been particularly intimate, and with these three leading spirits
cast down gloom was thick everywhere. Morning Sing went flat--the high
tenors couldn't keep in tune without Mary to lead them, and nobody else
could make the gestures for The Lone Fish Ball. It seemed strange, too,
to see Dr. Grayson's chair empty, and to do without his jolly morning
talk. Everyone who had gotten up early was full of yawns and out of
sorts.

"What's the matter with everybody?" asked Katherine of Jean Lawrence, as
they cleaned up Bedlam for tent inspection. "Camp looks like a funeral."

Jean's dimples were nowhere in evidence and her face looked unnaturally
solemn as she bent over her bed to straighten the blankets.

"It feels like one, too," replied Jean, still grave. "With Bengal crying
all over the place and Miss Judy looking so cut up it's enough to dampen
everybody's spirits."

Talk lapsed between the two and each went on cleaning up her side of the
tent. A moment later, however, Jean's dimples came back again when she
came upon Katherine's toothbrush in one of her tennis shoes. That
toothbrush had disappeared two days before and the tent had been turned
upside down in a vain search for it.

Katherine pounced upon the truant toilet article gleefully. "Look in
your other shoe," she begged Jean, "and see if you can find my fountain
pen. That's missing too."

Jean obligingly shook out her shoe, but no pen came to light.

"There's something dark in the bottom of the water pitcher," announced
Oh-Pshaw, who was setting the toilet table to rights. "Maybe that's it."

She bared her arm to the elbow and plunged it into the water, but
withdrew it immediately with a shriek that caused Katherine and Jean to
drop their bed-making in alarm.

"What's the matter?" asked Katherine.

"It's an animal, a horrid, dead animal!" Oh-Pshaw gasped shudderingly,
backing precipitously away from the water pitcher. "It's furry, and
soft, and--ugh! stiff!"

"What is it?" demanded Katherine, peering curiously into the pitcher, in
whose slightly turbid depths she could see a dark object lying.

"Don't touch it!" begged Oh-Pshaw, as Katherine's hand went down into
the water.

"Nonsense," scoffed Katherine, "a dead creature can't hurt you. See,
it's only a little mouse that fell into the pitcher and got drowned.
Poor little mousy, it's a shame he had to meet such a sad fate when he
came to visit us."

"Katherine Adams, put that mouse away!" cried Oh-Ps