Long before noon everything was ready, and Wanaka, who had gone away for a time, returned.
"You and Zara look so different that I don't believe anyone would recognize either of you," she told Bessie. "You look just like the rest of the girls. So, even if we should meet anyone who knows you, I think you'd be safe enough."
"Not if it was Maw Hoover," said Zara so earnestly that Wanaka laughed, although she felt that there was something pathetic about Zara's fear of the farmer's wife, too.
"Well, we're not going to meet her, anyhow, Zara. And she'd never expect to find you and Bessie among us, anyhow. We aren't going across the lake and over to the main road. We're going right through the woods to the next valley. It's going to be a long day's trip, but it's cool, and I think a good long tramp will do us all good."
"That's fine," said Bessie. "No one over there will know anything about us. Is that why we made so many sandwiches and things like that—so that we could eat our lunch on the way?"
"Yes, and we'll build a fire and have something hot, too. Now you can watch us put out the fire."
"I hate to see it go out," said Zara. "I love the fire."
"We all do, but we must never leave a fire without someone to tend it. Fire is a great servant, but we must use it properly. And a little fire, even this one of ours, might start a bad blaze in the woods here if we left it behind us."
Bessie nodded wisely.
"We had an awful bad fire here two or three years ago. It was just before Zara came out here. Someone was out in the woods hunting, or something like that, and they left a fire, and the wind came up and set the trees on fire. It burned for three or four days, and all the men in the town had to turn out to save some of the places near the woods."