"Oh, Miss Miller, how clever you are! I hope I will 'rise' to my call when it comes!" sighed Hilda, her admiration shining from her eyes.
The Guide laughed merrily as she replied, "I would rather no one else heard of my little plot just keep it a secret!"
"I will, indeed, I will!" promised Hilda eagerly. Then, "What had I better do help you at camp or go to the house?"
"Well, you see it is this way. I am only Guide. I tell you what I think ought to be done and Zan, as Big Chief, orders the camp. She has exactly the right idea of government and she will make a splendid organiser some day. I am so pleased at the attitude she took just now for Nita is her friend and she did not permit personality to interfere with duty. I also am delighted to find how she grasps the meaning of Woodcraft and hope this little lesson will prove beneficial to us all."
"Well, Zan said for Nita to take with her any of the girls she chose. Jane and Elena have gone to Sherwoods so Nita cannot choose any one but me."
"And has Nita gone?" queried the Guide, giving a look toward the tents.
"Why n-oo!" returned perplexed Hilda. In another moment, however, light dawned and she smiled again. "I see! You will wait for Nita to make the first move."
Miss Miller nodded her head affirmatively and knelt down on the rock where she intended building her fire. Hilda waited.
"Please hand me those two green logs, dear just behind me," asked the Guide.
Hilda took up one log after the other and gave them to Miss Miller, who placed them carefully in position.
"Now, watch me, Hilda, and then you can see how to build a good fire-place."
The logs were placed so that they formed a "V" with the wide part about twelve inches apart. As the logs were about three feet long and six to eight inches thick, their position left a three-cornered hollow between.
"Now those two forked saplings."
Hilda found the required articles which Miss Miller had cut down with the hatchet on the tramp that afternoon. They were straight young trees with the first branches forming the forks. The leaves and slender twigs had been lopped off leaving a stick of about four feet in length and having two sharp forks at the top. These saplings Miss Miller now chopped off at the bottom until she had formed a sharp spike on each end. She carefully prodded with one until she found a crevice in the rock where the point could enter. Then she bore down with all her strength and drove the stick into the ground.
"Why, you've got it close to the point of the logs!" exclaimed Hilda wonderingly.
The Guide laughed and took up the second sapling. This she drove in to the soil at the opposite end of the logs. The forks were broadside to the length of the logs. Next, a stout but supple willow twig was selected from a small bundle, and laid across the top between the forks.
"Oh, my! Now I see what it is for!" cried Hilda, clapping her hands delightedly.
The utter ignoring of her presence and the clapping of Hilda's hands proved too much for Nita's disposition and she came out of the tent and walked down to the fire-place.
"What shall I do toward supper?" asked she sulkily.
"Oh, I thought Zan asked you to go to the house for her! Haven't you started?" asked Miss Miller in surprise.
Nita shrugged her shoulders and watched the interesting construction of the camp-fire.
"I'm too tired! Let Hilda go."
"But Hilda is helping me."
"Well, then let Zan go when she gets back. I'll start to spread a table-cloth on the flat rock over there shall I?"
"I really
cannot change Zan's orders, you know. She is Big Chief, and I am only Guide."
"That's all nonsense, Miss Miller, and you know it! You have the right to order us to do just what you think best," snapped Nita.
"You're just a little bit mistaken about the law and order of a Woodcraft camp. Each one obeys!"
"Then Zan has failed!" exulted Nita. "She was told to go to the house and she went to Bill's instead. I should have loved to pick strawberries as well as she!"
"I hardly think you can call Zan's act one of disobedience. It was rather one of discipline," remarked the Guide.
"Who did she pretend to discipline me?" sneered Nita.
"That had best be asked each one of herself. I can ask myself and truthfully say, "Yes, Zan has given me a good lesson in discipline for my future guidance.""
"Oh, pooh! You're only avoiding an unpleasant conversation with me! I know as well as any of you, that the whole plot is directed toward me. I wish to goodness I had never come with you!" And Nita flounced away in a temper.
"Why! Nita!" gasped Hilda in consternation, as she watched the retreating figure of her friend.
"Don't 'Nita' me! You're as thick with the rest as you can be! I always am selected to act as the scape-goat for anything you don't want to do yourself!" Nita flung back at Hilda.
The Guide kept on with the fire-building as if nothing had interrupted the lesson Hilda was receiving. She selected the driest bark and twigs in the heap of wild-wood and heaped them loosely in the pit formed by the two logs.