“Gid-ap!” cried Betty, waving a willow switch, but not touching her old horse with it. Four or five girls were urging their gentle steeds along the pretty country road near the camp to which Betty Lee and Kathryn had come for their last fling before school.

“This is like old days at the farm,” remarked Betty, rather jerkily, as her horse picked up his pace and stride and jolted her. One of the girls that Betty had recently met at camp passed now with a clatter of horse’s hoofs and a flapping of girl elbows.

“She can’t ride any better than we can,” cried Kathryn, grinning. “It’s us for riding lessons this fall, isn’t it Betty?”

Betty only nodded. This was great fun, riding up hill and down dale in the country-side near the camp to which Betty had duly come, although all that they had planned had not been carried out. Mr. Lee had not brought Mrs. Lee and Amy Lou to New England, since business in New York held him there. But the Penroses, driving up to the Maine village to investigate all its delights, of which they were hearing in letters from Gwen and cards from their sons, left at the psychological moment, Gwen said, to take Kathryn and Betty with them.

It was a little hard to leave Carolyn behind. She had given up all idea of camp and Betty really did not see how any one could leave the ocean unless she had to. But the restless boys had been making ready to leave on some other trip, by boat, if Larry Waite had his way. There would be some scattering.

Betty and Kathryn were taken by car to Boston, where they embarked for New York, going on a “delirious” jaunt by a coast steamer to New York. There they joined the Lees, Amy Lou doing the honors of the city with great dignity and telling the girls where to see different things of importance. Betty would not spoil Amy Lou’s enthusiasm by reminding her that she had been there before. That was one pleasant custom in the Lee family, to give each member a fair chance with enthusiasms or accomplishments. To take the wind out of anybody’s sails—well, that was too deadly!

But Betty and Kathryn had a gay time for a a week. They ate lobster in one delightful place and had French dainties in another. And both agreed that no summer which they ever should have could come up to this one. Here they were now in this wonderful camp; and Betty declared that having seen her father and mother and Amy Lou had been quite enough to stave off any homesickness. She never would want to go home now. Imagine! School!

This was more like school in numbers, this Indiana camp of Girl Reserves. The group in the Maine village had been more or less an exclusive, or small one. Here were about sixty girls, only a few of whom Betty knew, though there were some from other high schools in her home city. And were they friendly—and noisy, at certain times? So Betty queried in her home letter written the day after arrival. But it was only the camp freedom, supervised, to be sure, that found expression here as in all camps.

Betty and Kathryn, rather expecting this to be something of an anti-climax after Maine, were pleasantly disappointed. Why, it was “gorgeous!” And it may be that the extravagant expressions of youth were justified. It was “like being away to school—and without lessons!” Betty’s only other camp experience had been a week-end attendance upon a Fall Retreat. That she had “loved” and it had made her happy in her interest in Lyon “T,” but it did not last long enough. By arrangement she was here for three weeks and would see some changes in the personnel of the girls. Many of them came for only a week; some, for two weeks.

The camp had been a gift to the Y. W. C. A., and consisted of the buildings and grounds of a country resort, close to a tiny country town. The main building, originally a country hotel or club house, was a three-story structure and had been adapted to its present use, very much like a girls’ dormitory. Wide porches, a large room with a fireplace for the open fires they sometimes had in cool evenings, an immense dining room, a big “back porch” which was practically a large room and now glassed in and screened, to be thrown open often—all these were prominent features.

There were several small cottages and because the next group of Girl Reserves was a large one, Kathryn and Betty had been placed in one of these, as they were to stay over into the next period. The girls were at first a trifle disappointed, but when they found that a phoebe was nesting on the ledge above their very door, undisturbed with their passing in and out, they were quite delighted.

Main building, cottages and all were perched on a wooded bluff above the banks of a beautiful little river. It was not the ocean, to be sure, but Betty was satisfied when she first realized the loveliness of the place, its tall trees, the birds nesting close by and their songs in the morning. And oh, the nice space! Little country roads, deep hollows, thick woods, all sorts of growths with the wild flowers of the late season! There was a safe backwater in which to swim and bathe—and the water was warm, and did not taste salty! Inland country had a beauty of its own. Moreover, there was some one to tell you about everything.

A young science instructor from one of the colleges had charge of a nature interest group, for which Betty and Kathryn promptly signed. Betty joined the dramatic group and Kathryn signed up for handicraft. Both were in the recreation group, and they concluded that a poetry club would be “instructive.”

Yet it was not in the least like school and classes. The nature group met out under the trees and planned or executed a hike. The recreation group played tennis, volley ball and other outdoor games or scampered over the country on horseback, as Betty and Kathryn were doing now. The dramatic group took the lead in the funny plays or masquerades or stunts with which the whole camp was entertained.

And now the girls were jogging slowly home from their ride. The horses would be given a little rest and another set of riders would have their turn.

“I had a note from Ramon this morning, Kathryn,” said Betty, as she tied her horse to the proper place and joined Kathryn in a stroll down the hill to the bridge that crossed the river. “I haven’t had a good chance before to tell you without somebody around.”

“Then he’s still alive,” said Kathryn, her eye on a rabbit that popped out of the bushes and went scurrying down the little road.

“He was when he wrote it,” giggled Betty. Then she sobered, thinking that it was not very nice of her to make a joke of anything connected with that harassed boy.

“You didn’t tell us much about your talk with Ramon, Betty,” remarked Kathryn, with an air of inviting confidences.

“There was so little of it,” musingly returned Betty. “Look! There’s that Kentucky warbler that we’ve been trying to see! I didn’t know that they nested here till Miss Davenport told us.”

“Well, Kentucky is the name of it, and if this is Indiana, camp isn’t so far north of the Ohio River.”

Even the girls’ low voices had made the bird whisk out of sight again. Quiet indeed must she who follows the birds learn to be! There was no further conversation while the girls stealthily tiptoed to a vantage point and watched the thick bushes that concealed the warbler. Then—oh joy!—there were both of the mates. First the male bird flew from the bush to a tree above. On a lower limb, in plain sight, he rested for a few moments, a ray of sunlight catching the bright yellow of his breast and showing clearly the black markings of the head. But whisk—they were both there on the same limb for a second, then gone! Bird study was like that!

“Now you see them and now you don’t see them!” said Betty, wishing that she had her notebook. “Don’t let me forget, Kathryn, to put all that down for our reports, and about the little field sparrow’s nest we found at the foot of that tree. Gracious! I’m afraid now of stepping on some nest when we dash around!”

“Go on about Ramon, Betty.”

The girls stopped on the great bridge and leaned on its railing to look down at the water below. A little green heron started from a thicket close to the river and a spotted sandpiper flew close to the sands or gravel upon a “sand-bar” and kept on its low flight for some distance up the stream.

“I suppose I told you how relieved he was to hear that his mother and sister were found and all right. I tried to get him to see how much more his mother would want him than any money, but he doesn’t look at it that way.”

“Maybe there’s some reason we don’t know, Betty. Then folks are different about those things. Perhaps they do care about the jewels and their family and all more than about living, without them.”

Betty considered. “I suppose they do hate to be taken advantage of and I suppose awful things must have happened through that old scoundrel.” Betty looked around almost as if she expected to see him. “Oh, let’s forget about it. Ramon Sevilla-sky will just have to have his old adventures if he will be so obstinate. All he said in his letter was that he was still alive and on the trail. He just wrote to thank me for everything, he said, and he could write to Father later on, if he had any success.”

Kathryn, who had laughed at Betty’s combination of Ramon’s name, repeated meaningly “if he has any success!”

When the girls went back to headquarters again, they found things humming as usual in the merry beehive of activity. Bernadine Fisher, one of the dramatic group, handed them each a large scrap of brown paper, torn in irregular shape and written upon with a very black pencil. This was the invitation to a barn dance, to take place that evening. “Look as crazy as you can,” said Bernadine. “And after the barn dance we’re going to put on our masterpiece. Don’t forget, Betty, that you are the heroine that gets kidnapped and everything. Ask Miss Mercer about costume. You remember we talked about that.”

“Yes—but what do I say?”

“Oh, make it up! The heroine doesn’t have to say much. She will probably be gagged anyhow if she is kidnapped!”

“Yes, but I’m one of the villains,” said Kathryn, “and we didn’t write up anything but the plot!”

“That’s all right. We almost never do for a stunt like this. Just get the general idea and work out the details as you do it.”

Kathryn and Betty looked at each other with large-sized smiles as Bernadine left them, though Betty was thinking to herself that kidnapping and being gagged was not so funny in real life. She had seen Ramon after such an experience.

“This goes in my stunt-book,” said Kathryn, holding up the artistically torn piece of brown paper. “It’s loads of fun, Betty, but I guess we’d better see Miss Mercer about when to come in with our speeches. It wouldn’t do to be standing around waiting for each other before the audience. What did I ever let you work me into this play for?”

“You know you wouldn’t miss it, Gypsy! Oh, yes, Miss Davenport, I should say we will help you put up the bird pictures! Wait till I get the thumb tacks for you. Have we really seen that many?”

On the big sun porch Kathryn and Betty were soon busy helping put up, from the excellent portfolio of bird pictures published by the New York State Museum or the “University of the State of New York,” such pictures as represented birds actually seen by the nature group in camp. “We have not as many as we would see in the migration season,” Miss Davenport explained, “but it is easy enough to get at least fifty birds that nest about here on our list. I’m making a tree list now for the camp; and don’t forget to report all the wild flowers, girls.”

The play that night was a great success, a few bad moments for the actors, when something wrong was done, resulting only in shrieks of delight and enjoyment from the audience. It was rather entertaining to hear several startled and perfectly distinct remarks from a heroine that was supposed to be unable to speak or call for aid. But Betty thought she was going to be dropped by the excited villains and spoke before she thought. “Oh!” she finished much mortified, and Kathryn saved the day by clapping a hand over the heroine’s mouth and calling for “another gag.”

“She will rouse the neighbors yet!” cried Kathryn with a dramatic gesture, “and all will be lost! See, varlets, that you make a good job of it this time!” True, “varlets” and “job” scarcely seemed to belong to the same vernacular, but what mattered a little thing like that? Besides, they were giving a “real play” at the end of the week.

Ah, the fun they had, the friendships they made and the lessons they learned in “good sportsmanship” and living together! From reveille to taps they went from one activity to another, or slept in rest hour, or sang at meals. Two things Betty declared that she could never forget. One was a wet evening when a fire in the big fireplace was comfortable. It was their hearth fire and camp fire in one and the girls sat around on the floor before it or ranged themselves in comfortable seats at a greater distance, while one of the young teachers who was a fine story-teller told all that they asked for of the old tales, and more amusing or thrilling newer ones.

The other great moment came during the beautiful ceremonial at the end of the period. Betty and Kathryn had been leaders in the school organization and found themselves useful here. Both received honors at the recognition service. And oh, that lovely night, with its moon, its firelight outdoors, its lights carried by the girls among the shadows and its inspiration!

“I like you, Betty Lee,” facetiously, yet truthfully said one of the camp directors as Betty bid her goodbye on the big bridge. A whole procession of girls was walking across it to take the train at the village station and a loaded old truck was ahead of them with suitcases galore.

The young director withdrew her arm which she had linked with Betty’s as she strolled with the girls as far as the bridge.

“I mean it,” laughed she. “You are a wholesome, happy girl, and I like your influence upon other girls. I hope you’ll be president of Lyon ‘Y’ this year again.”

Betty shook her head in the negative, looking ahead at Kathryn who was walking with one of their many new friends. “No—I’ve had that and I want Kathryn in this year, if possible. But I’ll work for it just as hard and all the more for having been here! Thank you for your good opinion of me—I’ll try to deserve it. And we all just love you! Thank you for everything! I’ve had just the happiest time!”

“I’m glad of that, my dear. Come back next year for we have bigger plans than ever. Remember, Betty Lee, that wherever you go you are going to have an influence you do not realize on other girls.”

“Mercy, Miss Dale, don’t tell me that! I don’t want to! If there’s anything I hate it’s trying to manage anybody!”

“I don’t mean that,” smiled Miss Dale. “You may find out what I do mean some day.”

But Betty dismissed this thought. The train was late and as the crowd of girls waited they sang Skin-a-ma-rink-a-dink-a-dink, Sing-a-linga-ling, Yawning, and other camp classics, varied by their own versions and their hiking and goodbye songs. A tear or two had to be wiped away over a few sentimental partings. But after the train came in, demure and bright-eyed travelers happily boarded it.