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XXI Thirteen Girls in the Mountains

XXII A Sleighride Home

"Camp Fire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains"

OR

"A Christmas Success Against Odds"

By STELLA M. FRANCIS.

* * * * *

CHAPTER I.

THE GRAND COUNCIL FIRE.

"Wo-he-lo for aye,
Wo-he-lo for aye,
Wo-he-lo, Wo-he-lo, Wo-he-lo for aye!
Wo-he-lo for work,
Wo-he-lo for health,
Wo-he-lo, Wo-he-lo, Wo-he-lo for love."

Two hundred and thirty-nine girl voices chanted the Wo-he-lo Cheer
with weird impressiveness. The scene alone would have been impressive
enough, but Camp Fire Girls are not satisfied with that kind of
"enough." Once their imagination is stimulated with the almost
limitless possibilities of the craft, they are not easily pleased with
anything but a finished product.

The occasion was the last Grand Council Fire of Hiawatha Institute for
Camp Fire Girls located in the Allegheny city of Westmoreland. The
classroom work had been rushed a day ahead, examinations were made
almost perfunctory, and for them also the clock had been turned
twenty-four hours forward. The curriculum was finished, and the day
just closed had been devoted to preparation for a Grand Council
wind-up for the fifteen Fires of the Institute, which would "break
ranks" on the following day and scatter in all directions for home and
the Christmas holidays.

And there was literal truth in this "break ranks" method of dismissing
school at the Institute. Since the United States entered the European
war on the side of the anti-frightfulness allies, Hiawatha had become
something of a military school. The girls actually drilled with guns,
and they would shoot those guns with all the grim fatality of so many
boys. Not that they expected to go to war and descend into the
trenches and fire hail-storms of steel-coated death-messengers at the
enemy. Oh, no. They might, but they were sensible enough not to let
their imagination carry them so far. But preparedness was in the air,
and the girls voted to a--a--girl (I almost said man, for they were as
brave as men in many respects) to take up military drill and tactics
two hours a week as a part of their curriculum.

Madame Cleaver, head of the Institute, did not start the military
movement rashly. She was carefully diplomatic in the conduct of her
school, for she must satisfy the critical tastes and ideas of a
high-class parentage clientele. But sh