The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas

CHAPTER XI

TRIED BY THE FLAMES

“Miss Bur­rell”, be­gan the Chief Guardian in a slow, im­pres­sive voice, “we have gath­ered to-​night at this Coun­cil Fire to in­quire in­to cer­tain re­cent oc­cur­rences in which you played an im­por­tant part. One of the most strin­gent reg­ula­tions of Camp Wau-​Wau has been vi­olat­ed. The en­tire camp is in­volved, in that sus­pi­cion may rest up­on any one of you. It is well to say here, that six girls came to me this af­ter­noon, con­fess­ing their part in the un­for­tu­nate haz­ing of last evening. These girls are new to our or­der. I am sat­is­fied that the grav­ity of what they were do­ing did not ap­peal to them at the time and that they act­ed up­on im­pulse, though by their own con­fes­sions they had plen­ty of time to con­sid­er the mat­ter be­fore be­com­ing in­volved in it. You may sit, Miss Bur­rell.”

Har­ri­et dropped down, sit­ting cross-​legged like the oth­ers, with the light from the fire play­ing over her face and glint­ing in her hair.

“The un­for­tu­nate part of this con­fes­sion is that the in­sti­ga­tors of the plot are still un­known. And when I ex­plain mat­ters you will be quick to catch the dis­hon­or of their ac­tions. The six girls who have con­fessed, it ap­pears, re­ceived notes just be­fore re­tir­ing, these notes hav­ing been tucked in un­der the walls of their tents ac­com­pa­nied by a scratch­ing on the can­vas to at­tract their at­ten­tion. These notes called up­on them to re­port at the tent oc­cu­pied by Miss Bur­rell, Miss Thomp­son, Miss Kid­der and Miss Scott for the pur­pose of ini­ti­at­ing the new girls. The girls who re­ceived these notes did not rec­og­nize the writ­ing. One of these notes was pre­served. I have it in my pos­ses­sion, but am frank to say that I am un­able to iden­ti­fy the pa­per or the hand­writ­ing. Rather than at­tempt to do ei­ther, I should pre­fer to have the in­sti­ga­tor or in­sti­ga­tors con­fess their part in the af­fair. Will the young wom­an who wrote these notes, stand up and de­clare her­self?”

A breath­less pe­ri­od of wait­ing fol­lowed. There was no sound from the cir­cle of anx­ious-​faced girls, scarce­ly the move­ment of an eye­lid. Tom­my Thomp­son near­ly broke the spell by heav­ing a deep, long-​drawn sigh.

“Then there re­mains no oth­er course for me than to pro­ceed with the in­quiry,” con­tin­ued the Chief Guardian. “Miss Bur­rell will please rise.”

Har­ri­et did so. Her face was pale, but she did not ap­pear to be ner­vous.

“Miss Bur­rell, you will please re­late what took place last evening.”

“I can tell you on­ly what oc­curred af­ter I was aroused from sleep,” an­swered Har­ri­et in a low, but per­fect­ly au­di­ble voice.

“Do so,” was the re­sponse.

“I was aroused by some one bump­ing against my cot. I sat up, but was forced back in­to bed and a tow­el or some­thing of the sort was quick­ly bound about my head. I was dragged from the cot. At first I strug­gled, then I be­gan to un­der­stand that some girls were play­ing tricks on me. I de­cid­ed to let them have their way. I felt sure it was noth­ing se­ri­ous. In fact, I en­joyed it quite as much as they did and per­haps more.”

“Please con­tin­ue,” urged the Chief Guardian gen­tly.

“They led me out in­to the for­est where some sort of a cer­emo­ny fol­lowed, af­ter which I was told to jump in­to a deep pool. I jumped.” Har­ri­et smiled faint­ly at the mem­ory of that jump in the dark. “The wa­ter was not deep and I was in no dan­ger of drown­ing. I can tru­ly say, Mrs. Liv­ingston, that the girls who hazed me were very con­sid­er­ate. They did noth­ing that could pos­si­bly be con­sid­ered dan­ger­ous.”

“Did you see any of the girls who took you from your tent, or any of the oth­ers who were with them!”

“I saw them, yes, but I did not see their faces, Mrs. Liv­ingston.”

“Did you rec­og­nize any of them?”

“No. You see their faces were cov­ered.”

“But sure­ly you must have rec­og­nized the voic­es of some of them.”

“I think they must have dis­guised their voic­es,” Har­ri­et replied. “Par­don me, but do not the young wom­en whom you say have con­fessed to haz­ing me, know who their com­pan­ions were?” asked Har­ri­et, gaz­ing steadi­ly in­to the face of the Chief Guardian.

“Those who have con­fessed to the haz­ing know each oth­er. In fact some of them talked the mat­ter over among them­selves be­fore join­ing in the es­capade. Like your­self they were un­able to iden­ti­fy the ringlead­ers of the par­ty. Then again they were ex­cit­ed, prob­ably more so than were you your­self,” an­swered the ex­am­in­er with a faint smile. “How many would you say were in­volved in the haz­ing?”

“I can­not say def­inite­ly, but my rec­ol­lec­tion is that there were eight girls.”

“This nar­rows it down to two girls. These no doubt were the in­sti­ga­tors. How did you come to be in the tree with Miss Thomp­son when we reached the scene?”

“I had gone there to help her. She seemed to be in trou­ble,” smiled Har­ri­et.

“Now, Miss Bur­rell, you say you do not know who these girls were; you could not iden­ti­fy them. Is that what I am to un­der­stand?”

“No, I do not know them,” replied Har­ri­et, gaz­ing straight in­to the face of the Guardian.

The young girl felt that ev­ery eye in the camp was fixed up­on her.

“I will ask you one oth­er ques­tion,” con­tin­ued Mrs. Liv­ingston. “Have you any sus­pi­cion as to who they are? Think well be­fore you an­swer.”

Har­ri­et hes­itat­ed a mo­ment, study­ing the Coun­cil Fire grave­ly. Then she raised her clear eyes to the face of Mrs. Liv­ingston.

“I have no sus­pi­cion that I should care to voice,” she an­swered.

“That will be all. You may re­sume your place with your com­pan­ions. Will Miss Thomp­son please step for­ward?”

Tom­my tripped over to the fire. There was a fright­ened look on her face.

“Tell us what hap­pened to you, my dear,” urged Mrs. Liv­ingston en­cour­ag­ing­ly.

Tom­my stam­mered and lisped and twist­ed and turned, then she burst forth in­to speech.

“They--they took me from my cot, Mithith Liv­ingth­ton. But I fought them. They car­ried me out in the woodth. Then--then they--they told me I wath a thquir­rel and----”

“A what?”

“A squir­rel,” in­ter­pret­ed Har­ri­et.

“And then they made me climb a tree.”

“You did not have to climb, did you!” smiled the Chief Guardian.

“I gueth not. I want­ed to. You thee, I thought af­ter I had climbed the tree I could make a big noithe and fright­en them away,” chuck­led Tom­my, squint­ing shrewd­ly at her ques­tion­er.

“Oh, a bit of diplo­ma­cy on your part?” nod­ded Mrs. Liv­ingston.

“Yeth, I gueth that wath it.” Tom­my had no idea what diplo­ma­cy was, but con­clud­ed that it must be some­thing to her cred­it, so she de­cid­ed that she had ex­er­cised it.

“You screamed; then what?”

“They ran away ath fatht ath they could. I withh you could have theen them run, Mithith Liv­ingth­ton. It wath aw­ful­ly fun­ny.”

“I wish I might have,” an­swered the ex­am­in­er dry­ly. “What then?”

“I tried to get down and I got fatht. I got hung up by the cord to my bathrobe. I couldn't get down and I couldn't get up. I wath jutht like a bird on­ly I didn't thing. But if I couldn't thing, I could yell. Then Har­ri­et came, then the oth­erth came, then they got me down and I wath hap­py ev­er af­ter­wardth. That ith all.”

A faint gig­gle greet­ed the con­clu­sion of the ev­idence of lit­tle Tom­my, but it was quick­ly sup­pressed by a stern glance from the Chief Guardian.

“Did you rec­og­nize any of your cap­tors so that you could iden­ti­fy or name them?”

“Oh, my no. I gueth I didn't know my own name. You thee I wath ex­thit­ed, Mithith Liv­ingth­ton.”

“It was not sur­pris­ing un­der the cir­cum­stances,” ad­mit­ted the Chief Guardian with a smile that she could not sup­press, and that was re­flect­ed on the faces of near­ly all the girls seat­ed be­fore her. But all dur­ing the ev­idence the Guardian had been in­tent­ly re­gard­ing not on­ly the wit­ness, but the oth­er girls as well. She was seek­ing for that tell-​tale look that would iden­ti­fy the guilty girl or girls.

Tom­my was told that she might take her place again. Mrs. Liv­ingston con­sult­ed with some of the guardians, then called Pa­tri­cia Scott to the fire. There was a move­ment among the oth­er girls at this, a cran­ing of necks and some smoth­ered ex­cla­ma­tions. Mrs. Liv­ingston was very busi­nesslike and cour­te­ous. Pa­tri­cia's dark face wore a slight pal­lor as she walked for­ward and faced the Guardian.

“Miss Scott, you and Miss Kid­der oc­cu­py the same tent with the two girls who have just giv­en their ev­idence. Did you hear any un­usu­al nois­es in the tent last evening?”

“Yes, I did, Mrs. Liv­ingston.”

“Ex­plain what you heard?”

“I don't know that I can ex­plain it clear­ly. At first I thought I heard the shuf­fle of feet on the floor. I was very tired and sleepy. I re­call that I part­ly roused my­self. I thought I heard some one speak in a low tone, but sup­pos­ing it was in the next tent I dropped back to sleep again. I did not hear an­oth­er sound un­til the gen­er­al alarm was sound­ed on the bell.”

“You hur­ried out with­out know­ing that your two tent­mates were miss­ing?”

“No, I did not know about it then. I did not know un­til I saw them out there in the woods.”

“Thank you. That will be all.”

Co­ra Kid­der was next called up­on to tes­ti­fy. She was very pale and plain­ly ner­vous. She re­al­ized that hav­ing slept in the same tent with two of the Mead­ow-​Brook Girls, a cer­tain amount of sus­pi­cion would be at­tached to her not know­ing any­thing about the ex­cit­ing oc­cur­rence of the pre­vi­ous night in her tent. In an­swer to the first ques­tion which was the same as had been put to Pa­tri­cia, Miss Kid­der said:

“I did not wake up, Mrs. Liv­ingston. I--I may have heard some­thing, but if so I--I don't re­mem­ber any­thing about it now.”

“You must be a sound sleep­er,” ob­served the Chief Guardian.

“I have been since com­ing to Camp Wau-​Wau. I'm just 'dead,' the mo­ment I get in­to bed. I was hard­ly awake when I stum­bled out of the tent in re­sponse to the gen­er­al alarm last night call­ing us all out. I fell over a tent rope and that woke me up a lit­tle.”

Tom­my laughed, but for­tu­nate­ly the ex­am­in­er did not hear her. Har­ri­et nudged Grace to warn her to be qui­et.

“You have no idea that would give you any clue to the per­pe­tra­tors of this af­fair?”

“No, Mrs. Liv­ingston.”

“Is there any oth­er per­son among the girls who has any­thing to say or who can give us any in­for­ma­tion?”

The si­lence was tense. The Chief Guardian's eyes trav­eled slow­ly over the group be­fore her. No one an­swered.

“That will be suf­fi­cient, Miss Kid­der. The guardians will please join me for con­sul­ta­tion.”

The Wau-​Wau Girls spent an anx­ious few mo­ments while the con­fer­ence was go­ing on. Fi­nal­ly, the guardians re­sumed their places. Mrs. Liv­ingston stood fac­ing them again.

“In view of all the facts which we have in our pos­ses­sion, the guardians have been able to ar­rive at a con­clu­sion re­gard­ing the six girls who have con­fessed. Nat­ural­ly we can take no ac­tion in the case of the oth­ers, not know­ing who they are. We be­lieve that while the six girls are de­serv­ing of dis­missal, they were in­flu­enced by a spir­it of fun, rather than of mal­ice, there­fore the ques­tion as to whether they shall be dis­missed or not shall be put to a vote of the Wau-​Wau Girls them­selves. All in fa­vor of adopt­ing some oth­er method of pun­ish­ment please rise.”

Ev­ery girl in the gath­er­ing rose to her feet with the ex­cep­tion of Har­ri­et Bur­rell. Tom­my ob­serv­ing that her com­pan­ion had not risen, sat down hur­ried­ly.

“All in fa­vor of let­ting the guilty ones go with­out pun­ish­ment will rise, now.”

Har­ri­et was on her feet in an in­stant, with Tom­my a slow sec­ond.

“I am afraid you are very much in the mi­nor­ity, my dear,” said Mrs. Liv­ingston, smil­ing on Har­ri­et. “Your for­giv­ing spir­it, how­ev­er, is to be com­mend­ed. It is the true spir­it that should ac­tu­ate a Wau-​Wau Girl. In view of the pre­vi­ous vote, I shall have to im­pose a penal­ty that al­ready had been agreed up­on by the guardians in case the mem­bers of the camp de­cid­ed up­on some form of tem­po­rary pun­ish­ment There­fore I sen­tence the six young wom­en”--here Mrs. Liv­ingston read their names out, names of girls that Har­ri­et did not know--“to soli­tary con­fine­ment in their tents for the pe­ri­od of twen­ty-​four hours. They will take their meals in their quar­ters. The young wom­en will now rise, pass in sin­gle file be­fore the fire and pro­ceed to their tents.”

Six young wom­en with low­ered heads and cheeks aflame, slow­ly, hes­itat­ing­ly rose to their feet, hur­ried­ly filed past the fire, then turned their foot­steps to­ward their quar­ters.

“Oh that'th too bad,” piped Tom­my as the last of the six passed in­to the shad­ows.