"Father!" exclaimed Agony reproachfully, "do you think for a minute we'd do military drill with these shoes on?"

"But, Father," said Oh-Pshaw eagerly, "don't you really wish you could be there to see? I wish you could stay home awhile and play with us as you used to. Can't you? Do you have to go back to Philadelphia?"

Mr. Wing looked a little wistful, but he answered chafingly, "Wouldn't that be a great thing to do just now in the middle of one of the greatest cases in my career?"

"Oh, tell us about it," cried Agony eagerly. Agony was perfectly well aware of the fact that her father would never tell anything at home that was not also given out to the newspapers, but she liked to hear him tell that little in his own way.

"It's the Arnold Atterbury case,—you've read about it in the newspapers—the man who has been organizing strikes in the big munition plants," replied Mr. Wing. "We know he was only a tool in the hands of some powerful German agency, but who or what it is we do not know. But we mean to find out!" he added in a tone which gave a hint of the stern determination of his character. "We will track down those enemy influences like foxes to their holes!" His voice thundered out like the voice of judgment.

"Amen to that!" exclaimed the artist fervently, and, seizing his water glass from beside his plate, he sprang to his feet and raised it high in the air.

"Let's have a toast!" he cried. "Drink success to our cause and defeat to the enemy!"

The rest were on their feet in an instant, clinking Grandmother Wing's etched tumblers across the table and drinking the toast with all their hearts. That little incident put patriotic fervor into all of them and the evening was filled with animated discussions and hearty singing of war songs.

Migwan declared on the way home that Mr. Wing was the most charming man she had ever met. Hinpoha thought the artist was even more charming and hoped they would meet him often. Sahwah said nothing. She could not forget that the artist had seemed to doubt Veronica's sincerity, and it made her angry and she refused to acknowledge his fascinations. She walked close beside Veronica and linked arms with her as she walked.

Sahwah's feelings toward Veronica were crystallizing daily into a deep affection. In the old days she had not been moved by any great feeling of affection for her; she pitied her along with the rest and enjoyed her society after a fashion, but she stood not a little in awe of her mercurial temperament and her aristocratic ways, and much preferred the friendship of the simple, dispassionate Winnebagos. But now that she and Veronica had met after a year's separation, Sahwah suddenly realized that the dark-eyed, temperamental little Hungarian girl had an irresistible fascination for her; that her heart had gone out to her completely. Sahwah was by nature cool and unemotional, and not given to those sudden flares of friendship with which so many girls are constantly being consumed, which burn brilliantly for a short season and them go out of their own accord; it usually took a long time to kindle a friendship with her. Sahwah herself could not understand her sudden, fierce, almost motherly love for Veronica. It had not been of gradual growth like her other friendships; it had been born all in an instant that first night of her arrival at Carver House, when Veronica had played and through Sahwah's heart there had gone a strange thrill of sadness, a yearning for something which she could not understand.

From that time on Sahwah could hardly bear to have Veronica out of her sight; she wanted to be with her all day long; she was filled with a desire to protect her, to mother her, to caress her, to make her great dark eyes light with laughter, to go off alone with her, to discuss with her in private confidences the momentous affairs of girlhood.

Sahwah's soul was being strangely stirred in many ways these last few days. A queer restlessness had taken possession of her, totally foreign to her old tranquil, composed state of mind. Unexplainedly she found herself growing moody and dreamy; at times she had a curious feeling of having just experienced something, but what it was she could not remember; her mind went groping in its subconscious self for something which constantly eluded it, her heart—

"Went crooning a low song it could not learn, But wandered over it, as one who gropes For a forgotten chord upon a lyre."

At times she was filled with a great sadness, a poignant world-sorrow; at times with an indescribable exaltation, a longing to burst forth into triumphant song and tell the whole world of her gladness. Without knowing why or wherefore, she was vaguely conscious that in some way she was different from what she was before she came to Carver House, and she also knew that things would never be just as they were before. Somehow or other the focus had changed, a corner had been turned.

Equally unexplainable was the way in which these strange moods, these dim flashes, were subtly bound up with Veronica. It was Veronica that seemed to inspire these feelings, and similarly, it was these feelings that seemed to draw her to Veronica. Sahwah had never bothered her head about Destiny, that strange power that moves us about at will, like chessmen, and who, laying her hand upon us, makes our ways cross and intertwine themselves to work out her purposes; she only knew that in some way she was changing, and that her heart had gone out in a great flood of affection for Veronica Lehar.

Her very dreams, too, were filled with this strange new unrest, and she was continually wakeful at night—she who in former days fell asleep the instant her head touched the pillow, and enjoyed eight hours' dreamless slumber as regularly as clock-work.

It was the same again to-night. After several hours of fitful dreaming, Sahwah wakened, and in her half-consciousness there lingered an impression of eyes staring intently at her and a dream of being back in the railway train on the way to Nyoda's. The spell of the dream left her and she lay awake a long time, unaccountably happy, mysteriously sad, and with no desire to sleep.

Through the wide open window the moon poured in the fullness of its late glory and by and by Sahwah slipped from her bed and went over to the window, and, leaning her arms on the sill, sat looking out on the magic world. Below her the garden lay bathed in silver, with intense velvety black shadows, with only the faintest sigh of a breeze stirring the leaves. Far across in the valley she could see the roofs of the town shining white in the moonlight, and they seemed to be part of a magic city in which she now dwelt, far more real than the daytime town of familiar things. For a long time she leaned out over the sill, rapt and dreaming, unconscious of time, forgetful of the companions of her days, intoxicated by the moonlight until her blood raced madly through her veins and she was filled with an intense desire to go out and dance in the garden and flit in and out among the trees like a moon sprite.

Then, without warning, the strange, whimsical mood passed, and Sahwah was her old self again, the old alert, wide-awake self of former days, staring with concentrated attention at a figure which was moving rapidly through the garden. It had come from around the side of the house and was going toward the stable. Fully wide awake, Sahwah leaned farther over the sill and watched. The figure emerged from the great shadows of the elm trees into the glaring moonlight. With a start of surprise Sahwah saw that it was Veronica, fully dressed and with a cloak thrown about her shoulders. Before Sahwah had recovered herself sufficiently to call to her, Veronica had passed through the gate into the stable yard and was lost in the shadows of the high barn.

"Whatever can she want out there?" thought Sahwah, with visions of Kaiser Bill loose and on a rampage. But there were no disturbing sounds anywhere; Kaiser Bill was not out. Veronica did not go into the barn; she went around behind it and struck into the path that led down the hill to the carriage road below. The path was bathed in moonlight for a good part of its length; Veronica was plainly visible as she ran lightly along, and Sahwah watched wonderingly. Sahwah was very far sighted, and constant practice in focusing on distant objects enabled her to distinguish plainly things quite far away. Down at the bottom of the hill, where the path met the road, Sahwah saw Veronica come to a standstill and look about her for a few moments; then a man appeared in the road and together he and Veronica moved forward and vanished into the shadows that lay beyond.

Wondering, Sahwah stared after them, and as she looked a great, nameless dread took possession of her, and she experienced exactly the same peculiar sensation she had felt in the train coming down, a feeling of prescience and foreboding, of brooding evil. It gripped her heart with cold hands and she changed her intention of going to Nyoda's room and asking what was the matter with Veronica. Suddenly she felt that Nyoda would not know. All her heart cried out in love and loyalty to Veronica. The others must not find out what she had seen to-night. Veronica had simply gone out to take a walk in the moonlight; possibly she had a headache or was unable to sleep. It was a trick of the eyes that she had thought someone had been with her in the road; the distance and the waving shadows had deceived her. Why shouldn't Veronica steal out quietly and go for a walk if she wanted to? What time was it, anyway, eleven? Twelve? Sahwah switched on the light and looked at her watch. It was half past two.

She shivered as the freshening breeze came in through the window and became conscious that her bare feet were cold on the polished floor. She jumped into bed to get warm, intending to get up again and watch until Veronica returned, but the warmth of the bed sent a delicious languor through her limbs; she yawned once, twice; her eyes began to ache in the moonlight and she closed them to shut it out.

Presently she opened them again and there was the sun shining in on the bed. Moonlight and all its spells had fled. Had she dreamed that about Veronica last night? Resolutely she sprang from bed and tiptoed down the hall to Veronica's door. The tall clock on the stair landing showed a quarter to six. The door was half ajar and she peeped in. Veronica was in bed, sound asleep, her long lashes sweeping her ruddy cheek, her lips curved in a smile, like a baby's. Her clothes were on the chair beside the bed, and they did not look as if they had been disturbed in the night.

Sahwah laughed in relief and the fear went out of her heart.

"I dreamed it," she said to herself, and went back to bed for another nap before six o'clock, which was the official rising hour at Carver House.



CHAPTER VIII

SQUADS LEFT

"M-a-r-r-k t-i-m-e, m-a-h-k!"

Sixteen pairs of feet rose and fell with a soft thudding rhythm on the hard dirt road.

"One—two—three—four! One—two—three—four! F-or-r-r-d H'n-c-h!"

The double line of fours wavered for a moment and then strode forward uncertainly, some on the left foot, some on the right.

"HALT!" shouted the drill sergeant in a voice bristling with disgust.

The company halted.

"What does 'Forward Hunch' mean?" whispered Hinpoha to Sahwah, who stood beside her.

Sahwah shook her head.

"No talking in the ranks!" came the stern order from up front. Hinpoha subsided.

"R-r-r-i-g-h-t D-r-r-e-s-s!"

Heads whirled to the right as though turned by a single screw, and bent-up left elbows pressed stiffly into neighboring ribs.

"F-r-r-o-n-t!"

Heads whirled back and arms straightened out at sides as though released by a spring.

"R-r-i-g-h-t D-r-e-s-s!"

Heads and arms repeated their swift motions.

"Hold it! Hold it!" rasped the voice. "Who said 'Front?' Here, Redhead!"

Hinpoha hastily resumed the position she had abandoned too soon.

"Now, FRONT! Again, RIGHT DRESS! FRONT! R-r-r-e-a-d-y! M-a-r-r-k t-i-m-e, M-a-h-k! One-two-three-four! F-or-r-d HUNCH! Wake up there, Redhead!"

Hinpoha jumped and caught pace with the rest of her squad, who were several steps ahead, and then it dawned on her that "F-o-r-r-r-d Hunch!" must mean "Forward March!"

"One-two-three-four! Left! Left! Left! Left! You with the plaid tie, get in step!"

Migwan shuffled her feet and fell into rhythm.

"One-two-three-four!" The drill sergeant rapped out a jarringly emphatic accent against a tree with her staff.

She was a college gymnasium teacher home on her summer vacation; her name was Miss Raper. She had a tremendous reputation for rigid discipline in her classes. She had been trained in military drilling by an army drill officer and had acquired all his mannerisms, from the way of shouting his orders in such a way that it was next to impossible to understand them, to his merciless habit of calling out by name every one who made the slightest error.

"HALT! GUIDE RIGHT! Head to the front, there, Black Eyes! R-r-e-a-d-y! LEFT WHEEL!"

The squads wheeled in decidedly shaky order.

"Again! LEFT WHEEL! Hold your pivot there! H-o-l-d y-o-u-r p-i-v-o-t! Stand still, you Redhead, and wheel in place! Again! Left Wheel!"

So the endless tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp went on under the blistering July sun; the squads perspired and panted, muscles ached from the continued exertion and heels began to feel as though pounded to pulp from the violence with which they marked the accent.

But never a word of complaint did anyone breathe. They gloried in their discomfort. For this hot dusty road over which they toiled and perspired so was the road to glory, the avenue down which the girls of Oakwood, led by the Winnebagos, would march to triumph over their sworn rivals, the Hillsdale-ites.

Agony had gone through the town and picked out the most promising girls, whom, with the addition of the Winnebagos, she formed into a company. They drilled for an hour every morning with Miss Raper in the wide dirt road that ran along the foot of the hill behind Carver House.

The hour drew to a close with a final strenuous series of left and right wheels and the Winnebagos sought the shade of the trees along the roadside and fanned themselves with leaves.

"How did we do to-day, Miss Raper?" inquired Agony, as the drill sergeant prepared to depart.

"I congratulate you," replied Miss Raper with sarcastic wit. "I never saw it done worse."

The company recognized the fact that it was a tactical error to try to draw any praises to themselves from Miss Raper. Yet they did not consider themselves abused, nor did they harbor any hard feelings toward her on account of her sharp tongue. They realized that she was a "crackerjack" trainer, and for the sake of winning that contest they were willing to endure her caustic comments meekly.

"I'll never get left and right wheel correctly," sighed Oh-Pshaw with a discouraged air. "No matter which one she says, I always go in the opposite direction. I get so fussed when she looks at me that I can't tell my left foot from my right."

"Never mind, you'll get it in time," said Migwan soothingly. "I had the same trouble at first, but I'm getting sort of used to her now."

"I'm awfully stupid about things like that," mourned Oh-Pshaw, "and I'm afraid I'll never get over getting fussed. I never could stand up in front of anybody and perform; the minute I see people looking at me I forget everything I know and stand there like a dummy."

"Cheer up, child," said Migwan, "it isn't nearly as bad as you make out. Just think of the command and forget all about yourself and Miss Raper and then you'll get it right every time."

"I hope so," said Oh-Pshaw with a sigh.

"You'll have to get over it," said Agony emphatically. "If you make any mistakes on the night of the contest—!" Agony's voice hinted at the awful consequences which would follow such a misdemeanor.

"She isn't going to make any mistakes the night of the contest," said Migwan, putting her arm through Oh-Pshaw's and starting off toward Carver House.

The rest sauntered after them in twos and threes, practising drill steps as they went. Sahwah slipped her arm through Veronica's.

"Let's go over into the woods awhile before lunch," she said, "just us two."

Veronica came willingly and together they struck into the shady wood path, flecked here and there with irregular patches of sunlight which filtered through the branches above them. It was a pleasant place, this strip of woods crowning a gently rolling hill behind the town. Fallen logs thickly upholstered with moss made delightful sofas especially designed for friends to sit upon and exchange confidences. Veronica and Sahwah often came here on their walks.

Veronica was in a merry mood to-day and danced gaily down the path in pursuit of butterflies; waved her hands and called out gay greetings to the squirrels and chipmunks, and constantly exclaimed aloud in wonder and delight at some bit of brilliant orange-colored fungus, or some bright flower that greeted her eyes.

Sahwah was more quiet, and there was a sober look in her eyes. Her mind was filled with perplexity, and her heart with foreboding, and the cause was Veronica. The mystery that seemed to be hovering over her head had not been dispelled as the days went on; on the contrary, it had been deepened. Several more times Sahwah had seen her slipping out of the house at dead of night and an incident had occurred several days before which Sahwah was not able to put out of her mind.

Sahwah was behind the big carved settle in the hall, fishing for a bead that had rolled underneath, when the telephone rang. The telephone was in the hall, at the other end near the dining-room door. Sahwah sighed, thinking she would have to crawl out and answer it, because Nyoda and the girls were all out in the yard working among the vegetables, but just then she heard Veronica answer the call, and went on placidly feeling for her bead. Near to the telephone as she was, she could not help hearing every word Veronica said.

Instead of the "Mrs. Sheridan is in the garden, I will call her," that Sahwah had expected to hear. Veronica had answered, "This is Veronica talking. Yes, I can. I will come immediately. The coast is clear. No one is in the house just now and I can slip away without rousing any suspicions."

Then Sahwah heard her hang up the receiver and pass out of the hall. Sahwah sat up quickly and bumped her head sharply on the back of the settle. Then, as the significance of the conversation she had just overheard sank into her mind she remembered Veronica's mysterious nocturnal errands, and it came to her in a startled flash that Veronica was carrying on something which was a secret from the others—was stealing away from the house to meet someone. She sprang out from behind the settle, not knowing what she intended to do, but bent on seeing where Veronica went.

The hall was empty; Veronica was not there. Sahwah darted to the front door, expecting to see Veronica going down the walk to the street, but there was no sign of her. The street lay clear in the sunshine for its whole length down the hill; there was not a soul in it. Veronica could not have gone out the front way. Neither could she have gone out the back way, because the vegetable garden came up close to the kitchen door, and there Nyoda and the Winnebagos, including Agony and Oh-Pshaw, were working. Veronica must still be in the house. Sahwah went back in and looked through all the rooms for her, upstairs and down, but she was nowhere to be found.

Sahwah sat down on the lowest step of the stairway and thought, and thought, and a great dread came over her and would not be beaten back, a dread of something nameless and undefined, a sinister something that hovered over her with great dark wings, like the Thunder Bird. In an agony of love and sorrow Sahwah faced the fact which her prophetic soul, in its new insight, told her, even while her loyal heart tried to stop the whisper with a resolute hand.

Veronica had been caught in the toils of enemy agents, and was in some way having dealings with them. Sahwah's heart turned to water within her, and the strength went from her knees so that she could not stand up. Veronica, one of the Winnebagos! It was too horrible to believe! She couldn't believe it! She wouldn't believe it! Her loyal heart stood up firmly to her prophetic soul and shouted defiant denials at its insinuating whispers. No, no! Veronica was not deceiving them; she was the sincere, true-hearted girl they thought her, and she was as loyal to America as they were. There must be some explanation for her mysterious actions; it would all come out in time. She would be true to Veronica and keep what she knew to herself, until she found out the truth. She would never let Veronica know that she suspected her, never. All her love for Veronica came over her in a rush and scattered to flight the dark suspicions.

A call from the garden broke on her ear. "Sahwah! Oh, Sahwah! Where are you?"

"Here," she answered, appearing at the back door.

"Where have you been?" called Hinpoha. "We've been calling and calling for you. Come look at the robin trying to swallow the enormous angle worm twice as big as himself!"

Sahwah went out, trying to look perfectly natural, and feeling as though her secret were written on her face in letters a foot high. She looked at the girls closely, to see if by any chance Veronica were among them, but she was not.

"Where's Veronica?" she asked in a voice which she hoped sounded idle and casual.

"Gone up to her room to lie down a while," replied Nyoda. "She got a headache from the sun. She asked to be left undisturbed until dinner time."

("Oh, if she only were in her room," thought poor Sahwah!)

"Come on and help pick raspberries," said Nyoda. "We miss your nimble fingers."

So Sahwah fell to work among the bushes, absently stripping off the luscious red globes into the baskets, but her mind was far away and she took little part in the gay talk that went on around her. By and by, when the berries were all picked, Migwan said:

"Let's make a basket of leaves and fill it with some of the largest berries and take it to Veronica."

Sahwah's heart bounded painfully. "Let me take it up," she begged.

"All right," replied Migwan. "The rest of us are going to walk over with Agony and Oh-Pshaw while they take their berries home."

The rest went out of the front gate and Sahwah, not knowing what else to do, went upstairs to Veronica's room, carrying the berries. She planned to leave them on Veronica's dresser as a surprise for her when she should return, and then sit in her own room and read until dinner time. Thinking Veronica's room was empty she went right in without knocking. Then she paused in astonishment, for there on the bed lay Veronica, with a wet towel tied around her head and her forehead drawn up into painful headache lines. Sahwah nearly dropped the berries on the floor in her surprise, but recovered herself with an effort and approached the bed.

Veronica opened her eyes and smiled when she saw Sahwah. Sahwah, unable to think of a thing to say, held out the berries silently, and Veronica exclaimed in delight:

"You dear thing," she said, taking the dainty basket in one hand and catching hold of Sahwah's hand with the other. "You're so good to me," she whispered, squeezing the hand she held and looking up at Sahwah with wide-open, candid eyes. "Come, sit on my bed, and make my headache go away, like you did once before."

Sahwah sat down beside her and smoothed her throbbing forehead with light, soothing fingers that had a magic power to charm away aches and pains. As she worked over Veronica and caught the sweet, straightforward glances from her eyes all her doubts concerning her vanished, and in their place there came uncertainty as to whether she herself had not been suffering under a delusion that afternoon. Had she really heard the telephone ring and Veronica answer it? Had hearing played some bizarre trick on her? She seemed to be perfectly awake and in her right mind in other respects. The girls had evidently not noticed anything peculiar about her actions when she came out of the house, not even Nyoda, the sharp sighted. Clearly she had not been walking in her sleep. She had certainly heard the telephone ring; she had certainly heard Veronica answer it. She had understood every word she had said perfectly; the hall had been absolutely still. And yet—she had not heard Veronica go out of either door! She remembered that distinctly, but her first impulse had been to wait until Veronica had gone out of the front door and then look after her. It was impossible not to have heard the front door open; one hinge was rusty and it emitted a dismal squeak every time the door opened. But if she had gone out of the back door the others would have seen her and would not have said that she was upstairs in her room. That was the point which made Sahwah doubt her own memory. Veronica had not left the house; she must have gone right upstairs. And she must have said something else through the telephone and Sahwah's ears had played her a trick. It was easy to have missed her in her search through the big house; Sahwah had merely run into one room after another, given a hasty glance around and then run on to the next.

Sahwah smoothed the brown satiny forehead lovingly, and laughed at herself for a suspicious idiot. And yet, the occurrence would not go from her mind, and she wakened in the night to think about it hour after hour and when she did sleep she was oppressed with a constant feeling of uneasiness, and woke again and again with that sense of groping after something that had just occurred, but which had escaped her utterly.

Then the next morning her doubts all vanished once more when the Winnebagos assembled on the front lawn for flag raising, and Veronica, whose turn it was to hoist the Stars and Stripes, stepped out with shining eyes, and with loving hands fastened the flag of her adopted country to the waiting halyard, carefully keeping it from touching the ground, and with an attitude both proud and humble sent it fluttering to the top of the pole. Then she joined in the singing of the "Star Spangled Banner" with all her soul in her voice.

Clearly her actions told more eloquently than any passionate words her love and reverence for that flag and all it symbolized. No, it could not be possible that she could be connected with anything that aimed to harm it.

And yet—that very night Sahwah had seen Veronica leaving the house after midnight when the rest were all asleep, and going down the hill behind the barn, and at the sight Sahwah had experienced that same indescribable chill of fear that she had felt in the train; a peculiar sense of hovering danger; a sensation which she could never clearly define while it lasted nor describe afterwards.

She still kept the secret, but it haunted her day and night and tormented her with its thousand possibilities. At last it seemed as if she could endure it no longer without an explanation of some kind and she made up her mind to ask Veronica about it. For this end she had asked her to come into the woods to-day.

But the sight of Veronica, skipping gaily before her along the path, whistling to the birds, calling the squirrels, whispering affectionate words to the shy flowers, made her fears seem ridiculous, and her resolution wavered and threatened to crumble. There was not a shadow on Veronica's brow, not a glint of furtiveness in her eye, nowhere a hint of any secret knowledge or subdued excitement. Her eyes met Sahwah's with candid directness, her laughter was spontaneous and not forced; she was neither paler than usual nor more flushed. How perfectly absurd to connect this happy-hearted girl with anything suspicious!

And yet—Sahwah knew now beyond a doubt that she had not been dreaming when she saw Veronica leave the house at night, and there was still that strange conversation over the telephone.

Sahwah slackened her pace and rubbed her ankles together, a gesture which in her denoted intensely concentrated thought. Veronica looked back to see where she was and came back to her, slipping her arm around her waist and hugging her in an ecstasy of girlish delight, born of the beautiful weather and the release from strenuous military drill.

"Oh, look at the darling old stump!" she exclaimed. "Why, it must be miles across! Think what a tree that must have been! See, it has a sort of step up and then a broad seat, just like a throne. Come on, let's climb up and pretend we're queens."

She climbed up on the stump and drew Sahwah up after her.

"Why are you so quiet?" she asked finally, twisting her head and looking around into Sahwah's face. "Have you a headache? The sun was so hot out there in the road where we were drilling, and the glare was so blinding."

"No, I haven't a headache," replied Sahwah slowly.

"A toothache, maybe?" suggested Veronica in a playful voice in which there was a dash of concern. It was unusual indeed for Sahwah to lose her animation.

"No, it isn't a toothache," replied Sahwah. "It's just something I've been trying to figure out, that's all."

"Can I help you figure it out?" asked Veronica eagerly.

"Veronica," began Sahwah, striving to speak in an offhand manner, "if—if you had a friend that you loved and that friend did something that you couldn't understand and which seemed very strange and even suspicious to you, what would you do?"

Veronica's eyes took on a thoughtful, far-away look, but they met Sahwah's squarely. "If I loved that friend very much," she replied slowly, "and had always trusted her before, I would say to myself, 'This is my friend whom I love and trust I don't understand what she is doing, but I won't permit myself to have any doubts about her now. I will have faith that she is doing nothing wrong. I will wait patiently and see what happens further, and very likely the matter will soon be explained to my satisfaction,'"

"But," continued Sahwah, slowly and with an evident effort, "supposing you had done that, had refused to have any doubts concerning your friend and had waited patiently, trusting that it was all right, but things had not been explained to your satisfaction, and other things had happened, things still stranger and more suspicious?"

To Sahwah, watching intently, it seemed that Veronica's large luminous eyes had suddenly filmed over like an animal's in pain, but she answered naturally, in her calm, sweet voice, "Then, if I really loved that friend, and was afraid my suspicions were going to injure our friendship, I would go to her and tell her what I had heard and seen and ask her for an explanation."

Sahwah was silent for a moment, seemingly engaged in some inward struggle with herself. Then she cleared her throat nervously and moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue.

"Veronica," she burst out desperately, "why did you go out of the house in the middle of the night on several occasions, and whom were you talking to on the telephone that day when you said to someone that you could slip out at that time without arousing any suspicions?"

Veronica started painfully and stared at Sahwah in amazement, and Sahwah fancied she saw a great terror leap up in her eyes. Veronica looked at her a moment, the expression of astonishment frozen on her face, and then to Sahwah's great bewilderment she laughed aloud, a genuine, mirthful, unforced, ringing laugh.

"Sahwah dear," she said, looking her straight in the eye, "it's perfectly true, all that you said. I did go out of the house in the middle of the night, and I did say just exactly what you said you heard me say over the telephone. But as for the explanation, I can't give it now. It may be that you will never find out. It is not my secret, and I cannot tell it, even to clear away any suspicions you may have regarding it."

Sahwah gazed at her uncertainly, going over in her mind the unexpected effect her words had had upon Veronica, and the mysterious thing she had said in reply. They had both stepped off the throne and stood facing each other in the path. Veronica came up close to Sahwah and slipped a hand around each of her elbows and squeezed them, her favorite caress.

"Sahwah, dear," she said soberly, while the hurt animal look came back into her eyes, "you wouldn't want me to tell you my secret, would you, dear? I wouldn't want you to tell me yours, if you had one."

Sahwah felt rebuked and abashed, and very, very sorry. Her love for Veronica flamed higher than ever; all doubts concerning her vanished for good; she hugged and caressed her and begged to be forgiven for her foolishness, and with arms tightly entwined the two went blithely down the path.



CHAPTER IX

THE BABES IN THE WOODS

Arm in arm Sahwah and Veronica wandered on through the woods farther and farther away from the Oakwood side. They crossed the brow of the hill and descended to the valley on the other side. There they found a merry little stream which tumbled along with frequent cataracts over mossy rocks, and followed its course, often stopping to dip their hands in the bright water and let the drops flow through their fingers.

"I'd love to be a brook," said Sahwah longingly, "and go splashing and singing along over the smooth stones, and jump down off the high rocks, and catch the sunlight in my ripples, and have lovely silvery fishes swimming around in me. I'd sing them all to sleep every night, and wake them up in the morning with a kiss, and never, never let anyone catch them!"

"You love the water better than anything else, don't you?" said Veronica, looking at Sahwah and thinking how much like the brook she was herself.

"Oh, I do, I do," said Sahwah, taking off her shoes and stockings and wading into the limpid stream. Soon she was dancing in the water, frolicking like a nixie, catching the water up in her hands and tossing it into the air and then darting out from beneath it before it could fall upon her. Veronica laughed and clapped her hands as she watched Sahwah, and wished she were an artist that she might paint the picture.

Finally they came to a place where the little stream poured down over a high rock and ran through a broad gully, widening into a great pond in the natural basin, which was like a huge bowl scooped out of rock.

"This must be the place they call the Devil's Punch Bowl that Nyoda told us about," said Sahwah. "See, it looks just like a punch bowl."

"I wonder if it's very deep," said Veronica, peering into the water from a safe distance away from the edge.

"Shall I dive in and find out?" asked Sahwah.

"Oh, don't, don't," said Veronica, catching hold of her arm.

"Don't worry, you precious old goosie," said Sahwah, laughing. "I didn't mean really. I was only in fun. Did you think I was going in with my clothes on? It must be deep, though, or the Indian couldn't have jumped in. That must be the rock up there he jumped from," she said, indicating a flat, platform-like rock that overhung the gully some forty feet above their heads. "Don't you remember Nyoda telling about it; how the soldiers were chasing this Indian and he got out on that rock and dove down into the Punch Bowl and swam under water and they never thought of looking down there for him?"

Both looked at the rock jutting out over the water, and shuddered at the height of the drop. At the far side of the gully the pond became a brook again and flowed on in a narrow channel the same as before. The woods were denser on this side of the gully and there was less sunlight filtering down through the branches. Several times they came upon clusters of fragile, pale Indian pipes growing out of wet, decayed stumps.

"Oh, it's nice here," breathed Veronica, revelling in the coolness.

"'This is the forest primeval,'" quoted Sahwah, "'The murmuring pines and the hemlocks—'"

"Only they aren't murmuring pines and hemlocks," she finished. "They're mostly oaks and beeches."

"It isn't the primeval forest, either," said Veronica. "There's a tent over there between the trees."

"Gracious!" exclaimed Sahwah, "and here am I, coming along with my shoes and stockings in my hand!" She sat down hastily and put on her foot-gear.

The tent stood quite close to the brook path and when they were nearly up to it they heard, coming from around the other side of it, a sound of vigorous splashing, punctuated by protesting squawks. Involuntarily the two girls stood still and listened. Above the squawking rose a voice.

"'Curse on him,' quote false Sextus, 'will not the villain drown?'" it declaimed dramatically.

Then in a moment the splashes and squawks increased to an uproar, and then around the corner of the tent there came a chicken in full flight, its leathers dripping with water, in spite of which it made amazingly fast time. After the chicken came a balloon-like figure in a sky-blue bathrobe, uttering breathless grunts which were evidently intended to be peremptory commands to the chicken to halt its flight. At the sight of the two girls standing in the path the bath-robed pursuer fell back in astonishment.

"'What noble Lucumo comes next to taste our Roman cheer?'" he exclaimed with a dramatic wave of the hand.

Then he stood transfixed, the gesture frozen in mid-air. "Sahwah!" he gasped. "Veronica! where in the world——"

The girls started forward with unbelieving eyes. "Slim!" cried Sahwah. "What are you doing here?"

"Tenting on the Old Camp Ground," replied Slim, holding his voluminous bathrobe primly around him with one hand to cover the bathing suit which he wore under it, and shaking hands vigorously with the other.

Then, making a trumpet of his hands, he called loudly, "Captain, oh, Captain, come here quick!"

There was an upheaval inside the tent and the sound of something falling, and in a moment a second youth appeared around the corner of the tent, clad in khaki trousers and a blue and white blazer.

"What's the matter?" he asked in alarm. Then he saw the girls and threw up his hands in amazement. "For the love of Mike!" he exclaimed elegantly.

"Captain!" cried Sahwah.

Rapturous greetings followed.

"Of all things," said Sahwah, "to run across you two in the woods like this! What on earth are you doing here? We thought you were doing some summer work at your college."

"We are," replied the Captain, looking from one to the other of the girls with a face beaming with delight at the unexpected meeting. "We're making a survey of different parts of the state—it's part of our course—and incidentally we're compiling certain statistics for the government."

"Oh!" said the two girls respectfully.

"But what, if I might make so bold as to ask," said the Captain, "are you two doing here in the wet, wild woods, all by your wild lone?"

Sahwah explained and extended a cordial invitation for the two boys to come to Carver House whenever they had time.

"Is Hinpoha there?" asked Slim and the Captain simultaneously.

"She certainly is," replied Sahwah.

Slim squinted critically down his nose at his tub-like form. "Do you think I've gotten any thinner?" he asked anxiously.

Sahwah scrutinized, him closely for signs of reduction and decided he might possibly be half a pound thinner than when she saw him last. Slim sighed and looked pensive and Sahwah had hard work to keep her face straight.

"But what on earth was all that racket as we came up?" she asked, unable to restrain her curiosity on that point any longer. "What were you chasing the chicken for?"

Slim's eye roved regretfully back toward the trees among which the chicken had vanished, and the Captain answered for him.

"You see," he exclaimed, "today is Slim's birthday and we were going to celebrate by having a chicken dinner. So Slim went out to buy a chicken and came back with a live one. Then he didn't have the heart to chop its head off, and was trying to drown it in a barrel of water when you came up. By the way, Slim, where is it now?"

Slim pointed to the bushes with an expression of chagrin on his fat face. "It's gone," he said with a sigh of regret. "A dollar and eighty-seven cents' worth of chicken stew running loose on the landscape."

"But it wasn't the nerve I lacked to chop its head off," he added, looking reproachfully at the Captain. "It was the hatchet. You see," he explained, "we didn't exactly come prepared to catch our meals on the hoof, so to speak, and all I had to chop his head off with was the can-opener on my pocket knife, and that wouldn't work, so I had to drown him."

"Oh, you funny boys!" said Sahwah, laughing uncontrollably.

"I think you might have helped me hold him down," said Slim to the Captain in an injured tone.

"I couldn't," replied the Captain gravely. "The butter got overcome with the heat and I was reviving it with a fan."

"Oh, you babes in the woods, you!" said Sahwah, with another burst of laughter. "You must be having the time of your lives."

"We are," replied the Captain. "Won't you stay to dinner? There isn't anything to eat but a can of tomato soup, but you're welcome to that."

"Oh, we hadn't better," replied Sahwah, "they will be wondering at home what has become of us, and besides, it would make too much trouble for you."

"Too much trouble!" snorted the Captain. "That's just like a girl. As if a girl ever cared how much trouble she made for a fellow! Come on and stay, we want you. We're lonesome."

Thus pressed, the girls accepted the invitation, and pretty soon they were all sitting in a circle under the trees with cups and spoons in their hands, and the Captain was singing at the top of his voice:

"Glorious, glorious, One can of soup for the four of us, Praises be, there are no more of us, For the four of us can drink it all alone!"

Lunch over, they exchanged gossip under the trees for a merry half hour, then the girls took their departure and sped homeward to carry the news to Carver House.



CHAPTER X

THE OPENING CAREER OF MANY EYES

"Good morning, Winnebago friends, With your faces as bright as mine, Good morning, Winnebago friends, You're surely looking fine, Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust, If the pancakes don't get you the syrup must Good morning, Winnebago friends, With your faces as bright as, Your faces as bright as, Your faces as bright as mine!"

The Winnebagos, happy and hungry, gathered around the breakfast table in answer to the summons which Hinpoha had just sent echoing through the house. With the advent of the Winnebagos at Carver House, Nyoda's melodiously chiming Japanese dinner gong had been discarded in favor of a hoarse-throated fish horn, which bore some similarity to the sound of a bugle and was therefore to be preferred because it had more of a military flavor.

"Where's Sahwah?" asked Nyoda, noticing that her place was vacant

Nobody knew.

Hinpoha blew a second blast of the horn up the stairway, making a noise that would have waked the Seven Sleepers with ease, but there was no answer.

"Sahwah must be out taking a morning walk," announced Hinpoha, when her horn blast had failed to rout out the absentee, "she's forever exercising herself in the early morning hours—as if we didn't get enough exercise doing military drill! It's no wonder she's like a beanpole. I would be, too, if I was forever trotting the way she is. Here she comes now, tearing up the walk like a racehorse!"

"She probably heard your horn on the other side of the woods," said Nyoda, laughing, "and got here before it stopped blowing."

Sahwah came in quite out of breath and evidently tremendously enthusiastic about something.

"Nyoda," she burst out as soon as she was inside the door, "how fast would a Primitive Woman go up and how many pounds would she pull?"

"What?" asked Nyoda, looking up inquiringly from the cup of cocoa she was handing to Gladys. The rest of the Winnebagos looked at Sahwah in open-mouthed astonishment.

"How fast would a Primitive Woman go up and how many pounds would she pull?" repeated Nyoda. "What is it, a riddle?"

"No, a kite," replied Sahwah impatiently. "I mean a kite built like Many Eyes, our Primitive Woman symbol; would she fly high and pull a heavy tail?"

"I haven't the slightest idea," replied Nyoda. "Why do you ask?"

"Because I've entered the kite-flying contest that the Boy Scouts of this town are having, and I thought of building my kite in the Primitive Woman shape."

"You've entered a kite-flying contest that the Boy Scouts are having!" exclaimed Hinpoha in surprise. "How on earth did you happen to do that?"

"It's open to outsiders," replied Sahwah. "I saw a Scout nailing a bulletin on a tree in the square down town challenging all the boys in town to a kite-flying contest on Commons Field next Saturday afternoon."

"All the boys in town!" replied Hinpoha. "Since when are you a boy?"

"Well," replied Sahwah, "I read the sign and I remembered how I used to love to fly kites with my brother and I thought what fun it would be to go into the contest. So I ran after the Scout who had nailed up the bulletin and asked him if we Winnebagos couldn't enter the contest, and he was awfully nice about it when he heard we were Camp Fire Girls. He said of course we couldn't build a decent kite, no girl could, but if we wanted to go into the contest and get beaten the Scouts wouldn't care. So I wrote our name in the space under the announcement that was left for the entries, and we're going to be in the contest! On the way home I thought of building the kite in the shape of Primitive Woman, which would be original and symbolic. Do you think she'd fly high, Nyoda?" she asked anxiously.

"I can't say," replied Nyoda. "I'll have to confess that I know nothing whatever about the art of flying kites. My childhood was sadly neglected, I'm afraid, but that's one thing I never did. All you can do is make one and try."

Sahwah set to work right after breakfast with sticks of wood and brown wrapping paper and by afternoon her kite was ready for its trial flight. All the Winnebagos went out to help fly it. The trial was a success. Primitive Woman soared high at a good rate of speed and pulled a five-pound tail. Jubilant, Sahwah stripped the common wrapping paper from the frame and with fine brown paper which Nyoda gave her began to construct a Primitive Woman which was a work of art. Hinpoha painted the features on the triangle-shaped head, and under her clever brush Many Eyes was soon looking out on the world with a serene and confident smile. The Winnebagos were enchanted with the result and all enthusiastic about the contest now.

"Many Eyes, you're holding the honor of the Camp Fire Girls in your hands," said Sahwah solemnly. "You've got to fly faster than any kite a mere Boy Scout can invent. You've got to win!" And it seemed to the girls, surrounding Many Eyes as she stood up against the wall to dry, that her smile widened in a promise of victory.

"Let's make a magic over her," suggested Hinpoha, "and then she can't lose," Hinpoha was always having rings wished on her fingers, and running around her chair to change her luck, and building rain jinxes before starting out on excursions.

"Let's find a four-leaf clover and fasten it on her," said Migwan. "Where'll we find one?"

"Out in the woods there's a place where there are some," replied Sahwah.

"We might take our supper out in the woods," suggested Nyoda. "Aren't we going to have a Ceremonial Meeting tonight to take Agony and Oh-Pshaw into the Winnebagos? We could have our Council Fire out in the woods after supper."

"Let's take Many Eyes along and make her our official mascot," suggested Sahwah. "We can install her with ceremonies, like we did Eeny-Meeny."

This bit of nonsense was seized upon by the Winnebagos as a grand inspiration. When Agony and Oh-Pshaw arrived at Carver House with their Ceremonial dresses in neat packages under their arms and their lists of honors in their hands they found the Winnebagos forming a procession out by the back gate. Sahwah headed the parade, holding up above her head a huge kite made in the form of the symbolic Primitive Woman, with a long tail which the rest of the Winnebagos carried like pages carrying a queen's court train.

"What on earth!" began Agony.

"Get on the end of the line and help carry her tail!" commanded Sahwah.

"What's the idea?" demanded Agony suspiciously. "Are we getting initiated?"

"No," explained Sahwah. "This is Many Eyes, our entry in the Boy Scout's kite-flying contest. We're conveying her in state to the Council Rock. We're going to make her our official mascot and then she'll be sure to win the contest."

"And we're going to find a four-leaf clover and put it on her and render her impassable," said Hinpoha. Hinpoha was trying to think of "unsurpassable," and "impassable" was the nearest she came to it.

Agony and Oh-Pshaw joined themselves on to the procession with alacrity.

"We passed the Boy Scouts' bulletin board on the way over," said Agony, "and we saw that the Winnebagos were entered in the contest."

"Were there any more entries?" asked Sahwah eagerly.

"Several," replied Agony. "Scout Troops Number One, Two and Three were entered."

"Now," said Hinpoha, who seemed to be mistress of ceremonies, "we're going to make a magic so that Many Eyes will win, and first we are going to do the Indian Silence. We're going to march to the woods in single file, carrying Many Eyes, and nobody must speak a word, or the charm will be broken. Nobody must speak until we've found the four leaf clover."

"How perfectly epic!" exclaimed Agony, falling in with the spirit of the occasion.

"Is everybody ready?" asked Hinpoha. "Come on, then. Start!"

The procession moved off like a snake past the barn and down the hill, Many Eyes smiling serenely ahead of her. The silence continued deep and sepulchral all the way down the hill and quite to the edge of the woods, and then Nyoda suddenly exclaimed, "The supper basket! Who has it?"

Nobody had it!

The Winnebagos looked sheepishly at one another and then Migwan and Gladys offered to go back and get it.

"We'll sit right here, and wait for you," said Hinpoha, "and none of us will speak a word until you come."

Many Eyes was propped against a tree while her escort sat around on the ground holding their handkerchiefs in front of their mouths to keep from talking. Migwan and Gladys presently came panting up and the procession resumed its way into the woods. It was harder walking here and the tail-bearers often stumbled against each other or accidentally kicked each other's shins, and when that happened they had to compress their lips tightly to keep back the exclamations of surprise or pain that involuntarily sought expression. The procession wound up beside the stream which Sahwah had discovered in the woods on the other side of the hill, at a smooth, grassy spot where the clover grew in abundance. Here they set Many Eyes down on the ground and began hunting diligently for the symbol of good luck. It was a good thing that the four leaf clover was found soon—and by Sahwah, too, which was taken as a further omen of good luck—or the strain of the silence might have been fatal to a few of the searchers. Agony was ready to burst long before the time limit was up.

Then, when the charm of the silence had gotten in its good work, and the little green quatrefoil had been fastened into the outstretched right hand of Many Eyes, Hinpoha selected several soft, flat stones from the stream and carved them with further good luck omens—the swastika, the horseshoe, and all the other signs she could think of that were supposed to bring good luck. These were to be a part of the kite's tail. A little later they all clasped hands and wished for success on the evening star. Then, to her great delight, Hinpoha caught a glimpse of the slender new moon over her left shoulder, and registered her wish on that. Meanwhile the others noticed a big black spider letting himself down from the tree above, directly in front of Many Eyes—another omen of good fortune. Never had the signs been so auspicious for any undertaking.

Nyoda carried Many Eyes with her when she took her place on the Council Rock. The Council Fire was to be held on the great flat rock that overhung the Devil's Punch Bowl; an impressive place indeed to hold a Camp Fire Ceremonial, up there right under the stars, it seemed, with the wind fiddling through the branches all around them and the water whispering to itself below. The rock was about twenty feet wide and as flat as a table.

Agony and Oh-Pshaw and Veronica, who were the lowest in rank of the Winnebagos, had gathered the wood for the fire and laid the fagots in place in the center of the rock, with the bow and drill and tinder beside it and the supply of firewood nearby.

Nyoda smiled whimsically at Many Eyes, standing against the perpendicular back ledge of the Council Rock, and with her heart full of love for the girls who could get so much fun out of a kite, wished success to their cause with all her soul. Then she stood up in the center of the rock and sent forth the clear call, the summons for the tribe of Wohelo to come to the Council Fire.

The call rang far out over the water and came echoing back from the surrounding hills, and before the echoes had died away it was answered from the depths of the wood, and then shadowy figures came stealing forward from between the tall trees, a silent file that came winding down to the Council Rock in a stately procession. The circle closed around Nyoda and she stooped to kindle the fire. As the bow flashed quickly back and forth and the drill whirled in its center, a low, musical chant rose from the circle:

"Keep rolling, keep rolling, Keep the fire sticks Briskly rolling, rolling, Grinding the wood dust, Smoke arises! Smoke arises! Ah, the smoke, sweetly scented, It will rise, it will rise, it will rise!"

The chant swelled out in volume to a dramatic climax as a puff of smoke burst forth beneath the point of the whirling drill. Nyoda adroitly caught the spark in a bed of tinder and raised it to her lips, blowing gently to fan it into flame, while the chant was resumed:

"Dusky forest now darker grown, Broods in silence o'er its own, Till the wee spark to a flame has blown, And living fire leaps up to greet The song of Wohelo."

The "wee spark" turned into a tiny point of flame and the tinder burst out into a merry blaze. Nyoda dropped it into the pile of fagots and the ceremonial fire was kindled, while the Winnebagos sprang to their feet, ready to sing, "Burn, fire, burn."

When that had been sung the Winnebagos still remained on their feet. There was a moment of silence and then they sang a hearty cheer:

"Oh, we cheer, oh, we cheer for Wohelo, For our comrades and friends so true, And our loyalty ever shall linger, Oh, Nakwisi, we sing to you! Oh, Chapa, we sing to you! Oh, Medmangi, we sing to you!"

"Oh, Katherine, here's to you, Our hearts will e'er be true, We will never find your equal Though we search the whole world through!"

They were singing to the absent Winnebagos who would always be present in spirit wherever the Winnebagos were gathered together.

Agony and Oh-Pshaw were touched and felt a lump rising in their throats; it was so beautiful, this bond of affection between the Winnebagos. They were completely carried away by the dramatic atmosphere of a Winnebago Council Fire. They had never taken part in such an elaborate one. Both of them, by spasmodic efforts, had attained the rank of Fire Maker in the group to which they had formerly belonged, whose Guardian had meant well enough, but had neither the time nor the talent to become a successful Camp Fire leader. The group had never accomplished much, and had finally drifted apart, as many groups do, for lack of a powerful welding influence.

Agony and Oh-Pshaw, having been instrumental in starting the group, had "run" it to their hearts' content; that is, Agony ran it, for her dominating personality completely overshadowed her sister along with the rest of the members. Agony "ran" the Guardian, too, who admired her immensely, thought everything she did a symptom of genius, stood not a little in awe of her family connections, and let her have full sway in everything. Agony was fond of the Guardian, too, but naturally was not profoundly influenced by association with her.

But there was an altogether different atmosphere in the Winnebago group, as Agony soon discovered. No one girl had any more to say than the others, all worked together in perfect harmony, and all worshipped the same sun, Nyoda. She was a great lode star that drew them together, and kept them circling contentedly in their little orbits; she was their oracle, their all-wise counsellor, their loving elder sister. Around her the Winnebagos clustered, as the populace did about Peter, anxious to have his shadow fall upon them. The Twins had also fallen under her spell and after their first meeting had become her adoring slaves. "Run" Nyoda? The thought never entered Agony's mind.

In her own group Agony had achieved her honors easily, for the Guardian had not been too insistent about having things done well, and some of her honors were really only half earned. So she had become a Fire Maker without any strenuous efforts. Now her great ambition was to be a Torch Bearer. All the year at school she had looked with envy on the little round silver pins that Hinpoha and Migwan and Gladys wore and noticed how people who understood the meaning of that little pin always exclaimed admiringly, "Oh, you're a Torch Bearer!" Agony could not bear to have anyone get ahead of her, she must be a Torch Bearer, too. She could hurry up and get enough honor beads by the next Council meeting to be eligible.

After the ceremony of the installation was over and she and Oh-Pshaw were really Winnebagos, she spoke of the desire which lay near to her heart. It was in the little intimate talk time which always took place during the Ceremonial Meeting, when the flames began to burn down to embers, just before it was time to sing, "Now Our Camp Fire Fadeth."

"Nyoda," she said confidently, "I'm ready to become a Torch Bearer at the next meeting."

Nyoda looked at her with serious, thoughtful eyes. In the Winnebago group, it had not been customary for the girls to announce that they were worthy to be called Torch Bearer. Nyoda had herself conferred that honor upon them when she considered them worthy. No one had ever voiced her belief that she was ready, although Nyoda knew how each one had coveted the title. She was able to read Agony clearly, and knew that the keynote of her life was ambition. She was pretty certain that Agony wanted to be a Torch Bearer because it was the highest rank to which a Camp Fire Girl could aspire, and she wanted to be on the top. As yet she had seen no evidence of a humble desire to lose herself so deeply in the joy of service for others that self was forgotten. Agony was a born leader, there was no doubt about that, but Nyoda knew that she was not yet ruler over her own spirit. To the Winnebagos it seemed that Agony was already a Torch Bearer beyond compare, but Nyoda's inner voice of wisdom whispered, "Not yet." Agony must win that title in humility and self-forgetfulness before she could glory in it.

So she replied quietly, "When you have earned the right to be called Torch Bearer you shall be made one, but remember, Agony, that one does not become a Torch Bearer merely by earning a certain number of honor beads and standing up and repeating the Torch Bearer's Desire. A girl must have shown a steady power of leadership for a long time, and must satisfy all the questions in the Guardian's mind about her fitness for the rank. Also remember, Agony, that true leadership does not necessarily mean taking the world by storm and being tremendously popular with people. It may sometimes mean retiring to the background and playing a very insignificant part, instead of being always in the limelight. A good leader is first of all a good team worker, one who is willing to suppress her own personal inclinations for the good of the cause."

Agony, who was not given to examining her own faults very closely, failed to see wherein she fell short in any of these requirements, and was filled with elation as she thought that just as soon as Nyoda began taking special notice of her she would see that she was a candidate par excellence for the title of Torch Bearer.

"You shouldn't have asked to be made a Torch Bearer!" Sahwah whispered in her ear while Nyoda was stirring up the fire. "That isn't the way to do it; it's like handing yourself a bouquet!"

"Well, I didn't know it," Agony whispered back, not a whit abashed. "In our other group we had to ask for everything we got or we never would have gotten it."

Nyoda then turned to Oh-Pshaw, who had sat silent and thoughtful during the whole Council Meeting.

"Are you ready to be a Torch Bearer, too?" she asked.

"Oh, no," replied Oh-Pshaw modestly. "I'm not worthy to be called a Torch Bearer. I'm not a born leader, like Agony is." There was a world of unexpressed longing in her voice.

Nyoda thought seriously about the matter. Oh-Pshaw was certainly humble and unassuming enough, always kind and sweet and obliging, always willing to take any part in anything that was assigned her, but did she have the grit and backbone, the force of character which Nyoda considered necessary qualifications for a Torch Bearer? As yet she did not know.

The subject was dropped. The circle sat in a silence for a moment. Each one of the Torch Bearers in that circle was humbly wondering what Nyoda had ever seen in her to cause her to single her out for the honor. And each one became very sober as she thought about it and wondered if she had come up to Nyoda's expectations.

The fire was burning low and the embers sent only a feeble glow around the Council Rock. Behind them the forest stretched darkly away, and in the stillness that brooded over them the sound of the lapping water beneath came up with a curious distinctness. Oh-Pshaw shuddered as she heard it and drew closer to the fire.

"What's the matter, are you cold?" asked Nyoda.

"I hate the sound of running water!" exclaimed Oh-Pshaw. "It fairly makes my blood curdle. It's been so ever since I can remember. I hate it in daylight, but at night it makes my hair stand on end! If I were out here alone with it I'd simply go insane!"

"Why, how queer!" said Sahwah, unable to understand how anyone could be afraid of her beloved element, and the others laughed, too, thinking that Oh-Pshaw was only exaggerating, as most girls do over their little peculiarities.

"It is queer," said Agony, "because water doesn't affect me a bit like that. I love to hear it, day or night. But it's been that way with Oh-Pshaw ever since she was little. I can remember once when we were about five years old she had spasms because our nurse left us alone in the bathtub when the water was running in. She can't even stand it to hear the water running down the eave spouts during a heavy shower."

The Winnebagos all laughed again at this queer "bete noir" of Oh-Pshaw's, all but Nyoda. She knew something which the girls did not, and which neither Agony nor Oh-Pshaw herself knew, something which had been told her by Grandmother Wing in one of her talks with Nyoda. That was that when Oh-Pshaw was a baby only three months old she had been taken out in a sailboat by her father and mother on the river which ran through Oakwood. A squall came up and the boat capsized and all three were thrown into the wildly rolling river. They were promptly rescued by a nearby launch, all unhurt, but the moaning, gurgling sound of the water had stamped itself indelibly on Oh-Pshaw's tiny brain and she would never again be able to hear that gurgling noise without a sensation of horror. During her infancy, even the sound of water gurgling out of a bottle was sufficient to throw her into spasms. She had never been told about the accident, in the hope that she would outgrow the shock and get over the fear, but she had never outgrown it. She no longer had spasms when she heard water gurgling, but the sound chilled her to the very marrow of her bones, and she never went alone, even in daylight, past the river.

Nyoda knew how real this fear was and sympathized deeply with her, although she pretended to make light of it, as the others did. Nyoda and the Winnebagos loved to sit in the silence of the woods when the fire burned low and listen to the murmuring of the water, but for Oh-Pshaw's sake they must not do it to-night.

"Come, girls," Nyoda called cheerily, "'Fire's gwine out,' time to sing 'Mammy Moon' and then go home."

She poked the last embers of the fire into a little blaze, and the light and the lively measures of the song took Oh-Pshaw's mind off the gurgling water.

"Cross my heart, Mammy Moon, Termorrer I'll be an angel coon, I'll be a chile dat'll make you smile, Good—o-l-e Mam-my M-o-o-n!"

The circle all lay down with their heads on each other's shoulders in the drowsy attitude with which the song closes, and then Gladys's clear voice rose in the melody of the Camp Fire Girls' own lullaby, sung to the music of an Ojibway love song:

"In the still night, far, far below, The drowsy wavelets come and go, They weave a dream spell round Wohelo.

"Mid the pine trees, the long night through, The wandering breezes croon to you, They breathe a sleep charm of mist and dew.

"Heaven broods o'er you with stars aglow, The hearts of Night is beating low, Wokanda watches o'er Wohelo. Wokanda watches o'er Wohelo!"

Then the last ember burned out into darkness and with the aid of their little bug lights they stole home through the shadowy woods; Sahwah carrying Many Eyes in her arms and confident she was a winner; Agony filled with a great elation because her ambition to become a Torch Bearer would soon be realized; Oh-Pshaw sadly wishing she were a born leader like her sister; and Nyoda, walking with them, guessed what was in the mind of each and her heart went out to them in tender love as the heart of a shepherd goes out to his sheep.



CHAPTER XI

THE FURTHER CAREER OF MANY EYES

"What a grand day, and the wind just right," exulted Sahwah on Saturday noon as the Winnebagos were hastening home from military drill. "It was just made for flying kites."

"Are Slim and the Captain coming?" asked Hinpoha.

"They said they were," replied Sahwah.

"Father's coming, too," said Agony. "He came home this morning. He said he would get Mr. Prince to come along with him."

"Oh, dear, I do hope we win, with him there!" said Hinpoha. "But I don't see how Many Eyes can help winning, with the four leaf clover and all the good luck signs tied to her tail," she finished confidently. Hinpoha believed firmly in the potency of her charms.

But alas for charms and good luck signs! Maybe the Fates stand in awe of them, but they are powerless in the case of a goat. The Winnebagos reached home just in time to see Many Eyes, impaled on Kaiser Bill's horns, borne swiftly through the garden toward the stable. Sahwah shrieked and darted in pursuit, whereupon the Kaiser collided with a tree and drove his whole head and shoulders through the paper form of Many Eyes and splintered her ribs like toothpicks. Then he dashed round and round the garden at top speed, scattering bits of her tail in his wake. By the time he had finally been subdued with an open umbrella there was not enough left of Many Eyes to know that she had ever been a kite.

The Winnebagos stood dumb with dismay and Sahwah nearly strangled with mingled rage and disappointment.

"We're finished, as far as the contest is concerned," said Agony gloomily.

Sahwah turned her back sharply and winked her eyes hard to keep the tears from falling. She had worked so hard to build Many Eyes, and here was all her work gone for nothing, all on account of that fiendish goat!

"Somebody will have to go and tell the Scouts that we withdraw our entry, I suppose," said Migwan.

"Yes, and maybe they won't believe that the goat smashed it," said Agony darkly. "Maybe they'll think we fell down on making a kite, or got cold feet or something."

Sahwah's eyes flashed and she whirled around fiercely, galvanized into action by Agony's words. "That Scout I was talking to was so sure we couldn't make a kite, and I was just aching to show him!" she said with tragic emphasis. Then resolution kindled in her eyes. "I said we were going into that contest, and we are! They'll never get a chance to say we backed down! I'm going to make another kite!"

"Oh, Sahwah, there isn't time," said Hinpoha hopelessly. "It's twelve o'clock already and the contest starts at two."

"Two hours!" replied Sahwah. "I can make one in two hours."

"But you haven't had your lunch——" began Hinpoha.

"Lunch!" exclaimed Sahwah scornfully. "Who wants any lunch? I'm going to build another kite!"

She sped into the house and in a few moments was busy nailing together another frame while the rest of the Winnebagos stood around and handed her tacks, paper, paste, and everything as she needed it. By half past one another Primitive Woman had been evolved by her flying fingers, Migwan and Gladys hastily constructing the tail while Sahwah made the kite proper.

"I believe I'd have time to paint a face on her," said Hinpoha. She seized her brush and put in an eye with rapid strokes. The clock chimed a quarter to two and Sahwah started up nervously.

"There isn't time to do any more, Hinnpoha," she said. "We'll just have time to get there now. She'll just have to go as she is."

"But can you call her Many Eyes if she only has one eye?" objected Hinpoha.

"Never mind what we call her," said Sahwah. "She's a kite, and that's all she needs to be. Call her One Eye if you like. What have you put in her tail?"

"Some of those little sample bags of salt," replied Migwan. "They were the only things we could find to put in as weights."

"Salt's bad luck!" wailed Hinpoha. "Oh, whatever did you take salt for?"

"Too late to change now," said Sahwah.

Agony looked scornfully at the new edition of Many Eyes. "For goodness' sake, you aren't going to enter that thing in the contest?" she exclaimed when she saw it. "Why, it looks perfectly crazy. Everybody will laugh at it. I'd rather stay out of the contest than enter such a looking kite. It looks like a scarecrow! For goodness' sake, don't enter that!"

Sahwah had to admit that the new Many Eyes was a rather laughable object, with her one eye and her miscellaneous tail and her one arm covered with yellow paper where the brown had given out.

"I don't care what she looks like, she'll fly," said Sahwah stoutly.

"Well, I care what she looks like," returned Agony. "I tell you everybody will laugh at us and our one-eyed kite."

"Let them laugh," retorted Sahwah, "I don't care."

"Oh, come on," said Migwan good-naturedly, "stop arguing about it. If we're going into the contest we'll have to get there pretty soon. We won't win, of course, but we'll show the boys that we're game, anyway. Like the 'poor, benighted Hindoo,' we'll 'do the best we kin do!' Be a sport, Agony, and come on."

Sahwah gathered up her kite in her arms and started for the door. Going through the hall she knocked Hinpoha's little purse mirror from the table and smashed it all to bits. Hinpoha was aghast. "Bad luck again!" she wailed.

"Never mind, 'Poha, I'll buy you another mirror," said Sahwah. "Just leave the pieces, I'll sweep them up when I come back."

Agony scolded about the crazy-looking kite all the way to Commons Field and Hinpoha resignedly accepted the fact that luck was against them, and they might as well not enter the contest. To all of their remarks Sahwah paid no heed, stubbornly keeping her determination to enter her beloved kite.

"We've got to be sports now and not back down," was the only thing she would say.

"Yes," said Migwan, "remember—"

"'Tis better to have flown and lost Than never to have flown at all!'"

The other entries had already arrived on the scene when the Winnebagos got there, and a good many of the Oakwood boys and girls had assembled to watch the contest. Commons Field was a five-acre lot running down to the river on the eastern side of the town, used as baseball field, footfall field, and general sporting grounds. It was a sort of natural amphitheatre, for a grassy hill curved around two sides of it, making an ideal place for the spectators to sit and watch what was going on below.

Lists of the entries in the contest had been posted on various trees.

GREAT KITE FLYING CONTEST

Entries

VICTORY BIRD........................Troop No. 1 Boy Scouts SKYSCRAPER..........................Troop No. 2 Boy Scouts MIKADO II...........................Troop No. 3 Boy Scouts SAMMY BOY..............................St. Andrew's League AMERICAN EAGLE...................Sunday School Association MANY EYES........................Winnebago Camp Fire Girls

"How graciously they put us at the end of the list," remarked Sahwah.

The Captain and Slim were there waiting for them and looked at Many Eyes critically, but they forebore to laugh at her. Sahwah felt as though she would explode if they made fun of her. But they made no disparaging remarks, although they both felt dubious about the flying qualities of a kite in the shape of a Primitive Woman. However, they were game and promised to shout for her with all their might.

The Scout who had taken Sahwah's entry that day under the tree came strolling over, curious to see what kind of a kite she had produced.

"Ho, ho!" he scoffed. "What kind of a kite do you call that? That's nothing but a paper doll. That's just the kind of a kite you'd expect a girl to make. Now when you're making a kite, you want to make a kite, not a paper doll! And what did you go and paint that one eye on there for and nothing else, and then enter her as Many Eyes?"

Sahwah forbore to reply, and walked away, shielding her poor darling with her body against the curious stares and comments of the other contestants. Mr. Wing was sympathetic when he heard of the tragic fate of the original Many Eyes and did not laugh at her hopscotch successor, but the artist, who was with him, laughed uncontrollably, which hurt Sahwah's feelings and increased the slight antagonism she already had toward him. So she walked away from him, too, and took her place with the contestants, who were forming in a line in the field. All around her she heard amused comments passed upon the shape of No. 6 entry; everybody called it the "paper doll." In height and breadth it conformed to the prescribed measurements laid down by the rules of the contest, but it did look so odd for a kite to have a head and arms and legs! All the other entries were the regulation kite shape. Victory Bird and American Eagle had pictures of eagles with outstretched wings pasted upon them. The whistle blew and the kites were launched in air and immediately the sky was split with the shouts of the various rooters.

"VICTORY BIRD! VICTORY BIRD! VICTORY BIRD!"

"SAMMY BOY! SAMMY BOY! SAMMY BOY!"

"SKYSCRAPER! SKYSCRAPER! SKYSCRAPER!"

In the midst of the din came the feebler, but stanch cheer of the Winnebagos. Nyoda noticed that Agony did not cheer for Many Eyes; she had slipped away from the Winnebagos and stood by herself a few paces off, trying to look like a disinterested spectator.

"She won't cheer for Many Eyes because she's ashamed of her and doesn't want people to know she's her entry!" was the painful thought that came into Nyoda's mind.

The rest of the Winnebagos stood gamely together and shrieked for their entry at the tops of their voices. Slim and the Captain stood by them loyally and made as much racket as they could.

The ripple of amusement that had caused Agony so much chagrin when the "paper doll" began her flight soon changed to astonished applause, for Many Eyes won in a walk! Straight up she soared, "just like an angel," as Sahwah described it afterwards, tugging so hard on her leash that the stick upon which the string was wound spun around in Sahwah's hand like a bobbin and it was all she could do to hold on to it. Once she got started she left all the others far behind. As Slim said, she "made them look like a row of stationary wash tubs."

Sammy Boy and the Skyscraper got their tails twisted and came to earth in a tangled mass; American Eagle was top heavy and flopped around in circles and never rose higher than fifty feet, Mikado went up steadily but slowly, straining at its weighted tail; and Victory Bird, whom everybody expected to win, came a close second, and that was all. Many Eyes got to the end of her string first and danced triumphantly about in the air, several yards above Victory Bird. With everything dead set against her, broken looking glass, salt weights, only one eye, and not a single good luck symbol on her anywhere she had come out first in spite of it all!

Then the Winnebagos nearly split their throats cheering, and Agony, who had slipped back to them, cheered louder than all the rest, advertising to all within earshot that she was a Winnebago and belonged to the winning entry.

"And to think," marveled Hinpoha, "that with all her lucky symbols, the other Many Eyes came to grief, and this one won without a single thing to help her! I'll never have faith in good and bad luck signs again!"

The Scout who had scoffed at Many Eyes before the contest came around afterward and looked her over thoughtfully, and discussed her construction in a decidedly respectful tone with Sahwah.

"Now, can a girl design a kite?" asked Sahwah triumphantly.

"I guess she can," admitted the Scout as graciously as he could under the circumstances. He was the one who had designed Victory Bird and it was hard for him to admit that he had been beaten by a girl.

"But then, you're a Camp Fire Girl," he added, as if it were not so much of a defeat to be beaten by a Camp Fire Girl as by an ordinary girl.

"But what did you put the one eye on her for?" he finished curiously.

"So she could see where she was going," replied Sahwah gravely.

"But why didn't you put two eyes in her?" persisted the Scout.

"Because she only needed one to see to get ahead of your kites," answered Sahwah, and felt that her triumph was complete.

After the contest was over the Winnebagos went out rowing on the river with Mr. Wing and the artist and Slim and the Captain. Oh-Pshaw wouldn't go, nothing would ever induce her to go rowing, so Nyoda stayed out with her while the rest went. Slim and the Captain had a private squabble as to which one should have Hinpoha in his boat and while they were squabbling she got into the boat with the artist, so the Captain solaced himself with Sahwah and Agony, and Slim took Gladys and Veronica. Migwan got into the boat with Mr. Wing, an arrangement which pleased them both, for Migwan thought Mr. Wing the most charming man in the world, and he was very fond of the sweet, Madonna-faced girl with the beautiful, thoughtful eyes and the intellectual forehead.

"Who's the nervy party with the chin whiskers that's cabbaged Hinpoha?" asked the Captain of Sahwah, scowling crossly after the leading boat, which was already drawing away from the rest of the party.

"He's an artist, his name is Prince," replied Sahwah. "He's a great friend of Agony's father."

"Is he a great friend of Hinpoha's, too?" demanded the Captain.

"She thinks he's the most wonderful man she ever met," replied Sahwah.

The Captain scowled again, and caught a crab, showering Sahwah and Agony with drops from his oar. "Excuse me!" he exclaimed, disgusted with himself. "Oh, hang it all, anyway!" This last was uttered under his breath, but Sahwah's sharp ear heard it. "Do you think he's so wonderful?" he demanded anxiously. The Captain had a vast respect for Sahwah's opinion in most matters.

"I don't like him at all!" Sahwah burst out vehemently. "He's always smiling, and all I can think of is a grinning hyena!" Sahwah spoke with unnecessary vigor, but the remembrance of how he had laughed at Many Eyes still rankled in her bosom.

"Why, Sahwah!" exclaimed Agony in a shocked tone. "How can you say such a thing? I think he's perfectly wonderful," she added. "So polished, and such charming manners."

Here Sahwah created a diversion by dropping her hat overboard, and the artist was forgotten in the exciting business of rescuing it from the swiftly running current.

Hinpoha, beside herself with joy at the victory of Many Eyes, was boasting to the artist what a wonderful group the Winnebagos were.

"And that's not all," she said, as she finished the tale of their numerous achievements on land and water, "we've got a real live baroness in our group!"

"Indeed!" said the artist, nearly dropping his oar in his surprise. "Which one is it?"

"Veronica," replied Hinpoha, gratified at the impression this statement had made upon her listener, and then she launched into a detailed account of Veronica's entire history, dwelling on the part where Veronica had played for the prince.

It was not until she was tucked into bed that night and was just dropping off to sleep that she remembered her promise not to tell anyone about Veronica. "But it was perfectly all right to tell him" she said to herself, "he was so interested and so sympathetic." And she dropped off to sleep with never a qualm of conscience about her broken promise.



CHAPTER XII

THE COURT MARTIAL OF THE KAISER

"'Gee, ain't it fierce, we ain't got no flag to fight this here Revolution with!'" Agony, carrying a baseball bat at "shoulder arms," paced slowly back and forth across the attic in the Wing home with an exaggerated military stride. "Is that loud enough, Nyoda?" she asked.

"Yes, your voice is all right," approved Nyoda, jabbing a pin into the large felt hat which she was transferring into a tricorn, "but don't kick your feet straight up in front of you that way. The American army didn't goose-step, remember. Try it again. There, that's better.

"Now, Second Soldier, your little speech, and remember to salute when you're through."

Oh-Pshaw, similarly outfitted as to firearms, added her bit to the drama which was unfolding under Nyoda's direction.

"Now we'll do it with the scenery," announced Nyoda. "Come on, scenery, all up! Here, Trees, you stand here," pushing Hinpoha into place at one side of the landscape, "and More Trees, you get over on the other side. Who is More Trees? Oh, Migwan. All right, you two stand there and sway gently in the breeze. Where are the Guns? Oh, here you are, Sahwah. And the rest of the Guns, that's you, Veronica. Here, you Guns, stack yourselves against Trees."

Sahwah and Veronica inclined toward each other at a precarious angle and leaned against Trees. Trees promptly doubled up and clapped both her hands over the pit of her stomach, and Guns, losing their balance, fell in a heap on the floor.

"What's the matter?" demanded Nyoda.

"Oooo-oo-oo-oh!" giggled Trees. "Sahwah tickled my ribs!"

"Try it again," directed Nyoda, assisting Guns to rise from the floor and stacking them against an invulnerable spot on Trees.

"Now, where's the Moon?"

"Gone downstairs to get a paintbrush," replied More Trees.

"What'll Moon rise on?" asked Nyoda, knitting her brows in thought.

"Take the piano stool," suggested the First Soldier, leaning on his weapon in a picturesque attitude.

"The very thing!" exclaimed Nyoda. "Bring up the piano stool!" she shouted down the stairway, and a few minutes later the Moon came into view, carrying her rising power in one hand, a bottle of India ink in the other, a number of sheets of cardboard under her arm and a paintbrush held crosswise in her mouth.

"Gracious, if you'd ever slipped coming up the stairs!" exclaimed the Second Soldier, springing forward to take the bottle of ink out of the hand of the Moon.

"Now Moon, you rise behind More Trees," ordered Nyoda, setting the piano stool behind Migwan.

"How does a moon rise, anyway?" asked Gladys in perplexity.

"Oh, begin by crouching on the piano stool, and then straighten up gradually to a standing position over Migwan's shoulder," answered Nyoda. "Now then! 'Curtain rises. Scene shows camp of the American army at the time of the Revolution. Trees on left, more trees on right, guns stacked against trees. Moon rises,' All right, Moon, rise!"

Gladys rose shakily to a standing position, her hand on the shoulder of More Trees.

"Now beam over the trees, Moon."

Moon did her best to beam and grinned from ear to ear; Guns howled with laughter; the piano stool began to turn; Moon clutched wildly at More Trees and went down with a crash on the floor.

"Eclipse of the Moon," laughed Nyoda, rushing to the aid of the fallen one.

"Let somebody else be the Moon," declared Gladys, when she had been restored to the perpendicular, viewing the shaky stool with disfavor. "Let Sahwah be it, she's more of an acrobat."

"You have to be the Moon because you've got light hair," replied Nyoda in a tone of finality. "You'll just have to manage so the stool doesn't turn, that's all. Try it again."

Moon rose over the trees and accomplished the difficult feat of holding the stool still and beaming at the same time with a fair degree of success, and the rehearsal began.

"Oh-Pshaw, you're forgetting to salute!" called Nyoda when Second Soldier had finished his speech. "There, that's all right, now don't forget to do it the next time. Now you get behind the Moon and hold her up through the next scene. She's wobbling again. What comes next? Oh, yes, here's where I come in."

Throwing down her prompting book and setting the partially cocked hat upon her head, Nyoda made a flourishing entrance upon the stage as the Father of her Country, and the second touching scene of the drama was enacted, in which George is informed by the sentry that "we ain't got no flag to fight this here Revolution with," and soothingly promises to "see Betsy." Just as George was delivering his reassuring promise Trees felt a fly walking across her nose and sneezed a tremendous sneeze, sending Guns sprawling upon the floor.

"Gracious, Hinpoha, can't you hold still a minute?" sighed Nyoda, pushing the hat up from her left eye where it had hung ever since she had knocked it crooked returning the sentry's salute. "And who's going to work our 'Quick Curtain' there?"

"Oh, either Slim or the Captain can draw the curtain for us," said Hinpoha.

"But we want it all to be a surprise for them," Sahwah reminded her. "They're not supposed to know anything about it."

"Well, grandmother can draw the curtain, then," said Agony.

"But she's supposed to be in the audience, too," objected Oh-Pshaw.

"Why, you can draw the curtain, you're not doing anything at the end of this scene!" exclaimed Nyoda triumphantly to Oh-Pshaw. "Second Soldier goes out after his one speech and doesn't come on again."

"I'm a rocking chair in the last scene, though," Oh-Pshaw reminded her.

Nyoda thought deeply for a moment. "We'll have to do without that one rocking chair in the last act. You'll have to draw the curtain. No show is complete without a quick curtain at the end. How can we have curtain calls without a curtain? Anyway, we don't need three rocking chairs, two are plenty."

So Oh-Pshaw good-naturedly shifted her role from rocking chair to curtain puller.

"Next scene, home of Betsy Ross," proclaimed Nyoda. "Trees, you'll have to turn into a chair in this scene, and More Trees, you turn into another chair. Guns, you will become a spinet and a spinning wheel respectively, and Moon, you'll turn into a table. First Soldier, you'll become Betsy Ross. Now then! All the stage settings get in place for the last scene!"

The two chairs solemnly began to rock back and forth on their heels, causing the Spinning Wheel to go off into fits of uncontrollable laughter, and Betsy Ross, hearing George's knock, rose to answer it, but, catching sight of the two rocking chairs, promptly doubled up on the floor instead of letting George in.

"I can't do anything if they're going to rock," gasped Betsy.

"You'll have to get used to it," said Nyoda emphatically. "We want those rocking chairs, they're the funniest part of the show. Don't look at them if you can't keep a straight face. Now start again. Where's your baby? Here, take this towel for a baby until you can find a doll.

"Now, remember, when I come in you say 'Hello, George,' in a very familiar tone, and when I say, 'Gee, ain't it fierce, we ain't go no flag to fight this here Revolution with,' you say, 'I know, ain't it fierce! Here, you hold the baby and I'll make one.' Then you give me the baby and I walk up and down while you sew, and the baby screams all the while—Oh-Pshaw, you'll have to make the noise for the baby behind the scenes. Now, all ready!"

George came in, with a yardstick tied around his waist for a sword, and made a deep bow which made the spinet giggle violently. "'Gee, ain't it fierce—' Stop laughing, Sahwah, remember you're the scenery!"

Sahwah lasted until the towel baby was laid in the arms of the Commander-in-Chief, and Oh-Pshaw, trying to imitate the noise of a crying baby behind the scenes, emitted a series of yelps which were harrowingly suggestive of a large yellow dog going through the meat chopper. It was too much for the rest of the scenery; the rocking chair howled, the spinning wheel choked, the table wept into her handkerchief, and even George's composure forsook him and he and Betsy fell up against each other and shouted.

"Good gracious, Oh-Pshaw, a baby doesn't cry like that! It makes a wailing noise in a high key. Try it again, now."

Oh-Pshaw amended her vocal efforts so that the results were not fatal, and the historical First Edition of the Stars and Stripes proceeded without further mishap.

"Where's the flag I'm to hold up when it's done?" demanded Betsy.

"Who brought the flag along?" asked Nyoda.

The spinet suddenly clapped a hand to her brow. "I left it on the porch at Carver House!" she exclaimed. "I was going to bring it along with the rest of the things, and then I forgot it. Shall I go and get it?"

"Never mind," said Nyoda, "we'll get along without it now and bring it along when we come over to-night. Come on, now, go through the whole thing once more, and then we're finished. Oh-Pshaw, while you're not on the stage, you make the signs for the scenery, TREES, MORE TREES, GUNS—make two signs for Guns—MOON, etc., and on the other side paint CHAIR, TABLE, SPINNING WHEEL, SPINET, etc., so all the scenery will have to do is turn the signs around on themselves when they change from the first to the second scenes."

All the above commotion was in preparation for the party which Agony and Oh-Pshaw were giving that night in honor of Slim's birthday. The birthday was already past, it is true, but it was still recent enough to make it a legitimate excuse for a party. The Winnebagos, as usual, could not have a party without some select private theatricals in honor of the occasion.

The rehearsal over, Nyoda and the Winnebagos wended their way back to Carver House to get ready for the evening.

"Kaiser Bill's out!" exclaimed Sahwah, as they approached the house. "I just saw him jump the hedge and run around the side of the house with something red in his mouth."

"The cover of the porch table!" exclaimed Nyoda. "Run, head him off, quick!"

They sped into the yard and round the side of the house as the sportive Kaiser doubled in his tracks and missed them by an inch.

"Oh, he's got the flag!" shrieked Sahwah. "I left it on the porch! Get it! Get it! He's got it half eaten!" They gave strenuous chase, but the wily Capricorn, mischief sparkling in his wicked eyes, eluded them again and again, and each time they passed him there was less of the flag hanging out of his mouth. Not until the last shred was gulped down did he suffer himself to be cowed by the persistent umbrella in Nyoda's hand, and then he came to a stand in a triumphant attitude, and on his face was the satisfied expression of an epicure who has just discovered a rare new dainty to tickle his palate.

The Winnebagos looked at each other and were speechless with horror. Kaiser Bill had eaten up the American flag!

Nyoda recovered herself first, and the Winnebagos saw her in one of her rare moods of anger.

"This is the last straw!" she exclaimed indignantly. "He's chewed up two sofa pillows and a twelve-dollar hammock and no end of books; he destroyed Sahwah's kite last week; he's broken the windows in the greenhouse three or four times; he's ruined large numbers of valuable plants; and still I bore with him patiently for old Hercules' sake. But I won't stand it any longer. I'm tired of being kept in hot water by that fiendish old goat. He's the terror of the neighbors, and I live in hourly expectation of damage suits that will ruin me. Now I've reached the limit of endurance. Either that goat leaves Carver House or I do, and as Carver House belongs to me and Kaiser Bill doesn't, I reckon he'll be the one to go."

"What are you going to do with him?" asked Sahwah.

"Oh, give him away, or sell him—anything," replied Nyoda.

"Hercules, come here!" she called, as she spied a kinky white head bobbing around in the barnyard.

Hercules approached with a painfully stew, shuffling gait. "What is it, Mis' Elizabeth?" he inquired mildly, eyeing his mistress with affection in his look.

"Hercules," said Nyoda crisply, "we're going to get rid of that goat."

"What's 'at ol' goat bin a-doin', honey?" quavered Hercules anxiously.

"He's eaten up the American flag!" replied Nyoda in an outraged tone. "This is positively the last straw. I put up with several hundred dollars' worth of damage about the place, but this is too much. Do you realize what he's done? He's eaten up the American flag!"

"Why-e-e-e-e-e!" exclaimed Hercules, and then, "Lord a-massy! Kaiser Bill," he remarked reproachfully, "ain't I done fetched you up no better'n 'at?"

"Do you know of anyone who would take him?" asked Nyoda.

The old man considered, with his head in his hands. "Oh, Mis' Elizabeth, you-all ain't goin' ter give dat goat away?" he broke out pleadingly. "'At goat's lived here all his life, deed he has, Mis' Elizabeth, an' he wouldn' feel to home nowheres else!"

But for once Nyoda stood her ground and refused to be cajoled.

"Mis' Elizabeth," said old Hercules solemnly, when all pleading had been in vain, "you-all ain' goin' ter give 'at goat away, because you-all can't give him away! Ain't anybody livin' 'at can give dat goat away! He'd come back just as fast as you'd give him away! 'At ol' Kaiser's a mighty foxy goat. Ain't no door bin invented 'at he can't break down!"

The old man's voice quavered triumphantly, and he winked at the goat solemnly. Nyoda had a mental vision of Kaiser Bill putting on a Return from Elba act every day in the future, and her resolution took a sudden hardy turn.

"You're right," she said. "It wouldn't do any good to give him away. He'd come back. The only way to get rid of him is to kill him. Then we'll be sure he can't come back."

Hercules looked at her unbelievingly, and shook his head.

"I mean it," repeated Nyoda. "I'm going to get rid of that goat."

She stood still, waiting for the torrent of dissuading argument that would presently come from Hercules' lips, intending to cut it short, but the flow never came. Just when Hercules had his mouth open to begin there came a sudden earthquake shock from behind, and he found himself sitting in a flower bed a dozen feet away, rubbing his bruised knees and struggling to regain his breath. His first impression was that he had been run over by a locomotive.

When he could finally be persuaded that Kaiser Bill, base and ungrateful animal, had rewarded his championship of him by deliberately assaulting him with the full force of his concrete forehead, his heart was broken, and he mutely bowed to the decision of the judge.

"'T's all one ter me now," he said sadly. "Kaiser Bill done turn agin' ol' Hercules; ol' Hercules' heart broke now. Don' care whether you kill him er not. 'T's all one ter me."

"We'll have a Court Martial," announced Sahwah.

The Court Martial duly sat, and in a most formal manner Kaiser Bill was tried and convicted of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, and of traitorously destroying the American flag, and was sentenced to be shot at sunrise the next morning.

"Who's going to shoot him?" asked Hinpoha.

"Oh, we'll get Slim and the Captain to do it," replied Sahwah.

With the death sentence hanging over his head, the Kaiser was led away to await his execution.



CHAPTER XIII

THE PARTY

Dinner hour was over in Oakwood and the evening life of the stately old town was beginning to stir when Mr. Wing stepped off the train and walked briskly through the softly falling twilight toward his home. Not far from the station he met the artist, Eugene Prince, strolling about admiring the landscape, and hailed him cordially. "I've just come home on a flying trip over night," he explained. "Have to go to Washington in the morning. I wonder if the folks are at home; I should have telephoned them I was coming, I suppose." Mr. Wing seemed very much elated about something.

"How's the big case coming?" asked the artist. He had always been such a ready listener while Mr. Wing expressed his various theories About the matter and showed such a lively interest that Mr. Wing had gotten into the habit of talking about it to him by the hour and listening to him express his theories.

Now when the artist mentioned the big case Mr. Wing could not conceal his triumph, for his theory had been right after all, and the artist's had been wrong. "It's exactly what I expected," he said jubilantly, and spoke in a low, confidential tone for some minutes.

The artist whistled in blank surprise.

The two men passed up the street, talking in low tones. "Come up to the house with me," said Mr. Wing presently, "and I'll show you—Hello, what's this?"

A creaking rumble behind them made them start and turn around, and a singular sight greeted their eyes. Down the street puffed an immensely fat negro woman clad in a calico wrapper and a bright red turban, pushing a wheelbarrow in which sat a negro baby somewhat larger than its mammy. In the wheelbarrow beside the baby stood a feeding bottle of gigantic proportions, being in very truth a three-gallon flask designed to hold a solution to spray trees with; six feet of garden hose constituted the tube, and a black rubber diving cap at the upper end of it completed the feeding apparatus.