"I don't want to camp. I want to go home."
"I don't know where we are, I told you."
"Can you make a regular camp-fire? Like Indians?"
"Um-huh."
"Let's.... But I rather go home."
"You ain't scared now. Are you, Gertie? Gee! you're a' awful brave girl!"
"No, but I'm cold and I wisht we had some tea-biscuits——"
Ever too complacent was Miss Gertrude Cowles, the Good Girl in whatever group she joined; but she seemed to trust in Carl's heroism, and as she murmured of a certain chilliness she seemed to take it for granted that he would immediately bring her some warmth. Carl had never heard of the romantic males who, in fiction, so frequently offer their coats to ladies fair but chill; yet he stripped off his jacket and wrapped it about her, while his gingham-clad shoulders twitched with cold.
"I can hear a crick, 'way, 'way over there. Le's camp by it," he decided.
They scrambled through the brush, Carl leading her and feeling the way. He found a patch of long grass beside the creek; with only his tremulous hands for eyes he gathered leaves, twigs, and dead branches, and piled them together in a pyramid, as he had been taught to do by the older woods-faring boys.