Passing the stone gatehouse, the Brownies again selected Trail three.
“Why don’t we eat our lunch before we go to the cliff?” proposed Jane. “I’m hungry.”
“Try eating your words for a while,” Veve muttered. “The rest of us want to go straight to the oak tree.”
Jane said no more. Or at least she managed to remain silent until the troop approached the cliff area. Then she could not resist remarking: “If we should find anything, I’d drop dead! I would for a fact.”
Veve, who was at the head of the line of hikers, had stopped on the trail.
“All right, Jane!” she exclaimed. “Drop dead then! ’Cause I can see something ahead.”
“Oh, you’re kidding,” Jane retorted, unimpressed. “You don’t see a thing.”
“Don’t I?” demanded Veve. “Then my eyes are deceiving me!”
Swinging her knapsack over the other shoulder, she ran forward.
“Do you suppose—” Sunny began, and then she uttered a little shriek of joy. “Veve’s right!” she cried. “Something has been built in the oak tree!”