Well might Mollie ask: “What are we going to do now?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Betty in reply to the question. But the next moment she had rallied and spoke in her ordinary voice.
“It’s hard luck, of course,” she said, “but after all it’s nothing to cry about. We’ll have to put up a tent, that’s all.”
“But we haven’t any,” protested Amy. “You know we didn’t bring any with us.”
“And we can’t stay in this forsaken place, without some sort of shelter,” added Grace, looking up anxiously to where the sky shone grayly through the trees. “Oh, girls, I think this is awful.”
“Well, what do you want to do about it?” asked the Little Captain, exasperated into losing her patience. “Do you want to go home and confess that you were stumped by the first little obstacle you found in your way? That would be fine for the Outdoor Girls, I must say.”
“No, of course we don’t want to do any such thing,” said Mollie, stoutly. “We’ll stay and face it out some way. Although I must say,” she could not help adding, “that I don’t see how it’s to be done.”
“There’s the tarpaulin,” said Betty, her quick brain already working eagerly. “We’ve been camping enough and seen the boys erect enough tents to know how the job is done.”
“Oh, we could put up a real tent all right,” agreed Grace, enthusiasm for the adventure beginning to revive as she saw Betty’s plan. “But I don’t see how we can use a tarpaulin——”
“Neither do I,” confessed the Little Captain, with a whimsical chuckle. “But before I’m many minutes older I’m going to find out. Amy dear, would you mind stealing the tarpaulin from the Gem? It’s a mean thing to do I know, but we need it just now more than the boat does.”