"I know it, but Captain Clark said she was going to ask me to show a new group of candidates some knots, and I thought I'd practice a bit."
"Practice!" repeated Madaline, "well, to use your own words, this is no time to practice. Oh, Grace! I can hardly tell you!"
"Don't tell me it's anything bad!" exclaimed the manipulator of the knots. "Has anything happened? Is Cleo or Margaret—"
"No, no! It isn't anything like that. Cleo and Margaret are all right, and they'll be here in a little while. I ran on ahead to tell you, and Captain Clark is coming, too, with them."
"Well, of all things!" Grace burst out, laying aside the strings. "Something simply must have happened. Do you mean to say the delegation is waiting on me, to inform me that I have been picked out for some signal honor, ahem!" and she rose, bowing elaborately.
"We have all been picked out for signal honor!" bubbled Madaline. "You aren't the only one. Put up that knot business. You can show the tenderfeet when you get back."
"Oh, are we going away?" asked Grace. "Mystery piled on mystery. Do tell me!"
"I thought I'd get you anxious," laughed Madaline. "Well, it's just this, and it's simply glorious! We're going camping!"
"Camping? Who? When? Where? What, and all the rest of it?" and she fired the questions in a well-aimed volley at her friend.
"Just we four and the Captain, of course," resumed Madaline, seating herself on a mossy log beside Grace, who had selected this seat in the woods as a silent seclusion, there to evolve a scheme for imparting primary knowledge of Girl Scout work, to a group of younger members who had lately joined.