely to disturb," Mrs. Burton whispered irresolutely.

In the moonlight one could not discern the differences in the costumes of the Camp Fire girls, nor their fairer coloring.

Bettina, Marta, Peggy and Alice Ashton were seated upon the ground, forming a square, with Dan standing apparently hovering like a guardian angel above them.

As usual, Billy Webster was lying gazing up at the sky and Vera Lagerloff was sitting beside him.

A little apart from the others Gerry Williams and Sally Ashton were strolling up and down with their arms intertwined.

"Do you think we should speak of our plan immediately?" Bettina Graham was inquiring of the other three girls. "Unless we can carry it out I don't feel that we have the right to our Camp Fire summer together."

In the moonlight her yellow brown hair had turned a bright gold.

Peggy, who was ever a direct and sensible person, shook her head.

"We must wait until we have found the location for our camp and are fairly well settled," she replied. "At present our own ideas as to what we can do to help with the war work are much too vague. But I suppose we shall be near the great National Guard war training camp, and that in itself ought to be an inspiration. Have you ever heard from your wounded lieutenant, Bettina? It was amusing to have him and his friend to tea in so unexpected a fashion. I shall never forget how amazed the family was on discovering us with soldier guests. I am sorry we have never seen either of them again."

"I have had one note from Lieutenant Carson, saying that he was all right," Bettina answered. "He will probably be stationed at the cantonment near here. I wish for your sake Ralph Marshall was to be there instead."

There was no engagement existing between Peggy Webster and Ralph Marshall. But Peggy was too transparent a person to conceal her interest in Ralph after their past summer of misunderstanding and final reconciliation. As Ralph had volunteered and joined the aviation corps soon after the entry of the United States into the war, she had not seen him in many months. But it was understood that they wrote to each other and Peggy openly expressed her pride in Ralph's courage and ability. Ralph had been offered an opportunity to remain in his own country and act as an aviation instructor, but instead had chosen to go to France. At the present time he was in a camp on Long Island waiting his hour for sailing.

Before Peggy could make a reply to Bettina's final speech, the four girls saw their Camp Fire guardians approaching and rose to greet them.

"You girls look too picturesque to disturb, and yet we must not remain outdoors all night, no matter how the beauty of the night tempts us. I trust we may have many other nights as radiant as this before our summer is over," said Mrs. Burton, half apologizing for her own and her sister's intrusion.

A few moments later the Sunrise Camp Fire girls were walking slowly away from the mission grounds to their own rose-covered hotel.

Not by accident, but because of a common purpose, Sally and Gerry managed to linger a few yards behind the others.

The singing which had so fascinated Mrs. Burton and added to the witchery of the night had also attracted the attention of the two girls. But it was not the music alone which had charmed them. In their careless strolling up and down apart from their companions, Sally and Gerry had dimly seen the figures of the two musicians.

The mysterious singers had kept always in the background, only approaching sufficiently near for their songs to be heard; and yet, notwithstanding this, Sally and Gerry had managed to find out that they were two young men dressed in Mexican costumes. But whether they were Mexicans or Americans they could not guess, since it was impossible to see their faces and they seemed able to sing Spanish or English songs with equal ease.

The fact was that Gerry and Sally had arranged a scheme between them by which they hoped to make a desired discovery. Their scheme would have appalled the other Camp Fire girls, but they chanced to have unlike views in regard to the agreeable adventures and experiences of life. Moreover, they often preferred bestowing their confidences only upon each other.

As the rest of the Camp Fire party moved on, both Sally and Gerry became aware that the musicians were growing bolder and were drawing nearer.

Both girls would have liked to turn round and deliberately look back. Yet they had scarcely the courage for this breach of taste, in spite of the fact that it was night and the redeeming grace of the moonlight rested over them.

Sally was carrying a little beaded Indian bag which she managed to drop without any one, aside from Gerry, noticing.

After going on a little further, unexpectedly they turned back to pick up the lost possession.

The two young men were thus within only a few feet of them.

There was but little satisfaction in the adventure, nevertheless, for although one of the musicians stepped forward and gravely presented Sally with the Indian bag he had observed on the ground between them; yet neither he nor his companion spoke and it was impossible, with their broad Mexican hats, to obtain a satisfactory view of their faces without revealing too great curiosity.

As a matter of fact, the entire Camp Fire party was unaware of the interest their appearance in the little town of Capistrano during the afternoon had excited. There were always tourists visiting the old mission, especially at this season of the year. But the number and appearance of the girls, their picturesque, half Indian costumes, which always puzzled people unacquainted with the Camp Fire uniform, and the big wagon carrying their large camping outfit, gave them a unique distinction.

CHAPTER III

The Call to Service

On a ledge of rock with the Pacific Ocean as a background a girl was standing, holding a bugle to her lips and with it sounding a clear, musical call.

Not far off a number of persons were seated about a smouldering camp fire. All day the sun had been hot, almost as a tropic sun, but now with the coming of the late afternoon a cool breeze was blowing in from the sea.