CHAPTER X

A NIGHT OUT

Three men had been engaged to take the party of girls and Mrs. Brownley through the Fulton Chain of lakes. As has been said, the journey may be made in a day, enabling one, with proper equipment and by using due speed, to reach Raquette Lake in time for a late dinner. This had been the plan of Sylvia and her friends.

They had planned to stop for lunch _en route_ and, accordingly, had brought with them materials for a satisfying meal. One of the three men was a camp cook, and to him was entrusted the work of getting the meal ready. The other two men were guides or boatmen in whose craft the trip had thus far been made.

"Now if you'll get lunch ready we'll be ready for it as soon as we hear you call," Sylvia said to the chef.

"Are you going away, miss?" he asked, pausing in the work of taking from the boat various cunningly stowed-away packages.

"Just for a stroll in the woods," she told him.

"Well, don't go too far," he advised her. "If you don't know the trails you might get confused, and have trouble findin' your way back. And if you expect to get to Raquette Lake to-night we can't lose much time."

"Oh, we'll not go far," Rose said.

"No, indeed!" chimed in Hazel, as she gave a surreptitious glance into a mirror hidden in the flap of her handbag, and gave her nose an equally secret "dab," though why she should, up in that wilderness, she herself could not have said.

"Too hungry to go far," added Alice.

"Why, can one become lost in these woods?" asked Aunt Theodora.

"Yes, indeed, lady!" exclaimed one of the boatmen. "I knowed a man who started to walk from one tree to another while he was waitin' for his coffee to boil, but when he got back the coffee pot had melted!"

"Indeed!" exclaimed the chaperon, with a lifting of her aristocratic eyebrows. "Did the fire become too hot?"

"Well, not exactly, lady, but you see the man got lost, and was gone so long that the coffee boiled away and the bottom of the pot melted. I'm only tellin' you that, so you won't go too far."

"There's no danger," Sylvia said, with a laugh. "We'll keep on the trail. And I think we'll have tea, instead of coffee," she added to the chef, for a tea outfit had been brought along, and one of the men was lighting the alcohol stove which was not only to boil water for the beverage, but also to warm some of the numerous viands. Solid alcohol was used as fuel.

Indeed the Nowadays Girls had gone carefully into this matter of sojourning in the Adirondacks, and while they expected to spend most of the time at well-known hotels or in camp resorts, they were also provided for some life in the open, either in tent or cabin, and they had purchased the very latest in outfits.

"No smoky wood fires for us, except when we've had our meals and want to sit around it and be romantic," Sylvia had said, and the others had agreed with her. Consequently they had a small camping outfit with them that for compactness and convenience would be difficult to surpass.

So while the girls and Mrs. Brownley started off to admire the beauty of the woods and the end of Fourth Lake nestling amid the trees, the cook got ready the meal. He was an expert in his line, and after he had set the kettle over the flame of the nickled alcohol stove he found a good place to set the table on the ground, spreading the cloth over a layer of flat balsam branches which gave forth a most appetising odour.

The boatmen prepared to set off with the craft on the one-mile carry to Sixth Lake, the fifth, as I have explained, being omitted from the water route in covering the chain, since it was so winding that nearly twice the distance would have had to be covered if they kept to the boats.

There was not a little luggage to be transported, in addition to the boats, and the men would be kept busy. The heavier baggage had been sent on ahead to the town of Raquette Lake, located on the lower end of that body of water, just beyond the point where Brown's Tract Inlet joins it.

"Oh, did you ever see a more perfect place?" demanded Alice, as she came to a pause in the woods, and gazed about her.

"It's just grand," agreed Rose. "It makes one just glad to be alive; doesn't it, Baby?" she demanded of her diminutive chum, who was thoughtfully gazing off into the depths of the forest.

"What is it? Oh, yes, of course!" was the rather hasty answer.

"She hasn't heard a word we've said!" laughed Alice. "Never mind, Baby. We all know what _you_ are thinking of, at any rate," and playfully she ruffled the hair of the smaller girl.

"Oh, don't!" was the protest.

"What matter? No one to see you here, Baby, except the boatmen, and they don't count."

"Oh, but we must always look our best, even before servants, my dears," remonstrated Mrs. Brownley, gently. That was one rule she insisted on. Négligée had in this lady one of its most deadly enemies.

"Oh, well, of course, I didn't mean just that," apologised Alice.

They strolled on through the dense woods that came to the very edge of the trail. Now and then the silence was broken by the crashing down of some old tree, or the fall of a dead branch. Again, birds would give voice to their chirping notes, and the flutter of their wings would be heard. Occasionally, from some lonely and unseen pond, would come the call of the loon, that strange and often solitary bird whose cry has such a weird sound, especially if heard at the dead of night. Again would come the distant voices of boatmen, or of camping parties, _en route_ even as our friends were.

"And to think," said Sylvia, softly, "that up there," and she pointed to the north, "Roy is in these same woods. I wonder what he is doing?"

"Getting well and strong, I hope," said Mrs. Brownley, cheerfully.

"I hope so, too," murmured Rose.

They returned to the place where they had left their boats to find a simple but perfectly-prepared meal awaiting them. Spread out on the snowy cloth, set off wonderfully well by the border of underlying layer of green balsam boughs, were the viands they had brought. The kettle sang cheerfully on the alcohol stove and there was an omelet, so light that it seemed a breath would flatten it out like a griddle-cake.

"Just in time, ladies," the chef remarked. "The omelet is all ready to serve."

Such appetites as the girls brought to the feast!

"There won't be much left to take over the carry," observed Sylvia. "Pass the olives, Rose dear. That is, if Alice has left any."

"Left any! What do you mean?"

"Oh, we all know your fondness."

"There's an unopened bottle," remarked Hazel. "I had some extra ones put in."

"Bless you, my dear!" murmured Alice. "They are so tasty, especially in the woods."

The luncheon went on amid merry quip and laughter. When it was over the men had their meal, and one of them offered to walk on ahead with the girls and Mrs. Brownley, and show them the trail to Sixth Lake. It was quite plain, through the woods, for it was much-travelled, but the guide was not going to risk his reputation by having any of his party stray off into the forest, and have it be said of him that he did not look well after his patrons.

The chef and the other guide remained behind to bring on the luncheon articles. The boats and baggage, having been safely transported, awaited the arrival of the girls at Sixth Lake.

"About what time do you think we shall get to Raquette Lake?" asked Sylvia of the man in her boat, when they were once more under way.

"We ought to be there about seven o'clock, miss. That is, if nothing happens," and he gave a hasty glance at the sky.

"If nothing happens! What do you mean?" demanded Mrs. Brownley.

"Well, it's nothing to be alarmed about, but I think we're going to have a thunderstorm," he remarked. "That might delay us, for sometimes it rains so hard that it's hard to see where you're rowing, and we may have to stop on shore until it's over."

"Are there any places to stop?" asked Sylvia, determined to make provision for the worst, if necessary.

"Oh, yes, there are open camps, and some closed ones where we could put up if we couldn't reach Raquette Lake. But we'll try to get you there. Pull hard, boys," he called to his companion and the chef, who was also taking his "spell" at the oars of the light guide-boats.

But it was evident to the girls themselves that they were not going to escape the storm. To the low and deep rumblings in the west, there succeeded louder-voiced mutterings of some unseen god of the weather. The black clouds were slashed open now and then by vivid streaks of lightning, rose-tinted and pink, and again of a flashing electric blue-green in colour.

"We're going to get it!" murmured one of the men.

The girls looked anxiously toward the shores of Seventh Lake, on which they then were. The water was about a mile in width here, and they were in the middle.

"We'd better put in!" called the leading boatman to the others. "I thought we could make Henderson's, but we can't! Lively now!"

It became darker and darker. The thunder was coming more and more frequently, and the darkness that had suddenly fallen over the brightness of the day was relieved at intervals by the hissing lightning.

"Here it comes!" cried one of the guides.

An instant later the lake seemed to boil with the violence of the rainfall. The girls and Mrs. Brownley, having been warned in time, had put on mackintoshes, but the men scorned anything like that, and did not stop to don any extra garments.

They pulled desperately for the shore, and reached it in the midst of a driving downpour.

"Over this way," directed the leading guide, as the boats grated on the shore. "There's a shack around here somewhere."

He led the way, and a little later they all stood under a rude shelter that was sufficiently water-tight to keep off most of the rain. The things in the boats had been covered with pieces of canvas.

"Oh!" screamed Rose as a particularly vivid flash and a crash of thunder came almost together. "That struck near here!"

"I guess it did, miss," was the cool answer of the guide called Jimmie.

"Did it hit a house?" asked Alice.

"No, some tree I reckon," said the guide who had been addressed as Jake. "Lots of times trees get struck up here. We don't mind it much."

"Shall we be able to go on?" asked Mrs. Brownley, anxiously.

"Well, if this rain lets up we can, easy, or we could manage to keep goin' in the boats, anyhow, if you didn't mind it," Jake answered.

"I think it will be better to wait," suggested Sylvia. "I don't like being on the lake in an open boat during a storm."

"Nor I," added Hazel.

"But it doesn't seem as though it would ever stop," broke in Alice, dubiously. "It's raining harder than ever."

"What shall we do if we can't go on?" Rose wanted to know.

"Well, we'll have to stay here--camp out or do something," Sylvia said. "You spoke of a camp, or something, near here?" she went on questioningly to Jimmie.

"Yes, miss. There's a good cabin not far from here. It's hired out to parties, and it's well furnished. If that isn't in use you can stay there if you don't want to go on."

"But what about places to sleep, and things to eat?" asked Mrs. Brownley.

"That's all provided, lady. There's grub--that is, food--at the cabin, and plenty of beds, such as they are. Not feathers, of course, but----"

"Oh, we don't in the least mind roughing it," put in Sylvia. "In fact, I think it would be rather jolly than otherwise."

"So do I!" exclaimed Alice. And as Hazel also joined in, there was nothing for Rose to do but agree. And so, as the rain showed no signs of slackening, it was decided to spend the night out in the little cabin, to which the guides offered to lead the party. And a little later they set off through the woods in the downpour.