CHAPTER ONE
THE FRIDAY JINX
"Are we ready to start, girls?" called Mrs. Vernon, the Captain of Dandelion Troop of Girl Scouts, as she glanced at her protegées seated in two large touring cars.
"Ready! Why, Verny, we've been waiting for you these ten minutes," retorted Juliet Lee, one of the original members of the troop.
"And we're just crazy to be off before that black cloud overhead adds to mother's fear lest I never come home again," added Ruth Bentley, another of the first four girl scouts of Elmertown.
"Well, then, it seems that all the baggage and outfit we need with us on the trip is safely stowed away, eh, Jim?" said Mrs. Vernon, looking at the driver of the other car.
"Everything that I found waiting to be packed when I drove up to the side door," replied the chauffeur.
"All right! Then we're off, folkses, but we'll send you word the moment we arrive at Old Forge in the Adirondacks," called Mrs. Vernon, to the crowd of relatives of the various girls, all gathered to watch the scouts drive away.
"Good-by! Good-by!" now shouted many girlish voices, and "Good-by! Good-by!" was shouted back as the two seven-passenger cars started on the long journey.
Mrs. Vernon led the way in her luxurious automobile, and as they turned the bend of the road, where the last of the group still watching on the Vernon lawn was lost to sight, she laughingly remarked:
"I never thought a crowd of girls could get ready for such a long outing in so short a time."
"It all depends on how badly the girls want to be ready, Captain," retorted Joan Allison, the fourth girl of the number who founded Dandelion Camp of Girl Scouts the summer before.
"Say, girls! I just felt a drop of rain from that inky cloud!" Betty Lee warned. She was Julie's sister, and they were two who had first suggested a scout organization.
Mrs. Vernon slowed down and turned to the scouts. "Shall we stop to put on the rain-curtains?"
"Mercy, no! It's only a sprinkle, and we're not sugar," exclaimed Joan, glancing at the sky.
The other girls followed her gaze, and Julie said: "See all the blue sky! Enough to make the proverbial 'night-cap'."
In case the reader has not yet met the four girls who had such a thrilling time while at camp the previous summer, it will be best to make their acquaintance now.
As stated before, Juliet and Elizabeth Lee were the two sisters who planned having a scout troop for girls in Elmertown. Joan Allison and Ruth Bentley, both schoolmates of the Lee girls, eagerly agreed to add their efforts to the others' and secure the interest of enough girls for them to be able to apply for a charter from the Girl Scout Headquarters in New York City.
Before they closed their camp on "Verny's Mountain" that summer, five other girls had been admitted to membership in the young Patrol, namely: Hester Wynant, fourteen; Anne Bailey, fourteen; Judith Blake, thirteen; her sister, Edith Blake, twelve; and Amy Ward, thirteen.
Then during the winter, other girls who had heard of the good times the scouts had had in camp that past summer became so insistent to mothers at home that permission to join the organization was granted them.
Having nine girls in their original Patrol, with Julie as Leader, and Joan for Corporal, the scouts now felt experienced enough to pass all the tests required to apply for a Troop Charter. The young scouts were an active group and when the Charter arrived from National Headquarters the same day the girls had planned to start for camp, there was great rejoicing.
True to his promise given the Girl Scouts the summer previous, Mr. Gilroy had sent word to Mrs. Vernon when the camp in the Adirondacks was ready for them. When the girls found that Mrs. Vernon planned to use her large touring car for half of the number in the Troop to go in, and Ruth Bentley's father had offered his car for the other half, thus saving them great expense for railroad tickets, and giving them the pleasure of autoing the whole long distance, the excitement rose and would not be calmed down again.
So it was not only a happy Troop that shouted good-by to relatives, but also a flushed, merry group of nine girls who could not keep silent for long.
Ruth was in the rear seat of her father's car, which Jim was driving, when she suddenly sat up and called out to the chauffeur:
"I'm sure one of our suitcases on the trunk-rack at the back must be loose, Jim. I hear it bump about every time you go over a rough place in the road."
"It can't be, Miss Ruth," returned Jim, trying to peer out and see the baggage; "I strapped 'em on good and tight before we left."
"Well, it happens to be my suitcase that's on top, and I'm sure I don't want to lose it," declared Ruth.
"Maybe we'd better stop and make sure about it; we can soon catch up with Verny again," suggested Judith.
So Jim sprang out to investigate. "The suitcases are all right, Miss Ruth, but somethin's wrong in the back all right."
At that Ruth jumped out and joined the man. "What is it?" asked she, anxiously.
"The sag in that spring 'pears to me to say it is about done for. We'll have to travel slow till we find a garage."
