CHAPTER II
BAD NEWS
The girls stared wide-eyed at Betty while slowly the color drained fromtheir faces. It was true they had been dreading just this news for along, long time, yet now that it had come they felt strangely quiet andnumb. They had much the same feeling as one who had received a stunningblow. Until the paralysis had passed there could be no pain. That wouldcome later.
"How do you know?" asked Mollie at last, in a voice that sounded strangeeven to herself. "Frank hasn't mentioned it."
"He will probably, toward the end," Betty explained, while slowly herheart contracted and the tears welled to her eyes. "Allen didn't--nottill the last sentence. It's only a line, but th-that's enough. He saysnot to be alarmed if his letters are delayed--it may be hard to get themthrough."
"They are going to the front," Amy repeated dazedly, as if she found ithard to really believe. "When--did he say when, Betty?"
"No, he didn't," said Betty slowly. "But you know Allen. He wouldn'thave said anything about it if the time hadn't been pretty close athand."
"Why," cried Grace, catching her breath as though the thought had justoccurred to her, "they may be in the front line trenches now! They maybe--they may be--"
And while the girls gazed at her in tragic silence, imagining terrible,unbelievable things, a moment will be taken to sketch briefly for thebenefit of new readers the various exciting or amusing adventures whichhad befallen the Outdoor Girls in the days before the grim shadow of warhad spread itself over the land.
In the first volume of the series, entitled "The Outdoor Girls ofDeepdale," the girls had formed a camping and tramping club and hadtramped for miles over the country, meeting with many interestingadventures on the way.
After this, one good time had followed hard on the heels of another,first at Rainbow Lake, then at a winter camp where they had novel andinteresting experience on skates and ice-boats.
At Ocean View some time later the Outdoor Girls had cleared up a mysterycentering about a strange box they had found in the sand. Then hadfollowed that splendid summer at Pine Island, when the girls hadaccidentally discovered a gypsy cave and had succeeded not only inrounding up the band of gypsies but in recovering several valuablearticles that had been stolen from them. The four boys who were nowfacing the enemy in France had shared in their fun that summer, pitchingcamp near the bungalow of the girls.
Their next adventure found the girls and boys again at Pine Island, butunder greatly altered circumstances. America had just entered the greatwar, and the four boys had responded eagerly to the bugle call. Laterthey were sent to Camp Liberty for training, to which the girls soonfollowed them to work in the Hostess House.
Will Ford, the brother of Grace, had caused the girls, and especiallyhis sister, anxiety and uneasiness because of his failure to enlist withthe other boys. In the end he justified himself, however, by deliveringa German spy to justice and enlisting in the service of his countryimmediately afterward. The girls also recovered some valuable jewelrythat the spy had stolen from them.
Then in the volume directly preceding this, entitled "The Outdoor Girlsat the Hostess House," the girls had befriended an old woman who hadbeen knocked down by an unscrupulous motorcyclist. They later learnedthe secret tragedy in the life of their little old lady.
Now the girls had come home to Deepdale for a much needed rest, only tobe confronted with the terrible, though, naturally, expected, news thatthe boys had been ordered to the front.
"Yes they may be, probably are, facing death at this minute," saidMollie slowly, finishing the broken sentence. "Perhaps at the veryminute we were playing and singing and enjoying ourselves--"
"Mollie, don't!" cried Amy brokenly. "I don't feel as if I could everenjoy myself again."
"Well, we've got to, whether we can or not," said Betty, striving tocontrol her quivering lips and tilting her little chin at a brave angle."We can't just lie down at the very first shot, you know."
"You talk as if we were on the firing line," said Grace hysterically.
"I suppose in a way we are," returned the Little Captain slowly, wishingdesperately that those troublesome tears would stay where theybelonged--her eyes were so misty she could hardly see Grace! "Only oursis a harder kind of battle, because it's made up mostly of waiting andworking without any of the thrill and excitement of the real fight tohelp us. But I'd like to know," and there was a little ring of pride andrenewed courage in her voice, "what the real fighters would do withoutus anyway. We're just as much soldiers as they are, and if we don't doour share, they can't do theirs."
"Of course you are right, Betty dear, you always are!" cried Mollie,taking heart and even smiling a little. "We can't do anybody good bymoping."
"No," added Grace with a philosophy unusual in her. "That's why we havethe hardest share, I guess--because we have to keep gay and bright, nomatter how we feel."
"And we still have our work at the Hostess House," Amy reminded them."Maybe," she added, a little wistfully, "if we work hard enough we'll beable to forget--"
"What's all this about working and forgetting?" cried Mrs. Nelson,coming gayly into the room. "I thought you had come home for avacation."
The girls explained, and Mrs. Nelson looked pityingly at their graveyoung faces.
"So that is it," she was beginning, when Mollie sprang to her feet witha cry. She was staring at the paper that Mrs. Nelson had carelesslythrown on the table.
"What is it?" they cried, as she snatched it up and read the glaringheadlines.
"The Hostess House!" gasped Mollie. "Gone! Burnt up! Read this!"
Dazedly the girls obeyed, the big type seeming to strike them in theface as they read:
"Great Fire at Camp Liberty! Hostess House and Several BarracksBuildings Burned to the Ground!"