“Let me walk back to camp, I should like it better,” the little girl insisted, when Bettina and the stranger had volunteered to carry her. Her arm was bound and hung in an improvised sling. Not many yards further on the smoke of a camp fire could be seen in the late afternoon haze. The small procession walked three abreast with Mary Gilchrist a few steps behind. “We, too, plan to spend the winter in the Adirondacks, with our Camp Fire club, our guardian and a few relatives and friends,” Bettina explained. “We have a beautiful camp on Half Moon Lake, but you will soon see for yourself! The arrangement is a good deal of a surprise. After a summer in England[1] we intended to make a trip through Ireland, but after a few weeks found the country so unsettled we decided to sail for home. Most of us were really very glad. I was, because I had discovered this little girl in Ireland by that time. Chitty I told you was a Lancashire girl, the daughter of a miner. She lived with us in England and then ran away with her father to Ireland, so we never expected to see her again. Her name is really Elce. Chitty is a queer, Lancashire word that means a tiny, black kitten and was a title the miners gave her, as their mascot. But the name does not suit; Chitty is a blackbird and has a magical voice.” Bettina Graham smiled down at the little girl of about twelve years of age, whose uninjured arm was slipped through hers. “We are now in sight of our camp. See, is it not lovely as I said? The Indians call this locality ‘Place Where the Storm Clouds Met in Battle with the Great Serpent.’ We call our camp, ‘Tahawus,’ which means cloud.” The young man whistled softly. They were descending a low hill, sparsely covered with beeches, poplars and birch trees and a few evergreens, where but the thick growth evidently had been cleared away. The hill led down into a narrow valley, a broad stripe of shining ribbon. In the center lay a lake upon which a motor launch and several row boats were washing softly to and fro. Beyond Half Moon Lake rose an extraordinarily high mountain with files of spruce trees stationed like sentinels up and down. Over the mountain at this hour showed the first pale glimmer of a crescent moon. About an eighth of a mile from the lake stood a wide, low cabin built of logs with a generous veranda. Beside it were two smaller cabins of perhaps only two or three rooms, but connected with the large house by enclosed runways. In front of one of the smaller houses a camp fire was burning. Wreaths of smoke were curling out of the chimney of the central cabin, as in spite of the Indian summer days, the autumn nights were cold. Several girls in Camp Fire costumes were preparing the evening meal over the open fire, while three older women were walking slowly up and down at no great distance away.