There was no sign of the other trampers when Blue Bonnet and Knight reached the little grotto; and descending to the Big Spring they found even that charming spot deserted.

Blue Bonnet looked around in surprise.

"Do you suppose we've missed them on the way down?" Raising her voice she gave her ranch-call—"Ho, ye ho, ho!"

"—ho ho!" the hill sent back; but no feminine or masculine voice answered the well-known notes.

Blue Bonnet, child of the open, then looked at the sun and the shadows and gave an exclamation of astonishment. "It's past noon! They've gone back to camp. My, I'll have to hurry—it's my turn to cook lunch."

She darted impetuously down the hillside, and Knight found himself compelled to move briskly in order to keep up with her. They went too fast for conversation, but once Blue Bonnet paused long enough to say over her shoulder—"You'll come to lunch, won't you?"

"Catch me refusing now I know who the cook is!" he replied gaily.

The path opened at last on the open space before Poco Tiempo. There was sound of voices and laughter, and yes—the clink of dishes! Blue Bonnet turned a rueful face to Knight—"Do you hear that? They won't say a thing to me!"

"I am armed,—trust me to protect you," he declaimed theatrically.

They had to pass through the "kitchen" first, and there the clutter of empty pots and pans told their own story. From the dining-room the others caught sight of the tardy pair and a wild hubbub at once arose.

"Tramps!"

"Set the dogs on them!"

"Why don't you work for a living?"

Knight's eyes twinkled as he looked from Blue Bonnet's amazed countenance to the teasing faces about the table. Lunch was evidently not only ready but largely consumed.

"What are you eating so early for?" Blue Bonnet demanded.

"Early!"

"Twenty minutes past one!"

"No—!" Blue Bonnet gasped, subsiding on the end of the bench and fanning her hot face with her hat. "Now, isn't that the funniest thing?"

"I'm glad you see the point of your own joke," retorted Kitty. "We have decided to give you a week's notice to get a new place."

"I engage her on the spot," said Knight. "It's all my fault."

"We won't give her a reference," said Kitty.

"You needn't—if you'll just give me food," said Blue Bonnet. "Alec, make room for Knight beside you, will you? We're both starved. Who made the muffins?"

"Guess," said Kitty, relenting and passing her the nearly empty plate.

Sarah intercepted it. "I'll get you some hot ones." And she rose hastily.

Blue Bonnet laughed. "Now I know! Grandmother, did you help Sarah?"

Mrs. Clyde nodded. "The girls came back so hungry I thought we had better not wait for the chief cook. No one knew where you were."

"I'm going to wear a cow-bell after this," Blue Bonnet declared. "Sarah, if I could make such muffins I'd insist upon cooking every meal."

"I reckon you don't need any protection," Knight said in an undertone.

"Oh, there's safety in numbers. Wait till Amanda catches me alone! We two will have to get dinner now." She buttered her third muffin and then glanced happily around the table. "I've a lovely scheme," she hinted.

"Did you ever see any one so bowed down with penitence?" asked Kitty; adding promptly, "What's the scheme?"

"It's to invite Alec and Knight to get down logs, make us a huge bonfire and—"

"That's just like Blue Bonnet," Kitty broke in, "—she'll let you do the work and she'll do the rest!"

"—and then invite them to a party," Blue Bonnet went on imperturbably.

"'She'll do the grand with a lavish hand,'" quoted Alec. "We're your men. A Party—with a big P—is what our souls have been pining for. Where shall we build the festive pyre?"

"In the open space between the two camps. There'll be no danger to the trees there and plenty of room to sit around it. I'll tell Miguel to bring up one of the wagon horses to drag logs,—I want a perfectly mammoth fire."

"You ought to have been a man, Blue Bonnet," Debby remarked, "—you would have made such a wonderful general. Your ability to put other people to work amounts to positive genius."

But Blue Bonnet had already gone in search of Miguel, with Alec and Knight in her train. For the rest of the afternoon the "General" demonstrated that she could not only put other people to work, but could work herself, to advantage. While the boys—whose forces had been augmented by the addition of Sandy, Smith, Brown and Jones—got down logs and built them into a miniature log cabin, Blue Bonnet made great preparations for the Party. She spread all her Indian blankets at a proper distance from the bonfire-to-be; distributed the buck-board seats judiciously, planning to add the dining-room benches as soon as supper was out of the way; whittled great quantities of long willow wands to a sharp point, maintaining great secrecy as to the use to which the latter were to be put; and stacked many boxes of the delectable pinoche in a convenient spot.

Hardly had these preparations been completed when Amanda announced that it was time to begin cooking dinner. Blue Bonnet looked at her aghast.

"I think it's maddening," she declared. "We are in a continual state of washing up after one meal and getting ready for another. And this is what Grandmother calls 'simplicity'—! It would be a heap—much—simpler if I could just say—'Lisa, we'll have dinner at six.' That would end it,—and what could be simpler?"

"What shall we have?" asked Amanda, considering that subject more to the point.

"Baked potatoes, then we won't have to peel them,—I'd as soon skin a rabbit. And Gertrudis cooked a leg of lamb, so that we'll only have to warm it up."

"Shall we try hot bread?" asked Amanda.

"Certainly not! Hot bread twice to-day already—we'll all have indigestion. We've stacks of loaves, and bread and maple syrup is good enough camp fare for any one. If we're going in for the simple life, let's be simple."

"That reminds me of something we translated in the German class," said Amanda. "'Man ist was er isst'—and it means 'one is what one eats.' And another German said 'Tell me what you eat and I'll tell you what you are.'"

"Do you mean to tell me that if I live on angel-cake I'll grow to be angelic?" demanded Blue Bonnet.

"Hardly!" laughed Amanda. "It would take a good deal more than that! No offence, Blue Bonnet,—I like you best when you're—the other thing. The Germans are always arguing about something or other. We used to take sides in class and nearly come to blows."

"You should have taken French," said Blue Bonnet, before she thought.

"You didn't think that last March!" Amanda teased; and the next moment could have bitten her tongue out for the thoughtless speech. Blue Bonnet did not smile; it was evident that the memory of the day when all the members of the French class except herself had "cut" was still a bitter one.

"I'll wash the potatoes," Amanda offered in amend for having touched a painful chord.

"All right!" Blue Bonnet beamed acceptance of the kind intention and handed over the pan without hesitation. "I'll make up a hot fire, and we'll get everything started and the table set,—then you and I are going to the Spring."

"Oh, are we?" asked Amanda blankly. One never knew what scheme lurked in the back of Blue Bonnet's head.

"For table decorations. I saw some ferns and wild honeysuckle near the bank, and it won't take much time to gather enough for the table."

"Decorating the table isn't 'simple,' is it?" Amanda asked rather provokingly.

"If you know anything simpler than a wildflower, I'd like to be shown it," retorted Blue Bonnet. "Come on, we must do some tall hustling."

The "tall hustling" got the table set in a rather sketchy fashion; hurried the potatoes into a scorching oven; placed the already cooked roast in the top of the same oven at the same time; and saw Blue Bonnet and Amanda headed for the Spring, bearing a fruit-jar and the camp's only carving-knife, just as Uncle Joe came up the bank with a fine string of speckled trout.

"All ready to fry, Honey," he said, holding them up proudly.

"Hide them quick!" cried Blue Bonnet in alarm, "shooing" him back towards the creek.

Used as he was to Blue Bonnet's impetuosity, this move of hers filled him with amazement. "What's the matter,—they're perfectly good trout!" he urged.

"They're lovely. But I wouldn't fry one for ten million dollars! Keep them for breakfast, Uncle Joe,—Sarah will know how to do them beautifully."

With an understanding chuckle, Uncle Joe went off to cache his string of beauties in a cool place along the creek; and Blue Bonnet and Amanda continued their quest for ferns.

As they were returning, crowned with success, they met the SeÑora just back from a stroll with Mrs. Judson. The three other girls were already sitting suggestively about the board.

"There," said Blue Bonnet triumphantly, as she deposited the fruit-jar in the centre of the table with its graceful ferns and honeysuckle trailing over the oil-cloth, "feast on that!"

"I call that a pretty slim dinner," said Kitty.

Blue Bonnet, disdaining the insinuation, departed rather hastily to the kitchen, drawn thither by a strong odor and a still stronger suspicion of disaster. The sheet-iron stove was red-hot. Catching up a cloth she flung open the oven door, and then backed abruptly away from the cloud of acrid yellow smoke that rolled thickly into her face.

"Oh, Blue Bonnet!" wailed Amanda. "Everything's burned to a cinder! We shouldn't have gone off."

Blue Bonnet's only reply was a violent fit of coughing. The smoke continued to pour in dense billows from the oven. "Grab the pans, quick!" she managed to choke out.

Amanda made a valiant dive through the smoke, and had just time to seize the pans from the top and bottom of the oven, when she, too, was overcome, and in the paroxysm of coughing that followed threatened to burst a blood-vessel. Finally with crimson faces and streaming eyes, both cooks gazed ruefully down on the black marbles that had been potatoes, and the charred drum-stick that had once been a leg of spring lamb.

"Keep back—no trespassing!" called Blue Bonnet as the other girls, scenting fun as well as the odor of burning things, came running from the dining-room. "This is our funeral and we don't want any mourners!" She waved them back peremptorily, at the same time screening the ruins with her apron.

The discomfited We are Sevens returned to their seats, and a moment later there came the sound of spoons being vigorously thumped on the table.

"We want dinner!" came imperiously from the hungry girls.

Amanda looked imploringly at her partner. "What shall we do?"

Blue Bonnet thought hard for a moment. All at once her brow cleared. "Here, take the meat, go find a gopher-hole and push that bone down into it as far as it will go. The potatoes can't be burned all the way through,—we'll scrape what's left into a bowl. And I'll tell Uncle Joe I've changed my mind,—we'll have the trout for dinner. And, Amanda, you'll hurry back, won't you, and put the fish in the pan—I simply can't touch 'em!"

Each sped to fulfil her allotted task, and in an incredibly short space of time a family of gophers was sniffing about a strange object blocking their front door; and a pan of fragrant trout sputtered on top of the little stove. As Blue Bonnet set the great platter of perfectly browned fish in front of her grandmother, there was a flattering "ah!" of anticipation that repaid—almost repaid, her for the previous bad quarter of an hour. Canned pears and the cookies that should have been saved for future emergencies, completed a dinner which was voted "not half bad" by the other girls, who secretly marvelled at getting any dinner at all. No one noticed that neither Blue Bonnet nor Amanda partook of potatoes, and there proved to be ample for the rest.

"I'll wash the dishes, Amanda," Blue Bonnet offered, when at last that night-mare of a dinner was over. "I ought to walk over red-hot plowshares, or wear a hair-shirt or something as a penance for my sins of this day. Lacking both plowshares and shirt, I'll substitute dish-washing. And you may bear me witness—I'd take the hair-shirt if I had my choice!"

It was a very weary Blue Bonnet who turned the dishpan upside down and hung the dish-cloth on a bush to dry. The long tramp of the morning, the preparations for the bonfire party, and then the exhausting experience of getting dinner, had tired even her physique, which had seldom known fatigue.

"I wish we could dis-invite the company," she said to Amanda.

"So do I," groaned her partner. "Fancy having to sit around a bonfire and sing 'merrily we roll along'—! It makes me ache all over."

Later, when the inmates of both camps were gathered in a great circle about the fire, singing, jesting and story-telling, both girls forgot their weariness and might have been heard singing the same "merrily we roll along" with great zest and vocal strength.

The bonfire did its builders proud and without any preparatory sulking or coaxing burst almost at once into pillars of soaring flame. There was a backing away at first on the part of the spectators as the intense heat began to scorch the circle of faces; then a gradual drawing near again. It was not until the flames had died down and the logs were a mass of glowing coals that Blue Bonnet handed around her willow-wands. Each one was now tipped with a white ball, puffy, round and mysterious.

To most of the boys this was an innovation, and they had to be shown how to hold the white globules over the coals until they spluttered and swelled to bursting.

"Now eat them!" she commanded. There was a chary tasting and then an ecstatic cry—"Marshmallows!"

The rapidity with which the tin boxes were emptied might have appalled a less generous provider than Blue Bonnet; but she had relied upon Uncle Cliff to fill her order for marshmallows, and consequently felt no fear of "going short."

When little Bayard had consumed his ninth "moth-ball" as he persisted in calling the sweets, his mother rose to take her brood home. Mr. Judson bent to lift Joe who had fallen asleep in Sarah's arms, and then turned to Blue Bonnet. "Good-night," he said, holding out his free hand and smiling down into the girl's tired face; "this is the first time I ever partook of toasted moonshine, and I've enjoyed my initiation."

Carita kissed her impulsively. "It's the loveliest party I've ever been to," she whispered.

Blue Bonnet looked wistfully after the departing group. "Aren't families the nicest things in all the world?" she asked Sarah, as she sank on the blanket beside this member of a numerous clan.

"The very nicest." And Sarah, whose arms still felt the warmth of little Joe, stared into the fire with eyes that saw in the coals the picture of a family in far-off Woodford.

There were a few more songs; an eighth or ninth rendition of

"It's the swellest thing in the bonfire line I've ever attended," Sandy assured Mrs. Clyde; and she could excuse the phrase because of the undoubted enthusiasm of the speaker.

Half a dozen of the boys tramped away in a bunch, and there floated back to the group about the fire the rhythmic refrain of "Good-night, ladies!" until it finally died away in a sleepy murmur.

Only the older boys had lingered and they, after making arrangements for a horse-back ride on the morrow, slowly straggled away.

"Where's Blue Bonnet?" asked Alec; he was one of the last, loitering for a final word with his hostess.

"She was sitting by me a little while ago," said Sarah, looking towards the Navajo.

The spot was in shadow, but as they looked in that direction, a log fell, and a slender flame sprang up. In the light they saw Blue Bonnet, curled up on the bright blanket, with her head pillowed on her arm.

She was fast asleep.