t knit like that-away."

"You win," chuckled Hippy, and the Overland girls laughed merrily.

"I'm going now. Maw said as I'd better come down and look you-all over,
cause Paw'll want ter know 'bout you-all. Say! Goin' to the dance?"

"When?" questioned Emma, her interest instantly aroused.

"Sat'dy night to the schoolhouse over in the holler yonder. Mebby
you-all kin help we uns to pay the band."

"What? Do you have a band up here?" wondered Anne.

"Uh-huh--fiddle and er banjer, and the feller that plays the banjer kin
tear more music out o' it and stomp on the floor harder'n any other
perfesser in the mountains. Better come if Paw ain't run you-all out
befo' then."

"Don't worry, little one. Paw won't run this outfit out just yet,"
replied Hippy.

"I dunno, I dunno. Ain't no tellin' 'bout Paw. Bye." Julie pushed a mass
of hair from her forehead, gave her head a jerk to settle the hair more
firmly in place, then, turning on her heel, walked away without once
turning her head.

"With a stomach like his, 'Paw' should have been in France fighting the
Boches," observed Emma Dean solemnly. "I'm going to the dance! I'm going
to the dance! Tra-la-la," she cried, doing a fancy step about the camp,
keeping time with her upraised arms until she stepped on Washington
Washington's foot and brought a howl from that worthy.

The Overland girls then fell upon and subdued Miss Dean without loss of
time.

"If you let her go to that dance there will be a riot, as sure as I am a
foot high," declared Hippy Wingate, in which assertion most of the girls
agreed with him.

CHAPTER XIII

THREE MEN IN THE CORNFIELD

"Ah tells yuh, Ah did. Ah sawed him obah dar in de co'nfield," protested
Washington Washington.

"There you go again. You will saw the wrong person one of these days,
then you will go to jail for life," rebuked Emma Dean.

"What's that?" demanded Grace, hurrying to the excited colored boy, who
was rolling his eyes and gesticulating as he tried to tell the
Overlanders what he had seen.

"Laundry performed a surgical operation on a man in the cornfield.
That's all, Grace," Emma Dean informed her.

"Ah did. Ah sawed his gun, too."

"Yours must be a sharp saw if it will saw a gun," murmured Emma.

"He war peekin' at yuh-all, an' when he seed Ah sawed him he snooked an'
Ah didn't sawed him no moah."

"Is that all?" questioned Grace.

"Yassuh. Yes'm."

"Quite likely it was the man who owns the cornfie