Instinctively the four girls, and Mrs. Bonnell, drew nearer together, shrinking away from the old man who had come up out of his boat to help them erect the tents. On his part he remained staring at Natalie, as though she were some ghost from the past. She paled a little beneath her clear, olive skin, but she did not seem afraid:

“Who are you?” repeated the man. “Surely you are not her come back to me after all these years. No, no! It can’t be, and yet you have her face—Speak—tell me!”

“What do you mean?” demanded Mrs. Bonnell, gathering her wits that had been a bit scattered by the suddenness of the change of manner in the man. “Who are you?”

“Everybody about here knows me,” he answered, not taking his eyes off Natalie, yet advancing no farther toward her. “But she—who is she?”

“One of the Camp Fire Girls, to be sure!” broke in Alice, with an attempt at gaiety. “What is this all about? It’s like amateur theatricals.”

“He seems to have taken quite a fancy to Natalie,” remarked Mabel, in a low voice.

“You can’t blame him,” whispered Marie. “She’s the dearest girl!”

“I am afraid you have made a mistake,” said careful Mrs. Bonnell, somewhat stiffly. “None of us ever saw you before, as far as we know. We have never been here before, and, though you may be well known here, we haven’t the honor of your acquaintance. Please don’t annoy my girls.”

“I beg pardon,” the man mumbled. “I didn’t go for to make any trouble, that’s sure. I’m Hanson Rossmore—Old Hanson they mostly calls me hereabouts. I ask your pardon, ladies, but she did look wondrous like—well, what’s the use of mentioning it now. It’s past and gone years ago—years ago. Only—with her hair down her back like an Indian maid she fair did remind me of—Oh, well, will you let me help you put up your tents?” he finished rather gruffly, and he seemed ashamed of the emotion he had displayed.

Natalie, whose exertion in trying to help with the tents had brought her glorious hair, in the two heavy braids, drooping down her back, looked relieved, and gazed somewhat wonderingly at the old fellow, as, indeed, did the others.

He, however, seemed to have forgotten his queer words, and, striding to the jumbled pile of canvas, he began straightening it out, muttering the while to himself.

“What do you suppose he meant?” whispered Marie to Mrs. Bonnell.

“I think he mistook Natalie for some one he knew, or thought he knew,” the Guardian replied. “He looks to me as though he were not quite right mentally.”

“Oh, don’t say that, Mrs. Bonnell!” exclaimed Mabel in a hoarse whisper.

“Hush! He’ll hear you,” cautioned Alice. “Besides I think he looks harmless, and we do need some one to help us, or we’ll have to sleep under a tree to-night.”

“Never!” breathed Natalie. “I’ll go back home first.”

“Can’t!” declared Mabel sententiously. “The last train is gone. It’s Green Lake for ours to-night anyhow.”

“Oh, we’ll be all right as soon as we get up the tent,” declared Alice. “I never knew a tent could tangle so. I don’t see where the boys are. They ought to be here to help us.”

“I believe we did mention something about being independent, and wanting to do things without their help, just to show them that we could,” murmured Natalie softly.

“I wonder, oh, I wonder if that be sarcasm?” whispered Marie, and they all joined in the laugh that followed.

Old Hanson looked up with a grin on his weather-wrinkled face.

“That laughter sounds good,” he muttered. “Everybody feels happier when they come to Green Lake.”

He seemed himself again, a simple countryman, though the others noticed that he glanced at Natalie furtively from time to time, as he straightened out the tangle of the tent ropes.

“I’m sure we’ll all feel better when we get our shelter up, and have a camp fire built,” said Alice.

“Oh, girls, but it’s going to be lovely here when we do get straightened out!” declared Mabel, as she gazed up into the tangle of green in the trees overhead.

“Wo-he-lo—Dogwood Camp Fire!” echoed Natalie, with a trill to her deep, rich contralto voice.

“Is that your college yell?” asked Old Hanson.

“Yes,” replied Mrs. Bonnell, not wishing him to get too familiar with her pretty charges. “Can we help you raise the tent now?”

“In jest a minute, lady. As soon as I lay out the poles and spread the canvas over ’em.”

“Oh, those poles!” exclaimed Alice. “Wasn’t it stupid of us not to remember that a tent had to have poles?”

They watched the old man take the ridge pole and fit the holes in either end of it, over the pins on the tops of the two end poles. Then he spread the canvas over the ridge pole, bringing the central seam of it along the stick. Next he laid out the two side walls of the tent, with the guy ropes trailing off, the middle one on each side being placed near stakes that had been temporarily driven in the ground. Old Hanson then drove a stake in front and one to the rear of the tent, trailing the ropes from the end poles off toward them.

“Now, ladies,” he said, in rather brisk business-like tones, “if some of you will manage one end pole, I’ll tackle the other. Then two of you mind the pole ropes, one to each, and pull them as tight as you can around the stakes. I’ll tighten ’em more later.”

Mrs. Bonnell, Alice and Marie, stationed themselves at the front pole, while Old Hanson looked after the other. Natalie took the front rope, and Mabel the rear.

“All ready!” called the volunteer helper. “Raise!”

Lifting the end poles raised the top or ridge one, and the tent went with it, hanging down, as Marie said, “like a sheet on a line.”

“Now fasten the end ropes!” called Mr. Rossmore. “Any way so’s they’ll hold.”

Natalie and Mabel did their best, and soon the tent was partly stayed. Then, while the end poles were still held from toppling over sideways, under the direction of Old Hanson they secured the two middle side ropes to the pegs.

“There!” cried their helper, letting go of the pole. “She’ll hold until we can peg her down. It will be easy now.”

Rapidly the other side pegs were put in, the ropes tauted on them, and the tent was up. It only remained to further stretch the front and rear guy ropes, and fasten the sides of the canvas down to the wooden platform. It took some time to do this, and longer to put up the other tent, but finally it was accomplished.

“Now I’ll help you put your trunks in,” offered Mr. Rossmore. “We can put up the flies on to-morrow.”

“Flies!” exclaimed Natalie. “I guess he means fly paper; doesn’t he? Though I hoped we wouldn’t be bothered with insects up here.”

“The ‘fly’ of a tent is a piece of extra canvas that goes over the top like a roof,” explained Mrs. Bonnell. “It keeps out hard rain. The boys will help us put them on,” she added to the old man. “But we will be glad to have you help us lift in the trunks,” for the girls’ baggage had been left at a dock near their camp by an early morning steamer, previous to their arrival.

“Oh, to get off some of my things!” cried Alice, when they were in the privacy of the dressing tent, and Old Hanson had been thankfully dismissed with a dollar, handed him by Mrs. Bonnell, to pay him for his work. “I’m nearly dead with this Camp Fire outfit on over my other clothes.”

“So am I!” confessed Natalie. “Oh, isn’t it lovely to be free, and not to have to primp before a glass.”

“Speaking of glasses, I wonder if we brought one,” asked Mabel.

“I did!” came in a chorus from the other three girls.

“And to a camp!” reproached Mrs. Bonnell with a laugh.

“Rule number one—seek beauty!” quoted Natalie.

“She who needs it least,” murmured Alice.

“No compliments—leave them for the boys—if we ever see them again,” warned Marie.

“I’m famished!” declared Mabel. “Can’t we have a cup of tea?”

“I’ll light the oil stove and make it,” volunteered the practical Marie. “But some one ought to look after the cots.”

“We’ll do that—only give us tea!” begged Natalie, and soon five cots, with the accompanying bedclothes, stood neatly arranged about the walls of the larger tent, while all around were the trunks and suit cases, with a more or less indiscriminate collection of garments leading into and out of them.

“Never mind!” consoled Mrs. Bonnell, as she saw the girls’ looks of dismay at the upset condition, “we can take all day to-morrow to straighten out. To-night we must get some supper and rest, and it’s getting late.”

“Oh, for the glorious camp fire!” cried Alice. “We must have a big one in honor of our arrival!”

“Not too large,” remarked the cautious Guardian. “We must remember that we are in the woods, and there isn’t an alarm box on every tree.”

Merrily they sat about the table—some boards over saw horses, the same that the former campers had used.

“We’ll put oilcloth on to-morrow,” promised Marie, as she “poured” while the others acted as “floaters”, as Natalie laughingly expressed it.

Fortunately for the girls, who had never gone camping before, there were no hitches after that one about the tents. All their baggage had arrived, which is not always the case in summer outings, the camp paraphernalia was on hand, including the food-stuff they had ordered. The outfit they had hired was particularly well equipped as to cooking utensils, and the man who brought them from the place where they had been stored, seemed to have forgotten nothing. There was even condensed milk for the tea, and sugar for those who wished it. The oil stove burned well, and this was a blessing.

“No dish-washing to-night!” exclaimed Marie, when some one proposed it. “We’re all too dead tired. We’ll have enough for breakfast. After that we’ll make out a schedule, and get down to a system.”

It was now drawing on toward dusk, but the June evenings were so long, that even after the sun was out of sight it would be light enough to see to go about.

“Wood gatherers this way!” called Natalie, when they arose from the dining table, which had been set under a canvas shelter between the two tents. “Ho, wood-gatherers! Let us see if we are worthy of the name!”

“Wo-he-lo!” warbled Marie.

“Dogwood Camp Fire!” echoed Mabel.

“Remember, not too big a blaze,” cautioned Mrs. Bonnell, as the four set about gathering fagots and bits of dry bark for the fire.

“We ought to have a camp kettle boiling on a tripod over the flames, as the Gypsies do,” suggested Marie, when they had collected a pile of fuel.

“Don’t say Gypsy to me!” cried Mabel. “Every time I hear the word I nearly cry, thinking of poor mother’s ring.”

“Perhaps you’ll get it back some day,” suggested Alice.

“Never!” declared Mabel. “But don’t think about it. I wonder where the boys are?”

“Who’ll light the fire?” asked Natalie, when the pile was ready for the match.

“Let Mrs. Bonnell have the honor,” suggested Marie, and to the Guardian it went.

The girls did not speak as the tiny flame caught the wood, and began mounting upward until the yellow tongues were playing in and out among the fagots. Silently the Camp Fire Girls sat on the mossy ground about their vestal flame, thinking of many things.

“Isn’t it beautiful,” whispered Natalie.

“So peaceful,” added Marie.

“And such a sweet odor—like incense,” murmured Mabel.

“It’s just lovely,” came from Alice. “It’s too beautiful to go to bed, and there’s going to be a moon, too. I can see it—a new moon.”

“Look at it over your left shoulder and wish,” advised Marie.

“For the boys,” added Mabel.

“I don’t see—” began Natalie, when the woods echoed to a weird yell.

“Oh!” screamed all the girls at once, and even Mrs. Bonnell clutched the arm of Mabel who was next to her.

“The boys are here, O maidens of the camp fire!” came in hollow tones from the ring of darkness surrounding the blaze. “Answer to your names!”

And some one called:

“Wa-tu-go-mo!”

“Here,” answered Marie, with a sigh of relief.

“Wep-da-se-nah!”

“Present,” murmured Mabel.

“No-moh-te-nah!”

“Dead tired,” laughed Alice.

“Chee-ne-sagoo!”

“The breath of the pine tree calls me to slumber,” answered Natalie.

“Quite poetical,” complimented the voice of Blake Lathrop.

“And, last but not least, ‘Guardian-of-the-pretty-maidens’!” went on the voice calling the roll.

“Guilty!” answered Mrs. Bonnell, with a laugh. “Come on out, boys, and explain why you weren’t here when you were most needed. We came near never getting our tents up, because we forgot to put the poles under, and couldn’t understand why they toppled down.”

“That’s a good one!” cried Jack, as he and the others emerged from the shadows into the light of the first camp fire.

“Where were you?” demanded Alice of her brother.

“We went down to meet you,” he replied. “We couldn’t understand why you didn’t come. We waited until the last boat, and then gave you up.”

“And we here all the while!” cried Marie. “Oh, you boys! Didn’t I tell you we would come on the first afternoon boat?” she demanded of Jack.

“If you did I guess I lost the letter,” he confessed. “We’ve had a time getting our own camp in shape. Those fellows forgot half the stuff I told them to order.”

“We didn’t forget any more than you did,” retorted Phil.

“Let us have peace,” urged Blake. “At last we are here, and the girls are safe.”

“No thanks to you, though,” remarked Alice a trifle sharply. “We had help, however.”

“Who?”

“A man?”

“I demand his name!” cried Blake, in mock heroics.

“I think he called himself Mr. Rossmore,” answered Natalie.

“Oh, Old Hanson,” said Jack. “Yes, he’s quite a character around here.”

“What is his secret?” asked Mrs. Bonnell. “He stared at Natalie in the queerest way, and asked her if she had come back to him after all these years, and all sorts of nonsense like that.”

“Scared you; did he?” inquired Phil.

“A little, yes,” admitted Alice. “What is the matter with him?”

“Oh, disappointed in love when he was young—same as I’ve been half a dozen times,” put in Blake. “His sweetheart died, or ran away with some one else I believe. He lives all alone in a haunted mill not far away, and——”

“Rats!” cried Jack. “Nothing of the sort.”

“It’s getting shivery,” murmured Alice. “Haunted mills—and hermits——”

“Do tell us about it!” begged Natalie.

“Blake has it all twisted,” declared Phil. “Old Hanson does live in a deserted mill somewhere back of here, but it was his daughter who ran away—not his sweetheart. And it was years ago. He’s a little crazy I guess, and sometimes he imagines strangers do look like her. But he’s harmless.”

“Perfectly so,” chimed in Jack. “He often helps us around camp, when we’re too lazy to work. And he’s the best fisherman for miles around. Knows where all the big bass are.”

“But is the mill really haunted?” demanded Natalie.

“Stop, Nat!” commanded Alice. “Do you want us all to have bad dreams to-night?”

“It looks old enough, and deserted enough, to be haunted,” went on Blake, “though of course it isn’t. We’ll go over and see it sometime.”

“In broad daylight,” stipulated Marie, and the boys laughed.

Then the girls told of how they had been helped by the aged man, and how they had made camp after a fashion. In turn the boys related how they had gone to the end of the lake, where the trains came in, to meet their sisters, but had evidently made a mistake in the time.

“But we’re all here now, and ready for glorious fun,” added Mrs. Bonnell. “We expect you young gentlemen to give whatever aid is needed in time of trouble.”

“Call on us whenever you need us,” urged Blake. “Give your camp cry, or fire three shots from a revolver——”

“Oh!” screamed Marie. “Don’t mention those horrid pistols again!”

“What! Haven’t you a gun?” asked Blake, and he seemed in earnest.

“Look!” cried Mrs. Bonnell dramatically, and she held out something on which the firelight gleamed.

“Put it away! Put it away!” murmured Alice, covering her face with her hands.

“It’s only an ammonia squirt-gun,” explained the Guardian, with a merry laugh. “I saw them advertised and bought one. They are good for man or beast, the paper said. It’s just a rubber bulb on a sort of hollow lead tube. You press the bulb and the ammonia spurts out.”

“Good!” exclaimed Jack. “I don’t know that you could have anything better. Still, if you do need us, a loud call will carry to our camp, and we can get here in three minutes coming by the lake-shore path.”

Then they sat about the fire, talking of many things, until the blaze died down for lack of fuel. And when Natalie would have replenished it, the other girls voted against it.

“Let’s go to bed,” proposed Alice. “Boys, we don’t want to be inhospitable, but really you must go. We are very tired.”

“Will you go for a trip on the lake to-morrow?” asked Blake. “We have hired a little launch.”

“Will it run?” asked practical Marie.

“Sometimes,” answered truthful Jack, and there was another laugh.

Good-nights were said, and soon, with the flaps of their tent tightly drawn the girls prepared for their first night in the woods. They had thoughtfully filled a lantern that had been among their camp-stuff, and its gleam through the white sides of their tent could be seen amid the trees even as far as the canvas shelter of the boys.

“Last one under the covers put out the light,” called Alice, as she made herself comfortable on her cot.

“Let’s burn it all night,” suggested Mabel.

“I can’t sleep with a light,” declared Marie.

“You are just like Cora Janet,” complained Mabel, “she doesn’t like a light either.”

“Wouldn’t it be nice if Gertrude, Sadie, Margaret, Edna and Cora were with us?” murmured Alice.

“Fine!” agreed Mabel. “But Cora never would have a light.”

“Nor I,” said Marie.

“I’ll put something before it, so it won’t shine in your eyes,” promised Mabel. “But really—the first night you know—it’s so dark, and we don’t know exactly where to find things——”

“What do you want to find things in your sleep for?” demanded Natalie.

“I don’t know as I will, but if I do awaken I like to see a light—especially in a strange place,” replied Mabel.

“Perhaps it will be a good plan to let it burn low,” suggested Mrs. Bonnell, and they did.

At first there was so much laughter and talk that even sleepy Alice declared she felt wide awake. They joked about every happening of the day, from the young man who had tried to flirt with Natalie on the boat, to the strange actions of Old Hanson. Then the laughter became less frequent, and the jokes seemed to lose their point.

The Camp Fire Girls were asleep.

It was Natalie who awakened. There seemed to be some one scratching at the side of the tent near the head of her cot. She sat up, not knowing, for a moment or two, where she was. Then as she saw the gleam of the white walls of their shelter it came back to her. The others were calmly sleeping, as their deep breathing indicated.

The scratching was repeated. Then came an unmistakable sneeze, and Natalie saw the wall of the tent shake.

“Oh!” she screamed. “Some one is trying to get in! Oh, Alice—Mabel—Marie—Mrs. Bonnell! Some one is trying to get in!”