“Aren’t they just too dear for anything?”

“And such an artistic color!”

“That olive brown is so becoming to you, Natalie.”

“Oh, I think it suits all of you as well!”

“Do let your hair down in those two long braids, Natalie, and be Pocahontas,” urged Mabel. “It is so becoming to you.”

“But it’s so hard to arrange afterward,” laughed breath-of-the-pine-tree.

“Oh, it hardly seems possible that we really can go off to the woods!” sighed Marie.

“And camp—just as the boys do—in a tent and not in a stupid hotel, or boarding house,” added Alice.

“And do our own cooking,” came from Mabel. “I do hope the oil stove won’t explode—or do whatever oil stoves ought not to do.”

“Don’t suggest it!” cried Natalie. “We don’t want to think of the unpleasant features. Think of the birds, and the green trees, and the land of the sky-blue water and——”

“Natalie doesn’t like to think of unpleasant things,” mocked Marie.

“Why should one, when there is so much that is beautiful and pleasant in the world?” demanded the olive-tinted one.

“Spoken like a true Camp Fire Girl!” exclaimed Alice. “Say, I do believe my middy-blouse is too small for me,” and she tried to get a view of her back in the glass, by twisting her neck around much after the manner of an ostrich.

“And they’re sure to shrink when they’re washed,” declared Marie.

“Don’t speak of it,” begged Marie. “Mine is tight under the arms, too.”

“Then let’s not wash them!” suggested Natalie with a brilliant thought. “There won’t be much chance in camp, anyhow.”

The four girls were at Marie’s house, where they seemed to assemble more often than any other place. The semi-Indian suits, consisting of khaki skirts and middy-blouses of the same material had just been received from the headquarters of the Camp Fire Girls, and our friends were trying them on with varying degrees of satisfaction. Truly the costumes, simple and serviceable as they were, seemed becoming in the extreme.

“We won’t be afraid of climbing over rocks, stumps and tree trunks with these boots,” went on Marie, as she inspected the shoes that had come with the outfits.

“And we can sit down on the grass without a qualm,” added Mabel. “Oh, I wish we could always dress like this.”

“Even at a dance?” asked Natalie.

“Well, maybe not at a dance,” conceded Mabel, thinking of a “perfect dream” of a dress she had.

“Isn’t it too bad Cora and Gertrude can’t go with us?” spoke Marie, as she daintily powdered her nose.

“Yes, and Margaret, Sadie and Edna were wild to be with us when they heard about it, but they could not manage,” went on Alice referring to other members of the Camp Fire organization.

It was about two weeks after the loss of Mrs. Anderson’s ring. In the meanwhile, though a careful search had been made, no trace of it, nor of the Gypsy band had been found. The tribe seemed to have disappeared, which was not strange, as that region consisted of many little-explored patches of woodland, in which many bands might have hidden. The police of several towns could not trace the nomads.

True a tribe had been located soon after the dramatic episode of the fortune-telling, but they asserted they had not been near Middleford on the night in question, and neither the boys nor girls could pick out from amid the members of the band, Hadee, the pretty girl who had visited Mabel’s house.

“None of these Gypsy maidens were as pretty as she was,” declared Blake.

“You seem to have lost your heart to her,” commented Natalie.

“Not yet,” he said in a low voice.

And so Mrs. Anderson’s ring was given up—though the boys said the tribe was sure to return the next spring, since the Gypsies always made the same rounds year after year.

“And when they do come here we’ll have them pinched!” declared Phil.

“Oh, such slang!” gasped his sister.

“They’ll never come back here if they really have that ring,” was Blake’s opinion—one that was shared by others.

But the matter of going camping to Green Lake had, in a measure, taken the edge off the sorrow felt over Mrs. Anderson’s loss—at least on the part of the four girls.

They had arranged, through the Camp Fire Guardian, Mrs. Bonnell, to get their suits, and then they seriously began to consider the matter of going camping. After some consideration the respective parents of the pretty quartette had consented, especially since Mrs. Bonnell was to be with them, and she had often gone to the woods with her late husband, though she frankly admitted that she knew very little about practical woodlore.

“Oh, but that’s all the better!” exclaimed Natalie. “We can learn for ourselves, and if we do make mistakes, we won’t repeat them. It will be jolly fun!”

“And if we get into real difficulties the boys won’t be so very far away,” added practical Alice, for Jack and his chums had followed up the idea, casually expressed, and had decided to spend their vacation on the shores of Green Lake. Perhaps this is one reason why the parents of the girls had consented to the young ladies roughing it for a time, since three well-developed brothers might well look after three sisters, and a brotherless girl into the bargain.

“We’ll each share a third of a brother with you, Nat,” offered Mabel.

“Which is very kind of you, maiden-of-the-green-corn,” replied the breath-of-the-pine-tree, with a laugh that showed her white, even teeth.

There was much to do. Fortunately the academy where the boys and girls attended, closed two weeks earlier that term to allow of extensive repairs to be made to the building, so that it was possible to spend part of the rare month of June in the woods.

For the boys, who had often gone camping, it was not so difficult, but to the girls the work of arranging for tents, cots, a camping site, the necessary cooking utensils, an oil stove, and seeing about other matters came rather hard.

“A camp fire is all right,” declared Jack, when he had been appealed to, “and probably you’ll want one every night, to sit about and talk, but for cooking, unless you have to—nix! The smoke gets into your eyes, no matter which side of it you get on, and in rainy weather it’s out of the question.

“I know it can be used, and I’ve gotten up a dinner of six courses on an open fire, with two stones for the sides and a sheet of iron for the top, but if you don’t want to spend all your time feeling and smelling like a smoked ham, take an oil stove. It’s not so romantic, but you’ll have time for more real romance with it for you’ll have more time for the woods and water.”

And the girls had followed his advice, in which the other boys concurred. Then came the matter of arranging for the camping-site, which they hired from a man who owned considerable property on the shores of the lake—the same man from whom the boys engaged their location.

The two camps would be about a quarter of a mile apart, and, as the lake shore curved, and as the boys had a small dock built out on a point of land, they could view the girls’ tents from that vantage-place—or they would be able to when the tents were erected.

The task of arranging for tents for the girls, one to cook in and another as sleeping quarters had been rendered more easy from the fact that a party of young people who made a practice of going to the lake did not intend to do so this season. They advertised their outfit for hire, and, on the advice of the boys, Natalie and her chums took it.

“We know that camp,” declared Jack. “There’s a good board floor for both tents, and, though you may want a few things, you will find almost everything you need. It’s a rare chance.”

“And we’ll help you put up the tents,” added Blake. “We’ll go up the same day you do.”

“Thank you, but please let us do all we can for ourselves,” suggested Mabel. “We want to be real Camp Fire Girls, and put up our own tents. It isn’t so hard; is it?”

“Not when you get the knack of it.”

“Then we’ll read about it in some book. I wonder if the encyclop?dia has anything about tents in it,” mused Alice, for, as usual the young people had gathered at Marie’s house.

“I can show you in two minutes, better than any book,” declared Phil. “This is how you want to start,” and then, with a napkin, some string and a couple of knives and forks he proceeded to illustrate the not always easy task of setting a wall tent.

The girls thought they understood it. Then came other advice about settling the camp, how to arrange the stores, what to buy, how to put up the cots, distribute the blankets, put up the fly, to keep out both sun and rain, and many other details.

In the days that followed—and busy ones they were—the girls completed their arrangements. They wrote on ahead for a supply of food that could be kept in stock, and were glad to learn that a not too distant lake-shore village would supply them when needed, a butcher and grocer coming around in a boat to take orders, for Green Lake was a favorite camping-site for many.

“And we start to-morrow!” exclaimed Mabel, as she and her chums had gathered at her house for a last consultation.

“Yes, isn’t it glorious!” cried Natalie. “I’m just dying to roam through the woods in that Indian costume.”

“Be careful some modern brave doesn’t run away with you,” cautioned Alice.

“I’d like to see him,” asserted Natalie.

“You won’t; he’ll probably capture you after dark,” challenged Mabel.

“I wonder where I put it!” suddenly exclaimed Alice, as she began searching among a miscellaneous collection of articles on the bureau, where the girls had piled a number of purchases.

“What are you looking for?” asked Mabel.

“I’m obeying the first law of the Camp Fire Girls,” was the answer.

“What’s that?” inquired Natalie.

“Seeking beauty—I bought a tube of cold cream, and now I can’t find it. I do burn so terribly when first I go out in the summer sun. Where is that cold cream?”

“Vanity of vanities!” quoted Mabel.

“Didn’t you get some yourself—hypocrite!” declaimed Alice.

“I did,” confessed her accuser.

“So did I,” admitted Marie.

“Natalie doesn’t need it,” went on Alice, as she found her tube, besides a little vanity box containing a tiny pad of wool and—well they all carried the same thing. Rice powder they asserted the box contained.

“I suppose the boys will be there waiting for us,” suggested Marie.

“Yes,” assented Alice. “But I do wish they’d let us do all we can for ourselves. It’s no fun to have everything done for you.”

“Again the true Camp Fire Girl speaketh!” murmured Natalie. “I rather imagine we’ll find enough to do.”

“Did you ask the man to have all our things at the place where the tent is to go up?” asked Mabel.

“Yes,” asserted Alice, “and he promised. Also to see that our ‘grub’ as I believe the camp-term for dinner is, was on hand. He said the tent platforms would be laid, and all we would have to do would be to put up the tents and cots. I guess it will be easy.”

“Easy is as easy does,” misquoted Marie. “Oh, we must make sure that Mrs. Bonnell has everything she wants. Let’s go over and talk with her now. There is always so much to do at the last minute.”

Behold then, the next morning, four eager Camp Fire Girls with the pink tint of excitement in their cheeks, assembled at the station of the railroad that was to take them to Green Lake. They had their suit cases, trunks having been sent on ahead with bed clothing and other necessities. They also had a miscellaneous collection of boxes and bundles—things that they had forgotten until the last minute.

“But isn’t it a glorious day!” cried Natalie, as she waltzed around the platform with Marie as a partner.

“Most glorious!” agreed Alice. “Oh, here comes our train, and I know I’ve forgotten to put in my tennis slippers to use in the canoe!”

“Too late now,” decided the Guardian. “You can write for them. Now, girls, we’ll try to get seats together.”

Then the train steamed in, they hurried aboard, amid many admiring glances from other passengers, and soon they were on their way to the camp in the woods.

“Wo-he-lo!” sang Natalie softly, as the train gathered speed. “Wo-he-lo!”