“I’m beginning to think the tramps must live in a hole in the ground,” said Grace, disconsolately, as they sat about the campfire Sunday evening recounting the day’s experiences.
“If they do, they’ll have to come up for air sometime,” said Betty, adding belligerently: “And when they do, we’ll get ’em!”
“’At a boy,” said Frank, adding, as he lazily poked the fire with a stick: “And now what do you say we change the subject? I’m sick of the very name of tramp.”
It was with decided reluctance that Allen said good-by to Betty the following morning.
“I wish you’d chuck it all and come back with me,” he pleaded for perhaps the fiftieth time. But Betty only shook her head.
“I couldn’t,” she said. “It would be running away. And besides, we’re perfectly safe here.”
Allen was not a bit sure about it, but as he had already used all the arguments he could think of, he was forced to give in.
Roy decided to accompany Allen back to Deepdale, saying that, as much as he deplored the fact, duty called him, and the girls, after loud lamentations, finally surrendered to the inevitable.
“I don’t see why you pull such long faces,” Frank reproached them once. “Won’t you have Will and me still with you?”
“Humph,” Mollie retorted, “and do you think you’re the whole universe?”
And then Allen and Roy were gone, promising to return at the earliest possible moment.
The Outdoor Girls and their two remaining escorts returned to camp to discuss plans for the day. Betty was unusually thoughtful. She was remembering what Allen had said about the injustice that had been done by that old man who had died with something on his mind.
“I hope Allen sees that justice is done, and pretty soon,” she mused, rather wistfully. “He is so absorbed and queer these days that he isn’t like the old Allen a bit.”
She came out of her reverie to find that the boys and girls were in the midst of an animated discussion as to whether they should go fishing or not. It seemed that the boys were for the sport and the girls against it.
“Not for me, thank you,” said Grace, decidedly. “Mollie and I spent the whole afternoon a while ago trying for trout and never caught one.”
“Oh, well,” said Frank, patronizingly, “you just didn’t know how to go about it, that’s all.”