"Only mind this," she said, "you must not be running backwards and forwards to the house all day long. Get what you want in the morning, and stay out all day, as if you were having a picnic miles off from home. I shall not expect you in till tea-time, and you must get your wood for the fire yourselves, not take any of mine from the wood-shed. And be sure to have your fire out of reach of the apple trees, or you will be burning them."
The children were delighted.
"It is nice to have Charlie back," said Hope; "he always thinks of such jolly things."
Charlie was as good as his word. John Lucas, the blacksmith's son, came along, and soon made the tent firm for the children. He brought a couple of extra poles and made a splendid framework for a tent. Charity got hold of some more old sacks, and the little girls worked hard all that day making their tent as comfortable as they could.
The next morning they could hardly eat any breakfast from excitement. Aunt Alice gave them a little kettle and an old saucepan, and a few cracked cups and saucers. Then she made up a basket of food, and delivered it into Charity's hands.
When they went out into the orchard at nine o'clock, they found Charlie had already arrived. He had trundled a small wheelbarrow down from his home, with a lot of his pet possessions. They spent nearly an hour in adorning their tent. He had an old leopard skin, which was placed on the ground. Some curious assegais and old bows and arrows he fastened up inside, and then he showed the little girls about a dozen skins of different small animals, which he had cured and mounted himself. There was a badger's skin, a stoat's, a grey rat's, and four or five mole skins. These he pinned up round the tent with great pride. Then over the entrance, he fastened up with string a dreadful-looking skull. It really belonged to an old sheep, but he said:
"This keeps away Indians and bushrangers. It shows I kill my enemies with the greatest ease."
Then underneath the skull, he put up a big printed paper. The letters were all painted in red ink.
"Here lives Captain Charles, the Great Hunter and Lion Killer. Trespassers will be shot without warning."
"What will you shoot them with?" asked Charity.