re had to be made, and they worked with
feverish haste. But they were in time. Bessie and Dolly sent up the
first smoke signal before any pillar appeared at the other end of the
lake. But the margin was small, for the first Boy Scout pillar rose
just as they sent up their third!

CHAPTER XI

OFF TO THE MOUNTAINS

Two days after the triumph over the Boy Scouts in the test of the trip
to Twin Peaks and back, and bidding good-bye regretfully to Long Lake,
the girls started on the long tramp that was to take them through the
mountains and to the valley below them on the other side.

"I've decided not to try to do any camping on the trip," said Eleanor,
"We could have more fun that way, perhaps, but it would mean carrying a
lot more, and I think the loads we've got are plenty big enough. I
know my own pack is going to feel heavy enough when we strike some of
the real climbing later on."

"I should think we could do much better, too, in the way of interesting
others in the Camp Fire," said Margery, "if we stay at farm houses or
wherever they will take us in. We'll seem to be more among them, and
of them. Don't you think so?"

Eleanor smiled at Margery, pleased that she should have guessed one of
her reasons for adopting the course she had chosen. She was already
thinking seriously of the time when Margery should be able to take her
place as a Guardian.

"We won't start tramping right away, you know," said Eleanor, as they
disembarked from the boats at the end of Long Lake, and started over
the trail for the railroad. "We could tramp through these woods, but
it's very slow going, and I feel that we'd do better if we took the
train to Crawford, or Lake Dean, where we strike the road through the
notch. That will give us a good start, and give us very beautiful and
interesting country for our first day's walk."

"Shall we go on the same railroad we came up on, Miss Eleanor?" asked
Bessie.

"For a little way. We change a few stations further on, though, and
get on the line that climbs right up into the mountains. There's no
real road that we could follow. We'd have to take wood trails. So
we'll save a lot of time here, and have it for the part of the trip
where we can have some really good walking."

The trip to Moose Junction did not take long. The place seemed hardly
worthy of its name. There was no imposing station, but only a little
wooden shack with a long platform for freight. But at one si