“Have we everything we need?” asked Natalie.

“No, and we wouldn’t even if we had brought the whole camp outfit with us,” replied Marie. “We’d still find that we wanted something we didn’t have.”

“But we have enough!” declared Mrs. Bonnell, looking at what she carried, and then at the burdens borne by the girls. It was two days after the episode of the hornets, and the members of Dogwood Camp had sallied forth to make another effort to locate the Gypsies. And, to prevent a repetition of their unfortunate experience the previous time, they were well equipped, as will presently be set forth.

They had managed to conceal from the boys their real destination, by a harmless little subterfuge that it is needless to recite. Sufficient to say that it was rendered all the more easy because the boys had a ball game in prospect—two nines made up of cottagers and campers—and they were to play at a certain distant and fashionable hotel.

“Which means that they will be away late enough so that they won’t have to come to rescue us,” said Mabel.

“There will be no need this time,” asserted Mrs. Bonnell. “I have the little axe with which to blaze the trees.”

“It sounds like a French lesson, doesn’t it?” asked Alice, with a laugh.

“The hairpins did very well,” said Natalie with another laugh, at the remembrance of their pretty Guardian-chaperone diligently scratching the bark of the white birch trees with her wire coiffeur retainers.

The day after the boys had “played tag with the hornets,” as Alice put it, there had been rain, but the Camp Fire Girls had put in the enforced idle time to good advantage by getting ready for the trip to Bear Pond.

Marie had artfully interviewed Reuben when he came with some eggs, and had carefully jotted down the directions to be followed. He told them of a shorter route to the place, necessitating a little longer row, but less of a walk.

Then they had carefully packed some baskets of provisions, and had even arranged to take along some coffee, and an old pot in which to boil it over an open fire.

“Well, I guess we’re ready to start,” announced Mrs. Bonnell, after an early breakfast.

“Did you bring the compass?”

“How many bottles of olives did you put in?”

“I hope there are enough sandwiches.”

“And a drinking cup.”

“What about matches?”

“Did you lock my trunk, Natalie?”

“What shall we do with the keys?”

The above are only samples. Three or more pages of similar import might be set down, but to no purpose. They were about to leave their camp, and, against the visits of an intruder they had locked most of their valuables such as they did not take with them—in their trunks. Then the tent-flaps had been carefully tied shut, a weird array of knots being used, having been copied from a boy-scout book that the Guardian had with her.

“If a burglar can untie those,” said Mrs. Bonnell as she finished the last one, “he’ll be so short tempered that he won’t bother to take the few little things we have left here.”

“But how can we untie them?” asked Marie.

“Oh, I can easily pick them out with a hairpin,” answered the resourceful Mrs. Bonnell. “Hairpins to a woman are what a screw-driver is to a man. I never could get along without them. From buttoning shoes to opening bottles of olives, they run the gamut of utility.”

The day was fair, with no promise of rain, but, even if it should come, the serviceable suits, of which each girl had two, would neither be damaged, nor would they readily permit of the wearers being drenched.

And so they started off.

“I do hope that Reuben doesn’t tag after us, or want to come with us,” said Alice, when they were in the boats.

“Why, did he say he would?” asked Mabel.

“No, but he was rather hinting when we questioned him about Bear Pond. I wouldn’t be surprised but what he got one of his ‘half days off,’ and became our escort.”

“He means all right,” murmured Natalie. “Poor fellow!”

“You may well say that, if you accept any more flowers from him,” warned Alice.

“I don’t see why. They are only wild blossoms, and I’d pick them myself if he didn’t.”

“That’s Nat!” exclaimed Mabel with a laugh.

They rowed leisurely to another cove about which Reuben had told them, and then, once more concealing the oars, they struck off into a path that, they had been assured led directly to Bear Pond, and to that portion most likely to be the camping-place of the Gypsies, since it was near a main-traveled road.

“Be sure we have everything!” exclaimed Alice, as they disembarked. “For it may be a long time before we get back.”

“Don’t look for trouble,” warned Mrs. Bonnell.

Laden with their parcels and bundles containing mostly food, for they intended to have a substantial lunch in the woods, they trudged on. Mrs. Bonnell industriously blazed the trail as they proceeded, though it was scarcely necessary, for the path seemed often used.

“But we may be able to see the white blaze of the w............