"How's the Sleeping Beauty this morning?" was Alec's salutation to Blue Bonnet, when he appeared early next day in advance of the other picnickers. Blue Bonnet asleep at her own party had been a spectacle he would not soon forget; it was almost as funny as being absent from her first tea, on that memorable day in Woodford.

"The Sleeping Beauty could find it in her heart to envy Rip Van Winkle; a nap like his is just what I crave. But no,—Sarah must needs have breakfast at cock-crow," Blue Bonnet complained.

"Why, Blue Bonnet, it was after eight o'clock when I called you," returned Sarah in a grieved tone.

"Sarah didn't want breakfast mistaken for lunch again," said Amanda.

"My prophetic soul tells me that we are going to conduct ourselves like a model Sunday-school class to-day," Blue Bonnet remarked.

"What makes you think so?" asked Amanda, in whom the memory of yesterday's trials was still undimmed.

"'Well begun is half done,' you know. And this beginning is obnoxiously perfect." Blue Bonnet was wiping off the oil-cloth as she spoke; dishes were already washed, beds done, and all without a hitch.

"I hope our picnic won't prove to be of the Sunday-school variety," said Kitty.

"I'm sure our Sunday-school picnics at home are always very nice," Sarah said reprovingly.

"Every one to his taste!" was Kitty's airy rejoinder.

"You can make up your mind that this picnic won't be like any other you ever attended," Alec assured them. "Knight has a scheme up his sleeve that will bear watching. I wonder, Blue Bonnet, if Mrs. Clyde would mind letting us take coffee?"

Blue Bonnet reflected. "To-morrow is Sunday and we're privileged to have it for breakfast. If we have it to-day instead I'm sure she won't object. What else shall we take?"

"Only some bread, some lump sugar and a tin of milk, please," said Alec modestly.

Amanda gave a sudden exclamation of joy. "Then we won't be back to lunch,—oh, Blue Bonnet, that lets us out to-day!"

They fell upon each other rapturously.

"I think we are the ones who should rejoice," said Kitty; but her remark met with the silent scorn it deserved.

They mustered a troop of twelve, all mounted, for Knight's picnic. Riding by twos, they cantered decorously as long as the eyes of their elders followed their course; but when a turn in the road freed them from observation, there was a spurring and an urging of the wiry ponies, and away they went, recking little of the grade whether up or down.

It became a game of follow-my-leader, with Knight and Blue Bonnet heading the procession and putting their horses through a performance that would have lamed anything but a Western cow-pony. Knight finally led the way to one of the "race-paths" that abound in the hilly regions of Texas, and there began a tournament that for years lived in Sarah's memory as the most reckless exhibition of daring ever seen outside a circus-ring.

"Who made this race-track?" she asked Knight in one of the infrequent pauses in the performance.

"Nature!" He laughed at the look of incredulity with which Sarah met this assertion. In truth she had good reason to doubt his word; the smooth broad road encircling the hill, a full quarter of a mile long, edged on either side by a dense growth of cedars, seemed unmistakably to show the hand of man in its creation.

"It's the solemn truth I'm telling you," Knight insisted, "—I swear it by the mane of my milk-white steed!"

Sarah gave one glance at the dark yellow buckskin pony he rode, and then clucked impatiently to Comanche. She objected to having her faith in people imposed upon.

Knight was still laughing when Blue Bonnet came up and challenged him to a race. "My reputation for truth-telling is forever lost in SeÑorita Blake's estimation," he told her.

"What do you think of Sarah, anyway?" It would be curious to know just how a Western boy regarded Old Reliable.

"She's very nice," he said, with an utter absence of enthusiasm, "—but not exciting."

Blue Bonnet smiled. "And Kitty?" she continued. Perhaps it wasn't polite in a hostess to discuss her guests, but she just had to ask that.

"She's very pretty and vivacious," he replied with an increase of warmth. "She lacks only one thing to make her irresistible."

"And that?"

"Having been brought up in Texas!"

If Knight had expected a blush to follow his outspoken compliment he was disappointed. Blue Bonnet's hearty laugh showed a very healthy absence of self-consciousness in her make-up.

"My Aunt Lucinda thinks that is my very worst drawback," she declared; and then chirping to Firefly, she was off at a break-neck pace, hat bobbing, brown braid flying, her eyes alight with the excitement of the race.

The climax of the day was the gypsy picnic. When Blue Bonnet beheld the camp-fire with the pail of coffee steaming away over the bed of coals, and saw the feast spread out informally on the ground, with wild grape leaves for plates, she gave an exclamation of delight.

"Isn't it heavenly?" she cried.

Alec laughed. "I believe, Blue Bonnet, that your idea of heaven is to live in a wickiup and subsist on mustang grapes and wild berries indefinitely,—now isn't it?"

"Exactly—except that I'd add some of the bacon Knight is preparing to give us. That's the way the cowboys cook it."

Knight had cut a dozen or more twigs having a forked branch at the tip; on the end of each he placed a slice of bacon and then handed around the "forks" ceremoniously. "I'm not going to offer you anything so dainty as toasted moonshine," he explained, "but it's a heap more substantial."

They all gathered gypsy-fashion about the fire, toasting the bacon and their faces impartially; then transferring the crisp curly brown strips to the big slices of bread, devoured them with exclamations of approval that were most grateful to the arranger of the feast. Even canned cream failed to detract from the flavor of the coffee, and they consumed great quantities of the fragrant beverage, even Sarah partaking most intemperately.

Only a lot of ponies inured to the hardships of the round-up would have remained patient through the frolics of that day, and some of these wiry ponies looked rather drooping when the picnickers turned towards camp.

Mrs. Clyde, who had been watching the road rather anxiously as the shadows began to lengthen, brightened at once when Blue Bonnet's cheery call sounded through the trees.

"Oh, Grandmother, we've had the most gorgeous time in the world!" Blue Bonnet cried, as she flung herself out of the saddle. "Did you ever see such a beautifully mussed-up crowd in all your life?"

"If that is an evidence of a 'gorgeous time' you must certainly have had one," Mrs. Clyde smiled as her glance travelled from one rumpled and spotted We are Seven to another.

"These are the only skirts we brought and mine is all spluttered up with bacon," mourned Sarah.

"I think you will all have to go to bed while I wash them," the SeÑora suggested laughingly.

"Grandmother, please don't let Sarah play upon your sympathies. She doesn't appreciate how becoming a little dirt is to her peculiar style of beauty. She looks almost—human." The look of pained surprise Sarah turned on her sent Blue Bonnet off in a fit of merriment. "Oh, for a picture of that expression!" she cried. "And that reminds me,—I told all the boys to be at the Spring in fifteen minutes. There is plenty of light for a snap-shot and I've just a few films left."

"Oh, Blue Bonnet, haven't you done enough tramping to-day?" her grandmother exclaimed. "You ought to rest."

Blue Bonnet shook her head. "I can't rest till I get that picture. I want the boys and the We are Sevens on the little rustic bridge. Now, Sarah, don't you dare tidy up till I get you just as you are. I want you to pose as Terrible Tom the Texas Terror."

That Sarah had her own opinion as to who the Texas Terror might be was shown by her expression as she relinquished her design of brushing her hair, and followed the other girls up the hill to the Big Spring.

The boys were already assembled and were now grouped on the bridge in attitudes meant to be artistic and fetching.

The rustic bridge—rather more rustic than substantial—was suspended just over a pretty waterfall, which slipped down a smooth runway of eight or ten feet into a pool all foam and spray; a charming spot for a group-picture. It required both skill and patience to get every one posed and the camera focussed; Blue Bonnet had just completed these preliminaries, when Alec upset everything by insisting that he should be the photographer and she a member of the group. The rest supported his contention that she should be in the picture, and in the argument that followed, the chances for any picture at all grew slim.

Just then Uncle Joe appeared, and was at once pressed into service. Blue Bonnet gave explicit directions as to the precise moment at which the bulb was to be pressed, and then proceeded to join the rest who were in the agonies of trying to look pleasant.

"Do hurry, Blue Bonnet," urged Sarah nervously, "I can hear the bridge creaking."

A roar of derision followed this declaration and some of the smaller boys began stamping on the old timbers for the sheer joy of seeing poor Sarah quake. At the precise moment that Blue Bonnet stepped from the bank to her place by the rail, there was a loud report, followed by a scream.

Uncle Joe, looking up from the reflector, saw the bridge parted neatly in the middle, and the entire party shooting the chutes in a most informal manner. By the time the first boy had finished the descent, Uncle Joe was in the water fishing out the gasping victims. The pool was not deep, but the swift fall carried the smaller lads under the surface, and they came up too dazed to see the hands held out to seize them. Knight and Sandy found their feet at once, and with Uncle Joe formed a dam against which the others were caught like salmon in a river-trap.

Sarah was fished up by her blond braids and came up gasping, "I told you so!" before she opened her eyes.

"That's about as busy a spell as I've had for some time," Uncle Joe declared as he hauled out the last of the small boys and then clambered up the steep bank.

"You showed great presence of mind, Uncle Joe—except for one thing," said Blue Bonnet. "If you had just taken a snap-shot when the bridge broke I'd be quite happy."

"And if a few of us had drowned while he was doing it—" Kitty began ironically.

"You'd have missed being in the picture, poor souls! Well, since we're all alive, let's go break the news gently to the grown-ups." Blue Bonnet looked around the drenched, shivering group and then burst into peals of laughter.

In truth they were a sorry looking lot. Soaked to the skin, with hair and clothes dripping and bedraggled, they all looked at each other as if surprised and grieved to find themselves part of so undignified a company.

Grandmother's expression when the We are Sevens hove into sight, sent Blue Bonnet off into another gale of merriment.

"We've been shooting the chutes, Grandmother," she said with dancing eyes.

"Without a boat," added Kitty.

It took Sarah to tell the story in all its harrowing details, and at its conclusion Mrs. Clyde looked sober.

"Were you really in danger?" she asked Blue Bonnet.

"Not a bit," Blue Bonnet declared. "Sarah was the only one who came near drowning and that was because she would talk under water."

Fifteen minutes later the little sheet-iron stove was red-hot, and on a hastily strung clothes-line about it hung an array of dripping garments that almost hid it from view.

"There's one comfort about all this," said Kitty, "our skirts and middies have had a much-needed bath."

"I'm afraid they won't be very clean,—cold water won't take grease out," said Sarah mournfully. "And I'd like to know—how are we going to iron them?"

They were all sitting in a circle about a blazing bonfire of Uncle Joe's building, with their streaming hair spread out to dry. Dressing-gowns and bedroom slippers had made it unnecessary to go to bed while their wardrobe hung on the line, and now that they were warm and comfortable, they were disposed to look on the adventure of the afternoon as more of a lark than a misfortune.

"Do you recall a prophecy you made this morning, Blue Bonnet?" asked Kitty.

Blue Bonnet shook her head.

"Your 'prophetic soul' told you, if I remember rightly, that we were going to conduct ourselves like a model Sunday-school class to-day."

"Well, if anybody would promise me as much fun in Sunday-school as I've had this day, I'd never be absent or tardy!" laughed Blue Bonnet.

Sarah looked pained. "It's Sunday to-morrow," she remarked. "I wonder what Dr. Judson will take as the text of his sermon."

Blue Bonnet gave her a long, curious glance. "Do you really wonder, Sarah, about things like that?"

Sarah raised honest, serious eyes. "Why, of course, Blue Bonnet. Don't you?"

"No," she confessed, "but I do wonder—at you!"

As they sat silent for a moment about the blazing logs, Blue Bonnet had an inspiration.

"Grandmother," she asked abruptly, "are you very hungry?"

"Why—is it your turn to get dinner?" Mrs. Clyde smiled; she was shaking the water from her granddaughter's long hair, and spreading it in the warm rays of the fire.

"No, Amanda and I were to get lunch. But are you?"

"Not at all. Mrs. Judson and I had an excellent dinner at noon."

"Well, I've a splendid idea. There are heaps of hot ashes down under the logs. We can bury some potatoes there,—the cowboys cook them that way and they are delicious. Then with some devilled-ham sandwiches we could sit right here and eat, and have no tiresome dishes to wash up afterwards."

"Hear, hear!" cried Kitty and Debby.

"It's easy to see whose turn it is to wash dishes," laughed Amanda.

"It's right handsome of you, Blue Bonnet," Kitty remarked gratefully, "—especially when it wasn't your turn to officiate. I'll make the sandwiches and Debby—you get the potatoes."

That buffet supper was later pronounced the most successful meal ever prepared in Poco Tiempo.

"This is truly Bohemian," remarked Mrs. Clyde, as with a newspaper for both plate and napkin, she joined the group about the fire, "—much more so than the studio-luncheons they call Bohemian in Boston."

"Fancy anything trying to be Bohemian in Boston!" exclaimed Blue Bonnet. "They haven't a thing in common."

"They both begin with a B," said Sarah.

The girls were too surprised to laugh.

"Is that a joke, Sarah?" asked Kitty in an awestruck tone.

"Of course not,—they do, don't they?" she returned.

As the girls collapsed at this, she looked up in puzzled surprise. "I'd like to know what's so funny about that," she remarked plaintively.

"There comes Mrs. Judson," exclaimed Debby.

There was a hasty wiping of blackened fingers on newspaper napkins as the girls rose to greet this unexpected guest. The little figure approaching them seemed slighter than ever, and the gingham dress fairly trailed over the long grass. The face was hidden in the inevitable sunbonnet.

"Hello, everybody, are you dry yet?" called a cheerful voice.

"Carita!" exclaimed Blue Bonnet. "We thought you were your mother."

Carita looked down at her loosely fitting garment and laughed. "I had to wear this while my dress dried. Knight said I ought to hang out a sign—'room to let.' Mother made me wear the sunbonnet because my hair is still wet. But I said I could dry it by your fire as well as anywhere else." She tossed away the cavernous bonnet and the chestnut locks fell in a cloud about her shoulders. With her dark eyes and skin framed by the long straight hair she looked like a young Indian.

"Have a potato?" asked Blue Bonnet, spearing one with a stick and presenting it to the guest.

"Thank you." Carita took it as if this were the usual fashion of serving this vegetable, and ate it with the ease born of long experience. Suddenly she gave an exclamation. "Oh, I nearly forgot. Alec sent over something. The boys couldn't come for they've nothing to wear but blankets—they're rolled up like a lot of mummies around the fire. But Alec and Knight and Sandy have been writing something,—I think it's a letter."

"It's a poem!—oh, Blue Bonnet, you read it aloud." Kitty handed over the verses and in the flickering light they gathered close about Blue Bonnet as she read:

"Who did it?" cried Blue Bonnet.

"All three helped," said Carita. "But I think Sandy did most."

"He must be cleverer than he looks," said Blue Bonnet.

"Why, don't you think he looks clever?" exclaimed Kitty, "I do."

"It wasn't clever of him to have sandy hair," Blue Bonnet declared perversely.

"As if he could help it!" said Sarah.

"We must write a 'pome,' too," said Blue Bonnet.

"We?" exclaimed Debby. "I never found two words to rhyme in all my life. You and Kitty are the only ones who ever 'drop into poetry.'"

"The muse must be partial to red hair," said Amanda. And though Kitty sniffed insultedly at this insinuation, her bright head was soon bent over a pad beside Blue Bonnet's, and after much chewing of their pencils and shrieks of laughter at impossible rhymes, the two of them finally evolved the following:

"I wonder what Mr. Wordsworth would say to that?" said Debby, when this effort had been heard and elaborately praised.

"He's dead," remarked Sarah. Then, ignoring Debby's snicker she continued: "It's very good, Blue Bonnet,—but you shouldn't have said that two had the scarlet fever. There's only one, really."

"Poetic license!" Kitty claimed fiercely.

"I think you are the cleverest girls I ever heard of!" Carita exclaimed. "I'm going to run right over with that poem—I can't wait for the boys to see it."

Snatching up her bonnet Carita ran back to the other camp; while the girls, quite tired out by the excitement and varied adventures of the day, prepared to go to bed. As they neared the tents there came a familiar sound from the direction of Camp Judson. It was the loud jangle of cowbells.

"Do you suppose those boys are going to eat at this time of night?" asked Sarah.

"Of course not, Sallykins," said Debby. "Don't you understand?—that's the boys applauding our poets!"