“I’ll wager that’s Captain Baker,” smiled Harriet, waving back to him. “He is a peculiar young man. We are under great obligations to them all, but those boys think girls are of no account. We are going to clash with them. I know we are.”
Harriet poked the fire and built it up until a cloud of smoke was ascending skyward. It was not a skilfully made fire, but Harriet had a purpose in making a great smudge that morning. She wished to show the tramps that the girls had just gotten up and were not yet ready to receive company. She had construed Captain Baker’s action in watching the camp as being for the purpose of learning when the Meadow-Brook outfit was ready to see them. As the girl cast frequent glances across the fields she saw the other members of the Tramp Club scattered about not far from their own camp, though all of the boys kept a respectful distance from the camp occupied by the girls.
Breakfast was out of the way and the camp of the Meadow-Brook Girls put to rights by ten o’clock. The travelers felt somewhat lame and stiff after their experience in the swamp. Tommy walked with a distinct limp, which Harriet accused her of putting on for effect.
“I’m not pretending,” protested Tommy indignantly. “I gueth you would walk like I do if you had been fatht in the mud motht all night.”
Harriet laughed good-naturedly.
A halloo out back of the camp cut short any further argument. It was Captain Baker with his fellow “tramps.”
“Is it too early in the morning to make our party call?” shouted George.
“No. Come right along,” called Harriet cordially. “We got up rather late this morning. Didn’t I see you sitting on the fence off yonder?”
“Yes, I was watching for a woodchuck to come out. Fellows, you’ve all met Miss Burrell, I think. And Miss Thompson.”
“Yeth I met them in the thwamp,” lisped Tommy.