The Camp Fire Girls' Larks and Pranks; Or, The House of the Open Door

“Let’s stop a minute and sing the songs through once more so Migwan will be sure of them,” suggested Hinpoha. “We wanted to before we left the house, you know, and then we forgot it.”

So they stood still before a bleak, empty looking house, and sang through all the songs they were to sing with the group that night on Garfield Avenue.

* * * * * *

In a bare little room in the shabbiest house on Division Street a young girl lay in bed day after day, staring wistfully through the flawed window pane at the dingy row of houses opposite. She suffered from hip disease and could not walk, and a frail little mother cleaned offices to support them both. Living was cruelly high and there was no thought of spending anything for Christmas. Martha dreaded its coming, for she could remember other days when Christmas had been very different. Besides, Martha was very lonely. She and her mother were strangers in town, having come only six months before, and in all that time not a soul had come to see them. And because Martha felt so lonely and so left out of the busy, happy world, the treatment for which she had come to the city was doing her no good, and she was not improving at all. And her mother saw the trouble and sorrowed, but did not know how to mend the matter. Martha read in books about the good times girls had together and longed with all her soul to be part of such frolics, until it seemed that she could not bear her loneliness any longer.

Her mother often brought home newspapers from the offices and in them Martha read about the groups of boys and girls who were going through the streets on Christmas Eve singing carols before the houses where the candles shone in the windows.

“How I wish I could hear those carols sung!” she sighed enviously. “How wonderful it must be to be rich and live in a fine house and put a candle in the window to make the singers stop outside! And I must always stay in the darkness, and miss all the fun! Oh, Mother, it isn’t fair!”

The sad-eyed little mother cast about in her mind for some way to amuse her lonely daughter this dreary Christmas Eve. “Let us pretend that we are rich and great,” she said soothingly, “and play that we are putting a lighted candle in our window and listening to the fine songs of the singers below and giving them large sums of money for their good cause.”

“What good would it do to play it?” asked Martha. “We would have to imagine it all. We haven’t even a candle!”

“Let’s play it, anyway,” coaxed her mother. “What color candle shall we use tonight?”

“A red one, with gold designs on it, and a cut glass candlestick,” said Martha, playing the game to please her mother.

So they pretended to set a shining glass candlestick holding a red and gold candle on the window sill. “Now we must wait awhile in our elegant parlor for the singers to come,” said her mother, playing the game with spirit.

Then a wonderful thing happened. There was a sound of footsteps in the creaking snow outside, footsteps that came to a halt beneath the window, and then the air was filled with joyous, ringing melody:

Martha and her mother looked at each other with faces suddenly grown pale, and listened with unbelieving ears. The song changed as the singers swung into the measures of a new carol. Surely these were human voices and not a band of fairies! The mother crept silently to the window and looked out.

* * * * * *

When the last note of the songs had died away the door of the dark house opened and a woman came out on the steps. “Thank you a thousand times for the singing,” she said. “Won’t you come in where my daughter can see you? She won’t believe you are real. She is so sick and lonesome. Please do.”

The Winnebagos started in surprise and looked at each other somewhat doubtfully. They had not been aware that they were singing to an audience. It was getting near the time when they should be meeting the rest of the group. But this was Christmas Eve and here was a girl sick and lonesome——

“Let’s go in for a minute,” said Gladys and Hinpoha together. They went in, singing as they went, and swinging their little lighted lanterns.

Martha’s mother lit the one pale little gas flame, for they had been sitting in the dark before, and by its light the girls saw the shabby room and the wan girl lying on the bed. So amazed was Martha at the sudden appearance of the carolers out of the night that she forgot to be shy, and before she knew it she had told them all about the Christmas Eve game she and her mother had been playing and how they had set the imaginary candle in the window. And all of the six months’ loneliness was in that little tale, and the girls as they listened became afflicted with a queer weakness of the eyes that made them turn their faces away from the light. Over on the lighted avenue the twinkling candles beckoned in the gleaming windows of the most beautiful homes in the city; still farther on the revellers at the singers’ party stretched out gay hands to them; but over it all each one seemed to see the words of the Fire Law written in letters made of Christmas stars:

——“Whose house is bare and dark and cold——”

Mysterious communications and hand signs flew back and forth between the Winnebagos. Like magic Gladys and Hinpoha slid out of the door and like magic they returned a few minutes later, loaded down with bundles. As the enchanted forests rise in the fairy tales, so the room was swiftly transformed and began to blossom in green and red. Garlands and wreaths hung from the head and the foot of the bed, and from the gas-jet. Riotous little bells swung from the doorways; sprigs of holly and gorgeous poinsettias framed the cheap pictures; bright candles in cheerful red shades burned on the table.

Other bundles when opened revealed the “makings” of the grandest spread the Winnebagos had ever had. The Lonesome House was turned into the Home of Joyous Spirits. Gladys poked up the fire and made her most tempting Shrimp Wiggle; Sahwah made the best pan of fudge she had ever made; Katherine made cocoa, and the rest spread sandwiches with delicious “Wohelo Special” chicken salad, and cut up cake and dished ice cream. Then there followed such a joyous feast as Martha had never conceived in her rosiest dreams. Healths were drunk in cocoa, side-splitting toasts proposed by the witty toastmistress, Migwan, and songs sung that made the roof ring. Gladys did her prettiest dances; Sahwah and Hinpoha did their famous stunt of the goat that ate the two red shirts right off the line, and Katherine gave her very funniest speech—the one about Wimmen’s Rights—three times; once voluntarily and twice more by special request. Martha laughed until she could laugh no more, and applauded every number enthusiastically, her usually pale cheeks glowing red with excitement and her eyes shining like stars. It was late when they left her, promising to come again soon, and slipping into her hands various packages containing gifts of things every girl loves, which Gladys had hastily bought when she had slipped out to get the supplies. Among them was a beautifully intricate puzzle which would keep her interested for months to come.

Thus it was that the candle which was never lit guided the feet of the Song Friends to the Dark House, and gave into their tending yet another fire. Reports of the gay party at the Music League Club House came to the Winnebagos from all sides, and loud expressions of regret that they had missed it. And the group they were to have sung with brought in by far the most money, carrying off the prize and getting its picture in the Sunday paper—and the Winnebagos were not in it.

But over on Division Street a wonderful new look had come into the face of a sad-eyed girl—a look of happiness and ambition, and the Winnebagos, having seen that look, were content.

CHAPTER X
A TEMPEST IN A TEAPOT

January closed with its immemorial thaw and February drew near in a mist of speculation as to whether it would come in like a lion or a lamb. But whatever may have been the state of the weather outside when the new month arrived, the Winnebago barometer registered a tempest in a teapot. It was Katherine who was responsible for that particular barometric activity. That is, it was she who attached the fuse to the bomb and set the match to it. All the bomb did was blow up.

The Winnebagos were all over at Katherine’s one Friday afternoon after school, painting a buffalo robe that was to hang on the wall in the Open Door Lodge and cover an unsightly board. Veronica was in one of her rare cheerful moods and played gay tunes on her violin while the other girls worked. She was gradually thawing toward the girls, although she was still very conservative in her friendships. She was most friendly toward Gladys and Hinpoha, the two girls who came from the best family. She was not particularly drawn to merry, tomboyish Sahwah, because she was not musical, although they got along. Thus also it was with Medmangi and Nakwisi. But from the first Katherine Adams had seemed to rub her the wrong way. Big, clumsy, awkward Katherine, uncultured and hopelessly plebeian! She always managed to step on Veronica’s dainty shoes or sit on her cherished violin or spill cocoa on her dress. And her flyaway appearance constantly jarred on Veronica’s artistic nature. And that ridiculous, unmusical voice!

Looking only at these defects, Veronica failed to appreciate the wonderful magnetism of Katherine’s personality and the unfailing good nature which made her a boon companion any hour out of the twenty-four whatever the weather might be. Not being American-born, Veronica believed firmly in class distinctions, and to her Katherine was a peasant and thus an inferior.

However, to the others it seemed that the strangeness between them and Veronica was wearing away, and this afternoon they felt closer to her than they ever had before. She even asked, actually asked, to be shown how to make “slumgullion”—she who a few months before had scornfully maintained that cooking was for servants and not for ladies. “She’s getting there!” whispered Gladys to Hinpoha, with a delighted squeeze. Spirits ran high and before long everybody felt they must dance or burst.

“It’s too bad we haven’t Nyoda’s old banjo over here,” said Sahwah. “Then some of the rest of us could play and Veronica could dance.”

“I’ll go over and get it,” said Katherine obligingly. So she went over to Nyoda’s house and got the banjo, and it was on this errand that her feet became entangled in the fuse that led to the bomb. On the doorstep of the house next to Nyoda’s, the house where Veronica dwelt, there sat a snowy white poodle, fresh from a bath and rivalling in purity a field of virgin snow. This was Fifi, Veronica’s French poodle, who had come to her as a Christmas gift, and whose pedigree was considerably longer than he was. Fifi did not share his young mistress’s ideas as to the unfitness of the peasantry for association with the high born, and took a decided fancy to Katherine at first sight. Just how much he was influenced by half a sugar cookie, which she held out to him over the fence, it is impossible to say, but when Katherine turned out of Nyoda’s yard and went up the street, Fifi was at her heels and refused to be shooed home.

“Well, come along, then, if you want to,” she said good-naturedly. “I suppose you’re lonesome with all your folks gone and want some improvin’ company, like us. A great hostess I’d be, if I turned down a dog that wanted to come to my At Home Day.”

The January thaw was still in progress, although it was the first of February, and the streets were lakes of slush and mud. Katherine did not mind mud in the least and stepped cheerfully into the puddles. Fifi did likewise. By the time they arrived at the house the comparison of the field of virgin snow no longer held good. Even Katherine hesitated about admitting him.

Veronica shrieked when she saw him and did not share his delight at the unexpected meeting. “Oh-oh-oh!” she exclaimed in dismay. “He is to go to the Dog Show tonight. Katie spent all morning washing and combing him. How did he ever get out? She must have left the door open. And then you had to coax him over here, and now look at him!” After a hasty glance the rest decided they would rather not look at him.

“Well,” said Katherine, much taken aback, but still mistress of the situation, “I’ll just give him a nice bath and carry him home and everything will be all right. Go on dancing, girls, there’s the banjo; Fifi and I will entertain ourselves in the basement.”

She set the squirming lump of mud into one of the wash tubs and let warm water run over him from a faucet for a few minutes to remove the clods. Then she set to work in earnest. She hesitated for some time about what kind of soap to use and finally decided that dog’s hair was the same as camel’s hair; camel’s hair was wool; and therefore, according to the most familiar problem in the whole geometry, Fifi was all wool and needed Wool Soap. Now the mud through which Fifi and Katherine had come was the yellow clayey kind that sticketh closer than a brother, and Wool Soap was not designed especially to dissolve it. After three scrubbings and rinsings Fifi was still a muddy, yellowish gray, and there was no hope that he would dry into a field of virgin white as a yellow popcorn kernel bursts into snowy blossom.

Katherine was discouraged. Then she suddenly remembered something. “Clothes always come out yellow if you wash them in just soap,” she said triumphantly to herself. “It’s the bluing that makes them white. Fifi needs bluing!”

But a thorough search of the laundry room failed to reveal any bluing. “Shucks!” exclaimed Katherine in vexation. “We’re out of it. I heard Aunt Anna mention it this morning. And the stores are closed this afternoon. What will I do? I don’t dare produce Fifi unless he’s all white and nice.” Then it was that Katherine’s mighty genius set to work. A less resourceful person would have been at a standstill when confronted with such a difficulty; a genius makes a way when there is none. In one respect Katherine was an equal of the gods—what she wished and did not have she created. She wished bluing; she must have it; so she calmly set about making it. Katherine took chemistry and knew that iodine, applied to starch, will turn it blue. There was iodine in the house and there was starch. The pucker vanished from her brow. A far-sighted person would have foreseen other results from the mixture beside the chemical action of the iodine on the starch. But Katherine was not a far-sighted person. She was a genius. It is said that geniuses, entirely absorbed in one idea, often forget the most commonplace fact altogether. Thus it was that Katherine, filled with the idea that starch turns blue when mixed with iodine, forgot the original purpose for which starch was invented. And Katherine had used flat-iron starch, the kind that gets stiff without boiling. It turned blue—a beautiful bright purple blue—and she immersed Fifi again and again. Katherine had to admit that he looked dreadfully blue when he emerged from the final dip, but serene in the belief that he would dry pure white like the clothes did, she rolled him up in a piece of carpet and set him in a wash basket beside the furnace to dry. Then she went upstairs and joined the dancers, announcing with a sigh of relief that Fifi was clean once more and could come up as soon as he was dry.

Having been told that Fifi was clean, they naturally looked for a white dog, and it was not their fault that they did not recognize the creature that slunk into their midst in the middle of the revels. As an Animal from Nowhere he would have taken the prize over the head of the famous Salmonkey. His hair was pasted flat to his sides in long, stringy waves, giving him a queer, corrugated effect. His head was a dirty, yellowish white, for, in keeping his eyes out of the blue bath, Katherine had held his whole head out; and the rest of him was a bright purplish blue. With his excited red tongue hanging out in front he looked like a dilapidated remnant of the American flag. The girls shrieked and fled before him. Katherine sank weakly down on the couch and viewed him in consternation.

“Whatever did you do to him?” wailed Veronica, when informed that this was actually Fifi and not some freak animal from the Zoo.

“I wanted to blue him to make him nice and silvery white,” explained Katherine ruefully, “and there wasn’t any bluing, so I made some with iodine and starch. I thought he would come out all nice and fluffy, but instead of that he got—all—stiff!”

The Winnebagos burst out into a wild peal of laughter that made the windows rattle. They were simply helpless, and laughed until they sank limply on each other’s shoulders. The simplicity of Katherine’s inspirations was nothing short of sublime.

Gaining a measure of control over themselves, they became aware that Veronica was standing before them with eyes flashing lightning, in such a passion as they had never seen any girl display. Holding her translated pet in her arms, she stamped her foot and almost hissed at Katherine: “Don’t you ever come near me again, you—you great big kangaroo from out of the west!

“And the rest of you are just as bad,” she cried, blazing at them collectively. “You think it’s funny. I wish I had never met you, and from this day I am no more a Camp Fire Girl! I am through with you!” And before they could collect their wits to reply she had rushed out of the house like a whirlwind.

Completely sobered by the result of her act, Katherine called herself one name after another and proposed the most extravagant things in the nature of penance. She and Nyoda talked it over a long time, and Nyoda made her see how a habit of doing things without thinking of the consequences led to more trouble than deliberately planned evil did, and she promised faithfully that this was the last rash act she would ever perform.

“Now that Veronica has had time to think it over and see the funny side, and realize that Fifi is not hurt, I think you may go over and present your sincere apologies and make your peace with Veronica,” said Nyoda. And Katherine, humble as the dust, set forth.

But Veronica would have none of her peace offerings. She received her apology coldly, and declared she would never come back into the ranks of the Winnebagos. Then did Katherine go to Nyoda and offer to resign from the group if that would bring Veronica back. “She has a better right to be in it than I,” she said. “She was in it first.”

But Nyoda would not consent to that at all. “The whole thing isn’t worth such heroic measures,” she declared. “I’ll talk to Veronica myself.”

And she did, with no better results than Katherine. Veronica would not be appeased, even now that Fifi was white once more, and had suffered no evil effects from his bluing. Veronica declared that Katherine was low class, and not fit for her to associate with. And she wouldn’t forgive the others for laughing. So Nyoda had to go back and report her failure to the other girls. And sadly they realized that their hope of making Veronica into a Winnebago had evaporated.

CHAPTER XI
A WINTER HIKE

A long cherished wish of the Winnebagos came true that winter, for they all got snowshoes for Christmas. So did the Sandwiches. They brought them down to the Open Door Lodge to show to the girls. “See what we’ve got,” said the Captain, with a slightly superior air as becomes the owner of a pair of snowshoes in the presence of a mere girl.

“Wait until you see ours,” returned the girls merrily, producing their “slush walkers,” as Katherine had dubbed them.

“You didn’t all get them, did you?” asked the Sandwiches, in comical surprise. It was hard for them to realize that the Winnebagos were as adept at outdoor sports as they were.

“We surely did,” answered Sahwah. “What good would it do us for some to have them and some not? We always travel together.”

The Captain had Hinpoha’s in his hand and was examining them critically. “You girls haven’t the right kind of harness on your snowshoes,” he said, with the air of an expert. “Straps like yours, that buckle over the toes and around the heel are ‘tenderfoot’ harness. They don’t give enough to your motions and you are likely to freeze your feet. See our bindings. They are made of lamp wicking and calfskin thongs. By putting your foot on the shoe so that your toes come just under the bridle and binding it fast with the wick, making a half-hitch on each side and tying a knot at the back of your shoe you can make a fastening that will hold tightly as long as you want it too, but will permit you to free your foot with a single twist in an emergency.”

“Did you learn all that down at Tech?” asked Hinpoha, with just a touch of sarcasm. It seemed to her that the Captain was trying to show off his knowledge.

“He won’t admit that we know as much as they do about some things,” she was saying to herself. “They couldn’t get ahead of us by getting snowshoes, so now they must claim that theirs are right and ours are wrong. Ours are more expensive, that’s the whole trouble.”

“My uncle told me about it,” said the Captain earnestly. “He’s been up north and he knows all about snowshoes. Wait a minute, and I’ll show you what I mean.” He bound his snowshoes on his feet in the approved fashion, and then, by stepping on one shoe with the other foot, skilfully wriggled his toe free without injuring the binding. “You couldn’t do that if it were buckled,” he said simply, turning to Nyoda for approval.

“You’re right,” said Nyoda. “We never thought of that side of it before. Don’t you think, girls, we’d better change ours?” They all agreed, all except Hinpoha. For some odd reason she still fancied that the Captain was crowing over her, and she was determined to show him that his opinion meant nothing to her.

“I like the straps much better,” she declared. “And the buckles look so pretty flashing in the sunlight. Much prettier than your old lamp wicks. They’ll be dirty in no time.” And they could not induce her to change the bindings.

Followed days of learning how to run on snowshoes. It was not so very difficult, after all, not nearly so hard as the skiing Sahwah had tried the winter before. There were tumbles, of course, when they struck unexpected snags, but the snow was soft and no one was hurt. Hinpoha was glad she didn’t change her smart buckle binding for the wicking-thong affair of the others, because hers looked much nicer, and there was no occasion for getting out of them suddenly. The first day everybody returned home full of enthusiasm for the new sport. Sahwah in particular was so anxious for the morrow to come when she could be at it again, that she could hardly go to sleep. But when she woke up in the morning she felt a strange disinclination to get up. Her limbs ached so fiercely that she could hardly stand. Her muscles were so cramped and sore that she was ready to shriek with the pain. She limped stiffly into the class room half an hour late, to see Gladys going in just ahead of her, traveling with a sidewise motion like a crab, and stumbling as though her feet were made of wood. Poor Hinpoha never appeared in school at all that day. “What’s the matter with us?” they groaned, dropping into Nyoda’s class room at lunch hour. “We’re ruined for life.” Nyoda could not conceal a smile of amusement. “I knew you’d get it,” she said, with gentle raillery. “That’s why I advised you not to stay out more than fifteen minutes the first day. But you were bound to stick to it all afternoon.”

“What did you know we’d get?” they asked in tones of concern. “Are we lamed for life?”

“Hardly as bad as that,” laughed Nyoda. “I have good hopes of your ultimate recovery. You have what the French call ‘mal de racquette’—the snowshoe sickness. You use a different set of muscles when snowshoeing than you do ordinarily, and these muscles become very stiff and sore. All you need is a little limbering oil. Little Sisters of the Snow, you are learning by experience!”

It was fully a week before either the Winnebagos or Sandwiches went snowshoeing again, although they made excellent excuses. Neither group would admit to the other that they had become stiff, and would not limp for worlds when in the sight of the others, although it nearly killed them to walk naturally. Nevertheless, they understood each other perfectly.

In February came a three days’ snow storm that covered the earth with a blanket several feet thick, and a slight thaw followed by a zero snap produced an excellent crust. The Winnebagos were having a solemn ceremonial meeting in the Open Door Lodge when without warning there was a sound of scrambling up the ladder and the Captain burst in among them.

“Oh, I say,” he shouted, and then stopped suddenly as he became aware that the girls were engaged in singing some kind of a motion song. “Excuse me,” he stammered in confusion, “I didn’t know you were having a pow-wow. I heard you singing up here and thought you were just having a good time.”

“What news can you be bringing that made you burst in on us in such a fashion?” said Nyoda sternly, but with a twinkle in her eye. “Speak sir, the queen commands.”

The Captain seemed ready to burst with his message and fired his words like bullets from an automatic pistol. “My Uncle Theodore’s here, you know, the one I said had been up north, and he knows a dandy place in the country where there are some log cabins and he wants us all to go down there on our snowshoes for a winter hike and stay three days over the Washington’s Birthday holiday. Oh, please, can you girls come?”

“But——” began Nyoda.

“Oh, I forgot,” went on the Captain, “my aunt’s here, too, and she’s just as good on snowshoes as Uncle Theodore is, and she’s going along, too, and will see that you girls don’t take cold or anything. Please say you’ll come.”

There never was such sport as a winter hike. The preliminaries were arranged with much reassuring of parents and relatives; buying of all-wool clothing and blankets; selecting of cooking utensils and what the boys elegantly referred to as “grub.” “Uncle Theodore” was a real woodsman, who had spent most of his life in lumber camps; bluff, hale and hearty; a man to whom you would be perfectly willing to entrust your life after the first meeting. “Aunt Clara” was a little round dumpling of a woman, who radiated smiles like sunshine, and declared the Winnebagos were the handiest girls she had ever seen. It was their skilful way of packing supplies that called forth this praise.

Food and blankets were sent down by automobile a day ahead, so that the hikers would have to carry nothing but their cameras and notebooks. The morning of Washington’s Birthday found them all assembled on the station platform, for they were to go by cars to a certain town down state and from there to strike across the open country on their snowshoes.

“What are you going to do with the torpedo?” shouted the Captain, as Slim appeared carrying a strange looking package.

Slim smiled mysteriously. “Shoot rabbits,” he replied evasively.

“It isn’t a torpedo,” said quick-witted Sahwah, after one look at the package. “It’s a thermos bottle.”

A chorus of derision went up. “Better Baby has to have his bottle!” “Oh, Slim! Are you afraid you’ll starve before we get our dinner?” “What’s in it, Slim, let’s see!”

Slim turned fiery red and shot a dark look at Sahwah.

“It’s hot chocolate, I know,” continued his red-cheeked tormentor. “Slim has to have a dose every hour or he feels faint.” Sahwah had long ago discovered Slim’s pet weakness.

“Where’s Katherine?” said somebody suddenly.

“Why, isn’t she here?” said Nyoda, counting over the group. “I thought I saw her here.”

“She hasn’t come yet,” declared Hinpoha and Gladys.

“Oh, I hope she hasn’t had an absent-minded fit and forgotten this is Washington’s Birthday,” said Sahwah, clasping her hands in distress.

Uncle Teddy pulled out his watch. “It’s too late to go and look for her,” he said, “just five minutes until train time.”

Consternation reigned in the group. The Captain gallantly offered to miss the train and hunt her up, but the others would not hear of it. Hasty telephoning to her house brought the news that Katherine had left half an hour ago for the station.

“Then she’ll be here,” said Nyoda, eyeing the clock nervously. “If she doesn’t make it she’ll have to miss it, that’s all.” There were times when she would have liked to shake Katherine for her unbusiness-like ways.

But eight twenty-five came and no Katherine. The long train pulled in and Uncle Teddy swung them all aboard, and with a great cheering and waving of snowshoes they were off. Other passengers looked with interest at the lively group that occupied one whole end of the car, singing, laughing, shouting nonsense at one another.

“Time for the Better Baby to have his bottle!” said the Bottomless Pitt, gaining possession of the thermos bottle. He unscrewed the lid and held it to Slim’s lips, making him drink willy-nilly. It was hot chocolate, as Sahwah had guessed. Slim choked and sputtered and had to be patted on the back.

“Do behave, children,” said Nyoda, as the fun threatened to block the aisle, “that magazine man can’t get through.”

The man stood in the midst of the scufflers, patiently trying to cry his wares above the din.

“Buy a maggyzine,” he chanted. “All the latest maggyzines!”

Amused, they stopped talking to listen to his ridiculous singsong.

“Buy a maggyzine, lady?” he said, holding one out to Nyoda. On the last sentence his voice cracked in three directions and leaped up the scale a full octave, so the word “lady” was uttered in a high falsetto squeak.

“Katherine!” exclaimed Nyoda, seizing the magazine seller by the arm in amazement.

“At yer service, mum,” replied that worthy, with a low bow.

Then, amid the hubbub that ensued she calmly proceeded to remove the fuzzy little black mustache that had adorned her upper lip, took off the fur cap that had covered her hair and threw back the long ulster that covered her from neck to heels, and stood smiling wickedly at them.

“Katherine, you awful, awful, wonderful, wonderful girl, how did you manage to do it?” gasped Gladys, breathless with astonishment.

“And when did you get on the train?” cried Hinpoha in the same breath. “You didn’t get on with us.”

“I got into the wrong street car this morning,” replied Katherine, producing her glasses from her sweater pocket and polishing them on the end of her muffler, “and got carried east instead of west. When I found it out there wasn’t time to come back to the Union Station, so I went on out to the Lakeside Station and go on the train there. I had planned to be waiting for you on the step when we got into the Union, but on the way out I met a magazine seller and had an inspiration. I bribed him to let me take his cap and books and coat for ten minutes. The mustache I had with me. I thought it might be useful in case I should be called up to perform a ‘stunt’ at Lonesome Creek. The rest you already know, as they say in the novels.” She tossed the borrowed plumage into an empty seat and settled herself beside Slim.

“By the way,” she said quizzically, looking at the boys, “what was it I heard you declaring a while ago, that no girl could masquerade as a boy and really fool a boy?”

“Pooh, you didn’t really fool us,” said Slim.

“Oh, no, I didn’t,” jeered Katherine.

“Well, we’d have found you out before long,” said the Captain.

“Maybe you would and maybe you wouldn’t,” said Katherine. “The only thing I noticed you doing was looking with envy at my little mustache.”

The Captain blushed furiously and the rest shouted with laughter.

“Anyway, Nyoda knew me first,” she continued, “and that shows that girls are smarter than boys. I can just see us being fooled by one of you dressed as a girl.”

“I bet I could do it,” said the Captain.

“Maybe you could, Cicero,” said Hinpoha sweetly. Relations between her and the Captain were somewhat strained these days, but how it began or what it was all about, no one could tell.

The Captain turned angrily at the taunting use of his name. He knew it was meant to imply that he was “Cissy” enough to pass off for a girl. “So you think I’m a Cissy, do you?” he said hotly. If Hinpoha had been a boy there would have been a scuffle right there, but as it was he was helpless.

“Tell them how you trailed the fox up in Ontario, father,” interrupted Aunt Clara hastily, and Uncle Teddy began a thrilling tale of adventure in the backwoods that held them spellbound until they reached their station.

“Now for the long white trail!” cried Uncle Teddy cheerily, when all snowshoes were adjusted to their owners’ satisfaction. “Nine o’clock and all’s well! Catertown and dinner at twelve o’clock, ten miles due south as the crow flies! Here, Captain, you be the first pathfinder. Here is a map of the way we are to take. You may be leader until you get us off the track, and then we’ll let one of the girls try her hand. Forward, march!”

Whole new worlds lie before the hiker on snowshoes. All the ugliness in Nature is concealed by the soft white mantle of snow, like a scratched and stained old table covered with a spotless cloth, and everything is glistening and wonderful and beautiful. The snowshoes are seven league boots in very truth. On them you go right over stumps and fences and hummocks and stones and little hollows. You do not need to keep to the road or to the beaten track. Dame Frost, like Sir Walter Raleigh, has spread her mantle over the unpleasant places and over it you may pass in safety.

“Where are we now?” asked the Bottomless Pitt.

“Casey’s Woods,” replied the Captain, referring to his map.

“Oh,” cried Sahwah, “don’t you remember how we wanted to come here to a picnic once in the summer, but we couldn’t go into the woods at all, because the mosquitoes were just terrible? Why didn’t we ever think of holding a picnic in the winter? There are no ants to crawl into your shoes and no spiders to get into your cocoa.”

“And no poison ivy,” said Gladys. “Why, winter is the very best time to hold a picnic!”

And they made up a hiking song to the tune of “Marching Through Georgia,” and sang it until the woods echoed:

“Doesn’t Aunt Clara look just like a Teddy Bear in that brown fur coat?” whispered Gladys to Sahwah. Aunt Clara was nearly as broad as she was long, and, wrapped in furs as she was, seemed rounder yet.

“Halt!” cried Uncle Teddy, as the company came out on the edge of a deep ravine. “Oh, I say, Captain, what’s this? It doesn’t seem to me I included this in my order.”

Much confused, the Captain spread his road map on a log and set the compass on it, trying to find out where he had gone wrong. “Shucks,” he said disgustedly, after a moment’s study. “We should have gone at right angles to that hundred-foot pine tree instead of in a line with it. Everybody back up—I mean, right about face. Shucks!” And he handed the map and the compass to Sahwah with as good grace as he could and took the end of the line, as became an officer who had been reduced to the ranks.

Sahwah led them back to the pine tree and in the right direction from it, as indicated on the map, and they soon came to the bridge which spanned the gorge a mile below the spot where the Captain had reached it. Detour and all they reached Catertown at twelve o’clock, where their ravenous appetites worked fearful havoc with the good dinner set before them. Uncle Teddy insisted upon having Slim’s thermos bottle filled with milk, to guard against his getting faint on the way, although Slim blushed and protested. Ten more miles to make in the afternoon. But to these practised hikers the distance before and behind them seemed nothing wonderful and they declared the going was so good on snowshoes that they could keep on forever. Sahwah followed the map accurately, and brought them out at the right crossroads at the end of five miles, where she relinquished her office as pathfinder to Bottomless Pitt, who was next in line. It had been decided en route that five miles should be the length of any leader’s service.

“Honorable discharge,” said Uncle Teddy, patting Sahwah on the head. “I’ll wager there aren’t many girls who could have done that.”

“All of us could,” answered Sahwah, eager to sing the praises of the group as a whole.

The Captain said nothing. He felt that he had disgraced the Sandwiches by letting a girl get ahead of him. It did not help him any to note that Hinpoha was looking at him and evidently thinking the same thing. The Captain was very sore at heart. He liked and admired Hinpoha more than any of the other Winnebagos, and they had always been the best of friends until suddenly, for some reason which he could not explain, she had turned against him. And she had done the one thing to him that he could never forgive. She had called him “Cicero.” All was over between them. Winter hikes weren’t such a lot of fun after all, he told himself.

“Hi, look at the rabbit,” shouted Pitt, pointing out an inquisitive bunny that sat upon his haunches under a tree, “to see the parade go by.”

“Don’t hurt him, don’t hurt him,” cried Sahwah, dancing up and down and trying to focus her camera on him.

“Who’s hurting him?” said the Captain. “We haven’t anything to hurt him with, unless Slim steps on him.” Sahwah clicked her camera and at the click Br’er Bunny vanished into space.

“Let’s see what kind of tracks he made,” said Sahwah, and they all willingly detoured a trifle to examine the footprints in the snow.

“There are some others beside his,” said Bottomless Pitt. “What kind of an animal is that, Uncle Teddy?”

Uncle Teddy examined the tracks and nodded his head with a satisfied air. “You boys ought to know those tracks,” he said provokingly. “What kind of scouts are you, anyway? Here, Captain, quit your scowling like a thundercloud and tell us what animal has been taking a walk. I certainly have taught you enough about woodcraft to know that.”

The Captain looked at the tracks closely. “I think it’s a ’coon,” he said finally.

“Think so!” scoffed Uncle Teddy. “Don’t you know so? Pitt, what do you say?”

“Looks like a ’coon to me,” answered Pitt.

“And what do you say, Redbird?” asked Uncle Teddy, pulling Sahwah’s hair.

“There’s where you boys have us beaten,” said Sahwah frankly. “We never have had a chance to learn animal tracks.”

“I’m sure it’s a ’coon,” said the Captain, his spirits rising with the chance to crow over the girls.

“All right, if you’re sure of it, we’ll follow the trail awhile and see where he is,” said Uncle Teddy. “But you always want to be sure of what you see, after you’ve learned it once. A good woodsman always fixes a thing in his mind so he’ll know it the next time he sees it.”

“I’m sure it’s a ’coon,” repeated the Captain. “May we follow the trail awhile?” Eagerly they trotted along beside the footprints in the snow, impatient to have a sight of the animal. This was a new sport to the Winnebagos and they were greatly excited about it. The Captain had forgotten his low spirits and was in the lead now.

“I say, the fellow that spies him first ought to be pathfinder for the rest of the way,” he said.

“What does a ’coon look like?” panted Sahwah, trying to keep up with him.

“He has a short, thick, striped tail,” said the Captain, “and a—— Oh, goodness gracious! Oh, Methuselah’s great grandmother!” For just then the wind began to blow strongly from the direction in which they were going, carrying with it an unmistakable odor. With one accord they took to their heels.

“O Uncle Teddy,” said the Captain, furious at himself, “you knew what it was all the while! Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Well,” said Uncle Teddy dryly, “you were so blooming sure it was a ’coon that I couldn’t contradict you very well without being impolite. ‘There’s nothing like being dead sure,’ I says to myself. And I knew you would never be satisfied until you had found out for yourself.”

The Captain, permanently abashed, retired to the rear of the line and ventured no more opinions about anything they saw, and took not the slightest interest when Hinpoha discovered a rare little moosewood maple and identified it by its beautiful green bark.

“Last lap!” shouted Pitt, consulting the map for the hundred and fortieth time. “Turn east by the twin oaks and approach the camp from the rear! Company, forward march!”

“There are the cabins now,” cried the Monkey, throwing his cap into the air. “Maybe I won’t sit down and hold my feet up, though!”

“Maybe you won’t jump around and get some firewood, though!” remarked Uncle Teddy. “End of the hike, messmates,” he shouted, executing a droll dance on his snowshoes and waving his long arms like windmills. “All together, now, three cheers and a tiger for the end of the hike!” And they gave them with a will.