Dr. Winship believed in a good beginning; and, as this was not a week’s holiday, but a summer campaign, he wanted his young people to get fully used to the situation before undertaking any of the exciting excursions in prospect. So, before the week was over, they began to enjoy sound, dreamless sleep on their hard straw beds, to eat the plain fare with decided relish, to grow a little hardy and brown, and quite strong and tough enough for a long tramp or horseback ride. After a religious devotion to cold cream for a few nights, Polly had signified her terrible intention of ‘letting her nose go.’ ‘I disown it!’ she cried, peeping in her tiny mirror, and lighting up her too rosy tints with a tallow candle. ‘Hideous objick, I defy thee! Spot and speckle, yea, burn to a crisp, and shed thy skin afterwards! I care not. Indeed, I shall be well rid of thee, thou—h’m—thou—well, leopard, for instance.’ One beautiful day followed another, each the exact counterpart of the one that had preceded it; for California boys and girls never have to say ‘wind and weather permitting’ from March or April until November. They always know what the weather is going to do; and whether this is an advantage or not is a difficult matter to settle conclusively. New England boys affirm that they wouldn’t live in a country where it couldn’t rain any day it felt like it, and California lads retort that they are glad their dispositions are not ruined by the freaks of New England weather. At all events, it is a paradise for would-be campers, and any one who should assert the contrary would meet with energetic opposition from the loyal dwellers in Camp Chaparral. Bell returned one day from a walk which she had taken by herself, while the other girls were off on some errand with the Doctor. After luncheon she drew them mysteriously into the square tent, and lowered the curtains. ‘What is it?’ Polly whispered, with an anxious expression of countenance. ‘Have you lost your gold thimble again, or your temper, or have you discovered a silver mine?’ ‘I have found,’ she answered mysteriously, ‘the most beautifully secret place you ever beheld. It will be just the spot for us to write and study in when we want to be alone; or it will even do for a theatre; and it is scarcely more than half a mile up the cañon.’ ‘How did you find it?’ asked Margery. ‘As I was walking along by the brookside, I saw a snake making its way through the bushes, and—’ ‘Goodness!’ shrieked Polly, ‘I shall not write there, thank you.’ ‘Goose! Just wait a minute. I looked at it, and followed at a distance; it was a harmless little thing; and I thought, for the fun of it, I would just push blindly on and see what I should find, because we are for ever walking in the beaten path, and I long for something new.’ ‘A bad instinct,’ remarked Madge, ‘and one which will get you into trouble, so you should crush it in its infancy.’