e exclaimed. "Please, please don't think I'm
ungrateful. I want to do whatever you think is right--"

"I know that, Bessie, and I know just what you were thinking, too. Well,
you're going to have a surprise--I can promise you that. This farm isn't
a bit like the farm you know about. I guess you know too much about one
sort of farm to want ever to see another, don't you?"

"Maybe there are different sorts of farms," admitted Bessie. "I don't
like Paw Hoover's kind."

Eleanor laughed again. She was a fresh, bright-cheeked girl, not so many
years older than Bessie herself. One might guess, indeed, that she, as
Guardian of her Camp Fire, didn't much more than manage to fulfill the
requirement that Guardians, like Scoutmasters among the Boy Scouts, must
be over twenty-one years of age.

"Indeed there are different sorts of farms from that one, Bessie," she
said. "You'll see a farm where everything is done the way it should be,
and, while I think Paw Hoover's a mighty nice man, I've got an idea that
on his farm everything is done just about opposite to the proper
fashion."

"When are we going, Miss Eleanor?"

Zara asked that question. In the last few days a hunted look had left
Zara's eyes, for with relief from certain worries she had begun to be
happier, and she was always asking questions now.

"I don't know exactly, Zara, but not right away. We want all the girls
to go out together. We're going to have our next Council Fire at the
farm. And some of them can't get away just now. But it will be fairly
soon, I can promise you that. You like the country, don't you, Zara?"

"Indeed I do, Miss Eleanor! Until they took my father away I was ever so
happy there."

"And just think, you're going to see him tomorrow, Zara! He's well, and
as soon as he heard that you were here and safe, he stopped worrying.
That was his chief trouble--he seemed to think more about what would
happen to you than that he was in trouble himself."

"I knew he'd be thinking about me," said Zara, "He always did, even when
he had most to bother him."

"I was sure he was a good father, Zara, when I heard you talk about
him--and I've been surer of it than ever since I've had a chance to find
out about him. My cousin, who's a lawyer, you know, is going to see that
he is properly treated, and be says that Mr. Weeks, who tried so hard to
make you stay behind and work for him, is at the bottom of all the
trouble."

Zara shuddered at the name.

"How