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THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A WINTER CAMP

CHAPTER I

DANGER

"How cold it is!" exclaimed Grace Ford, wrapping closer about her a fur neck-piece, and plunging her gloved hands deeper into the pockets of her maroon sweater. "I had no idea it was so chilling!"

"Nonsense!" cried Betty Nelson, her cheeks aglow. "Skate about, and you'll soon be warm enough. Isn't it glorious, Mollie?"

"Surely, and the ice is perfect. Come on Grace, and we'll see who'll be first to the bend!" and Mollie, her dark eyes dancing under the spell of the day, circled about the almost shivering Grace, doing a gliding waltz on skates.

"I don't want to race!" protested the tall, slim girl who had complained about the weather.

"Oh, but you must!" insisted Betty. "Come, we'll have a short, sharp one, and then you'll feel so warm you'll wonder you ever said it was chilly."

"I wish I had brought along that vacuum bottle of hot chocolate, as I intended," murmured Grace, reflectively.

"Nobody stopped you!" exclaimed Mollie, a trifle sharply. Of late she had had less and less patience with the "confectionery-failing" of Grace, as she termed it.

"Yes, you did!" declared the cold one. "You and Bet were in such a rush I didn't have time. I wish I hadn't come skating," and Grace permitted as much of a frown to gather on her pretty face as she ever indulged herself in—for Grace, be it known, was just a trifle vain, and desperately afraid of a wrinkle.

"Oh, well, come on and skate!" invited Betty. "Amy and I will race you and Mollie, Grace. That will—make us all feel better," for the Little Captain, as she was often called, saw just the shadow of a cloud gathering over the two chums, who seldom, or never, quarreled.

"Does Amy want to?" asked Grace, glancing at a quiet girl who was adjusting her skates. Amy was always quiet, but of late her chums had noted that she was more than usually so. And they guessed, rightly, that it had to do with the mystery surrounding her identity, which mystery Amy had almost given up hope of solving.

"Yes, I'll race," said Amy gently, and she smiled. Amy was always willing to oblige, and she did not often consult her own personal feelings.

Something like a look of disappointment passed over the countenance of Grace. Seeing it Mollie laughed.

"Grace was hoping Amy would say no, so she could get out of it!" cried vivacious Mollie. "That's the time you didn't say the right thing, Amy."

"Oh, well, if nothing but a race will satisfy you, I suppose I must," and Grace gave in "gracefully." "I'm nearly perished standing still, anyhow, and skating can't make me much worse."

"It will be all the better," insisted Betty. "Now we'll race in this fashion—team work to count. Amy and I in one team, you and Grace in the other, Mollie. Whichever member of the team gets to the bend first will win. You see," Betty explained, "one of a team might fall, or turn her ankle, or get tired, and then the other could keep on. It's like a relay race."

"Oh, well, if I have to—I suppose I have to," and Grace said this with such a doleful sigh that the others laughed heartily, even quiet Amy joining.

"On your marks!" cried Betty. "Let's show that we are worthy of our names—true Outdoor Girls."

"Show who?" asked Grace looking around.

"Well, here comes your brother Will, for one, and I think Allen Washburn and Frank Haley are with him," spoke Betty, shading her eyes with her hands, and gazing off across the sparkling surface of the frozen Argono River.

"Can't you see Percy Falconer?" asked Mollie mischievously, referring to a certain foppish lad, who seemed to have a great fondness for the Little Captain.

"If there was any snow here I'd wash your face!" cried Betty, her cheeks flaming more than before—for, be it known, she did not reciprocate the feeling that "burned in Percy's manly bosom," to quote the rather jeering remarks of Grace.

"I'd rather Allen would do it," murmured Mollie. "That is, if you will let him, Betty."

"Let him? Why shouldn't I?" demanded Betty rather sharply, but she turned her head away, and bit her lips.

"Oh, nothing, only the other night, when you and he went on such a long walk down the road, I thought perhaps you might have come to some understanding——"

"Mollie Billette, if you don't stop——!" began Betty, and then the approach of three young men on their ringing skates forced her to conclude rather quickly.

"Hello, girls," greeted Will Ford, the brother of the willowy Grace, "what's doing?" Will was just the opposite of his sister, being rather short and chunky.

"We're going to have a race," said Betty quickly, perhaps to forestall any resumption of the embarrassing conversation, now that the subject of it was present.

"A race!" exclaimed Allen, a rising young lawyer. "May we join in?"

"This is strictly a ladies' relay race," explained Mollie. "You may be judges, or starters and offer the prizes, though, if you like."

"And the prizes——?" suggested Frank, who was Will's special chum.

"Hot chocolates when we go back to town," said Betty quickly. "I know Grace will agree."

"Indeed I will," the latter said. "I don't care how much fun you make of me, but I am cold, and—and——"

"Us 'ikes tandy—don't us!" interrupted Will, mimicking the little twin brother and sister of Mollie, whose penchant for sweets was only equalled by the longing of Grace.

"Easy," said Betty softly. "Well, if we're going to race, let's do it. Boys, you see fair play. It's to be