some embarrassment." And he solemnly withdrew, leaving them to indulge
their mirth to their hearts' content.

"Poor old Eeny-Meeny," said Katherine, "she seems born to be rescued.
She must bear a charmed life. It's a case of 'Sing Au Revoir but not
Good-bye' when she goes to meet a tragic fate." She dried Eeny-Meeny off
with bunches of grass and stood her up against a tree to guard their
"boudoir" for the night.

"Hinpoha," said Gladys, drawing her aside when they were ready to
retire, "what do you think of watching tonight? I've never done it and
I'm crazy to try it once."

"You mean sit up all night?" asked Hinpoha.

"Yes," answered Gladys. "Go off a little way from the others and build a
small fire and sit there in the still woods and watch. Nyoda always
wanted me to do it some time, and I promised her I would if I got a
chance."

"We'd better ask Aunt Clara about it first," said Hinpoha.

Aunt Clara said that after such a strenuous day's paddling, and with the
prospect of another one before them it would be out of the question for
them to sit up all night, but they might stay up until midnight if they
chose and sleep several hours later in the morning.

Everyone else was too dead tired to want to sit up, so the two of them
departed quietly into the woods where they could not hear the voices of
the others and built a tiny fire. The proper way to keep watch in the
woods is to do it all alone, but Hinpoha and Gladys compromised by
agreeing not to say one word to each other all the while they sat there,
but to think their own thoughts in absolute silence. If the city girl
thinks there is not a sound to be heard in the woods at night she should
keep the watch some time and listen. Beside the calls of the
whippoorwill and the other night birds, there are a hundred little
noises that seem to be voices talking to one another in some soft,
mysterious language. There are little rustlings, little sighings, little
scurryings and patterings among the dry leaves, drowsy chirpings and
plaintive croakings. The old workaday world seems to have slipped out of
existence and a fairy world to have taken its place. And the girl who
truly loves nature and the wide outdoors will not be frightened at being
alone in the woods at night. It is like laying her ear against the wide,
warm heart of the night and hearing it beat.

And to sit by a lonely watch fire in the woods in the dead of night is
to unlock the doors of romance. Strang