Amy agreed, and Betty fell to work giving orders like any general. And, like any general who is worth his salt, she herself headed the fray, working twice as hard as any of her army.
“Suppose you bring me some of those fallen branches, Grace and Mollie,” she said. “Thank goodness for the storm they must have had here that ripped off all those perfectly good props for us.
“Try to bring me only those of the same length, girls, and pass them up if they’re brittle and rotten. I tell you, if we keep on like this we’ll have a perfectly good shelter before we know it. Just a minute—I’ll run and get my knife.”
Betty ran back to the Gem and passed Amy carrying the tarpaulin.
“Back in a minute,” gasped the Little Captain, adding to herself as she clambered aboard the boat: “It’s stopped raining. That’s one stroke of luck.”
Then she was back again, starting to point a couple of the sticks which the girls had brought for her approval.
This done, she stacked up a small pile of shorter props, whittling these to a point as she had done the others. It was a neat job and, considering that Mollie and Amy and Grace pitched in with a will, soon completed.
Then Betty chose a spot where the trees were in pretty good position for the erecting of the tent and, squarely in the middle of this space, planted one of the long poles.
When they had fixed it securely, fastening it down with pieces of rope to short stakes driven deep into the ground, Betty stood off to regard the work critically.
“Pretty good, so far as it goes,” she said, adding whimsically: “Unless we have a strong wind during the night. I don’t believe we even need the second long prop. Now let’s get busy and plant the short ones.”