The girls lingered long around the fire after supper listening to Miss Amesbury telling tales of her various travels until one by one the logs fell apart and glimmered out into blackness. "And now," said Miss Amesbury, "let's sing one good night song and then roll into bed. We want to be up early in the morning and continue our voyage. There's a heap of 'exploraging' for us to do."

Some time during the night Sahwah was aroused by a gentle pattering noise on her rubber poncho. "It's raining!" she exclaimed to Hinpoha, her sleeping partner.

Hinpoha stirred and murmured drowsily and immediately lay still again.

"It's raining hard!" cried Sahwah, now wide awake.

One by one the others began to realize what was happening, and burrowed down under their ponchos, only to emerge a few moments later half smothered.

"Everybody lie still," called Sahwah, "and keep your blankets covered. Hinpoha and I will go out and bring up canoes for shelters."

As she spoke she reached for her bathing suit, which was down under the poncho, and wriggled into it. Hinpoha, still half asleep, but mechanically obeying Sahwah's energetic directions, got into her bathing suit and wriggled out of the bed, drawing the poncho up over her pillow and blankets.

The two sped down to the shore, where the canoes were drawn up on the rocks, and hastily turning one over sideways and packing all their provisions under it, they carried the other two back to the camping ground and inverted them over the head-ends of the beds, their ends propped up on stones, where, tilted back at an angle which shed the water off backward, they made an admirable shelter. Underneath these solid umbrellas the pillows of the girls were as dry as though indoors, and the ponchos protected the blankets. Let the rain come down as hard as it liked, these babes in the wood were snug and warm. As though accepting their challenge to get them wet, the drops came thicker and faster, until they pounded down in a perfect torrent, making a merry din on the canoes as they fell.

"It sounds as if they were saying, 'We'll get you yet, we'll get you yet, we'll get you yet,'" exclaimed Migwan.

Sahwah and Hinpoha, snugly rolled in once more, began to sing "How dry I am." The others took it up, and soon the woods rang with the taunting song of the Winnebagos to the Rain Bird, who replied with a heavier gush than ever. Thunder began to crash overhead, lightning flashed all about them, the great pines tossed and roared like the sea. But the Winnebagos, undismayed, made merry over the storm, and gradually dropped off to sleep again, lulled by the pattering of the raindrops.

In the morning the rain was still falling, rather to their dismay, for they had expected that the storm would soon pass over. The thunder and lightning had ceased, the wind had subsided, and the rain had turned into a steady downpour that looked as if it meant to last all day.

"We'll have to find or build a shelter," remarked Sahwah, thrusting her head, turtle like, from under the edge of the canoe and scanning the heavens with a calculating eye. "This is a regular three days' rain. Who wants to come with me and see if we can find a cave? I have an idea there must be one among the rocks on the hillside just farther on. Who wants to come with me?"

"I'll come!" cried Hinpoha and Jo and Agony and Katherine all in a breath. Cramped from lying still so long, they welcomed the prospect of exercise, even in the early morning rain.

Leaving Migwan and Gladys to keep Miss Amesbury company, the five set out into the streaming woods, and Katherine and Hinpoha and Sahwah came back half an hour later to report that they had found a cave and Jo and Agony had stayed there to build a fire.

"Fire, that sounds good to me," remarked Gladys, shivering a little as she got into her damp bathing suit and drew her heavy sweater over it.

Carrying the beds, still wrapped up in the ponchos, the little procession wound through the woods under the guidance of the returned scouts. The guides were not needed long, however, for soon a heart warming odor of frying bacon came to meet them, and with a world-old instinct each one followed her nose toward it.

"Did anything ever smell so good?" exclaimed Hinpoha, breathing in the fragrant air in long drawn sniffs.

"Those blessed angels!" was all Miss Amesbury could say.

A moment later they stepped out of the wet woods into the cheeriest scene imaginable. In the side of a steep hill which rose not far from the river there opened a good sized cave, and just inside its doorway burned a bright fire, lighting up the interior with its ruddy glow. On a smaller fire beside it a pan of bacon was sizzling merrily, and over another hung a pot of steaming coffee. To the eyes of the wet, chilly campers, it was the most beautiful scene they had ever looked upon. They sprang to the large fire and toasted themselves in its grateful warmth while they held up their clothes to dry before putting them on.

"Thoughtful people, to build us an extra fire," said Miss Amesbury, stretching out luxuriously on the blanket Migwan had spread for her.

"We knew you'd want to warm up a bit," replied Agony, removing the coffee pot from the blaze and beginning to pour the steaming liquid into the cups.

"How did you ever make a fire at all?" inquired Miss Amesbury. "Every bit of wood must be soaked through."

"We dug down into a big pine stump," replied Agony, "or rather, Sahwah did, for I didn't know enough to, and got us some dry chips to start the fire with, and then we kept drying other pieces until they could burn. Once we got that big log started we were all right. It's as hot as a furnace."

"What a difference fire does make!" said Miss Amesbury. "What dreary, dispirited people we'd be by this time if it were not for this cheering blaze. I'd be perfectly content to stay here all day if I had to."

Miss Amesbury had ample opportunity to test the depth of her content, for the rain showed no sign of abating. Hour after hour it poured down steadily as though it had forgotten how to stop. A dense mist rose on the river which gradually spread through the woods until the trees loomed up like dim spectres standing in menacing attitudes before the door of their little rocky chamber. Warm and dry inside, the Winnebagos made the best of their unexpected situation and whiled away the hours with games, stories, and "improving conversation," as Jo Severance recounted later.

"I've just invented a new game," announced Migwan, when the talk had run for some time on famous women of various times.

"What is it?" asked Hinpoha, pausing with a half washed potato in her hand. Hinpoha and Gladys were putting the potatoes into the hot ashes to bake them for dinner.

"Why, it's this," said Migwan. "Let each one of us in turn tell some incident that took place in the girlhood of a famous woman, the one we admire the most, and see if the others can guess who she is."

"All right, you begin, Migwan," said Sahwah.

"No, you begin, Sahwah. It's my game, so I'll be last."

Sahwah sat chin in hand for a moment, and then she began: "I see a long, low house built of bark and branches, thickly covered with snow. It is one of the 'long houses', or winter quarters of the Algonquins, and none other than the Chief's own house. Inside is a council chamber and in it a pow-wow of chiefs is going on. The other half of the house, which is not used as a council chamber, is used as the living room by the family, and here a number of children are playing a lively game. In the midst of the racket the door opens and in comes one of the chief's runners. As he advances toward the council chamber a young girl comes whirling down the room turning handsprings. Her feet strike him full in the chest, and send him flat on his back on the floor. A great roar of laughter goes up from the braves and squaws sitting around the room, for the girl who has knocked the runner down is none other than the chief's own daughter. But the old chief says sadly, 'Why will you be such a tomboy, my child?'"

"Tomboy, tomboy!" cry all the others, using the Algonquin word for that nickname. "Who is my girl, and what is her nickname?"

"That's easy," laughed Migwan, "Who but Pocahontas?"

"Was 'Pocahantas' just a nickname?" asked Hinpoha curiously.

"Yes," replied Migwan. "'Pocahontas', or 'pocahuntas', is the Algonquin word for 'tomboy'. The real name of Powhatan's daughter was Ma-ta-oka, but she was known ever after the incident Sahwah just related as 'Pocahontas.'"

"I never heard of that incident," said Hinpoha, "but I might have guessed that Sahwah would take Pocahontas for hers."

"Now you, Agony," said Migwan.

"I see a young girl," began Agony, "tending her flocks in the valley of the Meuse. She is sitting under a large beech, which the children of the village have named the 'Fairy Tree.' As she sits there her face takes on a rapt look; she sits very still, like one in a trance, for her eyes are looking upon a remarkable sight. She seems to see a shining figure standing before her; an angel with a flaming sword. She falls upon her knees and covers her face with her hands, and when she looks up again the vision is gone and only the tree is left, with the church beyond it."

"Joan of Arc!" cried three or four voices at once.

"O, how I wish I were she!" finished Agony fervently. "What a life of excitement she must have led! Think of the stirring times she must have had in the army!"

"I envy her all but the stake; I couldn't have borne that," said Sahwah. "Now you, Gladys."

"I see a young English girl, fourteen years old, dressed in the costume of Tudor England, stealing out of Westminster Palace with the boy king of England, Edward the Sixth. Free from the tiresome lords and ladies-in-waiting who were always at their heels in the palace, they have a gorgeous time wandering about the streets of London until by chance they meet one of the royal household, and are hustled back to the palace in short order."

"Poor Lady Jane Grey!" said Migwan. "I'm glad I wasn't in her shoes. I'm glad I'm not in any royalty's shoes. With all their pomp and splendor they never have half the fun we're having at this minute," she continued vehemently. "They never went off on a hike by themselves and slept on the ground with their heads under a canoe. It's lots nicer to be free, even if you are a nobody."

"I think so too," Sahwah agreed with her emphatically.

"My girl," said Jo, in her turn, "was crowned queen at the age of nine months and betrothed to the King of France when she was five years old. That's all I know about her early days, except that she had four intimate friends all named Mary."

"Mary, Queen of Scots," guessed Gladys, who was taking a history course in college. "Somehow I never could get up much sympathy for her; she seemed such a spineless sort of creature. I always preferred Queen Elizabeth, even if she did cut off Mary's head."

"Every single one of the heroines so far has died a violent death," remarked Miss Amesbury. "Is that the only kind of women you admire?"

"It seems so," replied Migwan, laughing. "We're a bloodthirsty lot. Go on, Katherine."

Katherine dropped the log she was carrying upon the fire and kept her eye upon it as she spoke. "I see a brilliant assemblage, gathered in the palace of the Empress of Austria to hear a wonderful boy musician play on the piano. As the young lad, who is none other than the great Mozart, enters the room, he first approaches the Empress to make his bow to her. The polished floor is extremely slippery, and he slips and falls flat. The courtiers, who consider him very clumsy, do nothing but laugh at him, but the young daughter of the Empress runs forward, helps him to his feet and comforts him with soothing words."

"I always did think that was the most charming anecdote ever related about Marie Antoinete," observed Migwan. "She must have been a very sweet and lovable young girl; it doesn't seem possible that she grew up to be the kind of woman she did."

"Another one who lost her head!" remarked Miss Amesbury, laughing. "Aren't there going to be any who live to grow old? Let's see who Hinpoha's favorite heroine is."

Hinpoha moved back a foot or so from the fire, which had blazed up to an uncomfortable heat at the addition of Katherine's log. "I see a Puritan maiden, seated at a spinning wheel," she commenced. "The door opens and a young man comes in. He apparently has something on his mind, and stands around first on one foot and then on the other, until the girl asks him what seems to be the trouble, whereupon he gravely informs her that a friend of his, a most worthy man indeed, who can write, and fight, and—ah, do several more things all at once, wants her for his wife. Then the girl smiles demurely at him, and says coyly—"

"Why don't you speak for yourself, John?" shouted the other six girls, with one voice.

"You don't need to ask Hinpoha who her favorite heroine is," said Migwan laughing. "Ever since I've known her she's read the story of Priscilla and John Alden at least once a week."

"Well, you must admit that she was pretty clever," said Hinpoha, blushing a little at the exposure of her fondness for love stories. "And sensible, too. She wasn't afraid of speaking up and helping her bashful lover along a little bit, instead of meekly accepting Standish's offer and then spending the rest of her life sighing because John Alden hadn't asked her."

"That's right," chimed in Sahwah. "I admire a girl with spirit. If Lady Jane Gray had had a little more spirit she wouldn't have lost her head. I'll warrant Priscilla Mullins would have found a way out of it if she had been in the same scrape as Lady Jane. Now, your turn, Migwan."

"I see a girl living in a bleak house on the edge of a wild, lonely moor," began Migwan. "All winter long the storms howl around the house like angry spirits of the air. To amuse themselves in these long winter evenings this girl and her sisters make up stories about the people that live on the moors and tell them to each other around the fire, or after they have crept into bed, and lie shivering under the blankets in the icy cold room. The stories that my girl made up were so fascinating that the others forgot the cold and the raw winds whistling about the house and listened spellbound until she had finished."

"I know who that is," said Gladys, when Migwan paused. "Mig is forever raving about Charlotte Bronte."

"The more I think about her the more wonderful she seems," said Migwan warmly. "How a girl brought up in such a dead, cheerless place as Haworth Churchyard, and knowing nothing at all about the world of people, could have written such a book as Jane Eyre, seems a miracle. She was a genius," she finished with an envious sigh.

Miss Amesbury looked keenly at Migwan. "I think," she observed shrewdly, "that you like to write also. Is it not so?"

Migwan blushed furiously and sat silent. To have this successful, widely known writer know her heart's ambition filled her with an agony of embarrassment.

"Migwan does write, wonderful things," said Hinpoha loyally. "She's had things printed in papers and in the college magazine." Then she told about the Indian legend that had caused such a stir in college, whereupon Miss Amesbury laughed heartily, and patted Migwan on the head, and said she would very much like to see some of the things she had written. Migwan, thrilled and happy, but still very much embarrassed, shyly promised that she would let her see some of her work, and in the middle of her speech a potato blew up with a bang, showering them all with mealy fragments and hot ashes, and sending them flying away from the fire with startled shrieks.

Since the potatoes were so very evidently done, the rest of the meal was hurriedly prepared, and eaten with keen appetites. During the clearing away process somebody discovered that the rain had stopped falling, a fact which they had all been too busy to notice before, and that the mist was being rapidly blown away by a strong northwest wind. When they woke in the morning, after sleeping in the cave around the fire, the sun was shining brightly into the entrance and the birds outside were singing joyously of a fair day to come.

Overflowing with energy the late cave dwellers raced through the sweet smelling woods, indescribably fresh and fragrant after the cleansing, purifying rain, and launched the canoes upon a river Sparkling like a sheet of diamonds in the clear morning sunlight. How wonderfully new and bright the rain-washed earth looked everywhere, and how exhilarating the fresh rushing wind was to their senses, after the smoky, misty atmosphere of the cave!

Exulting in their strength the Winnebagos bent low over their paddles, and the canoes leaped forward like hounds set free from the leash, and went racing along with the current, shooting past islands, whirling around bends, whisking through tiny rapids, wildly, deliriously, rejoicing in the thrill of the morning and the call of a world running over with joy. Soon they came to the place where they had first planned to camp, and there were the primroses, a-riot with bloom, nodding them a friendly greeting.

"Aren't you glad we didn't stay here?" said Sahwah. "We'd have been soaked if we did, because we probably wouldn't have found the cave. The primroses saved the day for us by growing where we wanted to lay our beds."

They sang a cheer to the primroses and swept on until they came to the place in the woods where the balsam grew. Dusk was falling when, with canoes piled high with the fragrant boughs, they rounded the great bend above Keewaydin and a few minutes later ran in alongside the Camp Keewaydin dock.

"I feel as though I had been gone for weeks," said Migwan, as they climbed out of the canoes.

"So do I," said Sahwah, dancing up and down on the dock to take the stiffness out of her muscles. "Doesn't it look civilized, though, after what we've just experienced? I wish," she continued longingly, "that I could live in the wilds all the time."

"I don't," replied Migwan, patting the diving tower as if it were an old friend. "Camp is plenty wild enough for me."



CHAPTER X

TOPSY-TURVY DAY

"Why, where is camp?" asked Sahwah in perplexity, noticing that the whole place was dark and still. It was half past six, the usual after-supper frolic hour, when camp was wont to ring to the echo with fun and merriment of all kinds. Now no sound came from Mateka, nor from the bungalow, nor from any of the tents, no sound and no movement. Before their astonished eyes the camp lay like an enchanted city, changed in their absence from a place of racket and bustle and resounding laughter, to a silent ghost of its former lively self.

"What's happened?" exclaimed the Winnebagos to each other. "Is everybody gone on a trip?"

Mystified, they climbed up the hill, and at the top they found Miss Judy going from tent to tent with her flashlight, as if making the nightly rounds after lights out.

"O Miss Judy," they called to her, "what's happened?"

"Shh-h-h!" replied Miss Judy, holding up her hand for silence and coming toward them. "Everybody's in bed," she whispered when she was near enough for them to hear her."

"In bed!" exclaimed the Winnebagos in astonishment. "At half past six in the evening? What for?"

"It's Topsy-Turvy Day," replied Miss Judy, laughing at their amazed faces. "We're turning everything upside down tonight. Hurry and get into bed. The rising bugle will blow in half an hour."

Giggling with amusement the Winnebagos sped to their tents, unrolled their ponchos, made up their beds in a hurry, undressed quickly and popped into bed. Not long afterward they heard the dipping of paddles and the monotonous "one, two, one two," of the boatswain as the crew of the Turtle started out for practice. The Turtle's regular practice hour was the half hour before rising bugle in the morning.

Tired with her long paddle that day Hinpoha fell asleep as soon as she touched the pillow, and was much startled to hear the loud blast of a bugle in the midst of a delightful dream. "What's the matter?" she asked sleepily, sitting up and looking around her in bewilderment. "What are they blowing the bugle in the middle of the night for?"

"They aren't blowing the bugle in the middle of the night," said Sahwah with a shriek of laughter at Hinpoha's puzzled face. "This is Topsy-Turvy Day, don't you remember? We're going to have our regular day's program at night time. It's ten minutes to seven, and that's the bugle for morning dip. Are you coming?"

Sahwah was already inside her bathing suit, and Agony had hers half on. Hinpoha replied with an unintelligible sound, one-eighth grunt and seven-eights yawn, and rising tipsily from her bed she looked around for her bathing suit with eyes still half sealed by sleep. Sahwah helped her into the suit and seizing her hand led her down to the water, where half the camp, shaking with convulsive merriment at the absurdity of the thing, were scrupulously taking their "morning dip," with toothbrush drill and all the other regular morning ablutions.

The rising bugle blew while they were still at it and they sped back to the tents to get dressed, making three times as much racket about this process as they ever did in the morning. Most of the tents had no lights, because ordinarily no one needed a light to undress by and so the lanterns which had been given out at the beginning of the season were scattered everywhere about camp as especial need for them had arisen upon various occasions. But getting dressed in the dark is harder than getting undressed, and most of the tents were in an uproar.

"I can only find one stocking," wailed Oh-Pshaw, after vainly feeling around for several minutes. "Where's my flashlight, Katherine?"

"I'm sorry, but I just dropped it into the water jar," replied Katherine, "and it won't work any more." Katherine herself was hopelessly involved in her bloomers, having put both feet through the same leg, and was lying flat on the floor trying to extricate herself.

"Can I go with only one stocking on?" Oh-Pshaw persisted plaintively. "I haven't another pair here in the tent."

"I can't find my middy," Jean Lawrence was lamenting, paying no heed to Oh-Pshaw's troubles in regard to hosiery.

Tiny Armstrong, reaching down behind her bed for some missing article of her costume, gave the bed such a shove that it went flying out of the tent carrying the rustic railing with it, and they heard it go bumping down the hillside.

"Strike one!" called Tiny ruefully. "That's what comes of being so strong. I'll knock the tent down next."

"Will somebody please tell me where my middy is?" Jean cried tragically. "I can't find it anywhere."

"Will someone tell me where the other leg of my bloomers is?" exclaimed Katherine. "I've shoved both feet through the same leg three times, now. There goes the breakfast bugle!"

"Oh, where is my other stocking?"

"Where is my middy?"

"Who's gone south with my shoes?"

The threefold wail floated down on the breeze as footsteps began to run down the Alley in the direction of the bungalow. A few minutes later the occupants of Bedlam slid as unobtrusively as possible into the lighted bungalow; Oh-Pshaw with her bloomers down around her ankles in a Turkish effect, to hide the fact that she had on only one stocking; Jean with her sweater buttoned tightly around her, Katherine with her red silk tie bound around one knee to gather up the fullness of her bloomer leg, for the elastic band had burst from the strain of accommodating two feet at once; and Tiny had one white sneaker and one red Pullman slipper on. Glancing around at the rest they saw many others in the same plight—middies on hindside before, odd shoes and stockings, sweaters instead of middies, and various other parodies on the regular camp uniform—and immediately they ceased to feel conspicuous. Taking their places around the table the campers proceeded to sing one of the morning greetings:

"Good morning to you, Good morning to you, Good morning, dear comrades, Good morning to you!"

"Did you have a good night's sleep?" was a question that made the rounds of the table, with many droll replies, as the cereal was being passed. Hilarity increased during the meal, as the absurdity of eating cereal and fruit and toast at eight o'clock in the evening overcame the girls one after the other, and the room rang with witty songs made up on the spur of the moment.

At "Morning Sing" which followed breakfast, they solemnly sang "When Morning Gilds the Skies," "Awake, my soul, and with the sun," "Kathleen Mavourneen, the grey dawn is breaking," and other morning songs; the program for the day was read, and Dr. Grayson gave a fatherly lecture on the harmfulness of staying up after dark. Getting the tents ready for tent inspection without lights was a proceeding which defies description. Tiny Armstrong was still on the hillside searching for her runaway bed when the Lone Wolf reached Bedlam in her tour of inspection, and was given a large and black zero in consequence. She finally gave up the search and wandered into Mateka, where, with lanterns hanging above the long tables, Craft Hour was in full swing, the girls busily working at clay modeling, wood-blocking and paddle decorating, while the moon, round-eyed with astonishment, peeped through the doorway at the singular sight. Still more astonished, the same moon looked down on the tennis court an hour later, where a lively folk dance was going on to the music of a graphaphone; couples spinning around in wild figures, stepping on each other's feet and every now and then dropping down at the outer edge of the court and shrieking with laughter, while the dance continued faster and more furiously than before, till the sound of the bugle sent the dancers flying swiftly to their tents to wriggle into clammy, wet bathing suits that seemed in the dark to be an altogether different shape from what they were in the daylight.

Standing on top of the diving tower when Tiny's cry of "All in!" rang out, Sahwah leaped down into the darkness and had a queer, thrilling moment in mid air when she wondered if she would ever strike the water, or would go on indefinitely falling through the blackness. Laughing, shouting, splashing, the campers sported in the water until all of a sudden a red canoe shot into their midst and the director of Camp Altamont, accompanied by two assistants, came in an advanced stage of breathlessness to find out what the matter was. They heard the noise and the splashing of water and thought some accident had occurred.

"No accident, thanks, only Camp Keewaydin stealing a march on old Father Time and turning night into day," Dr. Grayson called from the dock, and amid shouts of laughter from all around the messengers paddled back to their camp to assure the wakened and excited boys that nothing had happened, and that it was only another wild inspiration of the people at Camp Keewaydin.

At midnight, when the bugle blew for dinner, everyone was as hungry as at noon, and the kettle of cocoa and the trays of sandwiches were emptied in a jiffy.

"Now what?" asked Dr. Grayson, looking around the table with twinkling eyes, when the last crumb and the last drop of cocoa had disappeared.

"Rest hour," replied Mrs. Grayson emphatically. "Rest hour to last until morning. Blow the bugle, Judy."

"Wasn't this the wildest evening we ever put in?" said Katherine, fishing her hairbrush out of the water pail. "Where's Tiny?" she asked, becoming aware that their Councilor was not in the tent,

"Down on the hill looking for her bed." replied Oh-Pshaw.

"Goodness, let's go down and help her," said Katherine, and Oh-Pshaw and Jean streamed after her down the path. They stumbled over the bed before they came to Tiny. It had turned over sidewise and fallen into a tiny ravine, and as she had gone straight down the hill searching for it she had missed it. Katherine stepped into the ravine, dragging the two others with her, and at the bottom they landed on top of the bed.

Getting an iron cot up a steep hill is not the easiest thing in the world, and when they had it up at the top of the hill they all sat down on it and panted awhile before they could make it up. Then they discovered that the pillow was missing and Katherine obligingly went down the hill again to find it.

"I shan't get up again for a week," she sighed wearily as she stretched between the sheets.

"Neither will I," echoed Tiny.

Jean and Oh-Pshaw did not echo. They were already asleep.

Katherine had just sunk into a deep slumber when she started at the touch of a cold hand laid against her face. "What is it?" she cried out sharply.

A face was bending over her, a pale little face framed in a lace boudoir cap. Katherine recognized Carmen Chadwick. "What's the matter?" she asked.

"My Councy's awful sick, and none of the other girls will wake up and I don't know what to do," said Carmen in a scared voice.

"What's the matter with her?" asked Katherine.

"She ate too many blueberries, I guess; she's got an awful pain in her stomach, and chills."

Katherine hugged her warm pillow. "Take the hot water bottle out of the washstand," she directed, without moving. "There—it's on the top shelf. There's hot water in the tank in the kitchen. And have you some Jamaica ginger? No? Take ours—it's the only bottle on the top shelf. Now you'll be all right."

Katherine sank back into slumber. A few minutes more and she was awakened again by the same cold hand on her face.

"What is it now?"

"The Jamaica ginger," asked Carmen's thin voice in a bewildered tone, "what shall I do with it? Shall I put it in the hot water bottle?"

Katherine's feet suddenly struck the floor together, and with an explosive exclamation under her breath she sped over to Avernus and took matters in hand herself. She had tucked Carmen into her own bed in Bedlam, and she spent the remainder of the night over in Avernus, taking care of the Lone Wolf, snatching a few moments' sleep in Carmen's bed now and then when her patient felt easier. It was broad daylight before she finally settled into uninterrupted slumber.



CHAPTER XI

EDWIN LANGHAM

Camp was more or less demoralized the next day. Miss Judy overslept and did not blow the rising bugle until nearly noon, so dinner took the place of breakfast and swimming hour came in the middle of the afternoon instead of in the morning.

After swimming hour Agony went up to Miss Amesbury's balcony to return a book she had borrowed. Miss Amesbury was not there, so Agony, as she often did when she found her friend out, sat down to wait for her, passing the time by looking at some sketches tying on the table. Turing these over, Agony came upon a letter thrust in between the drawing sheets, at the sight of which her heart began to flutter wildly. The address on the envelope was in Mary Sylvester's handwriting—there was no mistaking that firm, round hand; it was indelibly impressed upon Agony's mind from seeing it on that other occasion. In a panic she realized that the danger of being discovered was even greater than she had thought, since Mary also wrote to Miss Amesbury. Was it not possible that Mary had mentioned the robin incident in this letter? It now seemed to Agony that Miss Amesbury's manner had been different toward her in the last few days, on the trip. She seemed less friendly, less cordial. Several times Agony had looked up lately to find Miss Amesbury regarding her with a keen, grave scrutiny and a baffling expression on her face. To Agony's tortured fancy these instances became magnified out of all proportion, and the disquieting conviction seized her that Miss Amesbury knew the truth. The thought nearly drove her mad. It tormented her until she realized that there was only one way in which she could still the tumult raging in her bosom, and that was by finding out for certain if Mary had really told.

With shaking fingers she slipped the letter out of the open envelope, and with cheeks aflame with shame at the thing she was doing, she deliberately read Miss Amesbury's letter. It was much like the one Mary had written to Jo Severance, full of clever descriptions of the places she was seeing, and it made no mention either of the robin or of her. With fingers shaking still more at the relief she felt, she put the letter back into the envelope and replaced it between the sketches. Then, trembling from head to foot at the reaction from her panic, she turned her back upon the table and sat up against the railing, holding her head in her hands and looking down at the fair sunlit river with eyes that saw it not.

Miss Amesbury returned by and by and was so evidently pleased to see her that Agony concluded she must have been mistaken in fancying any coldness on her part during the last few days.

"I've a letter from Mary Sylvester," Miss Amesbury said almost at once, "and because you are following so closely in Mary's footsteps I'm going to read it to you." She smiled brightly into Agony's sober face and paused to pat her on the shoulder before she fluttered over the pile of sketches to find the letter.

Agony sat limply, listening to the words she had read a few minutes before, despising herself thoroughly and wishing with all her heart that she had never come to camp. Yet she forced herself to make appreciative comments on the interesting things in the letter and to utter sincere sounding exclamations of surprise at certain points.

"I've something to tell you that will please you," said Miss Amesbury, after the letter had been put away.

"What is it?" asked Agony, looking up inquiringly.

"Someone you admire very much is going to visit Camp," replied Miss Amesbury.

"Who?" Agony's eyes opened up very wide with surprise.

"Edwin Langham. He has been camping not very far from here and he is going to run down on his way home and pay Dr. Grayson a flying visit. They are old friends."

"Edwin Langham?" Agony gasped faintly, her head awhirl. It seemed past comprehension that this man whom she had worshipped as a divinity for so long was actually to materialize in the flesh—that the cherished desire of her life was coming true, that she was going to see and talk with him.

"Goodness, don't look so excited, child," said Miss Amesbury, laughing. "He's only a man. A very rare and wonderful man, however," she added, "and it is a great privilege to know him."

"When is he coming?" asked Agony in a whisper.

"Tomorrow afternoon. He is going to stop off between boats and will be here only a short time."

"Do you suppose he will speak to me?" asked Agony humbly.

"I rather think he will," replied Miss Amesbury, smiling. "You see," she continued, taking Agony's hand in hers as she spoke, "it just happened that Edwin Langham was the man who sat under the tree that time you climbed up and rescued the robin. He was laid up with blood poisoning in his foot at the time and he had been wheeled into the woods from his camp that afternoon. His man had left him for a short time when you happened along. He was the man who told about the incident down at the store at Green's Landing, where Dr. Grayson heard about it later from the storekeeper. Dr. Grayson did not know at the time that it was his friend Edwin Langham who had witnessed the affair, but in the letter Dr. Grayson has just received from Mr. Langham he gives an enthusiastic account of it, and says he is coming to camp partly for the purpose of meeting the girl in the green bloomers who performed that splendid deed that day. So you see, my dear," Miss Amesbury concluded, "I think it is highly probable that you will have an opportunity to speak to your idolized Edwin Langham."

For a moment things turned black before Agony's eyes. She rose unsteadily to her feet and crossed the balcony to the stairs. "I must be going, now," she murmured through dry lips.

"Must you go so soon?" asked Miss Amesbury with a real regret in her voice that cut Agony to the heart.

"Come again, come often," floated after her as she passed through the door.

Agony sped away from camp and hid herself away in the woods, where she sank down at the foot of a great tree and hid her face in her hands. The thing she had desired, had longed for above all others, was now about to come to pass—and she had made it forever an impossibility. The cup of joy that Fate had decreed she was to taste she had dashed to the ground with her own hands. For she could not see Edwin Langham, could not let him see her. As long as he did not see her her secret was safe. He did not know her name, or Mary's, so he could not betray her in that way. Only, if he ever saw her he would know the difference right away, and then would come betrayal and disgrace. There was only one thing to do. She must hide away from him; and give up her opportunity of meeting and talking with him. It was the only way out of the predicament.

When the steamer swung into view around the bend of the river the next afternoon Agony stole away into the thickest part of the woods and proceeded toward a place she had discovered some time before. It was a deep, extremely narrow ravine, so narrow indeed that it was merely a great crock in the earth, not more than six feet across at its widest. It was filled with a wild growth of elderberry bushes, which made it an excellent hiding place. She scrambled down into this pit and crouched under the bushes, completely hidden from view. Here she sat with her head bowed down on her knees, hearing the whistle of the steamer as it neared the dock, and the welcoming song of the girls as the distinguished passenger alighted. A little later it seemed to her that she heard voices calling her name. Yes, it was so, without a doubt. Tiny Armstrong's megaphone voice came echoing on the breeze.

"A-go-ny! A-go-ny! Oh-h-h-h, A—go—ny!"

* * * * *

She clenched her hands in silent misery, and did not raise her head. Then the sound of a bark arrested her attention, coming from directly overhead, and she sat up in consternation. Micky, the bull pup belonging to the Camp, had discovered her hiding place and would undoubtedly give her away.

"Go away, Micky!" she commanded in a low tone. At the sound of her voice Micky barked more loudly than ever, a joyous, welcoming bark. Having been much petted by Agony, Micky had grown very fond of her, and seeing her walk off into the woods today, he had followed after her, and now gave loud voice to his satisfaction at finding her.

"Micky! Go away!" commanded Agony a second time, throwing a lump of dirt at him. Micky looked astonished as the dirt flew past his nose, but refused to retire.

"Well, if you won't go away, come down in here, then," said Agony. "Here, Micky, Micky," she called coaxingly.

Micky, clumsy puppy that he was, made a wild leap into the ravine and landed upon the sharp point of a jagged stump, cutting a jagged gash in his shoulder. How he did howl! Agony expected every minute that the whole camp would come running to the spot to find out what the matter was. But fortunately the wind was blowing from the direction of Camp and the sound was carried the other way. Agony worked frantically to get the wound bound up and the poor puppy soothed into silence. At last he lay still, with his head in her lap, licking her hand with his moppy red tongue every few seconds to tell her how grateful he was.

Thus she sat until she heard the deep whistle of the returning steamer and the farewell song of the girls as they stood on the dock and waved goodbye to Edwin Langham. When she was sure that the boat must be out of sight she shoved Micky gently out of her lap and rose to climb out of her hiding place. Her feet were asleep from sitting so long in her cramped position and as she tried to get a foothold on the steep side of the ravine she slipped and fell headlong, striking her head on a stump and twisting her back. It was not until night that they found her, after her continued absence from camp had roused alarm, and searching parties had been made up to scour the woods. Tiny Armstrong, shouting her way through the woods, first heard a muffled bark and then a feeble answer to her call, coming from the direction of the ravine, and charging toward it like a fire engine she discovered the two under the elderberry bushes.

Agony was lifted gently out and laid on the ground to await the coming of an improvised stretcher.

"We hunted and hunted for you this afternoon," said Jo Severance, bending over her with an anxious face. "The poet, Edwin Langham, was here, and he wanted especially to see you, and was dreadfully disappointed when we couldn't find you. He left a book here for you."

"Oh," groaned Agony, and those hearing her thought that she must be in great physical pain.

"How did you happen to fall into that ravine?" asked Jo.

Agony was becoming light headed from the blow on her temple, and she answered in disjointed phrases.

"Didn't fall in—went down—purpose. Micky—fell in—hurt shoulder—I bandaged it—fell trying—to—get—out."

Her voice trailed off weakly toward the end.

"There, don't talk," said Dr. Grayson. "We understand all about it. The dog fell in and hurt himself and you went down after him and then fell in yourself. Being kind to dumb animals again. Noble little girl. We're proud of you."

Agony heard it all as in a dream, but could summon no voice to speak. She was so tired. After all, why not let them think that? It was the best way out. Otherwise they might wonder how she happened to be in the ravine—it would be hard for them to believe that she had fallen into it herself in broad daylight, and it might be embarrassing to answer questions. Let them believe that she had gone down after the dog. That settled the matter once for all.

The stretcher arrived and she was carried to her tent, where Dr. Grayson made a thorough examination of her injuries.

"Not serious," was his verdict, to everybody's immense relief. "Painful bump on the head, but no real damage done, and back strained a little, that's all."

Once more Agony was the camp heroine, and her tent was crowded all day long with admirers. Miss Amesbury sat and read to her by the hour; the camp cook made up special dishes and sent them out on a tray trimmed with wild flowers; the camp orchestra serenaded her daily and nightly, and half a dozen clever camp poets made up songs in her honor. Fame comes easily in camps, and enthusiasm runs high while it lasts.

Agony reflected, in a grimly humorous way, that in the matter of fame she had a sort of Midas touch; everything she did rebounded to her glory, now that the ball was once started rolling. And worst of all was the book that Edwin Langham had left for her, a beautiful copy of "The Desert Garden," bound in limp leather with gold edged leaves. Inside the cover was written in a flowing, beautiful hand:

"To A.C.W., in memory of a certain day in the woods. From one who rejoices in a brave and noble deed. Sincerely, Edwin Langham."

On the opposite page was written a quotation which Agony had been familiar with ever since she had become a Winnebago:

"Love is the joy of service so deep that self is forgotten."

She put the book away where she could not see it, but the words had burned themselves into her brain.

"To A.C.W. From one who rejoices in a brave and noble deed."

They mocked her in the dead of night, they taunted her in the light of day. But, like the boy with the fox gnawing at his vitals, Agony continued to smile and make herself agreeable, and no one ever suspected that her gayety was not genuine.



CHAPTER XII

THE STUNT'S THE THING

"Where would a shipwreck look best, right by the dock, or farther up the shore?" Sahwah's forehead puckered up with the force of her reflection.

"Oh, not right by the dock," said Jo Severance decidely. "That would be too modern and—commonplace. It's lots more epic to be dashed against a rocky cliff. All the shipwrecks in the books happen on stern and rockbound coasts and things like that."

"It might be more epic for those who are looking on, but for the one that gets shipwrecked," Sahwah reminded her. "As long as I'm the one that get's wrecked I'm going to pick out a soft spot to get wrecked on."

"Why not capsize some distance out in the water and swim ashore?" suggested Migwan.

"Of course!" exclaimed Sahwah. "Why didn't we think of that before? Geese!"

"This is the way we'll start, then," said Migwan, taking out her notebook and scribbling in it with a pencil. "Scene One. Sinbad the Sailor clinging to wreckage of vessel out in the water. He drifts ashore and lands in the kingdom of the Keewaydins." She paused and bit the end of her pencil, seeking inspiration. "Then, what will you do when you land, Sahwah?"

"Oh, I'll just poke around a bit, and then discover the Keewaydins in their native wilds," replied Sahwah easily. "Then I'll go around with you while you go through the events of a day in camp. O, I think it's the grandest idea!" she interrupted herself in a burst of rapture. "We'll get the stunt prize as easy as pie. The Avenue will never be able to think up anything nearly as good. How did you ever manage to think of it, Migs?"

"Why, it just came all by itself," replied Migwan modestly.

Anyone who had ever spent a summer at Camp Keewaydin, passing at that moment, and hearing the conversation, would have known exactly what week of the year it was without consulting a calendar. It was the second week in August—the week of Camp Keewaydin's annual Stunt Night, when the Avenue and the Alley matched their talents in a contest to see which one could put on the best original stunt. Next to Regatta Day, when the two struggled for the final supremacy in aquatics, Stunt Night was the biggest event of the camping season. Rivalry was intense. It was a fair test of the talents of the girls themselves, for the councilors were not allowed to participate, nor to give the slightest aid or advice. The boys from Camp Altamont came over with their councilors, and together with the directors and councilors of Camp Keewaydin they voted on which stunt was the best. Originality counted most; finish in working out the details next.

The Alley's stunt this year was a sketch entitled THE LAST VOYAGE OF SINBAD THE SAILOR, and was a burlesque on Camp life. The idea had come to Migwan in a flash of inspiration one night when Dr. Grayson was reading the Arabian Nights aloud before the fire in the bungalow. She communicated her idea to the rest of the Alley and they received it with whoops of joy.

Now it lacked but three days until Stunt Night, and the Alleyites, over on Whaleback, where they would be safe from detection, were deep in the throes of rehearsing. Sahwah, of course, was picked for the role of the shipwrecked Sinbad, for she was the only one who could be depended upon to stage the shipweck in a thrilling manner.

"What kind of a costume do I wear?" she inquired, when the location of the shipwreck itself had finally been settled. "What nationality was Sinbad, anyhow?"

"He came from Bagdad," replied Sahwah brilliantly.

"But where was Bagdad?"

"In Syria," declared Oh-Pshaw.

"Asia," promptly answered Gladys.

"Turkey," said Katherine, somewhat doubtfully, and "Persia," said Agony in the same breath.

Then they all looked at each other a little sheepishly.

"The extent to which I don't know geography," remarked Sahwah, "is something appalling."

"Well, if we don't know what country Bagdad was in, it's pretty sure that none of the others will either," said Hinpoha brightly, "so it doesn't make much difference what kind of a costume you wear. Something Turkish is what you want, I suppose. A turban and some great big bloomers, you know the kind, with yards and yards of goods in them."

"But you can't swim in such awfully full bloomers," Sahwah protested.

"That's so, too," Hinpoha assented.

"Well, get them as big as you can swim in," said Migwan pacifically.

"Who's going to make them?" Sahwah wanted to know. "We haven't much time."

"Oh, just borrow Tiny Armstrong's regular ones," Migwan replied. "They'll look like Turkish bloomers on you."

"Won't she suspect what we're going to do if I borrow them?" Sahwah demurred.

"Nonsense! What could she suspect? She will know of course that you want them for the stunt, but she couldn't guess what for."

"We've got to have her other pair, too, for the person who is going to impersonate Tiny," Agony reminded Migwan.

"So we do," replied Migwan, making a note in her book. "And her stockings, too, those red and black ones. We're going to do that snake business over again. Somebody will have to get these without Tiny's knowing it, or she'll suspect about the snake. Who's in her tent?"

"We are," replied Katherine and Oh-Pshaw. "We'll manage to get them for you. Who's going to impersonate Tiny Armstrong?"

Migwan squinted her eyes in a calculating manner and surveyed the girls grouped around her. "It'll have to be Katherine, I guess," she finally announced. "She's the biggest of us all. But even she isn't nearly as big as Tiny," she added regretfully.

"Couldn't we put two of us together?" suggested Sahwah. "Carmen Chadwick is as light as a feather and she could get up on Katherin's shoulders as easy as not."

"But we need Katherine to impersonate the Lone Wolf. She's the only one who can do it well," objected Migwan. "Somebody else will have to be the bottom half of Tiny. Hinpoha, you'll do for that part. Gladys, you'll be Pom-pom, of course. There, that's three councilors taken care of. As soon as your parts are assigned will you please step over to that side, girls. Then I can see what I have left. Now, who'll be Miss Peckham?"

There was a silence, and all the eligibles looked at one another doubtfully. Nobody quite dared impersonate Miss Peckham—and nobody wanted to, for that matter.

"Jo?" Migwan began hesitatingly. "You're such a good mimic—no—" she broke off decidely, "you have to be Dr. Grayson, of course, because you can play men's parts so beautifully."

She looked from one to the other inquiringly. Her eye fell upon Bengal Virden. "Bengal, dear—"

Bengal looked up with a jerk and a grimace of distaste. "I wouldn't be Pecky for a thousand dollars," she declared flatly. "I hate her, I tell you." Then something seemed to occur to her, and a mischievous twinkle came into her eyes. "Oh, I'll be her," she exclaimed, throwing grammar to the winds in her eagerness. "Please let me. I want to be, I want to be."

"All right," said Migwan relievedly, putting the entry down in her notebook and proceeding with the assignment of parts. But Agony, having seen the mischievous gleam that came into Bengal's eyes when she so suddenly changed her mind about impersonating Miss Peckham, wondered as to its meaning.

She called Bengal to come aside with her, and Bengal, enraptured at being noticed by her divinity, trotted after her like a delighted Newfoundland puppy, bestowing clumsy caresses upon her as they proceeded.

"Oh, I've got the best joke on Pecky!" she gurgled, before Agony had had a chance to broach the subject herself.

"Yes?" said Agony.

"Did you know," confided Bengal, with a fresh burst of giggles, "that Pecky shaves?"

Then, as Agony gave a little incredulous exclamation, she hastened on. "Really she does, her whole chin, with a razor, every morning. I found it out a couple of days ago. I guess she'd have a regular beard if she didn't. You've noticed how kind of hairy her chin is, haven't you? I found a little safety razor among her things one day—"

"Bengal! You weren't rummaging among her things, were you?"

"No, of course not. But once when we were all up in the bungalow she found that she'd forgotten her watch, and sent me back to get it out of her bathrobe pocket, and there was a little safety razor in where the watch was. I didn't think anything about it then, but after that I noticed that she always went off by herself in the woods. While the rest of us went for morning dip. Yesterday I followed her and saw what she did. She shaved her chin with that safety razor. Oh, won't it be great fun when I do that in the stunt? Won't she be hopping mad, though!" Bengal hopped up and down and chortled with anticipatory glee.

"Bengal!" said Agony firmly, "don't you dare do anything like that? Don't you know that it's terribly bad taste to make fun of people's personal blemishes?"

"But she deserves it," Bengal persisted, still chuckling. "She's such a prune."

"That has nothing whatever to do with the matter," Agony replied sternly. "Do you want to ruin our stunt for us? That's what will happen if you do anything as ill-bred as that. It would take away every chance we have of winning the prize."

"Well, if you say I shouldn't do it I won't," said Bengal rather sulkily. "But wouldn't it have been the best joke!" she added regretfully.

"Bengal," Agony continued, realizing that even if Bengal could be suppressed as far as the stunt went, she would still have plenty of opportunity for making life miserable for Miss Peckham now that she had learned her embarrassing secret, "you won't mention this to any of the other girls, will you? You see, it must be very embarrassing for Miss Peckham to have to do that, and naturally she would feel highly uncomfortable if the camp found it out. You see, you found it out by accident; she didn't tell you of her own free will, so you have no right to tell it any further. A girl with a nice sense of honor would never think of telling anything she found out in that way, when she knew it would cause embarrassment if told. So you'll give me your promise, won't you, Bengal dear, that you will never mention this matter to anybody around camp?"

Bengal flushed and looked down, maintaining an obstinate silence.

"Please, won't you, Bengal dear?" coaxed Agony in her most irresistible manner. "Will you do it for me if you won't do it for Miss Peckham?"

Bengal could not hold out against the coaxing of her adored one, but she still hesitated, bargaining her promise for a reward. "If you'll let me wear your ring for the rest of the summer, and come and kiss me goodnight every night after I'm in bed—"

"All right," Agony agreed hastily, with a sigh of resignation for this departure from her fixed principles regarding the lending of jewelry and about promiscuous demonstrations of affection, but peace in camp was worth the price.

Bengal claimed the ring at once, and then, after pawing Agony over like a bear cub, said a little shamefacedly, "I wish I were as good as you are. You're so honorable. How do you get such a 'nice sense of honor' as you have? I think I'd like to have one."

"Such a nice sense of honor as you have!" Agony jerked up as though she had been jabbed with a red hot needle. "Such a nice sense of honor as you have!" The words lingered in her ears like a mocking echo. The smile faded from her lips; her arm stiffened and dropped from Bengal's shoulder. The frank admiration in the younger girl's eyes cut her to the quick. With a haggard look she turned away from Bengal and wandered away to the other part of the island, away from the girls. Just now she could not bear to hear their gay, carefree voices. What would she not give, she thought to herself, to have nothing on her mind. She even envied rabbit-brained little Carmen Chadwick, who, if she had nothing in her head, had nothing on her conscience either.

"Who am I to talk of a 'nice sense of honor' to Bengal Virden?" she thought miserably. "I'm a whole lot worse than she. She's only a mischievous child, and doesn't know any better, but I do. I'm no better than Jane Pratt, either, even though I told Mrs. Grayson about her going out at night with boys from Camp Altamont." This matter of Jane Pratt had tormented Agony without ceasing. True to her contemptuous attitude toward Agony's plea that she break bonds no more, she had refused to tell Mrs. Grayson about her nocturnal canoe rides and thus had forced Agony to make good her threat and tell Mrs. Grayson herself. She had hoped and prayed that Jane would take the better course and confess her own wrong doing, but Jane did nothing of the kind, and there was only one course open to Agony. It was the rule of the camp that anyone seeing another breaking the rules must first give the offender the opportunity to confess, and if that failed must report the matter herself to the Doctor or Mrs. Grayson. So Agony was obliged to tell Mrs. Grayson that Jane was breaking the rules by slipping out nights and setting a bad example to the younger girls if any of them knew about it.

The matter caused more of a stir than Agony had expected, and much more than she had wished for. Dr. Grayson prided himself upon the high standard of conduct which was maintained at his camp, and he knew that the mothers of his girls gave their daughters into his keeping with implicit faith that they would meet with no harmful influences while they were at Camp Keewaydin. If a rumor should ever get about that the girls from his camp went out in canoes after hours Keewaydin's reputation would suffer considerably. Dr. Grayson was outraged and thoroughly angry. He decided at once that Jane should be sent home in disgrace. That very day, however, Mrs. Grayson had received a letter saying that Jane's mother was quite ill in a sanatarium and that all upsetting news was being carefully kept away from her. She particularly desired that Jane should not come home, as there was no place for her to stay, and she was so much better taken care of in camp than she would be in a large city with no one to look after her. It was this letter that brought about a three-hour conference between the Doctor and Mrs. Grayson. Dr. Grayson was firm about sending Jane home in disgrace; Mrs. Grayson, filled with concern about her well loved friend, could not bear to risk upsetting her at this critical time by turning loose her unruly daughter. In the end Mrs. Grayson won her point, and Jane was allowed to stay in camp, but she was deprived of all canoe privileges for the remainder of the summer and forbidden to go on any of the trips with the camp. She was taken away from the easy-going, sound-sleeping councilor whose chaperonage she had succeeded in eluding, and placed in a tent with Mrs. Grayson herself. Dr. Grayson called the whole camp together in council and explained the matter to the girls, dwelling upon the dishonorableness of breaking rules, and when he finished his talk there was small danger that even the smallest rule would be broken again during the summer. The sight of Jane Pratt called out in public to be censured was not one to be soon forgotten. Agony was commended by the Doctor for her firm stand in the matter, and praised because she did not take the easier course of remaining silent about it and running the risk of letting the reputation of the camp suffer.

Since then Jane, though somewhat subdued, had treated Agony with such marked animosity of manner that Agony hardly dared look at her. Added to her natural embarrassment at having been the in-former—a role which no one ever really enjoys—was the matter which lay like lead on Agony's own conscience and which tortured her out of all proportion to its real significance.

"Pretender!" the whole world seemed to shriek at her wherever she went.

Thus, although Agony apparently was throwing herself heart and soul into the preparations for Stunt Night, her mind was not on it half of the time and at times she was hardly conscious of the bustle and excitement around her.

These last three days the camp were as a house divided against itself, as far as the Avenue and the Alley were concerned. Such a gathering of groups into corners, such whispering and giggling, such sudden scattering at the approach of one from the other side! Sahwah spent two whole afternoons over on the far side of Whaleback, rehearsing her shipwreck, while the rest of the Alleyites worked up their parts on shore, trying to imitate the voices and characteristics of the various councilors. All went fairly well except the combination Tiny Armstrong. Carmen Chadwick, on top of Hinpoha, and draped up in Tiny's clothes, made a truly imposing figure that drew involuntary applause from the rest of the cast, but when Tiny spoke, the weak, piping voice that issued from the gigantic figure promptly threw them all into hysterics. The real Tiny's voice was as deep and resonant as a fog horn.

"That'll never do!" gasped Migwan through her tears of merriment. "That doesn't sound any more like Tiny than a chipping sparrow sounds like a lion. We'll have to get somebody with a deeper voice for the upper half of Tiny."

"But there isn't anybody else as light as Carmen," Hinpoha protested, "and I can't carry anybody that's any heavier."

Migwan wrinkled her brows and considered the matter.

"Oh, leave it the way it is," proposed Jo Severance. "They'll never notice a little thing like that."

"Yes, they will too," Gladys declared. "Anyway, you can't hear what Carmen says, and we want the folks to hear Tiny's speech, because it's so funny."

"But what are we going to do about it?" asked Migwan in perplexity.

"I know," said Katherine, rising to the occasion, as usual, "let the other half of Tiny do the talking. Hinpoha can make her voice quite deep and loud. It doesn't make any difference which half of Tiny talks, as long as the people hear it."

"Just the thing!" exclaimed Migwan delightedly. "Katherine, that head of yours will make your fortune yet. All right, Hinpoha, you speak Tiny's lines."

Hinpoha complied, and the effect of her voice coming apparently from beneath Tiny's ribs, while Tiny's mouth up above remained closed, was a great deal funnier than the first way.

"Never mind," said Migwan firmly, while the rest wept with laughter on each other's shoulders, "it sounds more like Tiny than the other way. You might stand with your back turned while you talk if Sinbad can't keep his face straight when he looks at you. You'd all better practice keeping your faces straight though. Katherine, you won't forget to get that gaudy blanket off the Lone Wolf's bed, will you?"

Migwan, her classic forehead streaked with perspiration and red color from the notebook in her hands, directed the rehearsal of her production all through the hot afternoon, until the lengthening shadows on the island warned them that is was time to get back to camp and prepare for the real performance. The stunts were to begin at six-thirty, and would be held in the open space in front of Mateka, overlooking the river. The Avenue's stunt was to go on first, as the long end had fallen to them in the drawing of the cuts.

There was a great scurrying around after props after the Alleyites came back from the Island after that last rehearsal. Migwan, checking up her list, was constantly coming upon things that had been forgotten.

"Did somebody get Tiny Armstrong's red striped stockings?" she asked anxiously.

Nobody had remembered to get them. Katherine departed forthwith in quest of the necessary hosiery and found one of the stockings hanging out on the tent rope. The other was not in evidence. She was about to depart quietly without going into the tent, for one stocking was all that she needed, when a toothbrush suddenly whizzed past her ear, coming from the tent door. Laughing, she turned and went into the tent, first hastily concealing Tony's stocking in the front of her middy.

The flinger of the toothbrush turned out to be Tiny herself, who was sitting up in bed with her nightgown on.

"What's the matter, Tiny?" Katherine asked solicitously. "Are you sick? Aren't you going to get up to see the Stunts?"

"Get up!" shouted Tiny wrathfully. "I can't get up—I haven't any clothes."

"No clothes?" murmured Katherine in a puzzled tone.

"Everything's gone," continued Tiny plaintively, "bloomers, middies, shoes, stockings, hat, everything. Somebody has taken and hidden them for a joke, I suppose. I went to sleep here this afternoon, and when I woke up everything was gone."

Katherine suddenly grew very non-committal, although she wanted to shriek with laughter. Oh-Pshaw, who had been sent after a suit of Tiny's that afternoon, had apparently made a pretty thorough job of it.

"Somebody must be playing a joke on you," Katherine remarked tranquilly, although she was conscious of the lump that Tiny's one remaining stocking made under her middy. "Never mind. Tiny, I'll go out and borrow some things for you to wear."

"But there's nothing of anybody's here that I can get into," mourned Tiny. "I'm four sizes bigger than the biggest of you. You'll have to find out who's hidden my things and bring them back."

Katherine was touched by Tiny's predicament, but the stunt had first claim on her. She came back presently with Tiny's bathing suit, which she had hanging on a nearby tree, and a long raincoat of Dr. Grayson's, together with his tennis shoes. She even had to beg a pair of his socks from Mrs. Grayson, for all of Tiny's that had not been borrowed were away at the laundry. And in that collection of clothes Tiny had to go and sit in the Judges' box at the Stunts, but her good nature was not ruffled one whit on account of it.

Katherine was still getting Tiny into her improvised wardrobe when a loud hubbub proclaimed the arrival of the boys from Camp Altamont, and at the same time the bugle sounded the assembly call for the girls. The Alleyites, bursting with impatience for the time of their own stunt to arrive, settled themselves in their places to watch the Avenue stunt. The bugle sounded again, and the chairman of the Avenue stunt stood up.

"Our stunt tonight," she announced, "tells a hitherto unpublished one of Gulliver's Travels, namely, his voyage to the Land of the Keewaydins."

The Alley sat up with one convulsive jerk. "Gulliver's Travels!" That sounded nearly like their own idea.

Then the stunt proceeded, beginning with Gulliver wrecked on the shore of the Land of the Keewaydins. Undine Girelle was Gulliver, and her shipwreck was trully a thrilling one. She finally landed, spent with swimming, on the shore, and was taken in hand by the friendly Keewaydins, who proceeded to show him their customs. The Alley gradually turned to stone as they saw practically the very same things they were planning to do, being performed before their eyes by the Avenue. There was Miss Peckham and the stocking-snake (that explained to Katherine why she had only been able to find one of Tiny's red and black stockings); there was Tiny herself, and made out of two girls, just as they were going to do it! There was Dr. Grayson, there were all the other councilors; there was a burlesque on camp life almost exactly as they had planned to do it!

The boys and the councilors applauded wildly, but the Alleyites, too surprised and taken back to be appreciative, merely looked at each other in mute consternation.

"Somebody gave away our secret!" was the first indignant thought that flashed into the minds of the Alleyites, but the utter astonishment of the Avenue when the Alley said that their stunt was practically the same, soon convinced them that the whole thing was a mere co-incidence.

"It's a wonder I didn't suspect anything when I found that all of Tiny's clothes were gone," said Katherine. "That should have told me that someone else was impersonating her."

The Alley at first declined to put on their stunt, since it was so nearly the same as the other, but the audience refused to let them off, insisting that they had come to see two stunts, and they were going to see two, even if they were alike.

"We can still judge which is the best," said Dr. Grayson. "In fact, it is an unusual opportunity. Usually the stunts are so different that it is hard to tell which is the better, but having two performances on the same subject gives a rare chance to consider the fine points."

So the Alley went ahead with their stunt just as if nothing out of the way had occurred, and the judges applauded them just as wildly as they had the others. In the end, the honors had to be evenly divided between the two, for the judges declared that one was just as good as the other and it was impossible to decide between them.

"And we were so dead sure that the Avenue would never be able to think up anything nearly as clever as ours," remarked Sahwah ruefully, as she prepared for bed that night.

"I'm beginning to come to the conclusion," replied Hinpoha with a sleepy yawn, "that it isn't safe to be too sure of anything. You never can tell from the outside of people what they are likely to have inside of them."

"No, you can't" echoed Agony soberly.



CHAPTER XIII

THEIR NATIVE WILDS

Miss Judy's hat was more or less a barometer of the state of her emotions. Worn far back on her head with its brim turned up, it indicated that she was at peace with all the world and upon pleasure bent; tipped over one ear, it denoted intense preoccupation with business affairs; pulled low over her eyes, it was a sign of extreme vexation. This morning the hat was pulled so far down over her face that only the tip of her chin was visible. Katherine, stopping to help her run a canoe up on the bank after swimming hour, noticed the unnecessary vehemence of her movements, and asked mildly as to the cause.

Miss Judy replied with a single explosive exclamation of "Monty!"

"Monty!" Katherine echoed inquringly. "What's that?"

"You're right, it is a 'what'," replied Miss Judy emphatically, "although it usually goes down in the catalog as a 'who.' It's my cousin, Egmont Satter-white," she continued in explanation. "He's coming to pay us a visit at camp."

"Yes," said Katherine. "What is he like?"

"Like?" repeated Miss Judy derisively. "He's like the cock who thought the sun didn't get up until he crowed—so conceited; only he goes still farther. He doesn't see what need there is for the sun at all while he is there to shed his light. He's the only child of his adoring mother, and she's cultivated him like a rare floral specimen; private tutors and all that sort of thing. Now he's learned everything there is to know, and he's ready to write a book. He regards his fellow creatures as quaint and curious specimens, 'rather diverting for one to observe, don't you know,' but not at all important. I suppose he's going to put a chapter in his book about girls, because he wrote to father and announced that he was going to run up for a week or so and observe us in our native wilds—that was the delicate way he put it. He'll probably set down everything he sees in a notebook and then go home and solemnly write his chapter, wise as Solomon."

"What a bore!" sighed Katherine. "I hate to be stared at, and 'observed' for somebody else's benefit."

"Monty's a pest!" Miss Judy exploded wrathfully. "I don't see why father ever told him he could come. He's under no obligations to him—we're only third cousins, and Monty considers us far, far beneath him at best. But you know how father is—hospitality with a capital H. So we're doomed to a visitation from Monty."

"When is he coming?" asked Katherine, smiling at Miss Judy's lugubrious tone.

"The day after tomorrow," replied Miss Judy. "The Thursday afternoon boat has the honor of bringing him."

"'O better that her shattered hulk should sink beneath the wave,' eh?" remarked Katherine sympathetically.

"Katherine," said Miss Judy feelingly, "vous et moi we speak the same language, n'est-ce pas?"

"We do," agreed Katherine laughingly.

That evening when all the campers were gathered around the fire in the bungalow, listening to Dr. Grayson reading "The Crock of Gold" to the pattering accompaniment of the raindrops on the roof, Miss Judy went into the camp office to answer the telephone, and came out with a look of half-humorous exasperation on her face.

"What is it?" asked Dr. Grayson, pausing in his reading.

"It's Cousin Monty," announced Miss Judy. He's at Emmet's Landing, two stops down the river. He decided to come to camp a day earlier than he had written. He got off the boat at Emmet's Landing to sketch an 'exquisite' bit of scenery that he spied there. Now he's marooned at Emmet's Landing and can't get a boat to bring him to camp. He decided to stay there all night, and found a room, but the bed didn't look comfortable. He wants us to come and get him."

"At this time of night!" Dr. Grayson exclaimed involuntarily. He recovered himself instantly. "Ah yes, certainly, of course. I'll go and get him. Tell him I'll come for him."

"But it's raining pitchforks," demurred Miss Judy.

"Ah well, never mind, I'll go anyhow," said her father composedly.

"I'll go with you," declared Miss Judy firmly. "I'll run the launch." As she passed by Katherine on her way out of the bungalow she flashed her a meaning look, which Katherine answered with a sympathetic grimace.

In the morning when camp assembled for breakfast there was Cousin Egmont sitting beside Dr. Grayson at the table, notebook in hand, looking about him in a loftily curious way. He was a small, slightly built youth, sallow of complexion and insignificant of feature, with pale hair brushed up into an exaggerated pompadour, and a neat little moustache. In contrast to Dr. Grayson's heroic proportions he looked like a Vest Pocket Edition alongside of an Unabridged.

"Nice little camp you have here, Uncle, very," he drawled, peering languidly through his huge spectacles at the shining river and the far off rolling hills beyond. "Nothing like the camps I've seen in Switzerland, though. For real camps you want to go to Switzerland, Uncle. A chap I know goes there every summer. Of course, for a girl's camp this does very well, very. Pretty fair looking lot of girls you have, Uncle. All from picked families, eh? Require references and all that sort of thing?"

Dr. Grayson made a deprecatory gesture with his hand and looked uneasily around the table, to see if Egmont's remarks were being overheard. But Mrs. Grayson sat on the other side of Egmont, and the seat next to the Doctor was vacant, so there was really no one within hearing distance except the Lone Wolf, who sat opposite to Mrs. Grayson, and she was deeply engrossed in conversation with the girl on the other side of her.

Monty prattled on. "You see, Uncle, I wouldn't have come up here to observe if I thought they were not from the best families. Anybody I'd care to write about—you understand, Uncle."

"Yes, I understand," replied Dr. Grayson quizzically. "Have you taken any notes yet?" he continued.

"Nothing yet," Monty admitted, "but I mean to begin immediately after breakfast. I mean to flit unobtrusively about Camp, Uncle, and watch the young ladies when they do not suspect I am around, taking down their innocent girlish conversation among themselves. So much more natural that way, Uncle, very!"

Dr. Grayson hurriedly took a huge mouthful of water, and then choked on it in a very natural manner, and Miss Judy's coming in with the mail bag at that moment caused a welcome diversion.

"Ah, good morning, Cousin Judith," drawled Monty. "I see you didn't get up as early as the rest of us. Perhaps the fatigue of last night—"

"I've been down the river for the mail," replied Miss Judy shortly. Then she turned her back on him and spoke to her father. "The weather is settled for this week. That rainstorm last night cleared things up beautifully. We ought to take the canoe trip, the one up to the Falls."

"That's so," agreed Dr. Grayson. "How soon can you arrange to go?"

"Tomorrow," replied Miss Judy.

"Ah, a canoe trip," cried Monty brightly. "I ought to get quantities of notes from that."

Miss Judy eyed him for a moment with an unfathomable expression on her face, then turned away and began to talk to the Lone Wolf.

All during Morning Sing Monty sat in a corner and took notes with a silver pencil in an embossed leather notebook, staring now at this girl, now at that, until she turned fiery red and fidgeted. After Morning Sing he established himself on a rocky ledge just below Bedlam, where, hidden by the bushes, he sat ready to take down the innocent conversation of the young ladies among themselves as they made their tents ready for tent inspection.

Katherine and Oh-Pshaw were in the midst of tidying up when the Lone Wolf dropped in to return a flashlight she had borrowed the night before. She strolled over to the railing at the back of the tent and peered over it. A gleam came into her eye as she noticed that one of the bushes just below the tent on the slope toward the river was waving slightly in an opposite direction from the way in which the wind was blowing. Stepping back into the tent she stopped beside Bedlam's water pail, newly filled for tent inspection.

"Your water looks sort of—er—muddy," she remarked artfully. "Hadn't you better throw it out and get some fresh? Here, I'll do it for you. I'm not busy."

She picked up the brimming pail and emptied it over the back railing, right over the spot where she had seen the bush waving. Immediately there came a curious sound out of the bush—half gasp and half yell, and out sprang Monty, dripping like a rat, and fled down the path toward the bungalow, without ever looking around.

"Why, he was down there listening," Katherine exclaimed in disgust. "Oh, how funny it was," she remarked to the Lone Wolf, "that you happened to come in and dump that pail of water over the railing just at that time."

"It certainty was," the Lone Wolf acquiesced gravely, as she departed with the pail in the direction of the spring.

Cousin Monty flitted unobtrusively to his tent, got on dry garments, fished another notebook out of his bag, and set out once more in quest of local color. He wandered down to Mateka, where Craft Hour was in progress. A pottery craze had struck camp, and the long tables were filled with girls rolling and patting lumps of plastic clay into vases, jars, bowls, plates and other vessels. Cousin Monty strolled up and down, contemplating the really creditable creation of the girls with a condescending patronage that made them feel like small children in the kindergarten. He gave the art director numerous directions as to how she might improve her method of teaching, and benevolently pointed out to a number of the girls how the things they were making were all wrong.

Finally he came and stood by Hinpoha, who was putting the finishing touches on the decoration of a rose jar, an exquisite thing, with a raised design in rose petals. Hinpoha was smoothing out the flat background of her design when Monty paused beside her.

"You're not holding your instrument right." he remarked patronizingly. "Let me show you how." He took the instrument from Hinpoha's unwilling hand, and turning it wrong way up, proceeded to scrape back and forth. At the third stroke it went too far, and gouged out a deep scratch right through the design, clear across the whole side of the vase.

"Ah, a little scratch," he remarked airily. "Ah, sorry, really, very. But it can soon be remedied. A little dob of clay, now."

"Let me fix it myself," said Hinpoha firmly, with difficulty keeping her exasperation under the surface, and without more ado seized her mutilated treasure from his hands.

"Ah, yes, of course," murmured Monty, and wandered on to the next table.

By the time the day was over Cousin Monty was about as popular as a hornet. "How long is he going to stay?" the girls asked each other in comical dismay. "A week? Oh, my gracious, how can we ever stand him around here a week?"

"Is he going along with us on the canoe trip?" Katherine asked Miss Judy as she helped her check over supplies for the expedition.

"He is that," replied Miss Judy. "He's going along to pester us just as he has been doing—probably worse, because he's had a night to think up a whole lot more fool questions to ask than he could think of yesterday."

And it was even so. Monty, notebook in hand, insisted upon knowing the why and wherefore of every move each one of the girls made until they began to flee at his approach. "Why are you tying up your ponchos that way? That isn't the way. Now if you will just let me show you—"

"Why you are putting that stout girl"—indicating Bengal—"in the stern of the canoe? You want the weight up front—that's the newest way."

"Now Uncle, just let me show you a trick or two about stowing away those supplies. You're not in the least scientific about it."

Thus he buzzed about, inquisitive and officious.

Katherine and Miss Judy looked into each other's eyes and exchanged exasperated glances. Then Katherine's eye took on a peculiar expression, the one which always registered the birth of an idea. At dinner, which came just before the expedition started, she was late—a good twenty minutes. She tranquilly ate what was left for her and was extremely polite to Counsin Monty, answering his continuous questions about the coming trip with great amiability, even enthusiasm. Miss Judy looked at her curiously.

The expedition started. Monty, who had Miss Peckham in the canoe with him—she being the only one who would ride with him—insisted upon going at the head of the procession. "I'll paddle so much faster than the rest of you," he said airly, "that I'll want room to go ahead. I don't want to be held back by the rest of you when I shall want to put on a slight spurt now and then. That is the way I like to go, now fast, now slowly, as inclination dictates, without having to keep my pace down to that of others. I will start first, Uncle, and lead the line."

"All right," replied Dr. Grayson a trifle wearily. "You may lead the line."

The various canoes had been assigned before, so there was no confusion in starting. The smallest of the canoes had been given to Monty because there would be only two in it. Conscious that he was decidedly ornamental in his speckless white flannels and silk shirt he helped Miss Peckham into the boat with exaggerated gallantry, all the while watching out of the corner of his eye to see if Pom-pom was looking at him. He had been trying desperately to flirt with her ever since his arrival, and had begged her to go with him in the canoe on the trip, all in vain. Nevertheless, he was still buzzing around her and playing to the audience of her eyes. By fair means or foul he meant to get the privilege of having her with him on the return trip. Miss Peckham, newly graduated into the canoe privilege, was nervous and fussy, and handled her paddle as gingerly as if it were a gun.

"Ah, let me do all the paddling," he insisted, knowing that Pom-pom, in a nearby canoe, could hear him. "I could not think of allowing you to exert yourself. It is the man's place, you know. You really mustn't think of it."

Miss Peckham laid down her paddle with a sigh of relief, and Monty, with a graceful gesture, untied the canoe and pushed it out from the dock. Behind him the line of boats were all waiting to start.

"Here we go!" he shouted loudly, as he dipped his paddle. In a moment all the canoes were in motion. Monty, at the head, seemed to find the paddling more difficult than he had expected. He dipped his paddle with great vigor and vim, but the canoe only went forward a few inches at each stroke. One by one the canoes began to pass him, their occupants casting amusing glances at him as he perspired over his paddle. He redoubled his efforts, he strained every sinew, and the canoe did go a little faster, but not nearly as fast as the others were going.

"What's the matter, Monty, is your load too heavy for you?" called out Miss Judy.

"Not at all," replied Monty doggedly. "I'm a little out of form, I guess. This arm—I strained it last spring—seems to have gone lame all of a sudden."

"Would you like to get in a canoe with some of the girls?" asked Dr. Grayson solicitously.

"I would not," replied Monty somewhat peevishly. "Please let me alone, Uncle, I'll be all right in a minute. Don't any of you bother about me, I'll follow you at my leisure. When I get used to paddling again I'll very soon overtake you even if you have a good start."

The rest of the canoes swept by, and Monty and Miss Peckham soon found themselves alone on the river.

"Hadn't I better help you paddle?" asked Miss Peckham anxiously. She was beginning to distrust the powers of her ferryman.

"No, no, no," insisted Monty, stung to the quick by the concern in her voice. "I can do it very well alone, I tell you."

He kept at it doggedly for another half hour, stubbornly refusing to accept any help, until the canoe came to a dead stop. No amount of paddling would budge it an inch; it was apparently anchored. Puzzled, Monty peered into the river to find the cause of the stoppage. The water was deep, but there were many snags and obstructions under the surface. Something was holding him, that was plain, but what it was he could not find out, nor could he get loose from it. The water was too deep to wade ashore, and there was nothing to do but sit there and try to get loose by means of the paddle, a proceeding which soon proved fruitless. In some mysterious way they were anchored out in mid stream at a lonely place in the river where no one would be likely to see them for a long time. The others were out of sight long ago, having obeyed Monty's injunction to let him alone.

Monty, in his usual airy way, tried to make the best of the situation and draw attention away from his evident inability to cope with the situation. "Ah, pleasant it is to sit out here and bask in the warm sunshine," he murmured in dulcet tones. "The view is exquisite here, n'est-ce pas? I could sit here all day and look at that mountain in the distance. It reminds me somewhat of the Alps, don't you know."

Miss Peckham gazed unhappily at the mountain, which was merely a blur in the distance. "Do you think we'll have to sit here all night?" she asked anxiously.

Monty exerted himself to divert her. "How does it come that I have never met you before, Miss Peckham? Really, I didn't know that Uncle Clement had such delightful relations. Can it be that you are really his cousin? It hardly seems possible that you are old enough. Sitting there with the breeze toying with you hair that way you look like a young girl, no older than Judith herself."

Now this was quite a large dose to swallow, but Miss Peckham swallowed it, and much delighted with the gallant youth, so much more appreciative of her than the others at camp, she sat listening attentively to his prattle of what he had seen and done, keeping her hat off the while to let her hair ripple in the breeze the way he said he liked it, regardless of the fact that the sun was rather hot.

In something over an hour a pair of rowboats came along filled with youngsters who thought it great sport to rescue the pair in the marooned canoe, and who promptly discovered the cause of the trouble. It was an iron kettle full of stones, fastened to the bottom of the canoe with a long wire, which had wedged itself in among the branches of a submerged tree in the river and anchored the canoe firmly.

"Somebody's played a trick on us!" exclaimed Miss Peckham wrathfully. "Somebody at camp deliberately fastened that kettle of stones to the bottom of the canoe to make it hard for you to paddle. That's just what you might have expected from those girls. They're playing tricks all the time. They have no respect for anyone."

Monty turned a dull red when he saw that kettle full of stones, and he, too, sputtered with indignation. "Low brow trick," he exclaimed loftily, but he felt quite the reverse of lofty. "This must be Cousin Judith's doing," he continued angrily, remembering the subtle antagonism that had sprung up between his cousin and himself.

His dignity was too much hurt to allow him to follow the rest of the party now. Disgusted, he turned back in the direction of camp. By the time he arrived he began to feel that he did not want to stay long enough to see the enjoyment of his cousin over his discomfiture. He announced his intention of leaving that very night, paddling down the river to the next landing, and boarding the evening boat.

Miss Peckham suddenly made up her mind, too. "I'm going with you." she declared. "I'm not going to stay here and be insulted any longer. It'll serve them right to do without my services as councilor for the rest of the summer. I'll just leave a note for Mrs. Grayson and slip out quietly with you."

When the expedition returned the following day both Pecky and Monty were gone.

Bengal raised such a shout of joy when she heard of the departure of her despised councilor that her tent mates were obliged to restrain her transports for the look of the thing, but they, too, were somewhat relieved to be rid of her.