In the beginning Tory had believed she preferred Lance to any of the other boys. He was Dorothy's favorite among her brothers, a delicate, musical chap, partly admired and partly scorned by the five who were stronger and more matter of fact.

Lance's pa.s.sion for music, of which he knew but little, his desire to be left alone, his failure in most athletic sports, the rest of his family found annoying and amusing.

Lance McClain alone was like his mother who had died some years before, the others like Dr. McClain.

"Lance, why in the world don't you help Don out? You know he will only make things worse if left to himself." Tory whispered at this moment.

"Want to save Don at my expense? All right, Tory," he answered quizzically in the voice and manner Tory never really understood.

Lance moved forward and now stood close beside Miss Mason.

His golden-brown eyes and his sensitive mouth relieved his face from plainness, although he was considered the least good looking member of his family.

At present he was smiling in a charming fashion.

"See here, Miss Mason," he began speaking slowly, "I don't suppose you can imagine what a difficult thing it is to have a brother who is always putting you in the wrong? Oh, not intentionally, but by everlastingly doing the right thing and then trying to take the blame for your mistakes!

"Don did not want us to come to your camp and make a scene. He is our Patrol leader and we should have done what he advised. Only we wouldn't and didn't! He came along at last more to keep the rest of us out of mischief than because he wanted to be in it."

Lance drew his brows together so they became a fine line.

"Wonder if I've got to make a clean breast of the whole business? Don is everlastingly forcing me to play up to him when I would not otherwise. The suggestion that we hike over to the girls' camp and see what was going on originated with me. Don and I had been telling Dorothy you would never get things in shape over here without help from us, or men in the village. Your Girl Scout Troop has been claiming that you could accomplish all the things we do and a few other things beside. We did not believe you and wished to see for ourselves. I was sorry and mad as Don when some of the fellows went too far. We had a call-down from our Captain and have been looking for a chance to apologize. Do try and forget it, won't you? If your Girl Scouts will swoop down on us unexpectedly and be double the nuisance that we were, we are willing to call it square."

Sheila Mason laughed. Margaret Hale, the Patrol leader and one of Victoria Drew's intimate friends, who had joined the group during Lance's speech, shook her head. She was a tall, serious looking girl with clear-cut features and a graceful manner.

"Lance, I don't believe a Boy Scout Troop is supposed to employ a lawyer. You strike me as a special pleader. You had better go in for the law instead of music. We are not so cranky that we would have objected to an ordinary descent upon us, even with the idea of showing us what inferior creatures we are. But when it comes to trying to frighten us, and some of the more timid girls were frightened, you behaved as if you were wild Indians."

Lance held up a white handkerchief.

"This is a token of complete surrender. We ask the courtesy due the defeated, Miss Mason. Please don't allow Margaret to rake up the past.

Don and I must be off now to camp. Sorry you won't give us a message of forgiveness to carry back. May we speak to Dorothy? Evidently she is more interested in her breakfast than in her brothers."

"Nonsense, Lance, you and Don must have breakfast with us before you leave," Miss Mason answered. "I cannot bury the hatchet, Indian fashion, because the Girl Scouts must decide themselves whether or not you are forgiven."

Approaching in their direction at this moment, her face flushed and holding a long toasting fork in one hand, was Dorothy McClain.

She was only a year and a few months younger than her two brothers and looked very like Don, save that her hair was chestnut and her eyes a darker blue.

"Don, Lance, how glad I am you had the good luck to come to Tory's and Kara's aid! I have made a double amount of toast and there are six more eggs added to our usual supply for breakfast. I thought you would appreciate this sisterly attention more than rushing to greet you at once. I saw you were not lonely."

"Good to see you, Dot. You are looking in great shape, only we must be off at once," Donald answered, still appearing uncomfortable and obstinate.

Between Dorothy and Tory Drew a signal was flashed of which no one of the small group save Lance McClain was aware.

"Please stay, Don," Tory begged, moving forward and standing beside him. She scarcely came up to his shoulder. "Edith Linder has gone to Miss Frean's cottage to ask her to come to Kara at once. She is to try to telephone for your father. If not, one of us must ride in to town for him. But perhaps he might want you to be here when he arrives in case there is anything to be done, if Kara has to be lifted. Oh, I don't know anything, except that I am dreadfully worried over her."

Don softened.

"Oh, of course if there is any chance Lance or I can be of further use we'll be glad to stay. You ought to go to bed, Tory, and not wait for father."

Tory shook her head. Her face was whiter than usual from anxiety and fatigue, yet Donald McClain liked her appearance.

His brothers and other people might insist there were several girls in the Girl Scout Troop of the Eagle's Wing far prettier than Victoria Drew--Teresa Peterson, with her half Italian beauty, his own sister, Dorothy, Joan Peters, with her regular features and patrician air. Don knew that Tory possessed a charm and vividness, a quickness of thought and a grace of movement more attractive to him than ordinary beauty.

Forgetting their companions, they walked off together, leaving the others to follow.

"If you only knew how I have been longing to show you our camp in Beechwood Forest, Don! Please say you think it is wonderful," Tory pleaded.

CHAPTER III

THEIR CAMP

They were seated along the edge of the lake, six girls and their two visitors. The water was a still, dim blue reflection of the sky with one deep shadow from the hill of pines. Away from the hill and the lake stood the forest of beechwood trees.

In an open s.p.a.ce on a little rise of ground half within, half without the forest, lay the summer camp of the Girl Scouts of the Eagle's Wing.

A little brown house built of logs was almost entirely covered with vines, a tangle of woodbine and honeysuckle and wistaria. Only from the windows and the door had the vines been cut away. The house looked extremely ancient, older than the slender beeches that formed a semicircle to the rear and left. Beyond the door, thick with deep green shade on this midsummer morning, towered a single giant beech which appeared to have moved out a few yards from its forest shelter to act as a sentinel for the log cabin.

The cabin had been erected so many years before that no one in the vicinity remembered its origin. Finding the location an ideal one for their camp, the little house had been restored, the chimney to the single fireplace made over, the gla.s.s added to the window frames, open s.p.a.ces between the logs replastered.

The log house formed the center of the camp.

On each side at irregular distances were three tents, one row advancing from the forest, the other receding into it.

To-day there was an unusual stillness about the camp itself at an hour of the morning ordinarily a busy and active one.

Now and then some one appeared, hastily accomplished whatever the task and vanished.

Even the little group on the sh.o.r.e of the lake continued unusually quiet. When any one did speak it was with a lowered voice.

Five of the six girls were occupied. Only Tory Drew's hands were idle.

They moved frequently with unconscious gestures characteristic of her temperament and the fact that she had lived a number of years in the Latin countries where the hands are used to communicate one's meaning as well as speech.

She made a sweeping movement of her hand at this instant, appearing to include the lake, forest, hillside and the small group of tents about the evergreen cabin.

"You have not yet said, Don, that you consider our camp superior to yours, when I am perfectly convinced that it is, without having laid eyes on yours. Lance has given me the impression that he agrees with me. He has not exactly said so in any words I can recall, but he can be tactful when he likes. You are always so tiresomely silent, Don, whether you think a thing true or not true. I always know when you are most silent your opinion is the strongest one way or the other."

Don was silent. Yet he knew the group of girls were awaiting his reply with almost as great interest as Tory.

Finally he smiled in a handsome, good-humored fashion.

"Don't see why you should object to my not talking a great deal, Tory, when it gives you and Dorothy and Lance more opportunity."

He turned around, however, studying the little camp in the shadow of the old forest with careful scrutiny. Donald McClain did not think quickly nor could he express his point of view until he had given a subject serious consideration.