uld work late at night and most of the day,
too, making things she never saw. Then he'd go off for two or three days
at a time, and Zara thought he went to the city, because when he came
back he always had money--not very much, but enough to buy food and
clothes for them. And she said he always seemed to be disappointed and
unhappy when he came back."

"And the people in the village thought he was a counterfeiter--that he
made bad money?"

"That's what Maw Hoover and Jake said. _They_ thought so, I know."

"People think they know a lot when they're only guessing, sometimes,
Bessie. A man has a right to keep his business to himself if he wants
to, as long as he doesn't do anything that's wrong. But why didn't Zara
stay? If her father was cleared and came back, they couldn't keep her at
the poor-farm or make her go to work for this Farmer Weeks you speak
of."

"I don't know. She was afraid, and so was I. They call her a gypsy
because she's so dark. And people say she steals chickens. I know she
doesn't, because once or twice when they said she'd done that, she'd
been in the woods with me, walking about. And another time I saw a hawk
swoop down and take one of Maw Hoover's hens, and she was always sure
that Zara'd done that."

Wanaka had watched Bessie very closely while she told her story.
Bessie's clear, frank eyes that never fell, no matter how Wanaka stared
into them, seemed to the older girl a sure sign that Bessie was telling
the truth.

"It sounds as if you'd had a pretty hard time, and as if you hadn't had
much chance," she said, gravely. "It's strange about your parents."

Bessie's eyes filled with tears.

"Oh, something must have happened to them--something dreadful," she
said. "Or else I'm sure they would never have left me that way. And I
don't believe what Maw Hoover was always saying--that they were glad to
get rid of me, and didn't care anything about me."

"Neither do I," said Wanaka. "Bessie, I want to help you and Zara. And I
think I can--that we all can, we Camp Fire Girls. You know that's what
we live for--to help people, and to love them and serve them. You heard
us singing the Wohelo cheer when we first saw you. Wohelo means work,
and health, and love. You see, it's a word we made up by taking the
first two letters of each of those words. I tell you what I'm going to
do. You and Zara must stay with us here to-day. The girls will look
after you. And I'm going into the village and while I'm t