that might have made some of the scoffers she referred to
anxious to eat their words. "They say we get along all right because we
always have some man ready to help us out if we get into any trouble. So
I planned this camp just to show them that we can do just as well as any
troop of Boy Scouts ever did."

"I bet we can, too," said Dolly, eagerly. "Why, with such a lot of us to
do the work, it won't be very hard for any one of us."

"Not if we all do our share, Dolly," said Eleanor, looking at her rather
pointedly. "But if some of us are always managing to disappear just when
there's work to be done, someone will have to do double duty--and that's
not fair."

"I won't--really I won't, Miss Eleanor," said Dolly. "I know I've
shirked sometimes, but I'm not going to this time. I'm going to work
hard now to be a Fire Maker. I think I've been a Wood Gatherer long
enough, don't, you?"

"You've served more time than is needed for promotion, Dolly. It's all
up to you, as the boys say. As soon as you win the honors you need you
can be a Fire Maker. You can have your new rank just as soon as you earn
it."

"Bessie and I are going to be made Fire Makers together, if we can, Miss
Eleanor. We talked that over the other day, at the farm, and I think
well be ready at the first camp fire we have after we get home."

"Well, you'll please me very much if you do. It's time the other girls
were getting up now--we've got to cook breakfast now. I'll call them
while you two build a fire--there's plenty of wood for to-day, piled up
over there."

AS Dolly had said, with each girl doing her share, the work of the camp
was light. While some of the girls did the cooking, others prepared the
"dining table"--a smooth place on the ground--and others pinned up the
bottom flaps of; the tents, after turning out the bedding, so that the
floors of the tents might be well aired. And then they all sat down,
happily and hungrily, to a breakfast that tasted just as good as had
supper the night before.

"Can we swim in the lake, Miss Eleanor?" asked Margery Burton.

"If you want to," said Eleanor, with a smile. "It's pretty cold water,
though; a good deal colder than it was at the sea shore last year. You
see, this lake is fed by springs, and in the spring the ice melts, and
the water in April and May is just like ice water. But you'll get used
to it, if you only stay in a couple of minutes at first, and get
accustomed to the chill gradually. But re