ive you each a penny whistle so
you can call us?"

Chet only laughed. Lance said: "We've been camping before; most of you
girls haven't. Of course you will get into trouble forty times to our
once."

"Well! I like that," sniffed Jess, who did not like it at all. "If
girls aren't just as well able to take care of themselves, as boys,
I'd like to know why."

"Jess is getting to be a regular suffragette," chuckled Dora
Lockwood.

"Reminds me of the little girl whose mother was chasing the hens out
of the garden," said Laura, with her low laugh. "The hen-chaser
declared that 'You can't teach a hen anything, to save your life,'
when the little girl spoke up for her sex, and said: 'Well! I think
they know quite as much as the roosters!'"

"And that's all right," teased Lance, as the boys got under way. "I
bet this bunch of hens on Acorn Island will holler for us roosters
before we set the distress signal for _them_."

"Get out, you horrid thing!" cried Bobby. "Calling us hens. We're only
pullets, at best."

A lantern had been lit in each tent, for the shadows were thickening
under the oak trees on the knoll. Lizzie Bean at once began to
overhaul the cooking utensils and supplies in the cook-tent.

This tent was divided into two parts. Lizzie's own cot was in the rear
apartment. There was a long table, roughly built but serviceable, in
the front with the stove and chest of drawers. There were folding
campstools in plenty.

In the cabin was a comfortable straw mattress for Mrs. Morse in the
wide bunk, a small table on which her typewriter case already stood, a
rocker made in rustic fashion, a painted dressing case with mirror of
good size, and shelves for books.

A small fire was burning on the hearth, for the cabin was apt to be
damp after its many months of abandonment. It had been swept and
garnished with boughs of sweet-smelling spruce and pine.

The girls' sleeping tent housed seven cots, all supplied with
unbleached cotton sheets and heavy double blankets. Lil Pendleton
looked about it when she brought in her bag, and shivered.

"Goodness!" she said. "I'm glad we're 'way out here in the wilderness
if we're going to dress and undress in this thing. Why! I shall feel
just as much exposed as though the sides were made of window-glass."

"What nonsense!" sniffed Bobby, who had been camping with her father
and had spent many a night in a tent. "You're too particular, Lil."

"Who asked _you_ to put in your oa