“We did,” replied Mrs. Evans sweetly. “It wasn’t our fault that you misunderstood our note.”
“I’d like to see anybody that wouldn’t have misunderstood it,” retorted Mr. Evans.
“Don’t be cross, dearest,” said Mrs. Evans, still more sweetly. “Of course you misunderstood our note; we meant that you should. You have played so many tricks on us that we thought it was time we played one on you. We intended to stay up there until you had supper all ready and then come down to the feast, and planned on a nice enjoyable time seeing you work. But the reality surpassed the expectation by a hundred miles. We never expected to see such a show as we did. When you sent the searching party out after us we were nearly convulsed; the spectacle of Slim sitting there in that apron paring potatoes with the butcher knife was almost fatal to the branch I sat on; but when he tripped and sat down in the tomato kettle it was beyond human endurance and we just naturally exploded. Now won’t you forgive us and introduce your guest? He seems to have made himself quite at home already.”
Mr. Evans came to himself with a start and performed 123 the introduction. It was impossible to be formal with the colonel in that ridiculous short apron, and every introduction was accompanied by a fresh peal of laughter.
“The idea of deceiving your good husband like that,” said the colonel, “and deliberately writing misleading notes! I shall entertain a very equivocal opinion of you young ladies,” he continued with twinkling eyes. “The Point of Pines, indeed!”
“Well, weren’t we at the Point of Pines, I’d like to know?” demanded Katherine. “There was the point of a pine poking me in the back all the while. If you’d been up in that pine you would have appreciated the point. And if we couldn’t get down again we would have had to stay there all night.”
Supper was ready to serve before anybody remembered about the Captain, who had been sent over to the real Point of Pines to look for the girls. Slim and Pitt immediately went after him and met him when they had gone half way across the lake, returning to camp with the discouraging news that he had not been able to find anybody on the Point.
“Was there ever such a topsy turvy day as this?” asked Gladys, as they sat around the glowing camp fire that night after supper. “First Katherine gets us up at half past three on a false alarm; we have crew practice and then go back to bed and don’t get up until nine. And things have kept happening all day until the grand climax just now. Some days 124 stand out like that from all others as the day on which everything happened.”
Colonel Berry was a delightful talker and told many stories of his life as a guide in northwestern Canada, as well as many anecdotes of the Indians among whom he lived for some time.
“Colonel Berry,” said Hinpoha during one of the pauses in his speech, “may I ask you something?”