The Camp Fire Girls' Larks and Pranks

Chapter 13

"I can't help it, it simply won't roll!" exclaimed Katherine in despair. "I've tugged and tugged until my fingernails are all broken, and it just naturally won't turn over!" And Katherine sat down with a discouraged thud and fanned herself with a hair-brush.

"Well, we'll 'just naturally' have to stop and see what's the matter with it," said Nyoda soothingly. The Winnebagos were having a contest in poncho rolling to be in practice for the coming summer's camping trips. The aim of each one just now was to accomplish this in two minutes. Two minutes to spread out a poncho, two blankets and enough clothes for an overnight trip, roll it up into a neat stove-pipe, bend it into a tidy horseshoe and fasten the ends together with a rope tied in square knots.

The record was held by Medmangi, quiet, neat Medmangi, who, while the others were working like mad, had serenely completed her task in a minute and three-quarters.

"She's a regular phenomenay, that woman," said Sahwah, who had thought she was doing wonders when she straightened up at the end of two minutes exactly. "She must have four hands, or else she packed with her feet. But what else could you expect of a girl who's going to be a doctor?"

Poor Katherine, alas, made no time at all that could be recorded in Nyoda's book. It was only her second attempt at poncho rolling, but it is doubtful whether it would have been any different if it had been her hundred and second. She simply was not built for order and speediness. At the end of ten minutes she still sat beside her pile of belongings, the poncho askew, the blankets askew on it and hanging over the edge, the extra middy bundled up into a wrinkled lump and the small articles sliding off on all sides. She had begun to roll it from the wrong end, and after one or two turns it absolutely refused to go any farther, in spite of forceful attempts.

"Here, spread your things out properly, and then it will go," said Nyoda patiently, picking up the blankets. Out rolled the object which had obstructed the wheels of progress-an umbrella, which had been tucked under the blankets lengthwise of the roll. "No wonder it wouldn't roll!" exclaimed Nyoda, laughing aloud. "Did you expect the umbrella to bend round and round like a hose? Whatever would you want an umbrella for, anyway?"

"For rain," answered Katherine with touching simplicity. Nyoda and the other Winnebagos doubled up in silent mirth. Katherine's inspirations invariably left them without power of comment.

"Katherine, you're positively hopeless," sighed Gladys affectionately. "The only safe way is to divide your things up among the other ponchos; yours would never arrive at a journey's end, anyhow."

"Oh, if I had only been born neat instead of handsome!" said Katherine plaintively, and then joined heartily in the irresistible laughter that followed.

"Hush, girls!" said Nyoda. "There's somebody down at the door. Don't you hear somebody rapping?"

Hinpoha, who was nearest the window, peeped down. "It's a whole bunch of girls," she reported in an excited whisper. "All strangers. I don't know any of them. What can they want?"

"Want to see us, probably," said matter-of-fact Sahwah. "Isn't somebody going down to let them in?"

"The way this place looks!" sighed Nyoda, looking at the floor strewn with the contents of Katherine's poncho. "Gladys, you and Hinpoha go down and let them in and detain them downstairs until the rest of us can put this room in order. It's a disgrace to the Winnebagos."

Gladys and Hinpoha descended the ladder and threw open the door. "Welcome," they cried, "whoever you are! Welcome to the House of the Open Door!"

The six strange girls came in. One who was tall and thin and had hair almost as red as Hinpoha's, stepped forward. "We are members of the San-Clu Camp Fire," she said. "We have heard quite a bit about you Winnebagos and thought we would come and call. Is this your famous Lodge?"

"It certainly is," said Gladys hospitably. "We are delighted to become acquainted with you. Make yourselves at home. This gymnasium outfit belongs to a club of boys who share our Lodge, and over there is Sandhelo's stall. Sandhelo is our pet donkey; you must see him right away." She led the girls to the stall and kept them there telling about Sandhelo's exploits until she was sure from the sounds above that the room was in order. Then she invited them to ascend the ladder.

"The San-Clu Camp Fire have come visiting," she announced, as she stepped out on the floor.

"All Hail to the San-Clu Camp Fire from the Winnebagos," chanted the hostess ceremoniously, and seven pairs of hands performed the fire sign.

"San-Clu returns All Hail," responded the guests with no less ceremony.

The newcomers were shown the beauties of the Winnebago Lodge, and it seemed they would never get done exclaiming over the rugs and skins and pottery, and most of all, the beds.

"They aren't so terribly hard to make," the Winnebagos assured them modestly, but at the same time glowing with a feeling of superiority. The San-Clu girls were plainly older than the Winnebagos; they all wore dresses down to their ankles and seemed quite grown up, almost enough to be guardians themselves; yet they did not appear to have won nearly so many honors as the younger Winnebagos.

During the tour of inspection Nyoda and Gladys held a whispered consultation in one end of the room. "Nothing here to make a spread with," said Gladys. "I'll have to hurry out and get something."

"Do," said Nyoda. Gladys nudged Hinpoha and drew her down the ladder and together they sped after canned shrimp and condensed milk.

"Now, if you'll excuse us a minute," said Nyoda to the San-Clus, "we'll retire behind our curtains and prepare to do the stunt with which we always inflict company. Come, girls," she added in a whisper, "the Battle of Blenheim." And the players retired to array themselves in the necessary sheets.

Five minutes later the curtains were shoved aside, and the players stood before the audience. They looked in bewilderment. For seated where they had left the San-Clu Camp Fire Girls were the Captain, Bottomless Pitt, the Monkey, Dan Porter, Peter Jenkins and Harry Raymond. The girls had vanished.

"Why, when did you come in, boys?" asked Nyoda in surprise. "And where are the girls?"

"What girls?" asked the Captain.

"Why, the San-Clu Camp Fire girls," said Nyoda, "who were visiting us."

"Here they are," said the six boys, rising and speaking together. "We are the 'San-Clu' Camp Fire Girls. 'San-Clu'-short for Sandwich Club! Ho-ho-ho, Katherine! You'd know us in a minute with girls' clothes on, would you!" And from under the rugs and furniture they drew the dresses, hats, gloves and wigs which the late San-Clus had worn a-calling. "Oh-h-h, Katherine, we do this to each other!"

The girls sat staring, speechless for a minute, unable to believe that there really had been no girls there. But the evidence was before their eyes and it could not be doubted. And they were far too game not to see that the joke was on them, and laughed just as heartily over it as the boys did.

"We'll have to have the spread, anyhow, for your benefit," said Nyoda, taking up the cans of supplies that Hinpoha and Gladys had just brought in. "You carried that off too splendidly not to be rewarded. We congratulate you on your ability to act, and confess that we were completely taken in. Where's Slim?"

"We left him behind the fence," said the Captain, with a start of recollection. "We didn't dare let him come in with us, because you'd have recognized him right away."

"Figures never lie, especially stout ones," laughed Nyoda. "Go and bring him to the spread."

"Are you folks going on a trip?" inquired the Monkey, with his mouth full of Shrimp Wiggle and his eyes on the ponchos piled in the corner.

"We are, next Saturday," answered Sahwah. "We were just practicing rolling the ponchos today. Saturday we're going to take the steamer across the lake to Rock Island. Some friends of Nyoda's have a cottage there, but they haven't gone up yet and they said we might stay in it all night if we wanted to. We're coming home on the boat Sunday night."

"Are you going by yourselves?" asked Slim, leaning across the table and listening to the conversation. He was fishing for an invitation for the Sandwiches.

"We certainly are going by ourselves," said Sahwah, to his disappointment. "We haven't been off by ourselves for a long time. We're going in a lonely place and have a Ceremonial Meeting on the shore of the lake and tell secrets and do stunts and have a beautiful time. It's strictly a Winnebago affair-a hen party, you'd call it."

Slim sighed and consoled himself with five pieces of fudge and an apple. He was one of those boys who like to be around girls all the time. Too fat to enjoy the more strenuous society of the boys, he preferred to sit with his gentler friends and dip his hand into the dishes of candy that they usually had standing around. The fact that they made no end of fun of him and never took him seriously only increased his desire for them. And, like the Captain, he delighted to look upon the hair when it was red. He admired Hinpoha with all his corpulent soul.

The winter and spring months had flown by with swifter wings than the white-tailed swallow, and the clock of the year was once more striking June. Saturday found the Winnebagos skimming over the blue waters of the lake in the big daily excursion boat bound for Rock Island. Nakwisi, of course, had her spy glass and was carefully scrutinizing the empty horizon. "Has Katherine come into your range of vision yet?" asked Nyoda, a trifle anxiously. Katherine had boarded the boat with them safely enough, for she had been personally conducted from home by the whole six, but had disappeared within ten minutes after the boat started.

Nakwisi lowered her glass and laughed. "No, I don't see her in the sky," she said, "though I shouldn't be very greatly surprised if I did."

And they began a thorough search of the boat from top to bottom and finally found her hanging over the rail of a gangway, trying to touch the snowy foam flying in the swirling wake of the paddle wheel. It was the first time she had ever been on a lake, and she took a perfectly childish delight in the racing water. Pulled back to safety by Nyoda, she gave an animated account of her adventures since seeing them last, in the course of which she had nearsightedly walked into the pilot house and caught hold of the wheel to steady herself when the boat gave a lurch, and had been summarily put out by an angry first mate. "I've been everywhere on the boat except down the smokestack," she concluded triumphantly.

Soon Rock Island appeared as a speck on the horizon in Nakwisi's glass, then as a long black streak which they could all see, and finally grew by leaps and bounds into a beautiful wooded island with trees and lawns and beautiful summer cottages shining in the sunlight. Shouldering their ponchos, they went ashore, and walked around the point of the island to the cottage where they were to spend the night. It was close to the water, where a curving indentation of the shore line made a lovely little beach. If Sahwah did not make the record at poncho rolling, she left them all behind in getting into her bathing suit, and five minutes after the door was unlocked her hands clove the water in a flying dive from the end of the pier.

Katherine splashed about courageously, trying to swim, and finally succeeded in propelling herself through the water by a series of jerks and splashes unlike any stroke ever invented by the mind of man. "This is too hard on my dellyket constitooshun," she remarked at last, clambering out and draping her ungainly length around a rock, thereby disclosing the fact that her bathing suit was minus one sleeve. Katherine regarded the yawning armhole with mild vexation. "Broke my needle when my suit was all done but putting in the one sleeve," she remarked serenely, "and there wasn't time to go out and buy one-I finished the suit at eleven o'clock last night-so I just pasted that sleeve in with adhesive tape, and it didn't show a bit. But it must have let go in the water," she finished plaintively. Nyoda looked at the girls, and the girls looked at Nyoda, and once more they were dumb.

Tired of swimming, they dressed and explored the island and then sat down on the big boat dock and dangled their feet over the edge. Soon a tug came up alongside the pier and the sailor who ran it chanced to be a man whom Nyoda had met the previous summer on the island. "Hello, Captain McMichael," she called.

The sunburnt sailor looked up. "Hello, hello," he answered. "What are you doing up here so early in the season?" When Nyoda had explained that she had brought the girls up on a sightseeing trip, Captain McMichael promptly offered to take them for a ride in the tug. "Got to go over to Jackson's Island and get a lighter of limestone," he said. "I'd have to set you ashore on Randall's Island while I went over to Jackson's to get the lighter," he continued, "because you'd get all covered with lime dust if you stayed in the tug while they were loading, and it's no place for ladies to go ashore. But Randall's is all right. The quarries there aren't worked any more and there are only a few summer cottages. But there are excellent wild strawberries," he finished with a twinkle in his eye. "I'll call for you on the way back and get you here before dark. Will you come?"

"Oh, Nyoda, may we?" cried the girls, delighted at the prospect.

"Why, yes," answered Nyoda. "I think that will be a delightful way to spend the afternoon. I have always wanted to explore Randall's Island; it looks so interesting from the steamer. We accept your invitation with pleasure, Captain McMichael."

"Glad to have you," responded the tug master heartily, as he set the powerful engine throbbing.

"Don't fall overboard," he yelled above the steam exhaust a minute later as Katherine hung over the stern and trailed her hands in the water. Nyoda clung to her dress and the rest sang in chorus:

"Sailing, sailing,

Over to Randall's I,

And dear Sister K would fall into the bay

If Nyoda weren't nigh!"

The run to Randall's Island took just fifteen minutes and Katherine managed to get there without accident, other than upsetting an oil can into her lap. The wild strawberries were as abundant and as delicious as Captain McMichael had promised, and it was with sighs of regret that they finally admitted they could hold no more. Then they scrambled around in the abandoned limestone quarries until Nyoda, coming face to face with Katherine, announced it was time to play something else. Katherine had torn her dress on sharp points until it was nearly a wreck; she had stepped into a puddle up to her shoetops, her hat brim hung down in a discouraged loop and her hands and face were scratched with briers.

"If one more thing happens to you, Katherine Adams," said Nyoda sternly, "you'll have to spend the rest of your life on this island, for you won't be respectable enough to take home."

"Then I'll be Miss Robinson Crusoe," said Katherine, "and eat up all the strawberries on the island, and not have to write the class paper. I believe I'll consider your offer. Our literary member, Migwan, can write a book about it-Living on Limestone, or The Queen of the Quarry. Wouldn't that be a fine sounding title!"

"What is that long stone building way over there?" asked Hinpoha, as they promenaded decorously over the island beyond the quarries, two of them arm-in-arm with Katherine, to keep her in the straight and narrow path.

"Looks like a fort," said Sahwah, with immediate interest. "Is it a fort, Nyoda?"

"I doubt it very much," answered Nyoda. "I never heard of a fort on any of these islands. Let's go over and investigate."

Katherine hung back, screwing up her face and rolling her eyes like an old negress. "Don' lead dis child into temptation," she begged. "Feel lak de climbin' debbil would get into mah feet agin foh sartin sure, ef ah went near dat pile of stone, an' den good-bye, dress! Only safe way's to keep dis child far away!"

Her veiled, husky voice made her imitation indescribably droll, and the girls shouted with laughter. "Never fear, my weak sister," said Gladys, "we'll all keep you out of danger."

"I can't imagine what this could have been," said Hinpoha, when they had reached the ruin. "It looks more like a mill than a fort."

"Mill!" exclaimed Sahwah scornfully. "There isn't any wheel, and there isn't a sign of a stream. Mills are always on streams."

"Maybe this was a windmill," suggested Katherine. "It's windy enough to set any kind of machinery going," and she started in pursuit of her hat, which that moment had been whirled from her head by a mischievous zephyr.

The ruin which the girls had found that afternoon was the remains of an old wine cellar which had been used for storing great quantities of grape wine in the old days when Randall's Island had been in the heart of the grape region, before quarrying became the chief industry. Nothing was left now to tell what valuable stores it had once sheltered, only stones and crumbling brick walls, overgrown with high weeds and wild vines.

"It's an enchanted castle," said Hinpoha. "A beautiful princess used to live here, only she got married and moved to-to the big hotel on Rock Island, and when she left the bad imps came and knocked out the mortar with their little hammers and it all fell to pieces."

"Oh, wonderful," drawled Katherine. "Let's poke about a bit in the ruins and see if we can find any of the solid gold toothpicks the princes used to strew around after a meal."

The ruined wine cellar proved utterly fascinating. They could still see where it had been divided into rooms; and here and there a thick wall still stood higher than their heads.

"Hi, what's this?" asked Katherine, as they stood before a doorway partially filled with d bris, behind which a black hole yawned.

"It's a cave," said Sahwah, poking her head forward into the hole like a turtle. "Let's explore it," she continued, stepping carefully over the pile of bricks. "Come on," she called over her shoulder; "it's perfectly wonderful. It's a room, but it's under the hill. Come on in."

"Are there any bats?" asked Gladys, hanging back.

"Nothing but brickbats," came Sahwah's cheerful voice from within.

Gladys and Hinpoha crawled through the opening, and Katherine, with a resigned, "Goodbye, dress," followed with Nyoda and Nakwisi and Medmangi. The room was nothing more than an extension of the cellar, built into the side of the hill, but to them it was filled with romantic possibilities.

"What do you suppose it was?" asked Hinpoha, straining her eyes in the semi-darkness.

"The dungeon, of course," answered Katherine promptly. "Here's where your beautiful princess confined the lovers that didn't suit her fancy-light-haired ones and fat ones, especially. She chained them to the wall and the rats nibbled their toes."

"Oh-oh-oh!" shrieked Hinpoha, stopping her ears. "Don't say such dreadful things. I can feel the rats nibbling at my toes this minute."

The walls of this cellar were badly crumbled, and at the farther side the girls discovered another cave-like opening. This was entirely dark and they hesitated before going in. Then Nyoda took her pocket flash and Gladys found hers, and by the combined glimmer of the two the girls found their way into the farther cave. At first they had to keep the light on the ground to see where to put their feet and they were all inside before Nyoda turned her flash on the walls. Then a great cry of amazement burst from every girl, ending in a breathless gasp. The walls and roof of the cave seemed to be made of precious stones-pearls, sapphires, emeralds, amethysts and diamonds. They caught the gleam from the pocket flashes and twinkled and reflected in a hundred points of dancing light. Great masses of crystal, faceted like diamonds, hung suspended from the roof almost touching their heads, seemingly held up by magic.

"Am I dreaming," cried Hinpoha, "or is this Alladin's cave? What is it, Nyoda? Where are we?"

Nyoda laughed at their open mouths and staring eyes. "Only in one of Nature's treasure vaults," she said. "This is one of the famous crystal caves that are found throughout these islands. It's a form of rock crystal, strontia, I believe some people call it, and I don't doubt but what it's related to the limestone in the quarries. Take a good look at it, for some of these crystals are simply marvellous."

Their voices echoed and re-echoed weirdly, as they called to each other, the sound seeming to roll along the low ceiling. "Look at this mass over here," cried Sahwah, penetrating deeper into the cave, "it looks like a man standing against the wall."

"And this one looks like a dog lying down," said Hinpoha, pointing to another.

Laughing, shouting, exclaiming, they explored the wonders of the cave until a heavy shock as of something falling, accompanied by a deafening crash, rooted them to the ground with fright. "What is it? What has happened?" they asked one another, and made their way back to the entrance. But the entrance was no longer there. Where it had been there was a solid wall of stone. Their climbing around among the ruined walls had sent some of the bricks sliding and these had released a large rock which had rolled down directly over the opening into the crystal cave. With desperate force they pushed against the rock, but their sevenfold strength made no more impression than a fly brushing its wings against it. With white faces they turned to each other when they realized the truth. They were imprisoned in the cave!

"The other direction!" cried Sahwah, shaking off her terror and setting her wits to work. "We may be able to get out the other way." Taking the flashlight from Gladys, whose trembling fingers threatened to drop it, she led the way into the gloomy recesses of the cave, whose depths they had penetrated only a short distance before. They shuddered at the icicle like crystals, which now seemed like long fingers reaching down to catch a hold of them, and shrank back from the crystal masses that took the forms of men and animals. These now seemed like ghosts of creatures that had been trapped in the cave as they were. For trapped they were. In a few moments their progress was barred by impassable masses of crystal. Back again they went to the rock-blocked entrance and beat upon it and pushed with all their might. All in vain. The rock stood firm as Gibraltar. They shouted and called and screamed until the echoes clamored hideously, but no answering call came from the outside. From somewhere, far in the distance, came the dismal sound of falling water, chilling the blood in their veins.

Helplessly the girls all turned to Nyoda, asking, "What shall we do?"

Nyoda stood still and tried to face the situation calmly. She held her flashlight close to the rock and looked carefully all around the edge. At one side there was a tiny fissure, not more than half an inch wide and about six inches long, caused by the irregular shape of the rock. Nyoda regarded this minute opening thoughtfully. "If we could put something through that opening which would act as a signal, we might attract somebody's attention who wouldn't be able to hear us calling," she said at length. "Our voices are so muffled in here they can't carry very far outside."

"Is there anybody on the island to see it?" asked Gladys doubtfully.

"There are some people here," answered Nyoda, "because the fishermen stay all the year round. You remember those houses we passed on the other side of the quarry, where the nets were hanging in the yard?"

"What shall we use for a signal of distress?" asked Gladys. "Not one of us has a tie or a ribbon on today."

"Use my dress skirt," said Katherine generously. "It's so torn anyway that it'll never feel the same again, even if it recovers from this trip." Which was perfectly true. So they tore the wide hem from her dress, which made a pennant about six feet long. Then Sahwah had a further inspiration, and, dipping her finger into a dark puddle formed on the floor by a thin stream of moisture trickling down the wall, she wrote the word HELP on the strip. Nyoda poked the end through the opening and shoved the rest out after it, keeping the other end in her hand, and she could feel by the tugging at the strip that the high wind had caught the portion outside and was whipping it about.

"Now shout for all you're worth," commanded Nyoda.

Early that Saturday morning the Captain had aroused Slim from his peaceful slumbers unceremoniously. "Hurry up and come over," he said, in response to Slim's protesting grunt. "Uncle Theodore's here with his automobile and he's going to take a run over to Freeport this morning and he said he would take all the fellows along that were ready at nine o'clock. Hurry."

Slim needed no second invitation and roused himself immediately, while the Captain sped to collect the remainder of the Sandwiches, which was accomplished in short order, as none of the other invitations involved resurrection. Nine o'clock found them all on the curbstone before the Captain's house, standing beside Uncle Theodore's big car, waiting for the word to pile in. The ride to Freeport was accomplished in a few hours' time and after dinner Uncle Theodore turned the boys loose to see the town by themselves while he transacted the business which had taken him thither. Freeport had no attraction outside of its harbor, and thither the boys betook themselves without delay. Passenger steamers left every half hour for the various islands nearby; lime boats, tugs and scows crowded the mouth of the river, and the whole atmosphere breathed of ships. The boys stood and watched a while and then pined for something to do.

"Let's hire a launch," suggested the Captain, who felt that it was up to him to furnish the amusement, inasmuch as he had invited them to come along, "and go out on the lake."

Launches were readily to be had and soon they were curving around in great circles through the waves, drenched with the spray, and enjoying it as only boys can enjoy the sensation of riding in a speed boat.

"Let's go to Rock Island," said Slim, who had not forgotten who else had planned to go there that day.

"What for?" asked the Captain.

"Oh, nothing," answered Slim, "except that there's a pretty nice aquarium there, and-and the girls said they were going to be there."

"But we were politely invited to stay home, if I remember rightly," said Bottomless Pitt. "They're going to have a pow-wow, or something like that."

"But if we should run into them accidentally they would probably be glad to see us," persisted Slim. Slim was fond of picnics gotten up by girls on account of the superior quality of the "grub"; he was especially fond of Winnebago picnics, because the Winnebagos treated him better than any other girls he knew, and as mentioned before, he had a decided weakness for red hair. Hence his ingenuous desire to go to Rock Island. The Captain, knowing Slim like a book, laughed. But he, too, wished he had been invited to the picnic, and his reasons coincided in their last item with Slim's.

"All right," he said, and turned the boat's head toward the green outline of Rock Island. Half of the distance across the bay the launch wheezed and stopped dead.

"Pshaw," said Slim disgustedly, when the Captain announced that they had run out of gasoline. They had come to a stop just off a small rocky island and with the aid of the one oar the launch boasted the Captain proceeded to paddle in to shore, in the hope that he could obtain gasoline there.

"Regular desert island," grunted Slim, as they walked and met no one. "None of the cottages seem to be occupied."

"Cheer up; we'll find someone," said the Captain. "The fishermen live on these islands all winter. Look at the limestone quarries over there."

"And the ruined something or other behind them," said the Bottomless Pitt.

"Let's cut across here," said Slim, who was ever on the lookout for short cuts. "I see some houses over there."

"And break our necks crawling over those stones," said Monkey. "Not much."

So they started to follow the path that led around the curve of the shore. "Wonder if it wouldn't have been better to cut across, anyway," said the Captain, when they had gone some distance. "These blooming little stones are worse to walk on than spikes. Those rocks couldn't have been much worse." And he stood still and looked thoughtfully back at the ruined cellar.

"Hi!" he exclaimed suddenly. "What's that?"

"What's what?" asked Slim.

"That white rag flying from the rock over there. It surely wasn't there a minute ago."

"Probably was, only you didn't see it," said Slim, impatient to go on.

"I'm positive it wasn't," said the Captain. "I'm going over to have a look at it. When rags start out of rocks there's something in the wind." And he walked briskly toward it, the rest following. As they drew near their startled eyes fell on the black letters of the word HELP, traced in wobbly lines.

"Yay!" shouted the boys at the top of their lungs. "Where are you and what's the matter?"

Apparently from inside the rock came the feeble echo of a shout: "We're in the cave! The rock covered the doorway!"

"Wait a minute!" called the Captain in answer, and boylike tried to move the rock himself. "Lend a hand, fellows," he said, after one shove against its solid side. They lent all the hands they had, but could not budge it. "Pull the bricks out from around it," commanded the Captain, taking charge of the affair like a general, "and look out for your feet when she lunges over!" They set to work, dislodging the bricks that held it in, and before long it moved, tottered, grated and finally, with a great crash, lunged over and rolled down a little slope.

Pale and shaken, the Winnebagos emerged into the light of day. Had the ghosts of their great grandmothers appeared before them the boys could not have been more surprised. Questions and answers flew back and forth thick and fast until the tale of their finding the cave was told.

"And I'll never, never, explore anything again!" finished Hinpoha, in an emphatic tone.

"Oh, yes, you will," said Gladys; "and so will we all, but the next time we'll have a company of guides fore and aft."

"Wouldn't it be a better plan," suggested the Captain mildly, "to take us along with you wherever you go? I notice we generally have to come to the rescue, anyway."

And the Winnebagos promised to consider the matter.