at the leg, which, it appeared, had been hurt, but was
mending. Assuring herself this was all right the child perched the bird
on her shoulder and stood there a picture for the eye of an artist.

Standing at a little distance the girls regarded her cautiously. There
she stood in her bare feet, with a tattered dress, her hair cropped out
as if cut with a single snip of a powerful scissors, and that pretty
bird perched contentedly on her shoulder!

After satisfying her inclination for this unconscious pose, she cuddled
the bird in the crook of her arm, and again confronted the girls.

"You don't ever want to interfere with anything around here," she
warned, assuming again the high pitched voice. "And if you don't run
away you might miss your boat."

"Oh, we wouldn't mind," Grace had courage to say. "We are not afraid of
the woods, and it's early yet. There seem to be other people here who
have to get back to Sea Crest."

"Snoopin' eh?" sneered the girl again. "Well, you want to watch out.
You're the smarties that tried to drown Bentley, ain't you?"

"Who said we ever tried to drown any one?" demanded Cleo, stepping up to
the girl, whose bare feet looked almost black, and whose short hair
stood around her face with the wildest effect--almost Fiji, the girls
thought.

"Well, I ain't saying Bentley did," she answered, "but some one did, and
you better be gettin'."

"Seems to me you are not very polite," said Louise. "Here we offer to
help you fix up your bird, and you try to chase us," she declared.
"Well, we are in no hurry, and don't you go saying anything about us
drowning folks, do you hear?" and Louise surprised herself with her
courage. "We saved a boy from drowning the other day, and were glad to
do it, but we had nothing to do with the accident, and it won't be well
for any one to spread malicious reports about us either!"

Had the other scouts dared they would have applauded, but the occasion
demanded different tactics.

"Oh, ain't you smart! I suppose you're scouts too, in them rigs. Maybe
you'll go tattlin' on me and try to have me 'pinched.' Well, there ain't
nobody 'round here dasts to touch me, so you needn't bother."

"We had no idea of tattling on you, but it seems you have taken a lot of
trouble to bother us, since we came," retorted Cleo.

"And you was down on the beach when the barrel went off and burned some
of the guards things, wasn't you?" she went on, ignoring the charge Cleo
had made.