her
feet and took a short step backward.

"Let's set traps for a dingue," she said, "will you?"

I looked at the big tree, undecided. "Come on," she said; "I'll show
you how." And away we went into the woods, she leading, her kilts
flashing through the golden half-light.

Now I had not the faintest notion how to trap the dingue, but
Professor Van Twiller asserted that it formerly fed on the tender tips
of the spruce, quoting Darwin as her authority.

So we gathered a bushel of spruce-tips, piled them on the bank of a
little stream, then built a miniature stockade around the bait, a foot
high. I roofed this with hemlock, then laboriously whittled out and
adjusted a swinging shutter for the entrance, setting it on springy
twigs.

"The dingue, you know, was supposed to live in the water," she said,
kneeling beside me over our trap.

I took her little hand and thanked her for the information.

"Doubtless," she said, enthusiastically, "a dingue will come out of
the lake to-night to feed on our spruce-tips. Then," she added, "we've
got him."

"True!" I said, earnestly, and pressed her fingers very gently.

Her face was turned a little away; I don't remember what she said; I
don't remember that she said anything. A faint rose-tint stole over
her cheek. A few moments later she said: "You must not do that again."

It was quite late when we strolled back to camp. Long before we came
in sight of the twin tents we heard a deep voice bawling our names. It
was Professor Smawl, and she pounced upon Dorothy and drove her
ignominiously into the tent.

"As for you," she said, in hollow tones, "you may explain your
conduct at once, or place your resignation at my disposal."

But somehow or other I appeared to be temporarily lost to shame, and I
only smiled at my infuriated president, and entered my own tent with a
step that was distinctly frolicsome.

"Billy," said I to William Spike, who regarded me morosely from the
depths of the tent, "I'm going out to bag a mammoth to-morrow, so
kindly clean my elephant-gun and bring an axe to chop out the tusks."

That night Professor Smawl complained bitterly of the cooking, but as
neither Dorothy nor I knew how to improve it, she revenged herself on
us by eating everything on the table and retiring to bed, taking
Dorothy with her.

I could not sleep very well; the mosquitoes were intrusive, and
Professor Smawl dreamed she was a pack of wolves and yelped in her
sleep.

"Bird,