beads of perspiration on her brow and the chestnut curls damp.
Helen threw down the blankets, and then, gathering courage--for she felt
as if her back was broken--she endeavored to sit up. In vain! Her spirit
was willing, but her muscles refused to act. It must take a violent
spasmodic effort. She tried it with shut eyes, and, succeeding, sat
there trembling. The commotion she had made in the blankets awoke Bo,
and she blinked her surprised blue eyes in the sunlight.

"Hello--Nell! do I have to--get up?" she asked, sleepily.

"Can you?" queried Helen.

"Can I what?" Bo was now thoroughly awake and lay there staring at her
sister.

"Why--get up."

"I'd like to know why not," retorted Bo, as she made the effort. She got
one arm and shoulder up, only to flop back like a crippled thing. And
she uttered the most piteous little moan. "I'm dead! I know--I am!"

"Well, if you're going to be a Western girl you'd better have spunk
enough to move."

"A-huh!" ejaculated Bo. Then she rolled over, not without groans, and,
once upon her face, she raised herself on her hands and turned to a
sitting posture. "Where's everybody?... Oh, Nell, it's perfectly lovely
here. Paradise!"

Helen looked around. A fire was smoldering. No one was in sight.
Wonderful distant colors seemed to strike her glance as she tried to fix
it upon near-by objects. A beautiful little green tent or shack had been
erected out of spruce boughs. It had a slanting roof that sloped all the
way from a ridge-pole to the ground; half of the opening in front was
closed, as were the sides. The spruce boughs appeared all to be laid in
the same direction, giving it a smooth, compact appearance, actually as
if it had grown there.

"That lean-to wasn't there last night?" inquired Bo.

"I didn't see it. Lean-to? Where'd you get that name?"

"It's Western, my dear. I'll bet they put it up for us.... Sure, I see
our bags inside. Let's get up. It must be late."

The girls had considerable fun as well as pain in getting up and keeping
each other erect until their limbs would hold them firmly. They were
delighted with the spruce lean-to. It faced the open and stood just
under the wide-spreading shelf of rock. The tiny outlet from the spring
flowed beside it and spilled its clear water over a stone, to fall into
a little pool. The floor of this woodland habitation consisted of tips
of spruce boughs to about a foot in depth, all laid one way, smooth and
springy, and so