There was another rule that the boys must not take the guns if the girls were along. Guns are safe enough if there are no bystanders. "Oh, Frank, ask Douglas! I am afraid to be the one to let you do it." "Can I tell her you say yes if she does?" "Yes, I reckon so! But if she does say yes, please be awfully careful." "Sure we will! I tell you, Miss Helen, if anything happens to these girls, Skeeter and I'd never show our faces in camp again." "I know you will look after them," said Helen. These boys were great favorites with Helen, and they admired her so extravagantly that sometimes Lil and Lucy, their sworn chums, were a bit jealous. "I've made your kind of sandwiches, Frank, sardines. And I've stuffed some eggs with minced ham the way you like them, Skeeter." "Bully!" exclaimed both knights. "And I s'pose what Lil and I like or don't like didn't enter your head," pouted Lucy. "Why, Lucy, you know you like sardine sandwiches better than anything, you said so yourself," admonished Lil. "Helen didn't know it." "If you don't like what I put up, you can do it yourself next time," snapped Helen. "''Tis dog's delight To bark and bite,'" sang Douglas, coming into the kitchen to spy out the nakedness of the land preparatory to sending her order for provisions to the wholesale grocer in Richmond. "What are you girls scrapping about?" "Helen said----" "Lucy's always----" "Yes, I haven't a doubt of it," laughed the elder sister, who was ever the peacemaker. "I haven't a doubt that Helen did say it, but she was just joking, and I know Lucy is always trying to help and is a dear girl. Now you children trot along and bring back all the chickens you can carry. Have you got your bags?" Gunnysacks were always taken to bring home the provender. "And money to pay for the chickens? If you see any eggs, buy them, and more roasting ears, but don't try to carry everything you see. Have the mountaineers bring them to camp. Good-bye! Be sure to come back before dark." "Ask her about the guns," whispered Frank to Lil. "Douglas, can the boys take their guns? Helen says she says yes if you say yes. They won't carry 'em loaded." "We--ll, I believe we can trust you; but do be careful, boys." With a whoop the boys flew to their tent for the guns. The sizable lunch was dumped in the bottom of a gunnysack and slung over Skeeter's shoulder, and the cavalcade started, after many admonitions from Douglas and Helen to be careful of their guns and to come back before dark. "Ain't they the scared cats, though?" laughed Lucy. "Yes; what on earth could happen to us?" said Lil. "Nothing, I reckon, with Skeeter and me here to protect you--eh, Skeeter?" "I just guess we could hold a whole litter of bears at bay with these guns. I almost wish we would run into some kind of trouble just so Frank and I could show your big sisters we are responsible parties."