“Never mind!” exclaimed Marie. “I’m sure I can find it without that. Reuben went over it very carefully with me.” “Reuben being the aforesaid bashful boy?” asked Mabel. “Yes. And you needn’t make so much fun of him, either. He’s real nice when you get to know him, though he does say ‘yes, ma’am,’ and ‘no, ma’am,’ to me, and he’s older than I am.” “How much?” inquired Natalie promptly. “I sha’n’t tell! But come on if we’re going to get to Bear Pond before noon,” and she quickened her pace. “I wonder if the boys suspected where we were going?” ventured Alice. “I don’t believe so,” replied Mrs. Bonnell. “I told them they mustn’t feel obliged to look after us, or to accompany us everywhere we went. It was very nice of them, I said, but we had come to the woods to be real Camp Fire members, and didn’t want to trouble them.” “I don’t believe they call it _trouble_,” said Marie. “Not as long as Natalie is along,” added Mabel. “And we’re not a bit jealous, dear,” she added quickly, as breath-of-the-pine-tree blushed. “You may share all our brothers. Sometimes I wish some one would take all of Phil. He’s such a tease when he sets out to be!” “I guess in this case they were glad not to be asked to go anywhere with us to-day,” went on the Guardian. “I didn’t so much as hint where we were going—merely saying we might go for a row—which we did. I rather think they had some plan of their own they wanted to carry out. They took their fish poles, but I didn’t hear them talking about bait, which seems is hard to get here. So I wouldn’t be surprised but what they were going to Mt. Harry to look for the Gypsy camp that is really at Bear Pond. They want to surprise us.” “And we’re going to turn the tables!” exclaimed Marie. “Won’t it be a joke!” “If we find the camp,” added Mabel. “Of course we will,” asserted the leader. “I have all the directions down in my head.” “There’s another good tree to hairpin!” exclaimed Mrs. Bonnell, as, with her useful little implement, she again made her mystic scratches. “We can’t help seeing that. Is it much farther, Marie?” “We haven’t come to the spring yet, and it’s a mile past that. But you’re not getting tired, are you?” “Oh, no; only I wanted to know the worst. Lead on—we will follow!” and she looked for more trees to “blaze.” As the girls walked along, now taking little runs, and experimental dashes on side paths, they broke into song now and then, chanting, “Wo-he-lo for Aye,” and other Camp Fire melodies; the “Walking song,” and the gladsome rhyme of work.