The girls jumped up and surrounded them.

“Where on earth have you been? What on earth have you been doing? Where in the name of common sense did you get that haughty black person who brought us news of you about six?” everybody wanted to know, while Adelaide and Nataly held brief reunions with their brothers, and six girls at once pressed refreshments on Lonny and Tom and Billy.

“We’ve sold most of your arts-and-crafts things,” announced Winona.

“And every stitch of embroidery,” added Louise.

“And we’ve been to a band concert and met a fairy godmother!” chanted Winona in her turn.

“And we have heaps and heaps of money!” finished Louise jubilantly.

Then all the girls cried out, “Oh, tell us about it! Tell us about it!”

So Louise sat down at a discreet distance from the camp-fire, and assisted by Winona’s quieter voice, told the story. When she got to the part where they pretended to be Italian girls Nataly interrupted.

“Oh, that was dreadful!” she said. “Surely you didn’t do that?”

“Didn’t we, though?” grinned Louise cheerfully; “And your very own Aunt Lydia aided and abetted us, and gave us dinner and kind words besides!”

“Aunt Lydia!” exclaimed Nataly.

“She’s over at one of the Wampoag hotels, Nataly,” explained her brother. “You knew she was going to be there, didn’t you?”

“How could I when I haven’t heard from her?” asked Nataly.

“Oh, that’s so!” said Billy penitently. “I ought to have brought you down her last letter, but it was addressed to me, and I forgot to pass it on.”

The fact was, as Winona learned later, Miss Lawrence had very strong likes and dislikes, and much preferred her nephew to her niece.

Louise turned round to Nataly.

“You made some things to sell, didn’t you?” she asked, “And yet you think it was shocking of us to sell them! I don’t think that’s fair.”

“Well, I don’t care. I don’t think it’s nice or lady-like to peddle things from door to door,” said Nataly stubbornly.

“Maybe it wasn’t,” said Louise cheerfully, “but it was certainly heaps of fun!”

“Oh, we did have fun!” said Winona. “And we have orders for more of Marie’s stencilled runners, and Adelaide’s jelly.”

“Did nobody love my pots?” asked Helen sadly.

“Oh, yes, indeed,” consoled Winona, “only you were so industrious, and made so many, that we have some left. The Blue Birds’ baskets went off very well, too.”

“How much did you make?” asked Mrs. Bryan. “I’m wild to know.”

Louise pulled her bandanna handkerchief out of her deepest pocket, and Winona produced hers from the bottom of her blouse. They handed them over to the Guardian.

“Mine’s only what the bellboy took in while we were at dinner and out in the evening,” Winona explained. “Louise took care of all the rest.”

Mrs. Bryan counted it silently, while the girls waited breathlessly for the result.

“Fifty-three dollars and forty-six cents!” announced Mrs. Bryan at last. “You blessed angels, with what we’ll get for the mending, that means over three weeks more of camp!”

“By the way,” suggested Tom here, “can’t you give us what’s done of the mending, please, Mrs. Bryan? It’s time we got back to camp.”

She sent Florence and another Blue Bird to get it, and they ran off, swinging their lanterns.

“We’ll send down the bill by some of your sisters, with the rest of the work, by day after to-morrow at the furthest,” she promised, as the girls stood up to bid the three Scouts good-bye.

They watched the canoe paddle off into the darkness, then settled down to hear the rest of the adventure.

“But there’s something else we haven’t told you!” said Winona, when the whole story had been told and talked over for a long while. “There’s going to be a lake carnival.”

“Oh, what fun! Let’s go!” said Adelaide, speaking more brightly than Winona had ever known her to. “We could hike as far as this side of the lake by land, couldn’t we, Opeechee?”

“Certainly we could—if we had to,” said Mrs. Bryan, who was watching Winona. “Wait till Winona finishes. She looks as if she had a plan.”

“I was thinking,” said Winona, “that it would be very nice if we could decorate a float. The boys said they were sure the Scouts would loan us enough rowboats to build the float over, if we needed it. And we could have tents——”

“Of course we could!” said everybody enthusiastically, and all began to plan at once.

Finally Mrs. Bryan rose, and suggested that it was twelve o’clock, and that all but the breakfast-getters had better sleep till eight next morning. So they put out the fire, and went to bed.

About two o’clock a slim figure in a red kimono stole down the avenue of tents with a lantern. About two-thirds of the way there met her another, plumper figure, in a blue kimono, also with a lantern.

“Winona!” said the blue kimono.

“Why, Louise!” said the red one.

Then they both began to giggle in a subdued way.

“What on earth are you prowling round for, at this time of night?” asked Winona.

“What are you?” returned Louise.

Winona beckoned her friend over to a seat on a fallen log.

“I—well, I’ve been worrying over our dressing up that way, and fooling people, to sell things,” she confessed. “I suppose you’ll think I’m a horrid little prig, but—Louise, I think we ought to go back and tell those hotellers that we were just plain Camp Fire Girls, not Italian or Dalmatian or anything like that.”

“I thought a Dalmatian was a dog,” suggested Louise.

“Maybe it is,” said Winona sadly.

Louise sat closer to Winona.

“Winnie,” she said, “that’s just what I climbed out of bed about myself. I was coming to look for you when I met you. I’ve been worrying about it, too. It was a lark, but I think it’s up to us to gambol over there, clothed and in our right minds—and own up.”

“Oh, I’m so glad!” said Winona. “We’ll tell Mrs. Bryan in the morning.”

“All right,” said Louise, and she began to giggle.

“And then, while they’re thinking how noble it is of us to confess, we’ll sell ’em more things—real Camp Fire Girls’ hand-crafts!”

“Louise,” said Winona with admiring conviction, “you certainly are the limit.”

They both laughed, and felt better. Then they went back to bed and went to sleep.

Next morning they rowed duly up the lake, and made a conscientious round of the hotels and cottages where they had sold their things the day before. But the way of the transgressor refused to be hard. They could wake very little excitement on the subject of their transformation in the minds of their patrons—who, it is to be feared, either regarded it all as a good joke, or did not worry about it at all. Indeed, most of the people Louise could find to explain to were more wronged because she had no goods with her, than by anything else. So she took a number of orders.

“It’s no use, Lou,” said Winona, as they met at noon by the hotel where Miss Lawrence stayed, “I can’t get a soul to care whether I’m a Canadian or a Hottentot. The only thing they’ll say is, ‘We’d like some more of the baskets,’ or ‘those runners,’ or whatever they didn’t get yesterday.”

“Same here,” said Louise. “But I landed some fine fat orders, and if you’re as clever as I think you are, you did, too.”

“Yes, I did,” said Winona. “And, anyway,” she added, brightening, “when we’ve done this hotel our consciences will be clear.”

“I only hope we don’t meet that horrid Mrs. Gardner,” said Louise.

So they marched up the steps, and tried to pick out the women they had sold to the day before, to explain to them. But Winona had scarcely begun, “You see, we really weren’t Italians at all,” when the people she was talking to began to laugh. Winona, bewildered and a little cross, looked around to see what they were laughing at. She saw Miss Lawrence behind her, laughing, too.

“It’s no use explaining, my dear,” said that lady. “I did it myself. Everybody knows that you and Louise Lane disposed of your goods under false pretenses by tying up your heads in red handkerchiefs and letting your customers draw their own conclusions. I don’t know but some of us want our money back! Never mind, children, it was very clever of you!” she added, seeing that Winona was not sure whether she was in earnest.

And the girls found themselves being questioned and laughed at and made much of by a group of women, who wanted to know all about the Camp Fire, and the things the girls made, and the ways they earned money, and what they did with it, till Winona and Louise were fairly tired with answering questions.

They invited everybody to come out to the camp, and set a day. They took some more orders, and then they carried Miss Lawrence off across the lake and down the river, to see Camp Karonya. When she arrived they handed her over to Nataly, as was polite, and she and Mrs. Bryan showed her over the camp.

She investigated everything with the same brisk, fairy godmother expression that she had had when she took Winona and Louise under her wing, stayed to luncheon, and then expressed a desire to be taken down to the Scouts’ camp, to see Billy. So two of the Blue Birds rowed her there.

After they had seen Miss Lawrence off, the girls became busy a little way down the river. Winona got there a little late and found that much had happened while she and Louise had gone off that morning. At first the idea of making the float had been to found it on the rowboats the Boy Scouts were willing to lend. But when a deputation, headed by Mr. Gedney, paddled down, bringing the boats in question, it became painfully clear that four canoes would not support enough planks to hold twenty life-size girls. Neither would rowboats. At least, Mrs. Bryan and Mr. Gedney agreed that they wouldn’t—most of the girls and all the boys were willing to take a chance.

When this turn of affairs arrived everyone felt very sad, and for a while it had looked as if Camp Karonya wasn’t going to have a float in the lake carnival.

But just then along came that resourceful old gentleman, Mr. Sloane, with fishing-rod and a can of bait.

“Well, what’s all the trouble?” he inquired genially of everyone in general. So they told him. Mr. Sloane did not hesitate a moment.

“I got a friend that owns some good, water-tight scows,” said he most unexpectedly. “They ain’t doin’ nobody any good, and I guess he’d loan ’em to you, or, if wust come to wust, he’d let you have the use of ’em for maybe seventy-five cents apiece. Two scows are all you’d need to put the plankin’ across.”

He gave them directions as to where to go after the scows’ owner, and ambled on in search of a quieter fishing-place. An embassy was sent after the scows immediately, and returned with them in triumph. They proved perfectly seaworthy, and quite equal to supporting all they would have to. So when Winona arrived on the scene after luncheon the girls had reached the stage of nailing the planks across.

They had bargained for the scows at seventy-five cents each, as Mr. Sloane had said they would be able to, and promised to give them a coat of paint before they returned them. The boards, bought of the village carpenter, were more expensive. However, the girls thought they could venture to pay for them out of the treasury, on the strength of the orders ahead that they had taken. Marie and Edith were supervising things.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Winona asked Marie, who was frowning thoughtfully over a hastily-drawn plan.

“Not unless you can help us with this design,” Marie answered. “See here. The idea is to make a miniature Indian village. How would you group the tents so as to take up the least room and show best?”

“Why do you try to draw it?” asked Winona. “Why not do as generals do, make little paper tents and move them around till you get a tableau of the effect you want?”

The idea was new to Marie, but she liked it, and the three girls fell to constructing little paper cones, and arranging them on a square space that represented the float.

Presently one of the girls who was nailing dropped out with a pounded thumb, and Winona took up her hammer and went to work. She discovered that the driving of a nail straight, and making boards lie side by side evenly, is more of an art than people know.

They worked on the float most of that afternoon, except for a few of the girls who were told off to do the Scout mending, and they sat down near the carpenters and sewed sociably to the sound of the pounding. They worked till six, and went to bed unusually early.

By the second day the platform was done, and proved to balance very well on the water, even with all the girls on it. Next Marie and her helpers went to making tents, for their own soldier tents were too unromantically shaped to be any good on a float. They wanted real Indian wigwams, or as near to them as they could get.

Marie bought unbleached muslin, and they dyed it the correct dark brown. They made three wigwams of this, the story-book-picture kind, with the crossed poles tied at the top, for a foundation. In each tent a squaw was to sit—or rather, at its door, for the tepees, in order to fit on the limited space of the float, had to be made rather small, and would have been a tight fit for even the smallest squaw. Some of the girls were to dress as chiefs, and were working hard on war-bonnets and leggings. Even Puppums was to grace the occasion, guarding a pappoose—little Lilian Maynard, the smallest Blue Bird. There was some idea of including Hike the Camp Cat, now a cheerful and opulent-looking kitten, but it was thought better of, because he yowled so when they rehearsed him.

When the tents and costumes were done, the brushwood heaps stacked, the floor covered with twigs and moss, the girls tried grouping themselves as they were to appear on the final night. And it proved that there was not room on the platform for three tents and nineteen girls, even if seven were small.

Marie stepped off and looked it over.

“There are just two girls too many,” she said. “Three, if I were on board. I’ll eliminate Marie Hunter to begin with. I’m going to decorate my own canoe. You’d better draw lots for the other two to stay out.”

Everyone on the float looked at everyone else. Nobody wanted to drop out, but nobody felt like being selfish.

“I’ll drop out!” said the whole of Camp Karonya in chorus, after a minute’s dead silence.

“I’ll go in your canoe, Marie—have you forgotten?” asked Edith. “The plans you made included me.”

“So they did,” said Marie in a relieved voice. “Well, perhaps the rest could crowd a little closer.”

“I’m afraid not, and be sure that nobody’d tip into the water,” vetoed Mrs. Bryan. “I’m the one to stay ashore, girls. I’ll gaze at you with fond proprietorship while you get first prize.”

But there rose up a storm of objections to that. “No you won’t, either! There won’t any of us be in it if you aren’t, Opeechee!” till she had to give up giving up.

Winona braced herself a little, and “I’m out, too,” she said gayly. “There’s no use asking me to stay—I don’t like your old float!”

She sprang ashore, and went over and stood by Marie.

The girls protested, and several more volunteered to drop out, but nobody meant it quite as hard as Winona did. So the Indian village went on being erected, and the girls went on practising an Indian dance which should take up the least possible room. Meanwhile Winona rounded up the finished mending and rowed up the river to deliver the latest basket of mended socks and shirts. She had made her sacrifice in all good faith and earnestness, but she felt as if she didn’t want to see them going gayly on without her—at least, not right now.

She wasn’t conscious of behaving any way but as she generally did, but she must have, for both Tom and Billy watched her uneasily, as she sat in the boat and talked to them after they had taken the mending, while she waited for the orderly to come with her money.

“What’s the matter, Win?” asked Tom bluntly in a minute. “You’re down and out—I can see that. Who’s been doing anything to you?”

Winona shook her head. “Nobody.”

“Then what have you been doing?” asked Billy. They stood over her, both looking so worried that Winona felt like hugging them, or crying, or both.

“It isn’t anything,” she said. “Except—well, I did it myself. Somebody had to stay off the float, because there wasn’t room for everyone, so I elected myself. And—and—oh, I did want to be in that carnival! But”—she straightened bravely, and smiled up into the two indignant faces—“I guess it’s all right, after all. If I could decorate my rowboat it would be all right, but I can’t, because they’re going to need it to carry properties in.”

“It’s a confounded shame,” said Billy Lee, “and after you planned it, and all! You ought to have a float of your own. I’ll tell you, Winona, why don’t you decorate a canoe?”

“Only reason is, I haven’t a canoe,” laughed Winona—they were all three sitting in a row in the grass by this time.

“I have,” said Billy, “and you’re more than welcome to it, and to all the help I can give you on it.”

“And I’ve got some change you’re welcome to for decorations,” added Tom.

“Oh, how perfectly lovely!” said Winona, jumping up with her face aglow. “Indeed I will decorate it, and thank you both, ever and ever so much. I have ever so many lovely ideas for decorations. Billy!”

She stopped short.

“Well?” said Billy.

“Would you mind being in the canoe with me?”

“Sure, I’d love to,” said Billy heartily, whether he really meant it or not.

“Oh, thank you so much!” cried Winona again.

“That’s the way to take it!” said Tom. “We’ll get you up a canoe, between us, that’ll make your old Camp Fire float look like a bad quarter and a plugged nickel—see if we don’t!”