canoes to hire. All these, and
various other useful things, you are to learn. I want you to be able to
win an Elective Honor in some one of the seven crafts. You must wear
your beads, but you must win them first. Next week we shall remove the
roofs of our tents and sleep in the open. I wish you girls to get a
month or two of it. That counts one honor."

Nora, Mollie and Ethel started in. Ethel quickly learned how to tie the
knot. Then she began to study "first aid to the injured," and the girls
taught her how to adjust a bandage and how to use the plaster.

"It's a shame that ye haven't a real broken bone to work on," laughed
Nora.

"Well, that's a nice thing to say," replied Mollie; "suppose you go and
cut yourself, Nora Casey, or break your leg."

After studying for a couple of hours the girls declared that Ethel was a
promising pupil. She even learned a poem, "The Psalm of Life," by
Longfellow.

CHAPTER XXVI

A LOSS AND A DINNER

"Oh! girls," exclaimed Ethel, "I must get my ring. I left it on the box
where I washed dishes," and she ran to the kitchen tent, but there was
no ring in sight. "I laid it down here and I emptied the water myself,"
she almost sobbed. "It was a beautiful ring--a diamond cluster.
Grandmamma gave it to me. It was her engagement ring."

Kate now came in and they hunted. The girls looked where the water had
been thrown but no sign. They swept the tent and searched thoroughly.
Mollie Long went back to where Ethel stood half in tears and reported
nothing doing.

"Who was with you in the tent?" she asked.

"No one but you and Nora," replied Ethel.

"You remember, Kate," said Ethel, "it was Grandmamma's engagement ring.
I'd have lost anything I own rather than that."

"It's unfortunate," replied Kate, "but perhaps it may turn up."

Poor Ethel took her walk with Patty and Mollie but she was very quiet.

That noon she watched a dinner cooked in the open. Two perpendicular
stakes with forked ends had been driven in the ground, while lying
horizontally across them was another upon which to hang one or more
kettles. Each kettle had an iron hook to place on the cross stake, and
from them hung the kettles. A roaring fire had been made. The potatoes
were laid in the hot ashes and covered. In one kettle the peas were put.
Ethel and Mollie had shelled until their fingers ached.

"Now, girls," said Kate, "someone time those peas. They must not cook
longer than three-quarters of an ho