rt looked up from her eggs and toast: "What are you children
quarreling about?" she asked placidly. "Suppose you bring us another dish
of bacon, Ceally. The mountain air certainly creates an appetite. I am
sure I don't see what benefit I am to get from 'roughing it!' The one
thing I hoped to do by living outdoors was to reduce my figure, but, if
my appetite continues at the present rate, I shall certainly not lose an
ounce."

"Don't you be too sure, auntie," Ruth demurred. "Wait till we get through
with you to-day. Think you can climb the hill back of us?"

Mollie interrupted. "Naki warns us against that particular hill. He says
it is unpopular for climbing because of its cliffs and ravines. But he
hints that there is an Indian trail over it, so I am dying to explore it.
Aren't you, Bab?"

"Well, it's not for me!" laughed Ruth hastily. "I am not any too devoted
to scaling cliffs, you may remember."

"What's the programme for to-day?" Grace asked.

"Somebody must go down the hill with me this afternoon," Ruth answered.
"The automobile is to meet us there you know, to take us to a postoffice
to mail our letters to our beloved families. This morning we can just
poke round the camp. I want Naki to teach us how to make a camp fire."

Mollie looked down at her dainty hands. "It is rather dirty work, isn't
it?" she asked.

"Not a bit of it, Mollie," put in Bab. "Don't be finicky, or we shall put
you out of camp. It's a good thing to know how to build a first-class
fire. Suppose one of us should be lost in the woods some day!"

"We will suppose no such thing," protested Miss Stuart.

Early in the afternoon Miss Sallie and the four girls started down the
hill. Bab, Mollie and Miss Stuart were to go only a part of the way with
Ruth and Grace, the two girls continuing their walk until they met the
chauffeur, who was to bring the motor car up to the point of the road
where Ruth had told him to meet her.

Mollie and Bab begged off from the excursion. "I don't want to know," Bab
argued, "how near we still are to civilization. If I go to town with you
to-day, no matter how long the drive is, it will take away a part of the
romance of living in the hills."

Miss Stuart was not much of a walker. Before they had gone half a mile
she decided that it was high time to turn back.

"Good-bye girls," she called to Ruth and Grace, who were hurrying on. "Do
not stay too late. You must be back by dusk, or I shall be most uneasy.
At