Without waiting for an answer the girls and boys clambered into the Petrel while Bess went to the camp with Cora who insisted upon washing her hands before making the trip.
"Did anything happen, Cora, while we were away?" asked Bess kindly.
"Not a thing, Bess. I only wish something real would happen; we have so many imitations of excitement."
CHAPTER XXII
THE LAW AND THE LIGHTS
"I want to find her this time," insisted Jack. "Cora, please let me? I promise not to frighten her, and not even to speak to her if you object, but I do so want to find her."
"Seems to me you found her last time," objected Walter who was looking particularly well to-night, for his suit of Khaki and his brown skin seemed all of a piece. "You nearly knocked me down in your haste to find the hut first."
"But," Cora said seriously, "Laurel may not want you boys to find her. She may not even want me to do so. I am just taking chances. Suppose you allow Bess and me or Hazel or any two of us to go up to the hut first? Please do be reasonable, and not silly," Cora finished in a voice she seldom assumed.
"You may come along as dose as you like, until we are just up to the hut," Bess consented, with marked good sense, "as the woods are so thick and black, but when we get to the hut—"
"We can 'hut' it I suppose," snapped Jack. "All right, girls; all I can say is I hope a couple of Brownies, or a mountain lion pay their respects to you both for being so daring."