A few smaller twigs and saplings had been cleared out of her way, leaving a delightful shady spot where the tent stood. Zan swallowed her pride and went over to look at the completed work.
"The view isn't so very much when you come to think of the fact that we won't be in our tents very much!" ventured Zan.
"I don't expect to use mine except for sleeping, and one can't see the view in the dark," returned the Guide.
"Miss Miller, did you know we'd have hard work trying to drive pegs in the Bluff when you stood there waiting for us to think?" asked Zan, smilingly.
"Yes, dear, and I would have liked to save you the work, but that isn't helping you. Charity never helps, it hinders."
Zan ran back to tell her companions, but found them all in a quarrelling mood because they had been so unsuccessful in accomplishing their own intentions. Nita was saying disagreeable things to the others, and Jane had just told Nita what a little cat she was. Hilda had rolled over in the freshly pulled moss, her face buried in its cooling green. Elena sat pouting on the edge of the Bluff swinging a mallet back and forward, threatening to strike Nita's angry face every time it swung back.
"Girls, we're a lot of idiots! Miss Miller is the only one with sense. Go over and look at that tent, then come back with sugary smiles and drag these tents over next to hers. I have just learned to parse the word beauty as she pronounced it when she said, the beauty of the Bluff went without any contradiction. In parsing, I find that beauty is not always the desirable object! It's well enough in its way, but for driving stakes to hold down canvas tents, give me a good old solid chunk of ground!" said Zan, decidedly.
"Well, anyway, I'm not going to hide myself way back as far as she is. We can find plenty of ground nearer the Bluff and not feel cooped up by the trees," ventured Nita, as the other girls followed Zan's example and carried their paraphernalia over to the trees.
Thus it happened that Nita's tent stood first from the Bluff, a few feet to the side of the trees. Hilda and Elena chose a site a few feet back from Nita's and near enough to a tree to utilise its trunk for the ropes. The third smaller tent was quite close to Miss Miller's but not as far back as hers.
"The stakes do not go down as deep as I think they should, girls, but you can change them this afternoon if you decide to move back where my tent is. As they stand now, a strong wind may tear them down."