"Did she say you couldn't?" asked Sahwah.
"No," said Hinpoha, "for I never even asked her if I might go along with you in the launch. I knew it would be no use."
"Oh, please stay," tempted some of the girls; "your aunt'll never know the difference."
"Oh, I couldn't do that," said Hinpoha in a tone of horror. A little approving smile crept around the corners of Nyoda's eyes as she heard Hinpoha so resolutely bidding Satan get behind her. Mrs. Evans was genuinely sorry they had encountered the girls, because it made it so much harder for Hinpoha.
"I wonder," she said musingly, "if I drove on to a house in the road and telephoned your aunt that she would let you stay?"
"You might try," said Hinpoha doubtfully. Mrs. Evans thought it was worth trying. She found a house with a telephone and got Aunt Phoebe on the wire. With the utmost tact she explained how they had met the girls accidently, and that she had taken a notion that she would like to spend the day with them, but of course she could not do so unless Hinpoha would be allowed to stay with her, as she had charge of her for the day. What was Aunt Phoebe to do? She was not equal to telling the admired Mrs. Evans to forego her pleasure because of Hinpoha, and gave a grudging consent to her keeping her niece with her on the condition that she would bring her home in the machine and not let her come back in the launch with the Winnebagos. Jubilant, they returned to the girls in the gorge and told the good news.
"Cheer for Mrs. Evans," cried Sahwah, and the Winnebagos gave it with a hearty good will.
Hinpoha, with Sahwah close beside her, began I searching for firewood industriously. "It seems just like last summer," she said, chopping sticks with Sahwah's hatchet. The two had wandered off a short distance from the others, following a tiny footpath. Suddenly they came upon a huge rock formation, that looked like an immense fireplace, about forty feet wide and twenty or more feet high. Under that great stone arch a dozen spits, each big enough to hold a whole ox, might easily have swung. Sahwah and Hinpoha looked at it in amazement and then called for the other girls to come and see.
"Why, that's the 'Old Maid's Kitchen,'" said Mrs. Evans, when she arrived on the scene. "I've been here before. Just why it should be called the Old Maid's Kitchen is more than I can tell, for it looks like the fireplace belonging to the grand-mother of all giantesses."
"Let's build our fire inside of it," said Nyoda.