"Oh, Billy!" Keineth cried, then stopped short. Her heart warmed to Billy--they seemed almost like pals now! He had preferred playing tennis with her than going off somewhere with the boys. And she did want more than anything else right then to talk about her daddy; to tell how great he was and how he was visiting courts of Eastern lands. And she wanted to show Billy the letter from the President, it was in her pocket. And she knew if Billy said he'd never tell that he would not. But a soldier never swerves from duty and had not her father called her his "General"? "I--I can't, Billy," she finished. There was something so final in her voice and in the set of her lips that Billy, red with rage, rose quickly to his feet. "I'll bet you haven't got any secret and you're just making up to be smart and I'll get even with you, baby! And you didn't beat me playing tennis, for I let you, anyway! You wait--" and, vengefully, Billy strode away, leaving an unhappy little girl sitting alone under the tree. Peggy met Billy on the road. Peggy was in search of Keineth. Her nature was too happy to long nurse a grievance. She didn't care if Keineth did have a secret! And she had wonderful news, too! But Billy's morose bearing stirred her curiosity. "Did she tell you, Billy?" she asked. "I'll bet she hasn't got any secret that's worth knowing! And she needn't say she beat me at tennis, either." "Oh, Billy Lee, you let her beat so's she'd tell you! I'm just _glad_ she didn't! I guess girls never tell anything they've promised not to--even if they are girls!" In great scorn she ran from the disconsolate Billy. She had spied Keineth alone under the tree. "Ken--Ken! Great news!" Peggy rushed toward her. "We are going camping with Ricky--you and me--next week! Hurray!" CHAPTER XIII CAMPING Keineth learned that Ricky was Peggy's gymnasium teacher. Her real name was Fredericka Grimball, but to "her girls" she was always known as Ricky. The camp was among the hills ten miles from Fairview. And during the vacation months Ricky took her girls there in groups of twenty. With their play she gave them instruction in scoutcraft. "We go for tramps into the woods and she tells us stories of the birds and trees. I never knew until she told me that there are male and female trees, and flowers and all the things that grow; did you know it, Ken? And we found a weasel, last summer--it was almost tame. We're going to learn signalling, too; perhaps this winter Ricky will let us form a troop and join the Girl Scouts." Keineth, with wide-open eyes, was trying to follow Peggy's incoherent description of the camp life they were to begin on the morrow. Back in her mind was a tiny doubt as to whether she would enjoy twenty girls--all strangers! But she would fight this shyness and do whatever Peggy did. "We sleep right out of doors when it is clear. The woods smell so good and there are all sorts of funny sounds as if all the bugs and things were having parties."