Frances, led on by Tim’s interested questions, had been giving that wounded young man a glowing account of the Camp Fire movement in general and of their own group in particular. She had told him of the splendid effect it had on the spirit of the girls at Hillside, of the wonders it had worked on the characters of Blanche Shirley and Emmeline Cerrito.

“And you have no idea how much fun we have had together. Even work is fun when we all work together. Last year, we were all down on Jane’s big farm in Kentucky when the harvest had just begun. It happened that there was an excursion for the negroes scheduled for the same day and all the hands, house servants, yard boys, stable boys, even down to the smallest pickaninnies on the place, just took temporary French leave. Mr. Pellew was terribly upset. You see, he had engaged the machines and everything. Anyway, Ellen and Mabel got busy in the kitchen and cooked for simply rafts of people, the rest of us went out in the fields with Jack and Mr. Pellew and he said that we worked just as well as the men and that we were lots more conscientious.” Frances said this with a rather defiant air, because she had often found that the young men of her acquaintance were inclined to doubt female prowess in any line other than fancy sewing.

“You sound like a dandy bunch of girls. No one could realize that fact more keenly than I. But don’t you think it is rather unusual for girls to be as capable as that? And don’t you suppose the novelty of the affair had a great deal to do with the girl’s conscientiousness?” Seeing Frances’ indignant expression, Tim hastened to add, “I am not stating this as facts. Like Will Irwin’s Japanese school boy, ‘I ask to know’.”

“All right, then,” said Frances, relenting at his meek tones, “if you come to the discussion with an humble open mind, I’ll continue to be pro, and after I have finished I’ll listen to your con.”

“Like a lamb to the slaughter,” announced Tim, folding his brown arms over his chest. “I’m ready. The battle may begin.”

“Heavens! you have me all confused now. How am I to know whether you are going to listen like a meek lamb or whether you have entered the ranks, arrayed in glittering armor, ready to fight to the death. Don’t be so contradictory in your statements.”

“I crave your indulgence for my mixed metaphors. In the crude parlance of these modern times, ‘shoot’,” said Tim.

“Resolved: that the female of the species can do as much work as the male and do it in almost as many branches as the aforesaid male. Two cousins of mine were with the Vassar College farm unit for twelve weeks, summer before last, and at the end of the twelve weeks, the head of the farmerettes mailed out questionnaires to the different men who had employed the girls as farm hands during the summer. These questionnaires asked the farmers if the girls were equal to the men as to strength, interest, conscientiousness and so on. All of the farmers answered that they were perfectly able to do all the work that had been set them to do, and that they had been given the work of the men that were overseas, and that they had accomplished it well; and, further, that they showed a quickness in learning that the men did not, and that they were more interested in their work, and far more conscientious than the men they had formerly employed. When asked if they would consider employing the Vassar girls at another time, all the men who had employed the girls said that most assuredly they would,” and Frances stopped rather out of breath but smiling triumphantly at her adversary. “We will now hear the other side.”

“Madame, I have the honor to announce that your worthy opponent is absolutely convinced and begs your forgiveness for his former unbelief. There will be no rebuttal, ladies and gentlemen,” said Tim with a grin at a make-believe audience.

He looked at Frances in open admiration, for the vivid pink that the excitement of a chance argument always brought had flushed her cheeks and her gray eyes sparkled with amusement at his defeat.

Just then there was a thud on deck and Mabel’s cheery voice called to find out how the patient was getting along. After making the tender fast to the boat boom, Jack and Ellen and Mabel and Charlie, followed by Mr. Wing, came down into the little saloon to tell Tim that the telegram assuring his family of his safety had been duly sent.

“The girls insisted on our bringing you candy and magazines, but I have a hunch that it wasn’t you alone they had in view,” said Jack, unloading himself of many bundles.

“But I knew you would want something to smoke, so I brought along a couple of cartons of Piedmonts. I hope that it is what you use,” said Charlie with the complacency of one who has done well.

“Speaking of unselfish devotion,” Ellen spoke up in defense of herself and Mabel, “who likes Piedmonts more than our own dear Charlie?”

Frances jumped up, grabbed Ellen’s arm and lifted it high over her head and in her best referee manner began, “One, two, three, four, five—”

Tim raised a protesting hand, “I’ll report the match to the authorities, as not one word was said about the ‘ge............