"Sort of," said Bunker.
"Oh, how nice!" cried Sue. "I just love to guess secrets! Let me have a turn, Bunny."
The two children sat down in the shade near the tent. Bunker kept on making sharp-pointed sticks with his knife. Over in the dining-tent Tom Vine was setting the dinner table. This was some days after the cross man had come to the camp and had gone away. He had not come back since.
"Well, what is your guess, Sue?" asked Bunker, as he kept on making the sharp-pointed sticks.
"Let me see," pondered the little girl. "Oh! I know what they are for. You're going to put some other pieces of wood on the end of these sticks, Bunker, and make croquet mallets of them so we can have a game!"
"Is that it?" asked Bunny. "Is it for croquet?"
"No, that isn't what they're for," answered Bunker, smiling.
"Anyhow," went on Bunny Brown, "we couldn't play croquet in the woods here, 'cause we haven't any croquet balls."
"Oh, we might use round stones, mightn't we, Bunker?" Sue asked.
"Yes, we might," replied Bunker slowly, as he laid down one sharp-pointed stick and began whittling another. "We might, but that isn't the secret."