"I may one of these days if the girls fail to find it. I wish to see if they are good trailers. But we are forgetting to eat breakfast. Just now I am more in need of breakfast than of buried treasure."
"Yes, girls, please eat your breakfast. We must put the camp to rights as soon as we finish, for I have an idea that we may have visitors before the day is done," urged Mrs. Livingston.
The Wau-Wau girls were too much excited over Harriet's words to be particularly interested in the subject of visitors just then, so they hurried their breakfast, discussing the new Torch Bearer's veiled suggestions, eager to have done with the morning meal and the morning work that they might try to solve this delightful mystery. Harriet was well satisfied with the excitement she had stirred, though having done so would rather bar her from carrying out certain plans that she had had in mind ever since the previous night.
Later in the morning, however, under pretext of wishing to get pine boughs for her bed, she, with Tommy, strolled off into the woods, but beyond locating the spot where she had lain when the man stumbled over her in the darkness she made no progress toward solving the mystery. Not the slightest trace of the box did she discover. Of course, Harriet did not hope to find the mysterious box standing in plain sight, but she could not imagine what they had done with it in so brief a time. She did not dare make much of a point of searching about, observing that Tommy was regarding her keenly during the morning stroll.
With her belt hatchet Harriet selected and cut such boughs as she desired and placed them in a pile, afterward to be carried out to the cabin on the Lonesome Bar. Later on they were assisted by the other Meadow-Brook Girls. They covered the floor of the cabin with the fragrant green boughs until Tommy declared that it made her "thleepy" just to smell it. In the meantime, those of their companions who were not engaged with camp duties were strolling about along the beach near the camp, discussing what Harriet had told them at breakfast that morning. It was all right to tell them to pick up the trail, but what trail was it, and how were they to find it? Even the guardians were not beyond curiosity in the matter, and they, too, when they thought themselves unobserved, might have been seen looking eagerly about for the "trail." All this amused Harriet Burrell very much.
With her group, Harriet was at the cabin arranging the boughs, when they were summoned to camp by three blasts of the fish horn used for the various signals employed by Camp Wau-Wau. Something had happened in camp.
"Thomebody hath found it!" cried Tommy, shooting a quick glance of inquiry at Harriet Burrell. The latter flushed, then burst out laughing after a look toward the miniature forest of spindling pines.
"I hope they have. But I may tell you, my dear Tommy, that they haven't found either the trail or my buried treasure."
"You must know pretty well where it is," said Miss Elting, eyeing Harriet steadily for a few seconds. "Come, we must not delay answering that summons."
They did not delay. The Meadow-Brook Girls responded promptly, making a run for it in good order.