ere all awry, standing out in a dozen different
directions from his head, his blanket trailed behind him, and the fringe
was hanging in festoons from his leggins, where it had come unpinned.
The red paint on his face made him look as if he had been in a fight
with the carving-knife he carried, and had had the skin peeled off his
face in patches.

Wild as he looked, his appearance was tame beside that of the
impish-looking little savage who skipped in after him, in the scarlet
bedroom slippers, pink striped bathing-suit and green striped skin.

"Keith Maclntyre, what have you been doing to yourself?" gasped his
grandmother. Both boys began an excited exclamation, but were stopped by
Miss Allison's question, "Where is Virginia? Have you two little savages
scalped her?"

"She's tied to a tree down by the spring," answered Malcolm. "We are
just starting down there now to cut her loose. You see we were playing
Indian, and she was tied up to be tortured, and we forgot all about her
being there--"

But Miss Allison waited to hear no more. "The poor little thing!" she
exclaimed. "Tied out there alone in the dark woods! How could you be so
cruel? It is enough to frighten her into spasms."

"I'm awfully sorry, Aunt Allison!" began Malcolm, but his aunt was
already out of hearing. Out of the door she ran, through the dewy grass
and the stubble of the field beyond, regardless of her dainty spring
gown, or her new patent leather shoes. Malcolm and Keith dashed out
after her, ran on ahead and were at the spring before she had climbed
the fence into the woodland.

Virginia was not crying when the boys reached her. She remembered that
she had once called Malcolm "Rain-in-the-face" because she caught him
crying over something that seemed to her a very little reason, and she
did not intend to give him a chance to taunt her in the same way. She
was glad that it was too dark for him to notice her tear-swollen eyes.

"Whew! It's dark down here!" said Keith. "Were you frightened, Ginger?"
he asked, as he helped Malcolm unfasten the cords that bound her. But
Ginger made no reply to either questions or apologies. She walked on in
dignified silence, too deeply hurt by their neglect, too full of a sense
of the wrong they had done her, to trust herself to speak without
crying, and she intended to be game to the last. But when she came upon
Miss Allison, and suddenly found herself folded safe in her arms, with
pitying kisses and comforting