The Outdoor Girls in Army Service Part 4

"Oh, hurry," begged Betty. "The biscuits are almost done; I can smell them."

"So can I," said Roy, with another longing sniff. "Don't let 'em burn, will you, Betty?"

"I will, if somebody doesn't satisfy my curiosity, right away,"

threatened the Little Captain, her lips set threateningly. "Now, will you be good?"

"Gee, Allen, did you hear that?" Roy's expression was pathetic.

"Hurry it up, will you?"

"Well," began Allen with aggravating deliberation, "he was a tall, lean, rangy fellow with sandy hair and twinkling eyes. Seems he had been wounded several times, and the last shot had cost him his right arm."

"Oh," cried Mollie, her eyes like two saucers. "How did that happen?"

"Bomb exploding close to him shot it all to pieces," explained Allen cryptically. "Of course it had to be amputated, permanently disabling him. That's why he was sent across to America--to stimulate recruiting."

"As if we needed any stimulating," said Mollie indignantly. "You don't have to stand behind our boys with a gun to make them go."

"Of course not," agreed Allen. "Just the same, it's almost impossible for us over here, with the broad Atlantic separating us from the scene of conflict, actually to realize what we're up against. That's why it's good to have a fellow like this Englishman, who has really been right in the thick of it, relate his own experiences. While he was talking you could almost hear the thunder of cannon and the bursting of sh.e.l.ls. I tell you, we fellows felt like shouldering our guns, and marching over right away."

"Oh, it's wonderful to be a man these days," sighed Mollie. "You can get right in the thick of it, while all we can do is stay home and root for you."

"Well, that's a lot," said Frank soberly. "Just to feel that you girls are backing us up, and that there's somebody who cares whether we give a good account of ourselves or not, makes all the difference in the world."

"But that's not all we can do," cried Betty, her eyes s.h.i.+ning with the light of resolution. "There's real work enough to keep us busy all day long. Girls, I've got a plan!"

"What?" they cried, leaning forward eagerly.

"I'm going to join the Red Cross!"

CHAPTER IV

THE POWDER MILL

"Who's game for a paddle?"

"I am!"

"And I!"

"Oh, it's the most wonderful night in the world for canoeing!"

"And there's going to be a moon, too!"

"n.o.body seems to be eager or anything like that," remarked Frank, strolling out on the veranda, and regarding the enthusiastic group with a smile on his lips. "Why didn't you suggest something they might agree to, Allen?"

Allen, who had indeed made the suggestion, rose lazily to his feet, and stretched out a hand to Betty.

"I never make any suggestions that aren't good," he replied. "Come along, Betty. It's a crime to waste a minute of this wonderful night."

"May we, Mrs. Irving?" queried Betty, smiling up at their chaperon, who was the same who had shared their adventures, during that other eventful summer on Pine Island. "You know you love canoeing as much as the rest of us."

"Of course we'll all go," Mrs. Irving a.s.sented readily. "Only we've had a long day, and mustn't stay out too late."

"I speak for Mrs. Irving in my canoe!" called out Betty.

"No, mine!" "Ours!" were other cries.

Merrily the girls ran into the house to pick up the wraps which were always necessary on the water at night, and in another minute they had rejoined the boys.

"Are you glad I enlisted, Betty?" queried Allen, laying a hand on Betty's arm, and holding her back.

"Glad?" answered Betty, looking up at him with eyes that shone in the starlight. "Yes, I'm glad that you knew the only right thing to do, and I'm glad that you did it so promptly. But, Allen--"

"Yes?" he queried, finding her little hand and holding it tight.

"I--I'm like George Was.h.i.+ngton, I guess," she evaded, looking up at him with a crooked little smile.

"I don't want you to tell a lie," he countered very softly. "I want the truth, little Betty. What were you going to say?"

Betty's eyes drooped, and they walked along in silence for a minute.

"Well?" he queried at last, studying her averted profile. "You're not afraid to tell me, Betty?"

"N-no," she answered, still with her head turned away. "I was only going to say, that while I'm glad--oh, very glad in one way, I--I'm not so very glad in another."

"What other?" he asked, leaning over her. "Betty, Betty, tell me, dear."

Betty hesitated for another moment, then threw up her head defiantly.

"Well," she said, "if you must know--I don't want you to go. I--I'll be--lonesome--"

"Betty," he cried imploringly, his heart beating like a trip-hammer, "Betty--wait--"

But she had slipped from him, and had run ahead to join the others, so that he had no other course but to follow her. His head was in the clouds--his feet scarcely seemed to touch the ground.

"Well, it's about time you realized you were with us," Mollie remarked as Betty, breathless with the run and the beating of her heart, joined them. "We began to think you had eloped for fair this time."

Betty laughed happily.

"I'm sure I don't know where we'd elope to," she remarked, stepping one dainty foot exactly in the center of the unstable craft. "We'd either have to swim or wait for the ferry, and I don't exactly know which would be the more uncomfortable."

"I'd prefer the swim," said Roy, arranging the pillows carefully behind Mollie's straight little back. To quote the latter: She would much rather do things for herself--boys were so clumsy--but they always looked so funny and downhearted when she told them about it, that, just in the interest of ordinary kindness, she had to humor them!

"Well," said Allen, as he dipped his paddle into the still water, guiding the light craft from the sh.o.r.e, "where shall we go?"