oo civilised, bringing all these
things with you?'

'Not at all,' said Marjorie; 'wait till we show you what a jolly place
we're making. We can spend whole days there without ever coming home,
and we must be able to cook dinner and tea for ourselves. We've had no
end of trouble to get all these things out of the kitchen without
Elspeth seeing us. She's so mean, you know, about letting us carry
away anything that doesn't belong to us.'

'All right,' said Allan; 'but when are Reggie and Tricksy going to turn
up? It would serve them jolly well right if we went off without them.'

'There they are in the distance,' said Hamish; 'at least, these seem to
be the dogs.'

'That's certainly Laddie,' said Allan, standing up and looking, 'and
that little black speck seems to be Carlo; but surely those can't be
Reggie and Tricksy with them?'

All stared at two curious figures that looked like animated bundles of
hay coming along the road.

'It is Reggie and Tricksy,' said Neil, whose sailor's sight enabled him
to see farthest; 'and they're carrying something.'

'Carrying _what_?' said Allan, more and more puzzled.

'Perhaps they're bringing straw for bedding,' suggested Marjorie.

'Then if they are, they're not going to fill up the boat with it on
this trip,' said Allan decidedly. 'We shall be heavily enough loaded
already, with all of ourselves; and they're bringing both the dogs.'

As they came nearer the two walking bundles proved to be indeed Reggie
and Tricksy, carrying enormous bundles of ferns. Reggie's face peeped,
hot and perspiring, round one side of his bundle, which he clasped with
the utmost extent of his arms; and Tricksy, with a smaller burden,
looked with a long-suffering expression over the fronds which tickled
her little nose. Beside them Laddie stepped lightly along, his tail
curling over his back; while in the rear a small King Charles spaniel
waddled painfully along upon his little short legs; his tongue hanging
out, and his long ears sweeping the dust of the road.

'Well,' said Allan; 'whatever are they up to now?'

Reggie came down to the shore, picking his way cautiously over the
stepping-stones.

'You might hold the boat steady for me,' he said in a half-stifled
voice; then, stepping on to the thwarts, he lost his footing and fell
forward, load and all, into the boat.

Promptly he struggled to his feet and wiped his forehead, looking
around with a self-congratulatory smile.

'There,'