Chapter 3 THE SKULL AND CROSS-BONES.

If Marion Stanlock, "High Peak" in the trait and a torch bearer, had read one of two letters, signed with a "skull and cross-bones," which she found lying on the desk in her room after the adjournment of the Grand Council Fire, doubtless there would have been an interruption, and probably a change, in the holiday program of the Flamingo Camp Fire. She saw the letters lying there and under ordinary circumstances would have torn them open and read them, however hastily, before retiring. But on this occasion she was rather tired, owing to the activities and the excitement of the day and evening.

Moreover, she realized that she could not hope for anything but a wearisome journey to Hollyhill on the following day unless she refreshed herself with as many hours sleep as possible before train time.

So she merely glanced at the superscriptions on the envelopes to see if the letters were from any of her relatives or friends, and, failing to recognize either of them, she put them into her handbag, intending to read them at the first opportunity next morning. Then she went to bed and fell asleep almost instantly.

Marion was awakened in the morning by her roommate, Helen Nash, who had quietly arisen half an hour earlier. The latter was almost ready for breakfast when she woke her friend from a sleep that promised to continue several hours longer unless interrupted. She had turned on the electric light and was standing before the glass combing her hair. Marion glanced at the clock to see what time it was, but the face was turned away from her and the light in the room made it impossible for her to observe through the window shades that day was just breaking.

"What time is it, Helen?" she asked. "Did the alarm go off? I didn't hear it. What waked you up?"

Helen did not answer at once. For a moment or two her manner seemed to indicate that she did not hear the questions of the girl in bed. Then, as if suddenly rescuing her mind from thoughts that appealed to have carried her away into some far distant abstraction, she replied thus, in a series of disconnected utterances:

"No, the alarm didn't go off-a-Marion. I got up at 6 o'clock. I turned the alarm off. It is 6:30 now. I don't know what woke me. I just woke up."

Marion arose, wondering at the peculiar manner of her roommate and the strained, almost convulsive, tone of her voice. She asked no further questions, but proceeded with her dressing and preparation for breakfast. For the time being, she forgot all about the two letters in her handbag that lay on her dresser.

In some respects Helen was a peculiar girl. If her speech and action had been characterized with more vim, vigor and imagination, doubtlessly she would generally have been known as a pretty girl. As it was, her features were regular, her complexion fair, her eyes blue, and her hair a light brown. Marion thought her pretty, but Marion had associated with her intimately for two or three years, and had discovered qualities in her that mere acquaintances could never have discovered. She had found Helen apparently to be possessed of a strong, direct conception of integrity, never vacillating in manner or sympathies. Moreover, she exhibited a quiet, unwavering capability in her work that always commanded the respect, and occasionally the admiration, of both classmates and teachers.

Not only was Helen quiet of disposition, but strangely secretive on certain subjects. For instance, she seldom said anything about her home or relatives. She lived in Villa Park, a small town midway between Westmoreland and Hollyhill. Her father was dead, and, when not at school, she had lived with her mother; these two, so far as Marion knew, constituting the entire family.

Marion had visited her home, and there found the mother and daughter apparently in moderate circumstances. Naturally, she had wondered a little that Mrs. Nash should be able to support her daughter at a private school, even though that institution made a specialty of teaching rich men's daughters how to be useful and economical, but the reason why had never been explained to her. Helen got her remittances from home regularly, and seemed to have no particular cause to worry about finances. She had spent parts of two vacations at the Stanlock home and there conducted herself as if quite naturally able to fit in with luxurious surroundings and large accommodations.

Only a few days before the Christmas holidays, something had occurred that emphasized Helen's secretive peculiarity to such an extent that Marion was considerably provoked and just a little mystified. A young man, somewhere about 25 or 27 years old, fairly well but not expensively dressed, and bearing the appearance of one who had seen a good deal of the rough side of life, called at the Institute and asked for Miss Nash. He was ushered into the reception room and Helen was summoned. One of the girls who witnessed the meeting told some of her friends that Miss Nash was evidently much surprised, if not unpleasantly disturbed, when she recognized her caller. Immediately she put on a coat and hat and she and the young man went out. An hour later she returned alone, and to no one did she utter a word relative to the stranger's visit, not even to her roommate, who had passed them in the hall as they were going out.

Helen Nash was a member of the Flamingo Camp Fire and accompanied the other members on their vacation trip to the mountain mining district. The other eleven who boarded the train with Marion, the holiday hostess, were Ruth Hazelton, Ethel Zimmerman, Ernestine Johanson, Hazel Edwards, Azalia Atwood, Harriet Newcomb, Estelle Adler, Julietta Hyde, Marie Crismore, Katherine Crane, and Violet Munday.

Miss Ladd, the Guardian, also was one of Marion's invited guests. The party took possession of one end of the parlor car, which, fortunately, was almost empty before they boarded it. Then began a chatter of girl voices-happy, spirited, witty, and promising to continue thus to the end of the journey, or until their kaleidoscopic subjects of conversation were exhausted.

Every thrilling detail of the evening before was gone over, examined, given its proper degree of credit, and filed away in their memories for future reference. There was more catching of breath, more cheering, more clapping of hands; but no mock jeers, now that the boys were absent, as the events of the Boy Scouts' invasion and the many incidental and brilliant results were recalled and repictured.

"I wonder what Harry Gilbert meant when he said some of them were planning another surprise nearly as thrilling as the one they sprung last night," said Azalia Atwood, with characteristic excitable expectation. "He addressed himself to you, Marion, when he said it; and he's a close friend of your cousin, Clifford Long. Whatever it is, I bet anything it will fall heaviest on this Camp Fire when it comes."

"Maybe it was just talk, to get us worked up and looking for something never to come," suggested Ethel Zimmerman. "It would be a pretty good one for the boys to get us excited and looking for something clear up to April 1, and then spring an April fool joke, something like a big dry goods box packed with excelsior."

"Oh, but that wouldn't measure up to expectations," Ruth Hazelton declared. "It wouldn't be one-two-three with what they did last night, and they promised something just about as interesting."

"You don't get me," returned Ethel. "The dry goods box filled with excelsior would be the anti-climax of wondering expectations."

"You're too deep for a twentieth century bunch of girls, Ethel," Hazel Edwards objected. "That might easily be mistaken for the promised big stunt. They might compose a lot of ditties and mix them up with the packing, something like this:

"'Believe not all big things that boys may tell thee, for

Great expectations may produce excelsior'."

"Very clever, indeed, only it sounds like an impossible combination of Alice in Wonderland and an old maid," said Harriet Newcomb, with a toss of her head. "I'm surprised at you, Hazel, for suggesting such a thing. If the boys should put over anything like that, we'd break off diplomatic relations right away. If they wanted to call us a lot of rummies, they couldn't do it as effectively by the use of direct language. Cleverness usually makes a hit with its victims, unless it contains an element of contempt."

"That is really a brilliant observation," announced the Guardian who had been listening with quiet interest to the spirited conversation. "Continued thought along such lines ought to result in a Keda National Honor for you, Harriet."

"I'll agree to all that if Harriet will take back what she said about my being an old maid," said Hazel with mock dignity.

"I didn't call you an old maid, my dear," denied the impromptu poet pertly. "I merely said, or meant to say, that the idea you expressed might better be expected from an old maid, although I doubt if many old maids could have expressed it as well as you did."

"Girls, Girls, are you going to turn our vacation into a two-weeks repartee bee?" Marion broke in with affected desperation. "If you do, you will force your hostess to go way back and sit down, and that wouldn't be polite, you know. By the way, if you'll excuse me I'll do that very thing now for another reason. I've got two letters in my hand bag that I forgot all about. I'm going to read them right now. You girls are making too much chatter. I can't read in your midst."

So saying, Marion retired to a chair just far enough away to lend semblance of reality to her "go way back and sit down" suggestion, and settled back comfortably to read the two missives that arrived with the last evening's mail at the Institute.

"Settled back comfortably"-yes, but only for a short time. Marion never before in her life received two such letters. Both were anonymous. The first one that she opened aroused enough curiosity to "unsettle" her. She thought she knew whom it was from-those ingenious Boy Scouts of Spring Lake-perhaps it was written by cousin Clifford himself. It was just like him. He was a natural leader among boys, and often up to mischief of some sort. Marion was sure he was one of the prime movers of the Scout invasion of Hiawatha Institute.

But the next letter was the real thriller, or rather cold chiller. She knew very well what it meant. From the point of view of the writer it meant "business," a threat well calculated to work terror in her own heart and the heart of every other member of Flamingo Fire. It was a threat couched in direful words, warning her and her friends not to go to Hollyhill on their charity mission, as announced, and predicting serious injury if not death to some of them. It was signed with a skull and cross-bones.

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