gered!" she exclaimed feelingly. "All that trouble
to bring me out of a fit of the blues!"

"Boys," she went on in her best oratorical manner, "you certainly did
give us a surprise party tonight, much more of a one than you planned.
We came prepared to rescue Eeny-Meeny from a fiery death--witness the
water buckets concealed behind every bush on the hillside--and we find
some perfectly gorgeous council seats that you have been toiling to make
in secret while we suspected you of plotting base deeds. Instead of
seeking to destroy Eeny-Meeny you plan to honor her. Girls, let's make
fruit punch and drink to the health of the Sandwiches, and a long life
to the council seats, and to Eeny-Meeny on her pedestal."

"And don't forget the Dark of the Moon Society," added Sahwah, and once
more the woods resounded with laughter.

CHAPTER X

TWO MARINERS AND SOME MIST

"There's one thing about those girls that always takes my breath away,"
said Mr. Evans, "and that is their ability to get up a show on a
moment's notice. The most common circumstance seems to be charged with
dramatic possibilities for them. And nothing seems too ambitious for
them to attempt." Having delivered this speech, Mr. Evans leaned back
against the cliff and watched with amused eyes the performance of the
"latest."

Mrs. Evans and Uncle Teddy and Aunt Clara, who were sitting with him,
agreed that "our girls," aided and abetted by "our boys," were equal to
anything.

The dramatic representation then in progress was another inspiration of
Katherine's, which had come to her when Sandhelo, getting lonesome in
his high pasture ground, had followed the others to the beach, walking
down a steep side of the cliff by a path so narrow and perilous that it
was never used by the campers. But Sandhelo, being a trick mule,
accomplished the feat without difficulty. The bathers watched his
descent in fascinated silence. They feared to shout at him and so make
him miss his step.

"Doesn't it remind you of that piece in the Fourth Reader about the
mule?" said Hinpoha. "The one that goes:

'And near him a mule bell came tinkling
Midway on the Paso del Mar.'

I forgot how it begins."

"Oh, you mean 'The Fight of the Paso del Mar,'" said Migwan. "The one
where the two fight and tumble over into the sea. I wore the page that
poem was on completely out of the book reading it so often, and wished
and wished I had been there to see it happen."

"So did