Your money was stolen, at least not in the way you think it was, but perhaps in another almost as bad. For I found it in the woods on the day when I went into the village alone and I made no effort to find out to whom it belonged. You must have dropped it out of your letter on your way back to camp, for there was no mark on the envelope in which I found it. But I do not mean this as an excuse, I do not think it one.

If I had not felt like a thief perhaps I would not have been ashamed to confess my fault before the other girls as I should have done before our altar fire to-night. I tried but I did not have the courage, so I am going away from camp. Please tell Miss McMurtry, Mollie and the other girls and do not ask me to come back, for it is impossible. If I could return your money, Betty, I should not feel so bitterly humiliated, but as I cannot at present I would rather not see you until I can. Of course we are no longer friends, for you cannot wish it, and always it has seemed to me that your wealth and my poverty makes the gulf between us. I can only say that I am truly sorry.

Yours sincerely,

POLLY

Having finished this ungracious note of apology Betty handed it without comment to Esther and then buried her own head in the pillow. If Polly could feel toward her in this manner because of a mistake which they had both made, then nothing she could do or say would make any difference.

For to insist to Polly that she had a perfect right to use the money found by accident would not be altogether true and would not change her point of view, while to declare that the return of the money to its rightful owner was a matter of indifference would only deepen the misunderstanding.

Less accustomed to Polly's writing Esther read the note aloud slowly and then it was that Mollie's and Betty's positions were changed, and Mollie became instead of the comforted--the comforter.

"That is exactly like Polly O'Neill," she announced indignantly, "here she has done something she ought not to do without thinking, like spending that money without trying to find its owner, and now because she is so sorry she goes ahead and makes things worse for everybody instead of better." Mollie slid off her own hemlock bed and crossing the tent sat down by Betty. "Don't you worry, dear, or feel in the least responsible," she whispered, "you know Polly is hateful sometimes just because she is so ashamed and miserable she does not know how to be anything else. She does care for you more than anyone and you know that she will do almost anything to make peace with you as soon as she comes to her senses. Of course, Betty, I understand you don't care for the money part, why you would give either of us ten times that amount if you could and we would accept it, but you won't mind my writing mother to make things all right."

Then after a few words of explanation to their guardian the Camp Fire girls slept quietly until daylight, but even after they had eaten a hurried breakfast together the wanderer had not returned.

So immediately afterwards three parties set out, leaving Edith Norton and Juliet Field behind to protect the camp and to announce by the ringing of a bell if Polly should return or if they were in any need.

Betty, Sylvia and Esther went off in one direction, Miss McMurtry and the two younger girls, Nan and Beatrice, in another, while Mollie, Meg and Eleanor took the interior of the Webster farm. The chief obstacle in their search being that it was apparently impossible to discover the direction of Polly's footprints on first leaving camp, the gra.s.s in the neighborhood being so constantly trodden down by the feet of so many girls.

Billy Webster, as he preferred to be called, was in a wheat field with his reaper just about to start to work, when a Camp Fire girl, whether Mollie or Polly he could not tell at first, came running toward him in apparent distress. So as not to make another mistake he let the girl speak first, only smiling at her in a sufficiently friendly fashion to make it very simple.

Mollie's first words were luminous. "Have you seen anything of Polly?

She is lost or gone away or at least we can't find her!"

Therefore until lunch time Billy kept up the search over the farm with the three girls. And though they were not successful in making any discovery it was surprising what a comfort the girls found him, particularly Mollie, who seemed to depend on him as though he had been an old friend.

"I am sure there isn't the least reason to be seriously alarmed," he a.s.sured her half a dozen times with a curious understanding of Polly's character; "you see your sister has got a funny streak in her that makes her mighty interesting and mighty uncertain." (How angry Polly would have been could she have heard him!) "She has got a lot to learn before she settles down."

By noon, finding his three companions nearly exhausted, the young man persuaded them to go up to the big, comfortable farmhouse, see his mother, have their luncheon and rest. And straightway on meeting her, Mrs. Webster took a liking to Mollie that was to last all the rest of her life.

During this time Betty, Esther and Sylvia were going slowly along the main path that led through the fields and finally on to the high road into the village. Miss McMurtry and her a.s.sistants were climbing Sunrise Hill.

But Sylvia Wharton was so tediously slow. About every five minutes she would stop and kneel down in the dirt, attempting to fit an old shoe of Polly's into any fresh track she happened to observe. The other two girls wandered off into bits of woods or meadows near by, calling and hunting, but Sylvia never went with them.

"There is no use," she explained, "Polly has gone straight into Woodford and because it was night had to take the regular path instead of going through the fields as she usually does."

Claiming to have exactly traced her footsteps Esther and Betty were still not convinced. "It is such a stupid idea, Sylvia," Betty argued, "for there isn't anybody in town now to whom Polly would go in the middle of the night, and besides she would be ashamed to let people know she had run away from camp."

Nevertheless Sylvia kept stolidly on and because her companions had nothing better to suggest they followed after her.

On the high road Sylvia, who would still creep like a tortoise, suddenly stooped down. The August dust was very thick along the way and wagons had already been traveling into town, and yet she picked up a string of red, white and blue beads, which surely were Polly's, since patriotism had been one of her chief studies during the summer.

It was also Sylvia's suggestion that led the little party of friends straight to Mrs. O'Neill's closed cottage. The doors and windows in front of the house were sealed, but Betty found the door of the old kitchen halfway open. And there inside on her mother's lounge lay Polly! She seemed to be almost asleep when the girls entered, but awakened immediately and in a wholly different frame of mind.

Realizing in the last few hours, when it was too late, how great an anxiety her disappearance must have caused, she wanted to go back to camp, to confess her fault and at least to persuade Betty to forgive her. Yet she dared not trust herself to go alone, for Polly's head was aching furiously, her face was hot and flushed and any attempt to walk made her sick and dizzy.

While Betty and Esther were discussing what had best be done, Polly having trusted herself wholly to their hands, neither of them noticed Sylvia Wharton's withdrawal.

When they did there was hardly time to comment upon it before she reappeared at the back door with her round face covered with dust and looking more freckled and homelier than ever.

"A carriage will be here in five minutes to take us to camp; I have ordered it," she announced.

CHAPTER XXI

THE END OF THE SUMMER CAMP

Good-by to summer, good-by, good-by, Good-by to summer

Esther's plaintive song ceased abruptly, for Betty Ashton leaning over suddenly put her hand to her lips. And at the same moment Meg Everett holding fast to Little Brother dropped down on the ground by the girls with one arm full of early goldenrod and Michaelmas daisies.

"No use to make Esther stop singing, it won't help matters, Betty, dear, the summer has gone," she exclaimed. "Little Brother and I have just seen quail whirring about in the underbrush. See I lay our autumn bouquet at your feet," and she tossed her flowers over to Betty. "Where is Miss McMurtry?"

Betty made a wry face. "Gone into town, if you please, to see about some books--school books. Oh, it wasn't because I didn't agree with Esther's song that I made her stop singing, it was because it was so dreadfully true that I felt at the moment I couldn't bear it. You are sorry too, aren't you, Nan?" she queried, turning to the girl on the other side of her who was sewing industriously on a soft blue cashmere frock, almost similar in color and texture to the one Betty had at this moment inside her trunk. The gown represented the complete restoration of peace between Nan and Betty. At first there had been some difficulty in persuading Nan to accept it, but after all Betty had been kinder than most of the other girls! Moreover, there had been many other expressions of apology in words and deeds that Nan had accepted and stored away in her heart.

"I just can't bear to think of it either," she replied slowly, letting her hands rest idly in her lap for a moment. "I guess you other girls can't ever know what these weeks in camp have been to me and what a lot I've learned. I hope I ain't going to forget it ever and Miss Martha says she is going to try to get them to let me come back to the High School. It will be all right if any one will trust me enough to give me work to do afternoons."

Before replying Esther Clark put several pine logs and a great bundle of pine cones on the fire around which she and her friends were seated, and the girls were quiet for a moment watching them sparkle and blaze.

"I expect I know, Nan, at least better than any one else," Esther answered finally, "for you see this is the first summer of my whole life that I haven't spent at the asylum scrubbing and cooking and n.o.body caring anything about my work except that I got it done. Work this summer has seemed like play, hasn't it? And I wouldn't be here, except for The Princess. I wonder if I shall ever be able to repay her?"

"Oh, wonder something else, Esther," Betty returned ungraciously, for references of this kind always made her uncomfortable. "Here comes Polly and Mollie and, of course Sylvia. Bee, will you go find Eleanor and Juliet and let us have tea here by the camp fire. Donna and Edith will probably be here before we finish. Suppose each one of us places a stick on the fire and while it burns make a good wish for the Sunrise Camp. h.e.l.lo, Polly, yes Sylvia is perfectly right, you must not sit down on the ground without something under you, yes, and you must let her put that wrap over your shoulders, the sun will be going down pretty soon and then it will be quite cool."

Polly submitted to Sylvia's attentions none too graciously, but a moment later turned toward the younger girl. "You are a trump, Sylvia," she murmured. "I am sure I don't know what I should have done without you these past two weeks while I will have been ill. It is funny how you should happen to know just what to do for people who are sick when you are so young!"

Sylvia sat stolidly down next the speaker. "I am going to be a trained nurse when I am old enough, that's why," she answered calmly, apparently not even observing the surprise of her companions. "You see if I thought I had sense enough I would try to be a doctor, but as I haven't I shall just take care of sick people. I have already learned a good many things this summer."

Polly whistled and several of the girls laughed. "I don't doubt it for a moment, Sylvia Wharton!" Polly exclaimed, "for heaven alone can tell what you do know! But it is absurd to talk about your being a nurse, when you will be the richest one of us, child, perhaps even richer than 'The Princess'."

There was no reply from Sylvia, only her lips shut tight and her chin looked oddly square and determined for a young girl. But then Sylvia looked like her father, who, one must remember, was a self-made man.

And sometimes the daughter also inherits the traits of character that have made the father a success.

Eleanor and Juliet at this moment appearing with the tea things, the kettle was hung above the fire on an arrangement of three p.r.o.nged sticks and not until tea was over did the girls or Betty remember her suggestion. Then she handed Polly a pine knot first. "Thrust this into the fire, Polly, dear, and make a parting wish for Sunrise Camp," Betty explained, "for a few days more you know, and we must fold our tents and say farewell to our summer."

Polly quickly thrust her torch into the hottest blaze. "I wish," she said at once, her cheeks hot from the closeness of the flames and from her own thoughts, "that everybody in Sunrise Camp would promise to forgive me for my foolish behavior two weeks ago and all the anxiety and trouble I caused. The camp has given me a new motto this summer that I shall at least try to live up to. It reads: 'Think first!"

"Yes, and if you had only thought second and asked for your mail at the post office that day after finding Betty's money, Polly, you would have had your own fifty dollar prize for the best essay on 'A Summer Camp Fire in the Woods'," Mollie added in her usual practical fashion, and then she gave a little sigh of relief that the money had been paid back to Betty without troubling the mother still so far away.

"I wonder if Polly is going to be our genius as well as Eleanor," Esther next suggested quietly, "every Camp Fire club is sure to turn out at least one extraordinary person and of course ours will have two or three." Then she blushed hotly in her old embarra.s.sed, fashion, clasping her big hands closely together as Betty, half laughing at her own suggestion, whispered something in her ear.

Juliet Field wished the Sunrise Camp long life, and Meg that they might keep up their work together in town during the coming winter, Eleanor that they might spend the next summer together, and then Betty, happening quite by chance to observe a wistful expression on Nan's face, pa.s.sed the fifth pine stick to her.

"Tell us what you are thinking of, Nan," she said, speaking with special friendliness to the one girl who had not had entirely fair treatment at their hands. "I have an idea you have something special on your mind."

Nan shook her head, although she did what was asked of her. "Oh no,"