Chief
Guardian's laughing reply. "Were you afraid when you found yourself
out in the ocean all alone?"

"Afraid? I--I gueth I didn't think about that. I wath too buthy trying
to keep from filling up with thalt water. Did you ever drink any of
that water, Mith Livingthton?"

"Hardly."

"Then take the advice of a fithh, and don't."

All hands were called to supper, thus putting an end to the
conversation, which had been heartily enjoyed by Mrs. Livingston.
Tommy always was a source of amusement to her. She appreciated the
active mind and the keen, if sometimes rude, retorts and ready answers
of the little lisping girl.

After supper a short time was spent in visiting among the girls
principally to discuss the marvelous experience of the two
Meadow-Brook Girls; then one by one the girls left to go to their
tents to don their ceremonial dress, and in place of the regulation
serge uniform of the Camp Girls figures clad in the ceremonial dress,
their hair hanging in two braids over their shoulders, and beads
glistening about their necks, began to make their appearance.

Barely had the girls put on their ceremonial costumes before a
moccasined Wau-Wau girl ran at an Indian lope through the camp, crying
out the call for the council fire:

"Gather round the council fire,
The chieftain waits you there,"

chanted the runner, circling the camp after having gone straight
through the center from her own tent. The girls began moving toward a
dark spot in the young forest where the wood for the fire had been
piled, but not yet lighted.

"What are we going to do?" questioned Tommy.

Miss Elting said she could not say; that the Chief Guardian had called
the council. Silent figures took their places, sitting on the ground,
curling their feet underneath them, speaking no words, waiting for the
flame that would open the Wau-Wau council. At last all were seated.
From among the number there stepped forward a dark figure who halted
before the pile of dry wood, then, stooping, began rubbing two sticks
together, while the circle of Camp Girls chanted:

"Flicker, flicker, flicker, flame;
Burn, fire, burn!"

A tiny blaze sprang from the two sticks, then the chant rose higher
and higher, figures rose up, swaying their bodies from side to side in
unison as the blaze grew into a flame and the flame into a roaring
fire, the tongues of which reached almost to the tops of the slender
trees that surrounded the camp of th