“Katherine, you awful, awful, wonderful, wonderful girl, how did you manage to do it?” gasped Gladys, breathless with astonishment.
“And when did you get on the train?” cried Hinpoha in the same breath. “You didn’t get on with us.”
“I got into the wrong street car this morning,” replied Katherine, producing her glasses from her sweater pocket and polishing them on the end of her muffler, “and got carried east instead of west. When I found it out there wasn’t time to come back to the Union Station, so I went on out to the Lakeside Station and go on the train there. I had planned to be waiting for you on the step when we got into the Union, but on the way out I met a magazine seller and had an inspiration. I bribed him to let me take his cap and books and coat for ten minutes. The mustache I had with me. I thought it might be useful in case I should be called up to perform a ‘stunt’ at Lonesome Creek. The rest you already know, as they say in the novels.” She tossed the borrowed plumage into an empty seat and settled herself beside Slim.
“By the way,” she said quizzically, looking at the boys, “what was it I heard you declaring a while ago, that no girl could masquerade as a boy and really fool a boy?”
“Pooh, you didn’t really fool us,” said Slim.
“Oh, no, I didn’t,” jeered Katherine.
“Well, we’d have found you out before long,” said the Captain.
“Maybe you would and maybe you wouldn’t,” said Katherine. “The only thing I noticed you doing was looking with envy at my little mustache.”
The Captain blushed furiously and the rest shouted with laughter.
“Anyway, Nyoda knew me first,” she continued, “and that shows that girls are smarter than boys. I can just see us being fooled by one of you dressed as a girl.”