't spare the time. I
got a fall job in the woods over near the reservation. You take the main
road straight north from here till you git to Bisbee's Corners. Ask at
the general store there where Joe Shafto lives and they'll steer you.
Joe said to tell you folks to get your supplies there, too. Bye." The
boy turned abruptly and walked away.

"Hold on! Not so fast, boy. How far is it to Joe's?" demanded Tom.

"Nigh onto thirty mile," flung back the boy.

"I wish I had stayed at home," wailed Emma Dean.

"We have not yet begun, dear," reminded Elfreda Briggs, to which Anne
Nesbit and Nora Wingate agreed with emphatic nods.

"Tom Gray, I fear you have made a mess of selecting a guide to pilot us
through the Big North Woods of Minnesota," declared Grace with a
doubtful shake of the head.

"I can't help that. I engaged Shafto on the recommendation of the
postmaster of this very town. He wrote me that, according to his
information, no man in the state knows the woods so well as this fellow
Shafto does. At my request, the postmaster engaged him for us, so don't
blame me because Joe is doing the family washing instead of being here
to meet us," retorted Tom with a show of impatience.

"Lay it to the postmaster and let it go at that," suggested Hippy
good-naturedly.

"Tom, I am really amazed that you, a woodsman and a professional
forester, should require the services of a guide," teased Anne.

"I don't. The guide is for you folks. Of course I know how to keep from
getting lost, but I shall not be with you all the time, so--"

"Come, let's get busy," urged Hippy. "Nora, if you will kindly hold
Hindenburg, Tom and I will unload the ponies. Ready, Thomas?"

Tom said he was. The palace horsecar attached to their train had already
been shunted to a siding, and the ponies of the Overland Riders were
found to have made the journey from the east without injury. Quite an
assemblage of villagers had gathered to witness the operation of
unloading the ponies, and they gazed with interest as each Overland girl
in turn stepped up to claim her mount as it was led slipping down the
gangway. Hippy Wingate's pony, a western bronco that he had acquired
that summer, was the last of the ponies in the car. "Ginger," as its
owner had named it because of its fiery temper, being unusually free
with his heels, had been separated from the other animals in the car by
bars, the bars now bearing marks made by his sharp hoofs.

"Tom, please fetc