The Indian game of Kullibígan was in full swing.

Supper was over, a wonderful outdoor banquet, for which the high tide furnished the orchestra, the white sands the table linen, with the last rays of the dying sun showering bouquets upon its damask.

As if in answer to Captain Andy’s question earlier in the evening when he beheld the bevy of maidens in Indian dress upon the beach, there were two unexpected “braves” at the feast and hungry guests they were; Kenjo, who was entered upon the school-roll of his native town as Kenneth Jordan, bearing in mind that “A Scout is courteous,” the fifth point of the Scout Law, insisted on toasting fresh relays of bacon for the hungry girls and for the Astronomer, who ate enormously.

Captain Andy, in the absence of any severe symptoms of lead poisoning, had come to the conclusion that the tenderfoot was not going to share the fate of the chewink, that he, apparently, did not stand in need, even, of an antidote; still, as a precautionary measure, he flooded him inwardly with strong tea, beneficial in any case of poisoning, until the fat Astronomer declared that he could hear his final mouthfuls of cake splash as they went down.

The after-banquet songs were furnished by the hostesses who chanted their “Wohelo!” cheer, greatly to the edification of the Scouts, followed by their song, “Mystic Fire,” gracefully dramatized by the waving of fringed arms, the swaying of girlish forms around the camp fire upon the twilight sands, lending the final touch of romance to the white wildness of the Sugarloaf, moving the flame of admiration in Kenjo to flicker up into:

“Gee! I thought we Boy Scouts were the ‘whole show’ when it came to new stunts, but I guess it’s as Captain Andy says, ‘Skirts go ahead!’” with a boyish laugh.

“Well! you’ll show them something by ’n’ by, when it gets dark, when you signal with lanterns or an old broom dipped in kerosene to our camp on the dunes across the river to say we’re safe here, for Captain Andy says he won’t let us row back there to-night,” spoke up the now drowsy Astronomer. “He says we can sleep in his tent—a bully tent, divided up into rooms—at the foot of a sand-hill; he was going to have his niece there, but he says she can bunk with the girls.” Tommy waved a fat hand in the direction of Kitty.

“I don’t care; that’s what I want to do,” spoke up little Kitty, erstwhile of “the bleeding heart,” rejoicing in the freedom of her green bloomers. “Morning-Glory—I can’t pronounce her Indian name—says I can sleep with her,” shyly. “And we’ll wake up early and watch the dawn across the river and I may help her cook the breakfast—she’s to be one of the cooks to-morrow.”

“Indeed, you may, but don’t mistake me for Mary-Jane Peg in your sleep; I don’t want to be taken for a pig in a poke!” laughed Jessica, otherwise Welatáwesit. “And now for Kullibígan! What question shall we ask it first?”

“Who’ll be married first?” suggested the Astronomer. “That’s what girls always want to know, isn’t it?”

And then the excitement of the night began in earnest.

The great burnished top, painted by firelight, was set to spinning madly upon a flat stone set in the sand, surrounded by a ring of sitting girls; it revolved dizzily for many seconds, then fell over upon its broad head, as if bowing to Kitty.

The laughter that followed this exploit of the guessing-top made dunes and sea ring; Kitty was to be wedded first, instead of prematurely departing this life.

“Let us ask it something sensible, something that might have an answer in the near future,” suggested Betty Ayres—gay little Betty, whose Camp Fire name was Psuti, the Holly—after sundry other riddles had been propounded to the Kullibígan top for divination—questions as distant in speculation and wild in their answer as the lot which had fallen upon Kitty. “Let’s ask who’ll be the first to attain the highest rank among the Camp Fire Girls, and become a Torch Bearer!”

“Good!” approved Gheezies, the presiding Guardian of the Fire.

Psuti, with two little hands upon the broadest point of the tall top’s circumference, skilfully set it revolving upon the stone; as before, it seemed to have no sense of the fitness of things; it toppled toward her, as nearly as its falling direction—a wide point of debate—could be determined, she having swiftly resumed her seat in the circle.

“Pshaw! it doesn’t know much: Morning-Glory will be the first Torch Bearer; she’s a Fire Maker already,” burst impetuously from one or two of the girls. “And she’s going to do some work among little girls when we go back to the city, form a Nest of Blue Birds, as it’s called, among the poor children of that big playground which we visited, show them how to dress their dolls and so forth,” suggested Sesooā, “make them happy once a week for three months; that’s part of the test for becoming a Torch Bearer.”

“I suppose you’ll draw that little deaf-and-dumb girl whose life you saved into the nest—eh?” M?nkw?n turned inquiringly toward Morning-Glory. “Whew! I’ll never forget that day—the shock we all got!” The breast of Arline’s ceremonial dress, embroidered with her rainbow symbol, heaved; the many-colored honor-beads upon her neck shook. “Fancy! the poor child drowning, or next door to it, in two feet and a half of water!”

“Two feet and a half of water! Drowning! A deaf-and-dumb child!” Nobody had noticed the “shock” which Kenjo experienced as the Rainbow’s words fell upon his ear, reaching him where he squatted on the sands, just outside the circle of girls gathered round the fortune-telling top, now lying idle upon the flat stone.

“Is—is a Torch Bearer the highest rank among the Camp Fire Girls?” Kenjo went on to ask eagerly, thrusting the flame of his red head dangerously near to the Council Fire. “To be an Eagle Scout is the highest a fellow can go among the Boy Scouts—and mighty few ever get there! A Scout must have twenty-one merit badges for that! But we have an Eagle Scout in our camp,” proudly. “He’s a sort of Assistant Scoutmaster, directing the athletics. He saved a deaf-and-dumb child from drowning in shallow water this summer—dragged her out and brought her to, resuscitated her; a Camp Fire Girl helped him.”

“Helped him! He helped her, you mea-ean!” The excited challenge delivered in three girlish voices rose to a screaming trio. “Where did it happen? What’s his name?” followed in a minor key.

“Yes, where did it happen?” gasped the Blue Heron, Olive, bending excitedly forward from her place near the fire.

“In the city of Clevedon, I think. Stack comes from there or from some town near it; he was dressed for a big Boy Scout Rally at the Clevedon Armory and was taking a short cut across a public playground when he heard a lot of children yelling—girls shrieking——”

“We weren’t shrieking at all! There!” flung out Sesooā between her teeth. “If ‘Stack’ is the only name he’s got, I don’t think much of it.” The firefly in Sally’s eyes danced upon the twilight.

“That’s what we call him in camp; his name is Miles Stackpole.”

“That’s better,” came from Morning-Glory, Miles’s partner in that playground rescue.

“Stack said the girl who helped was a pippin.” Here the Astronomer who had been dozing upon the firelit sands suddenly awoke from a dream in which Penelope’s red cheek was a poisoned cherry and he a chewink pecking at it to his destruction. “He said she was a peach and could do something,” went on Tenderfoot Tommy; “that she wasn’t all fluff an’ stuff or frills an’ stuff, like most girls, afraid of a little wetting!”

“Oh! indeed? A lot he must know about girls!” Every voice in the feminine circle went to swell this sarcasm or something like it.

Each feminine soul there felt that life could not be all mystic motions and ceremonial dresses, their rich cream at present, nor yet bloomers and middy blouses; all looked forward to the pleasing variety of frilly hours again, with hearts, if only for the space of a short party-hour, correspondingly frivolous.

Meanwhile the Astronomer, with his gaze slanting upward from the sands and trained upon the feminine circle, was suffering at the hands of Kenjo who had tried to stifle his confidences.

“Oh! Won’t Stack just lick you when we get back to camp and he hears how you gave him away?” scolded the older Scout. “You go to sleep again; that’s the only time you’re safe, Fatty. We’re going to ask the Kullibígan top another question, something exciting, with real ‘pep’ in it, this time: ‘Who’s going to dig up a fortune from the sands?’ May I come in on the answer to this?” Ken appealed eagerly to the Guardian of the Camp Fire.

“Certainly. And may you come in on the fortune, too, if there is one!” Thus Gheezies gave her smiling consent, tagging it with a good wish.

“Oh! that’s too far-fetched to be exciting; nobody really believes in finding Captain Kidd’s treasure nowadays, although Captain Andy says that some of it was certainly hidden along the coast here, but that the tidal current must have sucked it out into the river long ago,” protested Betty, in a fringed flutter.

“And Stack says that he met a professor of something who was round here studying tides, and the prof said he didn’t believe that the current could do any such thing!” threw back Ken hotly.

“Oh! it’s such a hackneyed old question, anyway.” Thus Morning-Glory backed up Betty.

“A regular ‘chestnut,’” yawned Penelope, who was getting sleepy.

“Well! isn’t a ‘chestnut yarn’ the best kind to anchor to with a hope of its coming true?” Kenjo appealed to the Guardian with a fire that matched his ruddy hair. “At least”—muttering low—&ldq............