"Rustle something for the makin's, and we'll have heat and a hot drink
right smart," she called.

While Hippy tied the ponies and fetched water for them, Tom gathered
firewood and started the fire for breakfast. Tea, being the quickest
drink to make, was brewed, and gulped down by the Overlanders almost as
fast as Joe could, pour it.

"How fu--fu--funny you look," chattered Emma, nodding at Miss Briggs.

"If I look as funny as I feel, I must be a scream," retorted Elfreda.

"Here, here! Don't I get any of that?" cried Hippy, coming up at a run.

Tea was served to him.

"Ah-h-h-h! Nectar of the gods! Now if some one will kindly prepare a
little food, I shall offer deep and sincere thanks; then seek my downy
couch for sweet repose."

"Hippy is the first to thaw out," chuckled Tom.

"He always was soft, anyway," reminded Emma.

"And we are all blue-noses this morning," added Nora laughingly.

Under the warming influence of the tea, their spirits soon revived, and
when the campfire was laid and set going a little distance from the
small cook fire, sighs of relief were heard on all sides.

Day was just breaking when the party laid down by the fire for a much
needed rest. Pine needles were their beds that morning. No one had the
ambition to help build a lean-to, nor did one care to wait for some one
else to make it.

Noon found them still asleep, with the exception of Grace, who had risen
two hours earlier to get breakfast for Tom who was about to leave for
his work, perhaps not to return for some weeks. The Overlanders were to
make a permanent camp further down on the Little Big Branch, and, when
Tom Gray returned from his first "cruise," he was to follow the river
until he found them.

"Rather indefinite," laughed Grace. "However, you aren't much of a
woodsman if you can't find us with such directions, though don't cut off
the bends in the river or you surely will miss us. We do not intend that
our camp shall be over-conspicuous."

Tom said his good-bye and, mounting, rode away and disappeared in the
forest. Grace stirred up the fire and added fresh wood so that her
companions might have warmth, for the morning was chill, and then called
them.

Spirals of smoke were rising above the trees from the campfire. Joe
Shafto looked up at it, and shook her head disapprovingly.

"If there's one low-down jack within fifty mile of us on high ground,
he'll have us spotted for certain," she rebuked. "Great fire--great