"Oh, thank you," said Agony, sitting up and fingering the tempting gift.

She selected a large ripe berry and put it into her mouth, giving an involuntary exclamation of pleasure at the fine, rich flavor of the fruit. This, she reflected, was the reward of popularity--the cream of all good things from the hands of her admirers. Could she give it up--could she bear to see their admiration turn to scorn?

"And Agony," begged Bengal, "may I have a lock of your hair to keep?"

The depths of adoration expressed in that request sent an odd thrill through Agony. She knew then that she could not bear it to have Bengal be disappointed in her; could not let her know that she was only posing as a heroine. The die was cast. She would take her chance on no one's ever finding it out.

Right after dinner the little voyaging party pushed out from the dock and headed upstream; three canoes side by side with ponchos and provisions stowed away under the seats, and the Winnebago banner trailing from the stern of the "flagship," the one in which Miss Amesbury rode, with Sahwah and Migwan as paddlers. Migwan and Hinpoha had constructed the banner in record time that morning, giving up their swimming hour to finish it. No Winnebago expedition should ever start out without a banner flying; they would just as soon have gone without their shoes. Oh-Pshaw waved them a brave farewell from the dock, philosophically accepting the fact that she could not go in a canoe and making no fuss about it.

Jo Severance, who had paddled up the river before, and knew its course thoroughly, acted as guide and pilot. For the first night's camping ground they were going to a place where Jo had camped on a former trip, a place which she enthusiastically described as "just made for four beds to be spread in." It had all the conveniences of home, she a.s.sured them; a nearby spring for drinking water and a good place to swim, and what more could anyone want!

By common consent they paddled slowly at the outset, wisely refraining from exhausting their strength in the first mile or so, as is so apt to be the case with inexperienced paddlers. The Winnebagos had paddled together so often that it was unnecessary for them to count aloud to keep together; the six paddles flashed and dipped as one in time to some mysterious inner rhythm, sending the three canoes forward with a smooth, even motion, and keeping their noses almost in a straight line across the river.

"How beautifully you pull together!" exclaimed Miss Amesbury in admiration, leaning back and watching the six brown arms rising and falling in unison.

"We're used to pulling together," said Sahwah simply.

The boys from Camp Altamont were at their swimming hour when they pa.s.sed, and hailed them with great shouting, which they returned with a camp cheer and a salute with the paddles. The red canoes were drawn up in a line on the dock and Agony wondered which one it was that had made the stealthy voyage to Camp Keewaydin the night before. This brought back to her mind the subject of Jane Pratt, and she wondered if Jane had really taken her seriously when she had demanded that she confess her breaking of the camp rule; if Jane would really tell Mrs. Grayson herself, or force her to inform upon her. It came over her rather forcefully that she was not exactly in a position to be telling tales about other deceivers--that she was in their cla.s.s herself.

"Why so pensive?" inquired Miss Amesbury brightly, as Agony paddled along in silence, looking straight ahead of her and paying no attention to the gay conversation going on all about her.

Agony collected herself and smiled brightly at Miss Amesbury. "I was just thinking," she replied composedly. "Did I look glum? I was wondering if I had put my toothbrush in my poncho, I forgot it on our last trip."

Miss Amesbury laughed and said, "You funny child," and thought her more entertaining than ever.

Up beyond Camp Altamont lay a number of small islands and beyond these the river began to bend and twist in numerous eccentric curves; the woods that bordered it grew denser, the banks swampy. Signs of human occupation disappeared; there were no more camps; no more cottages.

Great willow trees grew close to the water's edge, five and six trunks coming out of a single root, the drooping branches sweeping the surface of the river. In places rotting logs lay half submerged in the water, looking oddly like alligators in the distance. Usually there would be a turtle sunning himself on the dry end of the log, who craned his neck inquisitively at them as they swept by, as if wondering what strange variety of fish they were. Hinpoha tried to catch one for a mascot, "because he would look so epic tied to the back of our canoe, swimming along behind us," but finally gave it up as a bad job, for none of the turtles seemed to share her enthusiasm over the idea, sinking out of sight at the first preliminaries of adoption. In places the banks, where they were not low and swampy, were perforated like honeycombs with holes some three inches in diameter.

"Oh, what are they?" asked Agony in surprise. "All snake holes?"

"Bank swallows," replied Sahwah. "They make their nests in the mud along river banks that way, until the banks are perfect honeycombs. I don't see how each one knows his own nest; they all look alike to me."

"Maybe they're all numbered in bird language," remarked Miss Amesbury, in her delightfully humorous way.

The scenery grew wilder and wilder as they glided forward and the talk gradually became hushed into a half awed contemplation of the wilderness which closed about them.

"I feel as if I were on some great exploring expedition," exclaimed Sahwah. "Everything looks so new and undiscovered. I wish there was something left to discover," she continued plaintively. "It's so discouraging to think that there's nothing more for explorers to do in this country. What fun it must have been for La Salle and Pere Marquette and Lewis and Clark to find those big rivers that no white man had ever seen before, and go poking about in the wilderness. That was the great and only sport; everything else is tame and flat beside it. I'll never get done envying those early explorers; how I wish I could have been with them!"

"But Sahwah, girls didn't go on long exploring journeys," Gladys interrupted quietly. "They couldn't have borne the hardships."

"Couldn't they?" Sahwah flashed out quickly. "How about Sacajawea, I'd like to know?"

"Goodness, who was she?" asked Gladys.

"The Indian woman who went with Lewis and Clark on their expedition to the Columbia River," replied Sahwah with that tone of animation in her voice which was always present when she spoke of someone whom she admired greatly. "Her husband was the interpreter whom Lewis and Clark took along to talk to the Indians for them, and Sacajawea went with the expedition too, to act as guide, because she knew the Shoshone country.

She traveled the whole five thousand miles with them and carried her baby on her back all the while. Lewis and Clark both said afterwards that if it hadn't been for her they wouldn't have been able to make the journey. When there wasn't any meat to eat she knew enough to dig in the prairie dogs' holes for the artichokes which they'd stored up for the winter; and she knew which herbs and berries were fit for food. And on one occasion she saved the most valuable part of the supplies they were carrying, when her stupid husband had managed to upset the boat they were being carried in. While he stood wringing his hands and calling on heaven for help she set to work fishing out the papers and instruments and medicines that had gone overboard, and without which the expedition could not have proceeded. She tramped for hundreds of miles, over hills and through valleys, finding the narrow trails that only the Indians knew, undergoing all the hardships that the men did and never complaining or growing discouraged. On the contrary, she cheered up the men when _they_ got discouraged. Now, do you say that a woman can't go exploring as well as a man?"

Sahwah's eyes were sparkling, her cheeks glowed red under their coat of tan, and she was all excitement. The blood of the explorer flowed in her veins; her inheritance from hardy ancestors who had hewn their way through trackless forests to found a new home in the wilderness; and the very mention of exploring set her pulses to leaping wildly. Far back in Sahwah's ancestry there was a strain of Indian blood, which, although it had not been apparent in many of the descendents, had seemed to come into its own in this twentieth century daughter of the Brewsters. Not in looks especially, for Sahwah's hair was brown and not black, and fine and soft as silk, and her features were delicately modeled; yet there was something about her different from the other girls of her acquaintance, something elusive and puzzling, which, for a better name her intimates had called her "Laughing Water" expression. Then, too, there was her pa.s.sionate love for the woods and for all wild creatures, and the almost uncanny way in which birds and chipmunks would come to her even though they fled in terror at the approach of the other Winnebagos. Was it any wonder that Robert Allison, seeing her for the first time, should have exclaimed involuntarily, "Minnehaha, Laughing Water"?

Thus Sahwah was in her element paddling up this lonely river winding through unfamiliar forests, and in her vivid imagination she was Sacajawea, accompanying Lewis and Clark on their famous exploring expedition; and the gentle Onawanda turned into the mighty rolling Columbia, and the friendly pine woods with its border of willows became the trackless forest of the unknown northwest.

Late in the afternoon Jo Severance suddenly cried out, "Here we are!"

and called out to the paddlers to head the canoes toward the sh.o.r.e.

Glad to stretch their limbs after the long afternoon of sitting in the canoes, the Winnebagos sprang out on to the rocks which lined the water's edge, and drew the boats up after them. The place was, as Jo had promised, seemingly made for them to camp in. High and dry above the stream, sheltered by great towering pine trees, covered with a thick carpet of pine needles, this little woodland chamber opened in the dense tangle of underbrush which everywhere else grew up between the trees in a heavy tangle. Down near the sh.o.r.e a clear little spring went tinkling down into the river.

"Oh, what a cozy, cozy place!" exclaimed Migwan. "I never thought of being cozy in the woods before--it's always been so wide and airy. This is like your own bedroom, screened in this way with the bushes."

"We'd better get the ponchos unrolled and the beds made up before we start supper," said Sahwah briskly, getting down to business immediately, as usual. The others agreed with alacrity, for they were ravenously hungry from the long paddle and anxious to get at supper as soon as possible.

When they came to lay the ponchos down, however, there was something in the way. The whole narrow plot of smooth ground where they had expected to lay them was covered with evening primroses in full blossom, the fragile yellow blooms standing there so trustfully that they aroused the sympathy of the Winnebagos.

"It's such a pity to crush them under the beds," said tender hearted Migwan. "I'm sure I couldn't sleep if I knew I was killing such brave little things."

The other Winnebagos stood around with their ponchos in their arms, uncertain what to do, loath to be the death of these cheery little wild things, yet unable to see how they could help it.

"Isn't there some other place where we can camp, Jo," asked Migwan, "and let these blossoms live? It seems such a pity to crush them."

Miss Amesbury turned and looked at Migwan with a keen searching glance which caused her to drop her eyes in sudden embarra.s.sment.

Jo took up Migwan's suggestion readily, though disappointed that they were not to stay in her favorite place. "I think we can find another spot," she said, and moved toward the canoes.

Tired and hungry, but perfectly willing to give up the desired spot to save the flowers, the Winnebagos launched out once more, and after paddling for half a mile found another camping ground equally desirable, though not as cozy as the first had been. There was more room here, and the ponchos were laid down without having to sacrifice any flowers.

The sun had set prematurely behind a high bank of gray clouds during the last paddle up the river and there were no rosy sunset glows to reflect on the water and diffuse light into the woods, where a grey twilight had already fallen. There was enough driftwood along the sh.o.r.e to build the fires, and these were soon shining out cheerily through the gathering gloom, while an appetizing odor of coffee and frying bacon filled the air.

The girls lingered long around the fire after supper listening to Miss Amesbury telling tales of her various travels until one by one the logs fell apart and glimmered out into blackness. "And now," said Miss Amesbury, "let's sing one good night song and then roll into bed. We want to be up early in the morning and continue our voyage. There's a heap of 'exploraging' for us to do."

Some time during the night Sahwah was aroused by a gentle pattering noise on her rubber poncho. "It's raining!" she exclaimed to Hinpoha, her sleeping partner.

Hinpoha stirred and murmured drowsily and immediately lay still again.

"It's raining _hard_!" cried Sahwah, now wide awake.

One by one the others began to realize what was happening, and burrowed down under their ponchos, only to emerge a few moments later half smothered.

"Everybody lie still," called Sahwah, "and keep your blankets covered.

Hinpoha and I will go out and bring up canoes for shelters."

As she spoke she reached for her bathing suit, which was down under the poncho, and wriggled into it. Hinpoha, still half asleep, but mechanically obeying Sahwah's energetic directions, got into her bathing suit and wriggled out of the bed, drawing the poncho up over her pillow and blankets.

The two sped down to the sh.o.r.e, where the canoes were drawn up on the rocks, and hastily turning one over sideways and packing all their provisions under it, they carried the other two back to the camping ground and inverted them over the head-ends of the beds, their ends propped up on stones, where, tilted back at an angle which shed the water off backward, they made an admirable shelter. Underneath these solid umbrellas the pillows of the girls were as dry as though indoors, and the ponchos protected the blankets. Let the rain come down as hard as it liked, these babes in the wood were snug and warm. As though accepting their challenge to get them wet, the drops came thicker and faster, until they pounded down in a perfect torrent, making a merry din on the canoes as they fell.

"It sounds as if they were saying, 'We'll get you yet, we'll get you yet, we'll get you yet,'" exclaimed Migwan.

Sahwah and Hinpoha, snugly rolled in once more, began to sing "How dry I am." The others took it up, and soon the woods rang with the taunting song of the Winnebagos to the Rain Bird, who replied with a heavier gush than ever. Thunder began to crash overhead, lightning flashed all about them, the great pines tossed and roared like the sea. But the Winnebagos, undismayed, made merry over the storm, and gradually dropped off to sleep again, lulled by the pattering of the raindrops.

In the morning the rain was still falling, rather to their dismay, for they had expected that the storm would soon pa.s.s over. The thunder and lightning had ceased, the wind had subsided, and the rain had turned into a steady downpour that looked as if it meant to last all day.

"We'll have to find or build a shelter," remarked Sahwah, thrusting her head, turtle like, from under the edge of the canoe and scanning the heavens with a calculating eye. "This is a regular three days' rain. Who wants to come with me and see if we can find a cave? I have an idea there must be one among the rocks on the hillside just farther on. Who wants to come with me?"