"I want to give them a surprise, Zara," she said. "There's quite a long
time yet before supper. And I saw an apple tree when I was walking
through the woods. Let's go and get some of them."

Zara was quite willing, and in half an hour or less the two girls were
back in camp with a good load of apples. Then Bessie spoke to Wanaka
when the Guardian was alone for the moment.

"May I have some flour and sugar?" she said.

Wanaka looked at her curiously, but gave her what she wanted. And
Bessie, finding a smooth white board, was soon busy rolling pastry. Then
when she had made a great deep dish pie, and filled it with the apples,
which Zara, meanwhile, had pared and cut, Bessie set to work on what was
the most difficult part of her task. First she dug out a hole in the
ground and made a fire, small, but very hot, and, in a short time, with
the aid of two flat stones, she had constructed a practicable outdoor
oven, in which the heat of the embers and cinders was retained by
shutting out the air with earth. Then the pie was put in and covered at
once, so that no heat could escape, and Bessie, saying nothing about
what she had done, went back to help the others.

Obeying the unwritten rule of the Camp Fire, which allows the girls to
work out their ideas unaided if they possibly can, so as to encourage
self-reliance and independence, Wanaka did not ask her what she had
done. But when the meal was over Bessie slipped away, while Wanaka was
serving out some preserves, and returned in a moment, bearing her
pie--nobly browned, with crisp, flaky crust.

"I've only made one pie like this before and I never used that sort of
an oven," she said, shyly. "So I don't know if it's very good. But I
thought I would try it."

Bessie, however, need not have worried about the quality of that pie.
The rapidity with which it disappeared was the best possible evidence of
its goodness, and Wanaka commended her before all the girls, who were
willing enough to join the leader in singing Bessie's praises.

"My, but that was good!" said Minnehaha. "I wish I could make a pie like
that! My pastry is always heavy. Will you show me how when we get home,
Bessie?"

"Indeed I will!" promised Bessie.

And that night, after a spell of singing and story telling about the
great fire on the beach, Bessie and Zara went to bed with thoughts very
different from those they had had the night before.

"Aren't they good to us, Zara?" said Bessie.

"They're