nor the plan for her defense. Katherine reflected. "It _was_
kind of mean to leave her out of that. I wouldn't like it myself if I
were the younger one of a group and they kept having secrets from me.
I'm not being a real nice big sister at all."

"Never mind, Antha," she said, patting her hand. "I'll tell you about
it. The boys are planning to steal Eeny-Meeny tonight and burn her at
the stake and we're trying to keep them from doing it. We're going to
hide her. You may help us if you like. Won't that be fun?"

Antha sniffed, and with the perverseness of her nature lost interest in
the secret as soon as she found out what it was, and didn't seem to care
whether Eeny-Meeny was burned at the stake or not. And when Katherine
went farther and invited her to be her special helper in everything, and
offered to show her where the oven bird's nest was that everybody was
looking for, Antha declined to come along, preferring to go into the
kitchen where dinner was being prepared.

So Katherine went out alone to pay the oven bird's nest a visit and on
the way found a chipmunk with a broken leg, hopping around on the other
three and cheeping shrilly in distress. She tried to coax it to her with
peanuts and succeeded in getting it to take one, when suddenly from the
direction of the kitchen came the sound of a terrific explosion, shaking
the earth and making the air ring with echoes. The sound had scarcely
died away when there was a second report more violent than the first,
followed in a moment by a third.

"The gasoline stove!" thought Katherine. "Antha's been trying to fill it
and it's exploded!" And she set off like the wind toward the kitchen,
from which direction terrible shrieks were puncturing the air. She did
not know it, but she was yelling like a Comanche Indian all the way. She
staggered into the clearing, expecting to find the kitchen tent in
flames, but it was lying on the ground in a tangled mass from which
apparently detached hands and feet were waving wildly. "What exploded?"
she demanded.

Hinpoha was leaning against a tree, pale as death, and she grasped
Katherine by the arm and led her out of earshot of the others. "The cans
of beans," she said faintly. "Don't look so scared, Katherine, it's
only--the--panic!"

"What on earth did you do?" asked Katherine.

"I remembered that Migwan set a can of beans in the fire to heat once
when we were camping and it exploded, and I thought that would be a fine
way to