It was so funny to hear them all saying the same thing at once that the Winnebagos could not help laughing aloud. The confusion of the boys was so painful that the girls actually felt sorry for them.
“There are only seven of you,” said Sahwah, as usual breaking the silence first. “I thought at first there were hundreds.”
Here one of the boys found his voice to speak. He was a tall boy with curly brown hair and nice eyes, and his face was suffused with blushes of embarrassment. “Sorry to disturb you girls,” he said soberly, but with a twinkle in his eye. “We were chasing him”—and he pointed to the fat boy still puffing away for dear life on the floor—“and we couldn’t see any light from the outside and we didn’t know anybody was up here and when Slim ran in we just followed him. We’ll go right away again, and let you go on with your meeting.”
Nyoda looked from one face to the other—nice refined boys they were, she decided, and it would do no hurt to show them courtesy. “You needn’t be in such a great hurry to go,” she said cordially. “You may at least stay until you have recovered your breath.” And she looked quizzically at the fat boy leaning against the bearskins who did not seem ever to be going to breathe again.
He tried to show his appreciation of her hospitality by getting up and making a bow, which threw him into such an advanced stage of breathlessness that he sank down again directly and had to be fanned. This caused another general laugh and the boys and girls rubbed elbows so closely trying to revive him that all feeling of embarrassment vanished and it suddenly seemed as if they were old friends, in spite of the fact that none of them knew the others’ names. Nyoda came to herself with a start.
“Excuse us, boys,” she said, “for not introducing ourselves. I am Miss Kent, Guardian of the Winnebago Camp Fire Girls, and these are the Winnebagos,” and she named them in order. “We were having a rather doleful time when you arrived. You broke up the spell of gloom and we are deeply grateful.”
The tall boy spoke again, this time smiling broadly. “We’re the ones who ought to apologize for not introducing ourselves,” he said in a pleasant voice, “since we have caused so much disturbance. We’re the Sandwich Club,” he continued, including all the boys in a sweeping gesture of his hand. “We go to Carnegie Mechanic. That’s Slim over there,” he said, pointing to the fat one, while all the girls laughed. “His real name’s Lewis Carlton, but it’s so long since anyone has called him that that he’s forgotten what it is himself. We chase him all over the country to reduce him, but sometimes he gives us the slip and hides and it takes us so long to find him that in the meantime he gains more than he lost while we were chasing him.”
The girls fairly shouted at this and Slim doubled up a cushion-like fist and declared in a choking voice that if the fellows didn’t leave him in peace he’d sit down on them some day and that would be the end of them. The tall boy who was doing the introducing smiled sweetly at Slim and went on with the introductions.
“This one,” he said, indicating an extremely thin, hungry-looking, gaunt-featured lad with sombre brown eyes and a grave mouth, “is Bill Pitt. ‘Bottomless Pitt,’ we call him, because it’s impossible to fill him up. You girls have heard of the Sheep Eaters?” he asked suddenly, looking from one to the other.
“Yes,” chorused the Winnebagos, not wishing to appear ignorant, but not sure whether the Sheep Eaters were beasts of prey or persons overfond of mutton.