, you're a regular scout!" said Jack approvingly. "_I_ knew all
that, but I didn't suppose girls knew things like that. Say, when I get
old enough I'm going to be a Boy Scout. That'll be fine, won't it? I'll
have a uniform, and a badge, and everything."

"Splendid, Jack! We're going to be Camp Fire Girls, and we'll have
rings, and badges, too."

"What are Camp Fire Girls? Are they like the Boy Scouts?"

"Something like them, Jack. Sometime, when I know more about them, I'll
come back and tell you all about it. I know it's nice--but I don't
really know much more than that yet."

Then they had to be still again, for the voices of the returning hunters
were very plain. They could hear Farmer Weeks, loud and angry, in the
lead.

"Ain't it the beatin'est thing you ever heard of?" he was asking one of
his companions. "How do you guess that little varmint ever got away?"

"Better give it up as a bad job, old hayseed," said another voice.
"She's too slick for you--and I can't say I'm sorry, either. Way you've
been goin' on here makes me think anyone'd be glad to dig out and run
away from a chance to work for you."

"Any lazy good-for-nothing like you would--yes," said Farmer Weeks,
enraged by the taunt. "I make anyone that gits my pay or my vittles
work--an' why shouldn't they? If you'd gone on, like I wanted you to,
we'd have caught her."

"We ain't workin' for you, an' we never will, neither," said the other
man, laughing. "Better be careful how you start callin' us names, I can
tell you. If you ain't you may go home with a few of them whiskers of
your'n pulled out."

"You shut your trap!"

"Sure! I'd rather hear you talk, anyhow. You're so elegant and refined
like. Makes me sorry I never went to collidge, so's I could talk that
way, too."

They couldn't make out what Farmer Weeks replied to that. He was so
angry that he just mumbled his words, and didn't get them out properly.
Zara was smiling, her eyes shining. But then the old farmer's voice rose
loud and clear again, just as he passed the cave.

"I'll git her yet," he said, vindictively. "I know what she's done, all
right. She's gone traipsin' off with that passel of gals that Paw Hoover
sold his garden truck to yesterday. I heard 'em laughin' and chatterin'
back there on the road where I found her. She'll go runnin' back to
'em--and I'll show 'em, I will!"

"Aw, you're all talk and no do," said the other man, contemptuously.
"You talk big, but you don't