The Camp Fire Girls At Camp Keewaydin

Or, Down Paddles

By Hildegard G. Frey






CHAPTER I


ON THE WAY

"All aboard!" The hoarse voice of Captain MacLaren boomed out like a fog
horn, waking a clatter of echoes among the tall cliffs on the opposite
shore of the river, and sending the seventy-five girls on the dock all
skurrying for the _Carribou's_ gangplank at once.

"Hurry up, Hinpoha! We're getting left behind." Agony strained forward
on the suitcase she was helping Hinpoha to carry down the hill and
endeavored to catch up with the crowd, a proceeding which she soon
acknowledged to be impossible, for Hinpoha, rendered breathless by the
hasty scramble from the train, lagged farther behind with every step.

"I--can't--go--any--faster!" she panted, and abruptly let go of her end
of the suitcase to fan herself with her hand. "What's the use of
rushing so, anyway?" she demanded plaintively. "They won't go off
without us; they can see us coming down the hill. It wasn't _my_ fault
that my camera got wedged under the seat and made us be the last ones
off the train," she continued, "and I'm not going to run down this hill
and go sprawling, like I did in the elevator yesterday. Are the other
girls on already?" she asked, searching the crowd below with her eyes
for a sight of the other Winnebagos.

"Sahwah and Oh-Pshaw are on the boat already," replied Agony, "and Gladys
and Migwan are just getting on. I don't see Katherine anywhere, however.
Oh, yes," she exclaimed, "there she is down there in the crowd. What are
they all laughing at, I wonder? Oh, look, Katherine's suitcase has come
open, and all her things are spilled out on the dock. I thought it would
be strange if she made the trip without some kind of a mishap. Oh, dear,
did you ever see anyone so funny as Katherine?"

"Well," observed Hinpoha in a tone of relief, "we don't have to hurry
now. It'll take them at least ten minutes to get that suitcase shut
again. I know, because I helped Katherine pack. I had to sit on it with
all my might to close it."

"_All Aboard_!" came the second warning roar from Captain MacLaren,
accompanied by a deafening blast of the _Carribou's_ whistle. Agony
picked up Hinpoha's suitcase in one hand and her own in the other, and
with an urgent "Come on!" made a dash down the remainder of the hill and
landed breathless at the gangplank of the waiting steamer just as the
engine began to quiver into motion. Hinpoha was just behind her, and
Katherine trod closely upon Hinpoha's heels, carrying her still unclosed
suitcase out before her like a tray, to keep its contents from spilling
out.

Migwan was waiting for them at the head of the gangplank. "We've saved a
place for you up in the bow," she said. "Hurry up, we're having _such_ a
time holding it for you. The boat is simply _packed_."

The four girls picked their way through a litter of suitcases, paddles,
cameras, tennis rackets and musical instruments that covered every inch
of deck space between the chairs, and joined the other Winnebagos in
their place in the bow. Hinpoha sank down gratefully upon a deck chair
that Oh-Pshaw had obligingly been holding for her and Agony disposed
herself upon a pile of suitcases, from which vantage point she could get
a good look at the crowd.

The _Carribou_ had turned her nose about and was gliding smoothly
upstream, following the random curvings of the lazy Onawanda as it wound
through the low-lying, wooded hills of the Shenandawah country, singing
a carefree wanderer's song as it flowed. It was a glorious, balmy day in
late June, dazzlingly blue and white, sparklingly golden. It was the
_Carribou's_ big day of the year, that last day of June. On all other
days she made her run demurely from Lower Falls Station to Upper Falls,
carrying freight and a handful of passengers on each trip; but every
year on that last day of June freight and ordinary passengers stood
aside, for the _Carribou_ was chartered to carry the girls of Camp
Keewaydin to their summer hunting grounds.

The Winnebagos looked around with interest at the girls who were to be
their companions for the summer, all as yet total strangers to them.
Girls of every shape and size, of every shade of complexion, of every
age between sixteen and twenty. A number were apparently "old girls,"
who had been at Camp Keewaydin in former years; they flocked together in
the bow right behind the Winnebagos, chattering animatedly, singing
snatches of camp songs, and uttering conjectures in regard to such
things as whether they would be in the Alley or the Avenue; and who was
going to be councilor in All Saints this year.

A number of these old girls were grouped in an adoring attitude around a
pretty young woman who talked constantly in an animated tone, and at
intervals strummed on a ukulele. Continual cries of "Pom-pom!" rose on
the air from the circle surrounding her. It was "_Dear_ Pom-pom,"
"Pom-pom, you angel," "O _darling_ Pom-pom! Can't you fix it so that I
can be in your tent this year?" and much more in the same strain.

"Pom-pom is holding her court again this year, I see," said a biting
voice just behind Agony.

Agony maneuvered herself around on her perch and glanced down at the
speaker. She was a decidedly plain girl with a thick nose and a wide
mouth set in a grim line above an extraordinarily heavy chin. Her face
was turned partly away as she spoke to the girl next to her, but Agony
caught a glimpse of the sarcastic expression which informed her
features, and a little chill of dislike went through her. Agony was
extremely susceptible to first impressions of people.

The girl addressed made an inaudible reply and the first girl continued
in low but emphatic tones, "Well, you won't catch me fetching and
carrying for her and playing the part of the adoring slave, I can tell
you. I think it's perfectly silly, the way the girls all get a crush on
her."

There was a pause, and then the other girl asked, somewhat hastily, "Who
do you suppose will get the Buffalo Robe this year?"

"Oh, Mary Sylvester will, of course," came the reply. "She nearly got it
last year. Now that Peggy Atterbury isn't coming back Mary'll be the
most popular girl in camp without a doubt. Look at her over there,
trying to be sweet to Pom-pom."

"Isn't she stunning in that coral silk sweater?" murmured the other
girl.

"She has too much color to wear that shade of pink," returned the
sarcastic one.

Agony's eyes traveled over to the group surrounding Pom-pom and rested
upon the girl who, next to Pom-pom herself, was the center of the group.
She was very much like Agony herself, with intensely black hair, snow
white forehead and richly red lips, though a little slighter in build
and somewhat taller. A frank friendliness beamed from her clear dark
eyes and her smile was warm and sincere. Agony felt drawn to her and
jealous of her at the same time. _The most popular girl in camp_. That
was the title Agony coveted with all her soul. To be prominent; to be
popular, was Agony's chief aim in life; and to be pointed out in a crowd
as _the_ most popular girl seemed the one thing in the world most
desirable to her. She, too, would be prominent and popular, she
resolved; she, too, would be pointed out in the crowd.

The sarcastic voice again broke in upon her reverie. "Have you seen the
hippopotamus over there in the bow? I should think a girl would be
ashamed to get that stout."

Agony glanced apprehensively at Hinpoha, who was staring straight out
over the water, but whose crimson face betrayed only too plainly that
she had heard the remark. The rest of the Winnebagos had undoubtedly
heard it also, as well as a number of others rubbing elbows with them,
for a sudden embarrassed silence fell over that corner of the boat and a
dozen pairs of eyes glanced from Hinpoha to the speaker, who, not one
whit abashed, continued to stare scornfully at the object of her
ridicule.

"Of all the bad manners!" said Agony to Sahwah in an indignant
undertone, which, with the characteristic penetrating quality of Agony's
voice, carried perfectly to the ears of the girl behind her. A light,
satirical laugh was the reply. Agony turned to bestow a withering glance
upon this rude creature, and met a pair of greenish tan eyes bent upon
her with an expression of cool mockery. In the instant that their eyes
met there sprang up between them one of those sudden antagonisms that
are characteristic of very positive natures; the two hated each other
cordially at first sight, before they had ever spoken a word to each
other. Like fencers' swords their glances crossed and fell apart, and
each girl turned her back pointedly upon the other. Broken threads of
conversation were picked up by the group around them, shouts of laughter
came from the group surrounding Pom-pom, who was reciting a funny poem,
and the tense moment passed.

The other Winnebagos forgot the incident and gave themselves over to
enjoyment of the beautiful scene which was unrolling before their eyes
as the _Carribou_ bore them further and further into the wilds; great
dark stretches of woodland brooding in silence on the hillsides; an
occasional glimpse of a far distant mountain peak wreathed in mist, and
near by many a merry little stream romping down a hillside into the
mother arms of the Onawanda. Gradually the shores had drawn close
together until the travelers could look into the cool depths of the
forests past which they were gliding, and could hear the calling of the
wild birds in their leafy sanctuary.

Just past a long stretch of woods which Hinpoha thought might be
enchanted, because the trees stood so stiffly straight, the _Carribou_
rounded a bend, and there flashed into sight an irregular row of white
tents scattered among the pines on a rise of ground some hundred or more
feet back from the river.

"There's camp," Sahwah tried to say to Hinpoha, but her voice was
drowned in the shriek of ecstasy which rose from the old campers.
Handkerchiefs waved wildly; paddles smote the deck with deafening
thumps; cheer after cheer rolled up, accompanied by the loud tooting of
the _Carribou's_ whistle. Captain MacLaren always joined in the racket
of arrival as heartily as the girls themselves, taking delight in seeing
how much noise he could coax from the throat of his steam siren.

Amid the racket the little vessel nosed her way up alongside a wooden
dock, and before she was fairly fast the younger members of last year's
delegation had leapt over the rail and were scurrying up the path. The
older ones followed more sedately, having stopped to pick up their
luggage, and to greet the camp directors who stood on the dock with
welcoming hands outstretched. Last of all came the new girls, looking
about them inquiringly, and already beginning to fall in love with the
place.




CHAPTER II

GETTING SETTLED


Along the bluff overlooking the river, and half buried in the pine
trees, stretched a long, low, rustic building, the pillars of whose wide
piazza were made of tree trunks with the bark left on. A huge chimney
built of cobblestones almost covered the one end. The great pines
hovered over it protectingly; their branches caressing its roof as they
waved gently to and fro in the light breeze. On the peak of one of its
gables a little song sparrow, head tilted back and body a-tremble,
trilled forth an ecstasy of song.

"Isn't it be-yoo-tiful?" sighed Hinpoha, her artistic soul delighting in
the lovely scene before her. "I wonder what that house is for?"

"I don't know," replied Sahwah, equally enchanted. "There's another
house behind it, farther up on the hill."

This second house was much larger than the bungalow overhanging the
water's edge; it, too, was built in rustic fashion, with tree-trunks for
porch posts; it was long and rambling, and had an additional story at
the back, where the hill sloped away.

It was into this latter house that the crowd of girls was pouring, and
the Winnebagos, following the others, found themselves in a large dining
room, open on three sides to the veranda, and screened all around the
open space. On the fourth side was an enormous fireplace built of stones
like those they had seen in the chimney of the other house. Over its
wide stone shelf were the words CAMP KEEWAYDIN traced in small,
glistening blue pebbles in a cement panel. Although the day was hot, a
small fire of paper and pine knots blazed on the hearth, crackling a
cheery welcome to the newcomers as they entered. In the center of the
room two long tables and a smaller one were set for dinner, and from the
regions below came the appetizing odor of meat cooking, accompanied by
the portentous clatter of an egg beater.

There was apparently an attic loft above the dining-room, for next to
the chimney a square opening showed in the raftered ceiling, with a
ladder leading up through it, fastened against the wall below. Up this
ladder a dozen or more of the younger girls scrambled as soon as they
entered the room; laughing, shrieking, tumbling over each other in their
haste; and after a moment of thumping and bouncing about, down they all
came dancing, clad in middies and bloomers, and raced, whooping like
Indians, down the path which led to the tents.

"Are we supposed to get into our bloomers right away?" Oh-Pshaw
whispered to Agony. "Ours are in the trunk, and it hasn't been brought
up yet."

"I don't believe we are," Agony returned, watching Mary Sylvester, who
stood talking to Pom-pom in the doorway of the Camp Director's office.
"None of the older girls are doing it; just the youngsters."

Just then Mrs. Grayson, the Camp Director's wife, came out of the office
and announced that dinner would be served immediately, after which the
tent assignments would be made. The Winnebagos found themselves seated
in a row down the side of one of the long tables, being served by a
jolly-looking, muscular-armed councilor, who turned out to be the Camp
Director's daughter, and who had her section of the table feeling at
home in no time.

"Seven of you from one city!" she remarked to the Winnebagos, when she
had called the roll of "native heaths," as she put it. "That's one of
the largest delegations we have here. You all look like star campers,
too," she added, sizing them up shrewdly. "Seven stars!" she repeated,
evidently pleased with her simile. "We'll have to call you the Pleiades.
We already have the Nine Muses from New York, the Twelve Apostles from
Boston, the Heavenly Twins from Chicago and the Three Graces from
Minneapolis, beside the Lone Wolf from Labrador, the Kangaroo from
Australia, and the Elephant's Child from India."

"Oh, how delicious!" cried Sahwah delightedly. "Do you really mean that
there are girls here from Australia and India?" Sahwah set down her
water glass and gazed incredulously at Miss Judith. Miss Judith nodded
over the pudding she was dishing up.

"The Kangaroo and the Lone Wolf are councilors," she replied, "but the
Elephant's Child is a girl, the daughter of a missionary to India. She
goes to boarding school here in America in the winter time, and always
spends her summers at our camp. That is she, sitting at the end of the
other table, next to mother."

The Winnebagos glanced with quick interest to see what the girl from
India might be like, and somewhat to their surprise saw that she was no
different from the others. They recognized her as one of the younger
girls who had been hanging over Pom-pom on the boat.

"Oh--she!" breathed Agony.

"What is her name?" asked Hinpoha, feeling immensely drawn to the girl,
not because she came from India, but because she was even stouter than
herself.

"Her name is Bengal Virden," replied Miss Judith.

"Bengal?" repeated Sahwah. "What an odd name. I suppose she was born in
Bengal?"

"Yes, she was born there," replied Miss Judith. "She is a rather odd
child," she continued, "but an all round good sport. Her mother died
when she was small and she was brought up by her father until she was
old enough to be sent to America, and since then she has divided her
time between boarding schools and summer camps. She has a very
affectionate nature, and gets tremendous crushes on the people she
likes. Last summer it was Pom-pom, and she nearly wore her out with her
adoration, although Pom-pom likes that sort of thing."

"Who is Pom-pom?" asked Agony curiously. "I have heard her name
mentioned so many times."

"Pom-pom is our dancing teacher," replied Miss Judith. "She is the
pretty councilor over there at the lower end of mother's table. All the
girls get violent crushes on her," she continued, looking the Winnebagos
over with a quizzical eye, as if to say that it would only be a short
time before they, too, would be lying at Pom-pom's feet, another band of
adoring slaves. Without knowing why, Agony suddenly felt unaccountably
foolish under Miss Judith's keen glance, and taking her eyes from
Pom-pom, she let them rove leisurely over the long line of girls at her
own table.

"Who is the girl sitting third from the end on this side?" she asked,
indicating the heavy-jawed individual who had made the impolite remark
on the boat about Hinpoha, and who had just now pushed back her pudding
dish with an emphatic movement after tasting one spoonful, and had
turned to her neighbor with a remark which made the one addressed
glance uncomfortably toward the councilor who was serving that section.

Miss Judith followed Agony's glance. "That," she replied in a
non-committal tone, "is Jane Pratt. Will anyone have any more pudding?"

The pudding was delicious--chocolate with custard sauce--and Miss Judith
was immediately busy refilling a half dozen dishes all proffered her at
once. Agony made a mental note that Miss Judith had made no comment
whatever upon Jane Pratt, although she had evidently been in camp the
year before, and she drew her own conclusions about Jane's popularity.

"Who is Mary Sylvester?" Agony asked presently.

"Mary Sylvester," repeated Miss Judith in a tone which caught the
attention of all the Winnebagos, it was so full of affection. "Mary
Sylvester is the salt of the earth," Miss Judith continued warmly.
"She's the brightest, loveliest, most kind-hearted girl I've ever met,
and I've met a good many. She can't help being popular; she's as jolly
as she is pretty, and as unassuming as she is talented. For an all
around good camper 'we will never see her equal, though we search the
whole world through,' as the camp song runs."

Agony looked over to where Mary Sylvester sat, the center of an animated
group, and yearned with all her heart to be so prominent and so much
noticed.

"I heard someone on the boat say that she would probably get the Buffalo
Robe this year; that she had almost gotten it last year," continued
Agony. "What is the Buffalo Robe, please?"

"The Buffalo Robe," replied Miss Judith, "is a large leather skin upon
which the chief events of each camping season are painted in colors, and
at the end of the summer it goes to the girl who is voted the most
popular. She keeps it through the winter and returns it to us when camp
opens the next year."

"Oh-h," breathed Agony, mightily interested. "And who got it last year?"

"Peggy Atterbury," said Miss Judith. "You'll hear all about her before
very long. All the old girls are going to tie black ribbons on their
tent poles tomorrow morning because she isn't coming back this year. She
was another rare spirit like Mary Sylvester, only a bit more prominent,
because she saved a girl from drowning one day."

Agony's heart swelled with ambition and desire as she listened to Miss
Judith telling about the Buffalo Robe. A single consuming desire burned
in her soul--to win that Buffalo Robe. Nothing else mattered now; no
other laurel she might possibly win held out any attraction; she must
carry off the great honor. She would show Nyoda what a great quality of
leadership she possessed; there would be no question of Nyoda's making
her a Torch Bearer when she came home with the Buffalo Robe. Thus her
imagination soared until she pictured herself laying the significant
trophy at Nyoda's feet and heard Nyoda's words of congratulation. A
sudden doubt assailed her in the midst of her dream.

"Do new girls ever win the Buffalo Robe?" she asked in a voice which she
tried hard to make sound disinterested.

"Yes, certainly," replied Miss Judith. "Peggy Atterbury was a new girl
last year, and the girl who won it the year before last was a new girl
also."

Her doubt thus removed, Agony returned to her pleasant day dream with
greater longing than ever. The conversation at their table was
interrupted by shouts from the next group.

"Oh, Miss Judy, please, please, can't we live in the Alley?"

Another group farther down the table took up the cry, and the room
echoed with clamorous requests to live either "in the Alley" or "on the
Avenue." The Elephant's Child came in at the end with a fervent plea:
"Please, can't I be in Pom-pom's tent _this_ year?"

"Tent lists are all made out," replied Miss Judith blandly. "You'll all
find out in a few moments where you're to be." She sat calmly amid the
buzz of excited speculation.

"What do they mean by living 'in the Alley'?" asked Sahwah curiously.

"There are two rows of tents," replied Miss Judith. "The first one is
called the Avenue and the second one the Alley. This end of camp, where
the bungalows are, is known as the Heights, and the other end the Flats.
There is always a great rivalry in camp between the dwellers in the
Alley and the dwellers on the Avenue, and the two compete for the
championship in sports."

"Oh, how jolly!" cried Sahwah eagerly. "Where are we to be?" she
continued, filled with a sudden burning desire to live in the Alley.

"You'll know soon," said Miss Judith, with another one of her quizzical
smiles, and with that the Winnebagos had to be content.

In a few moments dinner was finished and Mrs. Grayson rose and read the
tent assignments. The tents all had names, it appeared; there was Bedlam
and Avernus, Jabberwocky, Hornets, Nevermore, Gibraltar, Tamaracks,
Fairview, Woodpeckers, Ravens, All Saints, Aloha, and a number of others
which the Winnebagos could not remember at one hearing. Three girls and
one councilor were assigned to each tent. Sahwah and Agony and Hinpoha
heard themselves called to go to Gitchee-Gummee; Gladys and Migwan were
put with Bengal Virden, the Elephant's Child from India, into a tent
called Ponemah; while Katherine and Oh-Pshaw were assigned, without any
tentmate, to "Bedlam." The Winnebagos smiled involuntarily when this
last assignment was read, knowing how well Katherine's erratic nature
befitted the name of the place. Gitchee-Gummee, Sahwah found to her
delight, was the tent nearest the woods; next to it, but on the other
side of a small gully, spanned by a rustic bridge, came Aloha, Pom-pom's
tent; on the other side of Aloha stood Ponemah, in the shadow of twin
pines of immense height; while Bedlam was farther along in the same row,
just beyond Avernus. Avernus, the Winnebagos noticed to their amusement,
was a tent pitched in a deep hollow, the approach to which was a rocky
passage down a steep hillside, strikingly suggestive of the classical
entrance way to the nether regions. Only the ridgepole of Avernus was
visible from the level upon which Bedlam stood, all the rest of it being
hidden by the high rocks which surround it. Bedlam, on the other hand,
was built on a height, and commanded a view of nearly all the other
tents, being itself a conspicuous object in the landscape.

To their secret joy, the Winnebagos saw that their tents were all in the
back row, in the Alley. Agony, especially, was exultant, since she saw
that Mary Sylvester was also in the Alley. Mary was in Aloha, Pom-pom's
tent, right next door, and Agony had a feeling that wherever Mary
Sylvester was, there would be the center of things, and being right next
door might have its advantages.

"We're going to have Miss Judith for a councilor," remarked Sahwah
joyfully, as she dumped her armful of blankets down on one of the
beds--the one on the side toward the woods.

"I wonder which bed she would like," said Hinpoha, standing irresolutely
in the center of the floor with her armful of bedding.

"Here she comes now," announced Agony. "Let's wait and ask her."

"Well, she wouldn't want _this_ one anyway," remarked Sahwah, as she
straightened the mattress on her bed preparatory to spreading the
sheets, "it sags in the middle like everything. I didn't take the best
one if I did take first choice"--a fact which was apparent to all.

Bedlam's councilor, who had been announced as Miss Armstrong, from
Australia, had already staked her claim when Katherine and Oh-Pshaw
arrived, although she herself was nowhere in sight. One of the beds was
made up and covered with a blanket of such dazzling gorgeousness that
the two girls were almost blinded, and after one look turned their eyes
outdoors for relief. All colors of the rainbow ran riot in that blanket,
each one trying to outdo the others in brilliancy and intensity, until
the effect was a veritable Vesuvius eruption of infernal splendors.

"Think of having to live with _that_!" exclaimed Oh-Pshaw tragically.
"My eyesight will be ruined in one day. Imagine the effect after I get
out my pink and gray one."

"And my lavender one!" added Katherine.

"We won't ever dare roll up the sides of our tent," continued Oh-Pshaw.
"We'll look like a beacon fire, up here on this hill. Our tent is
visible from the whole camp."

"Cheer up," said Katherine philosophically, "maybe there are others just
as bad. Anyway, let's not act as if we minded; it might make Miss
Armstrong feel badly. She probably thinks it's handsome, or she wouldn't
have it. Coming from Australia that way, she may have quite savage
tastes."

"I wonder what she'll be like," ruminated Oh-Pshaw, standing on one foot
to tie the sneaker she had just substituted for her high traveling shoe.

As if in answer to her wondering, a clear, far-carrying call came to the
ears of both girls at that moment. "Coo-_ee_! Coo-_ee_! Coo-_ee_!"

"What is that?" asked Oh-Pshaw, pausing in her shoe lacing with one foot
poised airily in space.

The call was repeated just outside their tent door, and then trailed off
into silence.

"Is that someone calling to us?" asked Katherine, hurriedly pulling her
middy on over her head and throwing back the tent flap. No one was in
sight outside.

"Must have been for someone else," she reported, looking right and left
along the pathway. "There's nobody out here."

She came back into the tent and began arranging her small possessions on
the shelf which swung overhead.

"How I'm ever going to keep all my things on one-third of this shelf is
more--" she began, but her speech ended in a startled gasp, for the
floor of the tent suddenly heaved up in the center, sending bottles,
brushes and boxes tumbling in all directions. The board which had thus
heaved up so miraculously continued to rise at one end, and underneath
it a pair of long, lean, powerful-looking arms came into view, followed
by a head and a pair of shoulders. Katherine and Oh-Pshaw sat petrified
at the apparition.

"Did I scare you, girls?" asked a deep, strong voice, and the apparition
looked gravely from one to the other. It was a dark-skinned face,
bronzed by wind and weather to a coppery, Indian-like tinge, and the
hair which framed it was coarse and black. Only the head and shoulders
of the apparition were visible beside the arms, the rest being concealed
in the depths underneath the tent, but the breadth of those shoulders
indicated clearly what might be expected in the way of a body. After a
moment of roving back and forth between the two girls, the dark eyes
under the heavy eyebrows fastened themselves upon Katherine with a
mournful intensity of gaze that held her spellbound, speechless. After a
full moment's scrutiny the dark eyes dropped, and the apparition, using
her arms as levers, raised herself to the level of the floor and stood
up. She was taller even than they had expected from the breadth of her
shoulders; in fact, she seemed taller than the tent itself. Katherine,
who up until that moment had considered herself tall, felt like a pigmy
beside her, or, as she expressed it, "like Carver Hill suddenly set down
beside one of the Alps." Never had she seen such a monumental young
woman; such suggestion of strength and vigor contained in a feminine
frame.

Oh-Pshaw looked timidly at the human Colossus standing in the middle of
the tent, and inquired meekly, "Are you Miss Armstrong? Are you our
Councilor?"

"I am," replied the newcomer gravely, replacing the board in the floor
with a nonchalance which conveyed the impression that coming up through
floors was her usual manner of entering places.

"Why did you come in that way?" burst out Katherine, unable to contain
her curiosity any longer.

"Oh, I just happened to be under the tent," replied Miss Armstrong,
speaking in a drawling voice with a marked English accent, "looking for
the broom, when I spied that loose board and thought I'd come in that
way. It was less trouble than coming out and going around to the steps."

"Less trouble," echoed Katherine. "I should think it would have been
more trouble raising that heavy board with my suitcase standing on it."

"Was your suitcase on it?" inquired Miss Armstrong casually. "I didn't
notice."

"Didn't notice!" repeated Katherine in astonishment. "It weighs thirty
pounds."

"I weigh two hundred and thirty," returned Miss Armstrong
conversationally.

"You do!" exclaimed Katherine in amazement. "You certainly don't look
it." Indeed, it seemed incredible that Miss Armstrong, tall as she was,
could possibly weigh so much, for she looked lean and gaunt as a wolf
hound.

"You must be awfully strong, to have raised that board," Katherine
continued, squinting at the muscular brown arms, which seemed solid as
iron.

For answer Miss Armstrong took a step forward, picked Katherine up as if
she had been a feather, threw her over her shoulder like a sack of
potatoes, held her there for a moment head downward, and then swung her
up and set her lightly on the hanging shelf, while Oh-Pshaw looked on
round-eyed and open-mouthed with astonishment.

Just then a shadow appeared in the doorway, and Katherine looked down
to see a shrinking little figure with pipestem legs standing on the top
step.

"Hello!" Katherine called gaily, from her airy perch. "Are you our
neighbor from Avernus? Do you want anything?" she added, for the girl
was swallowing nervously, and seemed to be on the verge of making a
request.

"Will somebody please show me how to make a bed?" faltered the visitor
in a thin, piping voice. "It isn't made, and I don't know how to do it."

"Daggers and dirks!" exploded Katherine, nearly falling off the shelf
under the stress of her emotion.

"What's the matter with the rest of the folks in Avernus--can't they
make beds either?" asked Miss Armstrong, surveying the wisp of a girl in
the doorway with an intent, solemn gaze that sent her into a tremble of
embarrassment.

"My 'tenty' hasn't come yet," she faltered in reply.

"Who's your councilor?"

"I don't know; she isn't there." The voice broke on the last words, and
the blue eyes overflowed with tears.

Katherine leaped from the shelf to the bed and down to the floor. "I'll
come over and help you make your bed," she said kindly.

"All right," said Miss Armstrong, nodding gravely. "You go over with her
and I'll find out who's councilor in Avernus and send her around."

To herself she added, when the other two were out of earshot, "Baby's
away from it's mother for the first time, and it's homesick."

"Poor thing," said Oh-Pshaw, who had overheard Miss Armstrong's remark.

"She'll get over it," replied Miss Armstrong prophetically.

If Miss Armstrong was a novelty to the tenants of Bedlam, the councilor
in Ponemah also seemed an odd character to the three girls she was to
chaperon--only she was a much less agreeable surprise. She was a stout,
fussy woman of about forty with thick eye-glasses which pinched the
corners of her eyes into a strained expression. She greeted the girls
briefly when they presented themselves to her, and in the next breath
began giving orders about the arrangement of the tent. The beds must
stand thus and so; the washstand must be on the other side from where it
was; the mirror must stay on this side. And she must have half of the
swinging shelf for her own; she could not possibly do with less; the
others could get along as best they might with what was left.

"We're supposed to divide the shelf up equally," announced Bengal
Virden, who had begun to look upon Miss Peckham--that was her name--with
extreme disapproval from the moment of their introduction. Bengal was a
girl whose every feeling was written plainly upon her face; she could
not mask her emotions under an inscrutable countenance. Her dislike of
Miss Peckham was so evident that Migwan and Gladys had expected an
outbreak before this; but Bengal had merely stood scowling while the
beds were being moved about. With the episode of the swinging shelf,
however, she flared into open defiance.

"We're all to have an equal share of the shelf," she repeated.

"Nonsense," replied Miss Peckham in an emphatic tone. "I'm a councilor
and I need more space."

Bengal promptly burst into tears. "I want to be in Pom-pom's tent!" she
wailed, and fled from the scene, to throw herself upon Pom-pom in the
next tent and pour out her tale of woe.

Migwan and Gladys looked at each other rather soberly as they went out