"Betty," Polly asked quietly, "do you remember the names of these two Indian treasures and how hard we have worked to make them as like the originals as we could?"
"Of course, they are the calumets you are to use in the Council Fire ceremony to-night. They are pretty!" Betty conceded.
But Polly had dropped down by the side of her bed. "They have another name, Betty, which isn't calumets and you know it, and we were to use them at our Council Fire to-night. They are called 'pipes of peace' and I can't very well lead the party that is to bring them to camp and also the children who are to receive them."
A silence in the tent then followed, lasting several moments.
"Aren't you a little ashamed, Princess, thinking of the character of our ceremony this evening, not to be willing to be present? It is to be war and not peace then, isn't it?"
Betty laughed. "I only said I was tired," she argued faintly. "I am sure no one has the least reason for thinking I am angry if I happen to prefer to rest."
Then Polly began to feel that her case was won. Very quietly she slipped over to a wooden dress-good's box covered with bright cretonne and, opening it, drew forth the ceremonial dress so recently finished by Esther, then she lighted two candles on either side the table underneath their small mirror. Betty's head-dress was there, a band of her favorite blue velvet ribbon with three white feathers crossed in front. Catching it up Polly waved it temptingly.
"Come on, Betty, and let me help you dress, everybody is waiting for us and there never was such a night!" But seeing that her friend still hesitated, added in a tone which was a question, not a reproach: "Don't you think, dear, that so long as you really originated our Camp Fire club and asked Miss McMurtry to be our guardian, it is rather a pity for you to make the first break? Isn't one of the Camp Fire ideas to learn to put the happiness of a good many people before our own personal desires?"
In a half minute Betty was out of bed with her Camp Fire dress nearly on. "If you are going to turn preacher and reform at this time of life, Polly O'Neill, then goodness knows what is to become of me! Once you were my partner in crime, but now--well, it is hard to think of you even yet as 'Saint Polly'!"
"And will be to the end, me darling," Polly agreed, dropping into her Irish brogue from sheer pleasure that her purpose was accomplished.