as the sight of the
feast must in a moment burst upon their eyes, the girls scampered to
hide behind trees to watch the astonished faces.

Nor were they disappointed. In a moment more the boys came in sight of
the luncheon and stopped suddenly.

"By gum!"

"Well, what do you know about that!"

"Jiminy crickets!"

"Ah there, my size!"

And various other boyish exclamations gave voice to surprise and delight
on the part of the onlookers. But they paused several steps away from
the feast.

"That's a girls' layout," said Bert Fayre, nodding his head sagaciously;
"no fellows ever set up that dinky business! But it looks good to me!"

"Good!" exclaimed Jack; "I'd face a term in State's prison to nab that
loot! Wonder who owns it!"

"Certainly not the people who stole our grub; so we can't claim this in
return. Oh, I smell coffee! 'M-mm!"

Unwilling to intrude further on what was so evidently a girls' picnic,
and yet equally unable to tear themselves away from the enticing scene,
the boys stood, a comically eager crowd, looking vainly about for signs
of the picnic party.

"Seems 'sif I must grab one sandwich," said Bob, rolling his eyes
comically toward the piled-up dishes.

"Well, you won't," said Bert, who had no fear that Bob would be guilty
of such a thing, but he wasn't quite so sure of some of the other boys,
and so they stood like a lot of hungry tramps, a little bewildered at
the situation and greatly tantalised by the sight of the feast and the
odour of steaming coffee.

"Nothing doing," said Bob, at last. "We can't touch other people's
property, and we might as well go on home. But if the ladies belonging
to this church sociable would show themselves, I'd sit up and beg for a
bone of that fried chicken over there."

"Maybe we all wouldn't!" commented several, and then, at a signal from
Dolly, the girls sprang from their hiding-places and stood laughing at
the crowd of hungry boys.

"Oh, you Dotty Rose!" cried Jack Norris, as he caught Dotty's dancing
black eyes, "I might have known you were at the head of this!"

"No more than Dolly Fayre," cried Dotty, "and all the rest of us. Are
you hungry, boys?"

"Are we hungry? We should smile! We've been hungry all the while!" came
in chorus from the famished tramps.

"_Would_ you care to come to lunch with us?" said Dolly, her blue eyes
dancing as she put the question.

"Would we care to!" and Jack grinned at her. "We're hungry enough to eat
you gir