ock overhanging the lake, was
made short work of, for tonight was to be held the first Council
Fire.

"What's going to happen?" asked Gladys of Nyoda, watching the
girls scrambling out of their bloomers and middies and into brown
khaki dresses trimmed with leather fringe.

"Ceremonial Meeting," answered Nyoda, slipping on a pair of
beaded moccasins.

"What's that?" asked Gladys.

"You'll see," said Nyoda. "Follow the girls when I call them."

Nyoda slipped out of her tent and disappeared into the woods. In
a few minutes a clear call rang out through the stillness:
"Wohelo, Wohelo, come ye all Wohelo." The girls stepped forward
in a single file, their arms folded in front of them, singing as
they went, "Wohelo, Wohelo, come we all Wohelo." Gladys followed
at the tail of the procession.

Nyoda stood in the center of a circular space about twenty feet
across among the trees, completely surrounded by high pines. In
the middle the fire was laid. The girls took their places in the
circle, and Gladys, now arrayed in bloomers and middy, with her
hair down in two braids and a leather band around her forehead,
sat under a tree and looked on. Not being a Camp Fire Girl she
could not sit in the Council Circle. Nyoda made fire with the
bow and drill, and when the leaping flames lit up the circle of
faces the girls sprang to their feet and sang, "Burn, fire,
burn," and then, "Mystic Fire," with its dramatic gestures.
Gladys, sitting in the shadows, looked on curiously at the
fantastically clad figures passing back and forth around the fire
singing,

"Ghost-dance round the mystic ring,
Faces in the starlight glow,
Maids of Wohelo.
Praises to Wokanda sing,
While the music soft and low
Rubbing sticks grind slow.
Dusky forest now darker grown,
Broods in silence o'er its own,
Till the wee spark to a flame has blown,
And living fire leaps up to greet
The song of Wohelo."

As they chanted the words the girls acted out with gestures the
dancing ghosts, the brooding forest, the rubbing sticks and the
leaping fire. So they proceeded through the strange measures,
ending up in a close circle around the fire, all making the hand
sign of fire together. Gladys began to be stirred with a desire
to sit in the circle.

When the girls were again seated in their original places and the
roll called, Nyoda rose and read the rules of camp. No one was
to leave the camp without telli