Once the tide was turned the Captain mended fast. A spell of beautiful, warm, dry weather followed the cold week, when the sun shone from morning until night and the pine-scented breezes bore health and strength on their pinions. Hinpoha outdid herself cooking delicate messes for him and Slim nearly died with envy when he saw the choice dishes being loaded on the invalid’s tray.

“Pretty soft, pretty soft, I call it,” he would say to the Captain, and the Captain would laugh and reply he was willing to change places.

The Captain’s return to the ranks of the “huskies” was celebrated with a program of water sports and a great clam-bake on the beach. Of course, the Winnebagos got up a pageant, which on this occasion was a canoe procession, each canoe representing one of the seven points of the Camp Fire Law. “Seek Beauty” held a fairy creature dressed in white and garlanded with flowers; “Give Service” was the big war canoe, which went on ahead and towed all the others but one; “Pursue Knowledge” held a maiden who scanned the heavens with a telescope; “Be Trustworthy” held up a bag conspicuously labeled CAMP FUNDS; “Hold on to Health” was Katherine holding up a huge paper clock dial, its painted hands pointing to half past three A. M. with the slogan “Early to bed and early to rise make a crew healthy, wealthy and wise.” “Glorify Work” paddled its own canoe, scorning to be towed by “Give Service,” and “Be Happy” came along singing such rollicking songs and shouting so with laughter that they set the audience into a roar.

After the pageant came fancy drills in the war canoe. The crew were in fine practice by this time and the paddles rose, dipped, cross rested, clicked and water wheeled all as one in obedience to the commands shouted by Uncle Teddy. Just before the war canoe started out on her exhibition trip the Stars and Stripes was nailed to her prow with much ceremony and “floated proudly before” her throughout the manoeuvers.

Of course, no water sports could be complete without swimming races and a stunt contest, and Slim drew great applause by floating with his hands behind his head and one leg crossed over the other in his favorite position in the couch hammock.

Then Sahwah’s stunt was announced and she went to Hinpoha, Migwan and Gladys and invited them to take tea with her that afternoon. They accepted with pleasure and withdrew to prink. In the meantime, Sahwah took a plate in her hand and dove under the surface. She swam to a large, flat rock, which was plainly visible through the clear water, set the plate on the rock and weighed it down with a stone. She did this three more times, setting four plates in all. Then she put a pear on each plate under the stone. This finished, she came to the surface and sat on a rock to await the coming of her guests.

When they arrived she greeted them affably and bade them make themselves comfortable beside her. They were chatting merrily when suddenly a black figure rose from the water almost at their feet so suddenly that Mrs. Evans screamed. The black figure was the Monkey, who had quietly slipped into the water behind a large rock while all attention was focussed on the girls, and swimming under water came up in front of them. The new arrival on the scene turned out to be the waiter who announced that tea was ready. “We will be down immediately, Thomas,” said Sahwah in her best society manner and promptly dove off the rock, the others following suit. They found their plates on the submerged rock, ate the pears under water and came up, amid the prolonged applause and shouting of the audience, who couldn’t see “how they did it without choking.” Of course that stunt was voted the best and the clever divers were crowned with ground pine in lieu of laurel and treated to lollypops.

Sahwah was just recovering the last plate when a sudden gust of wind tore the flag from the prow of the war canoe, riding at anchor a short distance away, and sent it flying through the air. It flew right over her head as she came up, and, reaching out her hand, she caught it. Then she swam back to the dock holding the flag above her head well out of the water so that not a drop stained it. The watchers cheered mightily as she came in waving it.

“‘The old flag never touched the ground,’” she said, holding her head up proudly, “and it’ll never fall into the water while I’m around.”

“If only all young people had that same spirit of reverence toward their country’s flag!” said Uncle Teddy fervently. “It is becoming a rarer sight all the time to see a young man take off his hat to the Stars and Stripes. We have come to regard it as a sort of decorative rag, and of no more significance than any other decoration. I think it is up to you Camp Fire Girls to foster this spirit of respect for the flag among young folks. I am very glad you did this thing today, Sahwah. It was a fine act.”

Sahwah hung her head as she always did when praised, but the others declared that she grew an inch taller from that minute on.

“By the way, what’s become of the Principal Diversion for this week?” asked Katherine at breakfast one morning the week following the clam-bake in honor of the Captain’s recovery. “Maybe I was asleep in Council Meeting Monday night, but I don’t seem to recollect hearing one announced. Did I miss the announcement?” she asked of Sahwah, who with the Monkey was Chief for that week.

“There wasn’t any announcement made,” said Sahwah, trying to look dignified behind the coffee pot, and so busy filling up the plates of the others that she had scarcely eaten a mouthful herself. “We simply couldn’t think of a thing that had not been done before, and we’re still thinking.”

“We haven’t had a hare and hound chase yet,” remarked Gladys. It was merely an idle suggestion, but the others pounced upon it immediately.

“The very thing!” said Sahwah promptly. “All our Principal Diversions so far have been trips by water; it’s time we did a little scouting on foot. Thanks for the idea. We’ll put it into action immediately. Today is a fine day for tramping. Munson can be leader of the Hares and I’ll take the Hounds. All those sitting above the toast plate at the table will be Hares; all those on this side of it, Hounds. Hares will start right after breakfast and have an hour’s start. Dinner will be carried along and eaten when the Hounds catch up with the Hares. If the Hounds catch the Hares before they reach their destination the Hares will do the cooking and give a show; if they have to wait for the Hounds to come up the Hounds will do the catering, watering and celebrating. The Hares will demonstrate their knowledge of scouting by blazing the trail in the proper manner, both by marking trees and by placing stones in the path.”

The Hares scurried around and were ready to start in a jiffy. These were Munson McKee as leader, with Katherine, the Captain, Gladys, Pitt, Nakwisi and Antha. Sahwah’s band consisted of Hinpoha and Slim, Migwan and Peter Jenkins, Dan Porter and Anthony. The elders had decided not to go on this trip. Mrs. Evans and Aunt Clara were still somewhat tired from their siege of nursing the Captain and were glad to have a day of quiet, and Uncle Teddy and Mr. Evans wanted to work on the boat landing, which was sinking into the water.

Uncle Teddy took the Hares across the lake in the launch and set them down at the edge of the woods. They struck out through the trees, chipping the trail on the trunks with a sharp hatchet, and working their way around the curve of the shore line to St. Pierre. There they rested and bought ice cream and while they were eating it Katherine had one of her periodical inspirations.

“Let’s keep right on going until we get back to camp, and not stop anywhere at all,” she suggested. “Won’t we lead the others a fine chase, though? They’ll be dead by the time they get there.”

“What about us?” asked Gladys. “We’ll be dead ourselves.”

“I suppose we will,” admitted Katherine, who hadn’t thought of this before, “but it will be worth it. Who’ll be game?”

“I know a way to fix it so we won’t be dead,” said Pitt, the crafty. Pitt could always use his head to save his heels, and was a very Ulysses for cunning.

“How?” they all asked.

“Leave a note for the others on that last tree we blazed, telling them to follow the sand beach around to the Point of Pines. There aren’t any trees along the beach so they won’t think anything about our not blazing a trail. Then we’ll simply rent a boat and cut straight across the lake to the Point of Pines. From there we’ll go on blazing the trail back to the place opposite Ellen’s Isle where we are to signal Uncle Teddy. By cutting across the corner of the lake that way we’ll save three miles that the others will have to walk, and they’ll wonder and wonder how we got so far ahead of them.” The prospect of turning the hare and hound chase into a joke on the Hounds was too funny to pass up, and with giggles and chuckles they pinned the note on the tree back at the edge of the woods where the road ran toward St. Pierre; then they rented two rowboats and piled into them. Some distance to the east of St. Pierre stood the old abandoned lighthouse, and they had to row past it. It stood out in the water, several hundred feet from the shore, on an island so tiny that it did no more than give a foothold for the tower.

“Let’s stop and go into it,” said Katherine. “I’ve never seen a lighthouse close up before. And you ought to get a grand view of the lake and the islands from that little balcony that runs around the top. Maybe we can see the others trailing after us.”

The rest were also anxious to see the old lighthouse and as their short cut across the lake would gain them at least an hour they decided there was plenty of time to go inside. So the boys rowed alongside and made the boats fast and they all went up.

“It’s horribly dilapidated and messy,” said Gladys, viewing with fastidious distaste a pile of crumbled bricks and mortar which lay at the foot of the stairway, the result of an explosion which had blown a hole in the wall.

“’If seven maids with seven mops swept it for half a year,
Do you suppose,’ the Walrus said, ‘that they could get it clear?’”

quoted Gladys, waving her hand in the direction of the heap.

“No doubt, but for a job like that I really wouldn’t keer!” answered Katherine. “Come on, you can climb over it.” And suiting the action to the word she took a long step over the pile of bricks and then reached down and pulled Gladys up after her.

It was fun standing up in the top of the lighthouse and looking out over the lake in all directions. The boats in the harbor of St. Pierre looked like cute little toys, and Ellen’s Isle seemed to have shrunk to half its size.

“Come, Munson,” said Katherine, “you get into the lantern and be the beacon. You can see that red hair of yours a mile. Too bad Hinpoha isn’t here, she’s a regular signal light.”

“Get in yourself,” retorted the Monkey. “Your nose is as red as my hair.”

Far out over the lake they could see the black trail of smoke made by an approaching steamer.

“Here comes the Huronic,” said Gladys.

“Let’s stay out here until she goes past, and wave at the people,” said Katherine.

“We won’t have time, if we want to get to the Point of Pines ahead of the others,” said the Captain. Katherine reluctantly admitted that he was right and they picked their way down the littered stairs again. But there were so many fascinating corners to poke into that another half hour ticked by before they could finally tear themselves away.

“Where are the boats?” asked Katherine, who was the first through the door. Yes, where were they? They were no longer fastened where the Captain had left them. Far out in the lake they saw them, still tied together, bobbing up and down on the baby waves.

The girls uttered a shriek of dismay, all except Katherine, who exclaimed in comical amazement, “What do you know about that?”

“I thought I had them tied fast,” said the Captain ruefully. “What in the name of goodness are we going to do now?”

“Don’t ask me,” said the Monkey, gazing in a fascinated way at the swiftly fleeing boats. There was a strong current among the islands up here which was sweeping the runaways very fast toward the channel.

“Stranded!” exclaimed the Captain.

“Marooned!” said the Bottomless Pitt.

“Shipwrecked!” said the Monkey.

“Desoited!” cried Katherine, wringing her hands and rolling her eyes. “Left to perish miserably in the middle of the sea! Now, Count Flamingo, you have your revenge!”

“Just the same,” said Gladys when she had finished laughing at Katherine’s absurd heroics, “we’re in a fine pickle. Just how are we going to get out of here?”

“Let’s see,” said Katherine, puckering her brow. “What do people usually do on such occasions? We’ve been in ‘fine pickles’ before, and we’ve always gotten out of them. Isn’t the proper thing to do when you’re locked up in a lonely tower to sing siren-like music until the noble hero hears you and comes to the rescue? Do you suppose my secret lover would ever mistake my sweet voice for anyone else’s, once he heard it wafted in on the breeze?”

“Oh, stop your nonsense, Katherine,” said Gladys. “You make me laugh so I can’t think of a thing to do. Captain, how are we going to attract people’s attention?”

“Run up a distress signal, I suppose,” replied the Captain, “if we have anything to run up.”

“Well, there’s one thing about it,” declared Katherine flatly, “I refuse to be the distress signal this time. Every time we’ve had to have one in the past my belongings have been sacrificed.”

“Don’t get worried, injured one,” said Gladys soothingly. “We can wave the two towels I brought along.”

“Just the thing!” said Katherine. “We can wave them when the steamer goes by and they’ll send a lifeboat for us. How romantic! She’s just coming into the channel now. Everybody get ready to call.”

The big Huronic, the magnificent white steamer that stopped at St. Pierre once a week on her way down to Chicago, swung into sight around a long point of land.

“Now wave!” commanded Katherine, when the Huronic was almost opposite them, and the towels fluttered frantically over the edge of the little balcony. Dozens of handkerchiefs were waved in answer from the deck of the big liner. “They think we’re just waving at them for fun,” said Katherine, when nothing took place that looked like an effort at rescue.

Making trumpets of their hands they all shrieked in unison, “Help!” But the wind was toward them and carried the sound back. The stately Huronic proceeded serenely on her way without a pause.

“They aren’t going to stop!” said Gladys.

“Oh, let them go on then,” said Katherine crossly. Then she added, “I suppose it was kind of foolish to expect a big boat like that to stop and pick up a bunch of folks that didn’t know any better than to climb into an old lighthouse and let their boats float away.”

“Isn’t she a beauty, though?” said Gladys, looking after the ship in admiration. The sun shining on the broad, white side of the Huronic as she turned toward St. Pierre made her look like a gleaming, white bird.

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again,” said Katherine optimistically. “Even if the fair Huronic did spurn us we can no doubt get the attention of a fishing boat. Some of them are always going round. Cheer up, Antha, and don’t look so scared. Remember, you’re with me, and I bear a charmed life!”

And joking over their situation, but, nevertheless, keeping a sharp lookout for anything on the horizon, they settled down to pass the time.

Meanwhile, the Hounds had reached the woods before St. Pierre, found the directions on the tree and turned off toward the beach to follow the shore to the Point of Pines. But after plodding through the thick, soft sand for a while they decided that that mode of traveling was altogether too fatiguing, and went back into the woods where they found a path which ran in the general line of the shore and which was much easier traveling. But even at that they were pretty well tired when they reached the Point of Pines where they supposed the others would be waiting for them. But there was no glimpse of the Hares at the Point of Pines.

“Where do you suppose they are?” asked Hinpoha, mystified.

“Hiding, I suppose,” said Sahwah wearily, sitting down in the soft grass. “Let’s let them stay hidden until we get rested up. It’s up to us to get dinner I suppose, but I’m just too tired to begin.”

“But you will pretty soon, won’t you?” asked Slim anxiously.

“You aren’t hungry already, are you, Slim?” asked Hinpoha teasingly.

“Already!” said Slim, looking at his watch. “Do you folks know what time it is? It’s half past two!”

“Mercy!” said Sahwah. “It’s taken us ages to get here. Maybe the beach would have been shorter, anyway.”

“Let’s call for the Hares,” said Hinpoha. “It’ll take too much time to try to find them. And I’m too tired to go hunting through the woods.”

So they called, “Come out, we give up.” Their voices echoed against the opposite shore, but there was no other answer. They called again with the same result.

“They’re not here!” said Hinpoha with a prophetic feeling. “Where are we, anyway? Is this the Point of Pines? I believe we’ve come to the wrong place! We should have stuck to the shore after all and not gone off into that path through the woods that turned and twisted so many times. Are you sure this is the Point of Pines?”

“I don’t know whether I’m sure or not,” said Sahwah in perplexity. “I certainly thought it was all the time. I may be mistaken.”

“I think you are,” said Hinpoha. “There isn’t a sign of the Hares here. How will we find them?”

“I think the best thing to do,” said Sahwah calmly, displaying her great talent for leadership in this emergency, “is to stay where we are and let them find us. If we start hunting around for each other in these woods we’ll never get together. We’ll just stay here and build two signal fires. You know that two columns of smoke is the sign for ’I’m lost.’ Well, we’ll just put up the ‘lost’ signal and if they’re hunting for us they’ll see that and come straight over here.”

The others agreed that this was the most sensible thing to do under the circumstances. There was plenty of driftwood, and two good fires were soon going, and the green branches piled on top of them sent up the most gratifying signal smokes.

“Now let’s get our dinner,” said Hinpoha, when that was accomplished, “without waiting any longer.”

The seven marooned sailors looked and looked in all directions without seeing a single thing to wave at.

“It’s too bad,” said Katherine. “Here’s a fine opportunity for some likely young fisherman to make a hero of himself rescuing a band of shipwrecked lady fairs and winning their undying gratitude. Maybe we’d take up a collection and buy him an Ingersoll as a reward. But nobody seems to be around anywhere to jump at the chance. It’s a wasted opportunity.”

“There seems to be a boat around the other side of that point of land,” said Gladys, shading her eyes with her hand. “See those two columns of smoke going up?”

“It must be standing still,” said the Captain. “The smoke is going up in the same place all the while.”

“It’s two boats,” said Katherine, “or does a boat have two smokestacks?”

“That’s not boat smoke,” said the Captain with a knowing air. “That’s from fires on the shore. They must be on that farther point, just beyond the one we’re looking against.”

“Isn’t that the Point of Pines?” asked Gladys.

“It is!” said Katherine. “And I’ll bet you a cooky it’s the Hounds who have built those fires. They’ve been walking all this while and have reached the Point.”

“What would they want with two fires, though?” asked Gladys. “And such thick smoke! They can’t possibly be cooking anything over them.”

“I know!” cried the Captain. “They’re signal fires. You know Uncle Teddy showed us how to make them. Two smokes mean ‘We’re lost.’ They don’t know what to make of it because they didn’t find us there and are signalling for us.”

“How perfectly rich!” said Katherine, laughing until her hair tumbled down. “Here we are, cooped up in a lighthouse trying to signal someone to come and get us away, and there they are, wanting us to come and help them. It’s the funniest thing you ever saw!”

And the Hares watched the two smokes ascending into the blue sky and laughed helplessly.

Meanwhile, there was a panic on the Point of Pines. In the middle of the peaceful dinner party two rowboats tied together came floating in toward the shore. The boys waded out and brought them up on the beach.

“Look,” cried Hinpoha, picking up something that lay in the bottom of one of them. It was a battered tan khaki hat with the frayed cord hanging down over one side and a picture of a Kewpie drawn on the big button in front. There was no mistaking it. It was Katherine’s hat.

Migwan screamed. “They’re drowned! They’ve gone out in boats and upset! That’s why they’re not here. Oh, what will we do?”

“Take it easy,” said Sahwah soothingly. “They haven’t upset. There isn’t a speck of water in the boats. They’ve simply floated off and left the folks somewhere. What were the Hares doing out in boats, anyway?” she mused. “But if they’re along the shore here somewhere we ought to go and look for them. Maybe we missed directions by not keeping to the beach. That must be it. They probably told us about the boats in a later note that we didn’t get.”

With an air of relief they finished their dinner and then piled into the boats and started coasting along the shore, looking for the Hares.

“This is getting to be a real hare and hound chase,” observed Hinpoha, as they proceeded slowly, looking into every little cove and inlet. Soon they rounded the last point and were spied by the anxious watchers in the lighthouse, who waved their towels and shrieked at the tops of their voices.

The Hounds got the surprise of their lives when they heard that hail and looking up saw the Hares perched up in the lighthouse, “just exactly like crows on a telephone pole,” said Sahwah, telling Aunt Clara about it later.

The stranded Hares were taken ashore under a running fire of pleasantry about their plight, and were told moral stories about people who tried to play jokes on others and got the worst of it themselves, and Sahwah advised them gravely never to go out in a rowboat that wouldn’t stand without hitching, and so on and so forth until the poor Hares did not know which way to turn.

So the members of the chase went homeward, hunters and hunted side by side, laughing at the events of the day and agreeing that the chief charm of nearly all their expeditions lay in the fact that they never turned out the way they had expected them to.

“Good gracious, Slim, you aren’t hungry again?” said Sahwah, as Slim, stooping among the leaves, brought up a bunch of bright blue berries and started to put them all into his mouth at once.

“Don’t eat those berries!” said Anthony suddenly. “They aren’t real blueberries. They make your throat feel as if it were full of red hot needles and it hurts for hours. I ate some one day and I know.”

Slim dropped the berries hastily. “Thanks, old man, for telling me,” he said warmly.

“Whew! What a chance for a comeback he would have had on Slim!” said the Captain that night as the campers sat around in an informal family council while the twins were out in the launch with Mr. Evans. “The fact that he didn’t take it shows that he’s a pretty good sort after all. I didn’t think he had it in him.”

“Do you know,” said Katherine seriously, “I believe I know what’s been the trouble with Anthony. He was spoiled when he was little and allowed to talk all the time and that made people dislike him. It made him unpopular with his boy friends and he’s been unpopular so long that he expects everybody he meets to dislike him. So he starts to patronize and bully his new acquaintances right away because he thinks they won’t like him anyway and it’s his way of getting even. But I believe that underneath it he’s the loneliest boy that ever lived. Nobody can have a very good time or really enjoy life when they’re disliked by everybody.

“Now I think we made a mistake in our treatment of him from the start. We didn’t like him when we first saw him and we let him know it. We froze him out in the beginning. I know how I feel toward people that I think don’t like me. They bring out the worst side of me every time. Now Anthony must have a lot of good stuff in him or he couldn’t have acted the way he did today. It’s up to us to bring it out, and I think the way to do it is to treat him as if we thought there was nothing but a ‘best’ side to him. We mustn’t act as if we thought he was going to do something mean all the time. Take, for instance, the time we thought somebody had hidden Eeny-Meeny, and you jumped on him as a matter of course.”

“We thought he’d be likely to do it,” said the Captain, trying to justify himself before Katherine’s reproach.

“That’s exactly the trouble,” said Katherine. “We always thought he’d be ‘likely’ to do something mean, but we never thought he’d be ‘likely’ to do something good. Everything that has happened around here has been blamed on Anthony as a matter of course. We’ve never given him a fair chance. You boys didn’t let him in on the secret of those council seats because you were afraid he’d give it away. That was wrong. You should have let him help and never doubted him for a minute. People generally do just what you expect them to do. If we took Anthony seriously and acted as though we could rely on his judgment he’d soon have a judgment we could rely on. I say we’ve had ahold of the wrong handle of Anthony all the while. We knocked the boasting out of him with a sledgehammer and that was all right in that case; but for the rest of it we’ve got to show that we respect and trust him, and take my word for it, he won’t disappoint us. Don’t you think that’s what’s been the trouble, Uncle Teddy?”

“My dear Katherine,” said Uncle Teddy, “the way you put things it would take a blind beetle not to see them. You certainly have put Anthony up in an entirely new light. I’ve nearly got gray hair wondering why he did not profit by our illustrious example here; now you’ve put the whole thing in a nutshell. It isn’t half as much to sit and look at a parade as it is to ride in the band wagon. But from now on we’ll see that Anthony is made part of the show.

“If only everybody had such faith in mankind as you have, what a world this would be!”