The “Pioneers,” however, proved particularly brainy ones that year. They advanced to meet their guests, each from her wigwam door, dressed in Red Indian garments of their own fashioning and design, and proceeded to provide a feast as pioneery as it was peculiar. Instead of tea the guests were served with a beverage which the hosts had prepared from nettles, and pronounced “absolutely non-poisonous and much more pioneery.” Wild strawberries and raspberries in limited quantities figured on the menu, but the pièce de résistance of the feast was the quantity of damper-cakes and bannocks cooked over the embers of the fire. They might be slightly doughy in their interiors and might cause the interior organs of the guests to feel slightly doleful afterwards, but “it was worth it,” as Gerry declared to Betty on their way back, when the “hut-warming” was over and the Guides were left to themselves for the night. “Rather,” agreed Betty, but in a very abstracted tone. “What’s wrong? Did you eat too many of them?” inquired Gerry sympathetically. “I thought you suddenly seemed rather--well, glum!” But Betty’s “glumness” was not the result of damper-cakes, as she proceeded to explain, though the explanation was not apparently easy to make. “I say, Gerry,” she burst out suddenly. “Look!” From her pocket she produced a coloured object of a ribbony texture. “It was in a bush,” blurted out Betty. “Close to the Witch’s Wood fence, you know, where we were all sitting at tea. And I suddenly saw it, and pulled it out.” “Why,” said Gerry, staring, “one of the Daisies must have lost it. It’s a bit of our patrol ribbon.” “That’s what I thought,” burst in Betty; “but only just at first. Look here, Gerry; listen. It may be that; but then it mayn’t. You see, it couldn’t have been lost to-day, because it’s been wet with rain and all tousled, and looks as though it had been there for weeks. And the Guides wouldn’t push ribbon into a bush, and----” “Well?” inquired Gerry, staring. “But even if not, I don’t see----” “It’s tied in a bow, you see,” went on Betty; “and----” “Well?” inquired Gerry, staring still. “And oh, Gerry, don’t you see? Why, our patrol ribbon was tied on to the Cup! In a bow, too; for I untied it and tied it up again that morning when I cleaned it. And it seems to me--” Betty stopped. “Betty!” Gerry was staring now in good earnest. “You don’t think that the Cup’s hidden somewhere in the school wood, do you? Why, the Guides have searched, you know.” “I don’t know _what_ to think,” said Betty, looking more miserable than ever. “The fact is, Gerry, I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve done something else silly and helter-skelter without meaning to. An idea has just come to me. I’ve never told any one at all about it, but now--” She stared from the ribbon to Gerry as though wondering what to say next, or whether to leave something still unsaid. “Whatever do you mean?” asked her friend. CHAPTER XV BETTY SHARES THE SECRET