as as horrid looking as
Ethel Blue imagined.

It was not a short task to make the cave as clean as the girls wanted it
to be. The owner of the tin can had been an untidy person or else his
occupation of Fitz-James's rocks had been so long ago that Nature had
accumulated a great deal of rubbish. Whichever explanation was correct,
there were many armfuls to be removed and then the interior of the cave
had to be subjected to a thorough sweeping before the girls' ideas of
tidiness were satisfied. They had to carry all the rubbish away to some
distance, for it would not do to leave it near the cave to be an eyesore
during the happy days that they meant to spend there.

It was all done and Roger, who happened along, had made a bonfire for
them and consumed all the undesirable stuff, before the two mothers
appeared for the promised cocoa and the visit of inspection.

The girls at once set about the task of converting them to a belief in
the sheltered position of the cave and then they turned their attention
to the preparation of the feast. They had brought an alcohol stove that
consisted of a small tripod which held a tin of solid alcohol and
supported a saucepan. When packing up time came the tripod and the can
fitted into the saucepan and the handles folded about it compactly.

"We did think at first of having an old stove top that Roger saw thrown
away at Grandfather's," Ethel Brown explained. "We could build two brick
sides to hold it up and have the stone for a back and leave the front
open and run a piece of stove pipe up through that crack in the rocks."

Mrs. Morton and Mrs. Smith, who were sitting on a convenient bit of rock
just outside the cave, peered in as the description progressed.

"Then we could burn wood underneath and regulate the draft by making a
sort of blower with some piece of old sheet iron."

The mothers made no comment as Ethel Brown seemed not to have finished
her account.

"Then we thought that perhaps you'd let us have that old oil stove up in
the attic. We could set it on this flat rock on this side of the cave."

"We thought there might be some danger about that because it isn't very,
_very_ large in here, so we finally decided on this alcohol stove. It's
safe and it doesn't take up any room and this solid alcohol doesn't slop
around and set your dress afire or your table cloth, and we can really
cook a good many things on it and the rest we can cook in our own little
kitchen and bring