the red-headed man was
who went to see the doctor because he had indigestion. When the doctor
told him to diet, it wasn't his hair he meant; but the red-headed man
got mad just the same. Now, you boys----"

"Aw, come! come!" cried Dave. "You can't say honestly you were not
scared. You know you were."

"I am afraid your joke fell flat, Davie," laughed Wyn. All the girls
were enjoying the boys' discomfiture. "Of course, I suppose you thought
you deserved your breakfast as a forfeit because you got a trick across
on us. But you'll have to try again, I am afraid. Just because we ran
doesn't prove that we did not recognize the combination of a boy and a
buffalo robe."

"Aw, now!" cried one of the boys. "What did you run for?"

"There's a reason," laughed Percy.

"Wait!" advised Frank, shaking her head and her own eyes dancing. "You
will find out soon enough why we ran."

"'He laughs best who laughs last,'" quoted Grace. "Bears, indeed!"

The boys were puzzled. Breakfast being over the girls went about their
several tasks and paid their friends of the opposite sex very little
attention. To all suggestions that they get out the canoes and go across
to the island with the boys, or on other junkets, the girls responded
with refusals. They evidently thought they had something like a joke
themselves on the boys, and finally the latter went off through the
brush toward the spot where they had tied their canoes, half inclined to
be angry.

They were gone a long while, and were very quiet. The girls whispered
together, and kept right near the tents, waiting for the explosion.

"At least," Wyn said, chuckling, "we gave them a good breakfast, so they
won't starve to death; but if they want to go to the island they will
have to swim."

"We've given them 'tit for tat,'" said Frankie, nodding her head. "Glad
of it. And _they'll_ pay the forfeit, instead of us."

"If they don't find the canoes," whispered Grace.

"They wouldn't find them in a week of Sundays," cried Percy.

"Then let's set them a good hard task for payment," suggested Bess.

"That's right. They oughtn't to have tried to scare us so," agreed Mina.

"I guess it is agreed," laughed Wyn, "to show them no mercy. Ah! here
they come now."

The Busters slowly climbed the knoll in rather woebegone fashion. Their
feathers certainly were drooped, as Frank remarked.

"Well," said Dave, throwing himself down on the sward, "we must hand it
to you Go-Aheads. You've g