o amuse themselves in various
ways, but it was not long before they heard the sound of the tom-tom,
which one of the boys had made to be beaten as a signal to call them all
together. Uncle Teddy was beating the tom-tom and he stood on a large,
flat rock close to the edge of the bluff. This rock had been named the
Council Rock by the Winnebagos as soon as they laid eyes on it.

"Be seated, everybody," said Uncle Teddy when they had all arrived. "We
are about to have a family council. I have just thought of a method of
organization for the company while we are together here. We will be a
tribe."

"A real Indian tribe? Oh, goody!" cried Sahwah, jumping up and upsetting
Gladys, who was sitting at her feet. "You can be the Big Chief."

"Uncle Teddy will be the Big Chief!" they all echoed.

Uncle Teddy pounded on the tom-tom for silence, boom, boom!

"Hear and attend and listen!" he said. "If Mr. Evans hadn't brought us
up here there wouldn't have been any tribe, so being in a sense the
founder of the tribe he ought to be the chief."

"But I didn't propose bringing you all up here," confessed Mr. Evans,
"it was Mrs. Evans. So she's the founder of the tribe, and, therefore,
the Chief."

"But I only said we'd come if Aunt Clara St. John would come along and
help me look after the girls, because I didn't feel equal to the
responsibility myself," said Mrs. Evans hastily. "So the founding of the
tribe depended upon Aunt Clara."

It was the most amusing situation they had ever faced, and the whole
tribe laughed themselves red in the face while each one of the four
candidates for the position of leader insisted that it belonged by right
to one of the others. After half an hour's arguing the question back and
forth they were no nearer a solution, when suddenly Katherine reached
out and struck the tom-tom a resounding boom, boom, which was the signal
that she had something to say.

"Why don't all four of you be chiefs?" she suggested, when they had
turned to her expectantly. "Four chiefs in a tribe ought to be four
times as good as one. You each have an equal claim."

"Fine!" cried the Winnebagos.

"Bully!" echoed the Sandwiches.

"Speech from the Chiefs!" cried Katherine, delighted that her suggestion
had found such immediate favor. "You first, Mrs. Evans."

"But," protested Mrs. Evans, "it seems to me we four have no better
right to be Chiefs than you girls. If you hadn't wanted to come camping
there wouldn't have be