“Just like those on my ink-stand,” cried Alice, excitedly. “How queer!”
Everybody had seen the picturesque little figures by this time, and the figures in their turn had spied the riding-party and had begun to dance merrily in the fire-light. They were dressed in brown from head to foot, with long ears on their brown hoods and long, pointed toes curling up at the ends of their brown shoes. They looked exactly like the little iron figures of brownies that every Harding girl who kept up with the prevailing fads had put on her desk that spring in some useful or ornamental capacity. They danced indefatigably, pausing now and then to heap on fresh wood or to poke the fire into a more effective blaze, and looking, in the weird light, quite fantastic enough to have come out of the little hillside behind the fire, tempted to upper earth by the moonlight and the great pile of dry wood left ready to their hands. For a few minutes after the Moonshiners’ arrival the trolls resolutely refused to speak.
“’Cause now you’ll know we ain’t real magic,” explained Billy Henderson indignantly, when his chum had fallen a victim to Bob’s wiles and disclosed his identity.
The fire was so big and so hot by this time that it threatened to burn up the whole grove, so the small boys were persuaded to devote their energies to toasting thin slices of bacon, held on the ends of long sticks, and later to help pass the rolls and coffee that went with the bacon, and to brown the marshmallows, which, with delicious little nut-cakes, made up the last course.
The Moonshiners had spent so much time admiring Babbie’s brownies that they had to hurry through the supper and even so it bid fair to be after ten before they reached the campus. Betty, Bob, and Madeline happened to get back to the horses first and were waiting impatiently for the rest to come when Bob made a suggestion.
“Mr. Ware is helping stamp out the fire. Let’s get on and start for home ahead of the others. Then we can let most of them in if they’re late. Our matron will rage if she catches us again this week.”
“All right,” agreed Madeline. “Mr. Ware said he had told a man to be at the Westcott, ready to take some of the horses. Let’s not tell any one. They’ll be so surprised to find three horses gone.”
“We shall have to hurry then,” whispered Betty. “They’ll be here any minute.”
“On second thought,” said Madeline, “I don’t believe I can pick out my own horse. It’s inky dark here under the trees.” Madeline had ridden all her life but she seldom went out at Harding, and so hadn’t a regular mount, like most of the other Moonshiners.
“Of course you can, Madeline,” scoffed Betty. “You rode Hero, that big black beast hitched to the last post, next to my horse. Don’t you remember tying him there?”