"Yes, and we do their mending; oh! and quite often the shoe pinches--the stocking, I mean--when the holes are just haggles!" The eyebrows of a fair-haired, pretty girl of fifteen were ruefully arched, over eyes of merriment. "But we do--do have such fun at our Get Togethers--our picnics and parties," went on she, whose ceremonial name was Aponi the Butterfly of the mountain group. "Hur-ra-ah! There are two such Get Togethers coming off quite soon now--one the day after to-morrow--Saturday--a picnic at Snowbird Cave, to explore some other caves afterwards upon the further side of the river, the blue Housatonic." This contribution came, piecemeal, from several feasting mouths together. "Oh! the Housatonic--blue--Hous-a-tonic!" Pemrose bent demurely over her flapjack and cocoa, curling her toes under her as she recalled her view of it from the Devil's Chair. "And what about the second Get Together--when is that to be?" she asked. "A week from Saturday: _Jubilate!_ It's our anniversary day as a White Birch Group when we hold a sort of carnival in he afternoon in honor--in honor of the de-ar birch trees just bursting into leaf." Aponi fluttered like green tree-hair, herself. "And that's to be followed--whoopee!--by a party: a real, full-blown June dance in the evening--to which all the boys are invited. And--and, maybe, some girls not of our Groups will find an invitation tucked into their stockings, too," slily. "But for the picnic this week the Boy Scouts are hosts." "I guess, if they knew there were two strange girls in camp--such girls--they'd scuttle to 'come across' with an invitation, too!" laughed the one slangy member inseparable from every group, whose talk is the long stitch in the thread of conversation. "Do you think they would? Oh! I don't know about that. Boys are such--such griffins, sometimes." Wormwood was in the eye of Pemrose, pointing the accusation, a new and gloomy pessimism born of the Devil's Chair and Jack at a Pinch. "_Ours_ aren't!" It was the voice of the little girl-thrush lifted in blue-jay belligerence now. "Our boys aren't queer fish--not a bit!" rising to hot defense of Stud, the Stoutheart, who even in callow youth, was of opinion that Life in every phase was a game for two--in which two, of differing sexes, could hunt together and make good headway. "To be sure, they do love to get off jokes on each other--and occasionally on us," went on Jessie, the brown-haired merle in maiden form. "They have a society of older boys in their camp called the Henkyl Hunters' Brigade. My brother Stud--he's a patrol leader--belongs to it. And they go on the war-path occasionally--and publish a bulletin about their doings." "What's a henkyl?" Una's mouth was wide open; upon its gusty breath rode horned toads and plated lizards, in imaginary solution.