"That"s just what she does!" exclaimed Katherine. "I"ve been wondering all the while what that gesture reminded me of. Wouldn"t it be great fun to name her Eeny-Meeny?"
The name seemed so admirably suited to the droll figure that they began calling her that forthwith.
"After such a strenuous experience I think Eeny-Meeny ought to be put to bed," remarked Slim artfully. He was trying to get the decks cleared for action with pan and spoon.
"Of course," replied Katherine. "How thoughtless of me not to offer to do it sooner! Come on, poor dear, and have a nice nap. You carry her feet, Slim, and I"ll carry her head. Put her in on Hinpoha"s bed for a gentle surprise party. Here, hold her head while I slip the pillow underneath."
Then she covered Eeny-Meeny carefully with the blanket so that only her outline showed and returned to the fire, which Slim was rapidly reducing to the proportions of a "kettle boiler."
"Don"t you think," said Slim, as she came up, "that Eeny-Meeny would like some fudge when she wakes up? There"s nothing like fudge to restore you after you"ve been drowned."
Katherine agreed with this idea also and soon had the ingredients bubbling in the kettle, while Slim glowed with satisfaction toward the world at large.
"Here come the folks!" cried Katherine half an hour later, when the fudge was cool and most of it inside of Slim. "We must run down and tell them the great news."
The boys and girls swarmed noisily out of the launch onto the beach, calling back and forth to one another. Slim and Katherine came hurriedly down the path with their fingers on their lips. "Sh-h!" said Katherine.
"Don"t make so much noise. h.e.l.lo, Antha; h.e.l.lo, Anthony." She greeted them hurriedly and with a preoccupied air.
"What"s up?" asked Gladys. "Is mother"s headache much worse?"
"Sh-h!" said Katherine again.
"There"s a lady here who"s very sick," continued Katherine in a low, grave voice. "She was getting drowned in the lake and Slim and I brought her in in the launch and revived her, and now she"s in our tent asleep."
A murmur of excitement rose up from the crowd, which Katherine stilled with uplifted hand.
"Oh, the poor thing!" said Gladys in a whisper. "How dreadful it must be! Will she be all right now, do you think?"
"She"s out of danger," replied Katherine, "but she hasn"t spoken yet. We worked for more than an hour over her."
"Oh, why did I have to miss it?" wailed Sahwah. "After all the drill we"ve had reviving drowned persons, to think that when a real chance came you should be the only ones on hand!"
"May we see her?" asked Gladys.
"You may take a peep at her if you will be very quiet," replied Katherine in the tones of a trained nurse.
With unnatural quiet they ascended the path to the tents, each resolved not to do anything to make a disturbance. The twins were carried along with them unceremoniously.
"Which tent is she in?" asked Gladys.
"Ours," replied Katherine. "I laid her on Hinpoha"s bed, because I think it"s the softest, and, anyhow, it"s the only one that doesn"t sag in the middle. You don"t mind, do you, Hinpoha?"
"I mind?" asked Hinpoha reproachfully. "I"m only too glad to let her have it, the poor thing."
"Are you perfectly sure we won"t disturb her by going in?" asked Gladys again, at the door of the tent. The flaps were down all around.
"I think the girls had better go in first," said Katherine. "The boys can wait awhile."
The boys fell back at this, and the girls pa.s.sed into the tent as Katherine held the flap back. They were on tiptoe with excitement, and not a little embarra.s.sed as they saw the long figure on the bed completely wrapped in blankets. A moment later the boys outside, standing around uncertainly, had their nerves shattered by a sudden loud scream of laughter which grew in volume until the tent shook. Then the girls came out, clinging to each other weakly, and doubled up on the ground.
"It"s--it"s----" giggled Hinpoha.
Sahwah clapped her hand over her mouth. "Let them look for themselves,"
she said. The boys made a rush for the tent.
In another minute there was a second great roar of laughter, and out came the Sandwiches, dragging Eeny-Meeny with them. Katherine told over and over again the story of the thrilling rescue of Eeny-Meeny and how she had received her name.
"What a peach of a mascot she"ll make," said the Captain, when Eeny-Meeny"s charms had all been inspected. "Sandhelo"s too temperamental for the position."
"It"s too bad we didn"t have her for the Argonautic Expedition," said Migwan. "Wouldn"t she have looked great fastened on the front of the war canoe for a figurehead? Why, we could set her up on that high bluff like Liberty lighting the world--you could nail a torch to that outstretched hand beautifully."
"And we can put her in a canoe filled with flowers and send her over the falls in the St. Pierre River like the Legend of Niagara," said Hinpoha.
"Or float her down that little woods on the opposite sh.o.r.e like Elaine,"
said Gladys.
"Elaine didn"t go floating along with one arm stuck out like that,"
objected Sahwah.
"Well, we could cover her with a robe of white samite," said Hinpoha, "and she wouldn"t look so much as if she were kicking."
"But, anyway, we can have more fun than a picnic with her," said Katherine.
After supper, with much ceremony and speechifying, Eeny-Meeny was raised up on a flat rock for a platform, with her back to a slender pine, where she stood facing the Council Rock, with one foot forward to preserve her balance and her right arm extended toward the councilors, looking for all the world as if she were separating the sheep from the goats, and counting "Eeny, meeny, miny, mo!"
CHAPTER VI
THE VOYAGEURS
When Katherine and the Captain became Chiefs the following Monday night, they announced that the Princ.i.p.al Diversion for that week would be a canoe trip up the river they had followed on foot in their search for the moose. This little river flowed into the lake at a point just opposite Ellen"s Isle, running between high, frowning cliffs at its mouth.
"It"s to be a sure enough "exploraging" party," continued Katherine, "and we won"t come back the same day." A cheer greeted her words.
"Won"t the war canoe look fine sweeping up the river?" asked Migwan, seeing the picture in her mind"s eye. "This will be a bigger Argonautic Expedition than the other."
"We won"t be able to take this trip in the war canoe," spoke up Uncle Teddy. "From what I have seen of that little river it is too shallow in places to float a canoe. If we made the trip in the small canoes we could get out and carry them along the sh.o.r.e when we came to the shallow places, which we couldn"t do with the war canoe very easily."
"Oh, I"m so glad we"re going in the small canoes," said Sahwah, delighted. "It"s lots more epic. Of course," she added hastily, "it"s heavenly in the war canoe, all paddling together, but it isn"t nearly so exciting. There one person does the steering and it"s always Uncle Teddy, but in a small canoe you can do your own steering. And, besides,"
she continued in a heartfelt tone, "there"s no chance of the war canoe"s tipping, and there always is in a little one."
"I take it that upsetting a canoe is one of the chief joys in life for you," remarked Uncle Teddy. "No trip complete for you without an upset, eh? I must make a note of that, and pack all the valuable cargo in the other canoes. And I shall order the crew of your vessel to wear full dress uniform all the time, namely, your bathing suits."
The weather was fine and dry and, according to the signs as interpreted by Uncle Teddy, would remain so for the next few days. Orders were given to start immediately after breakfast the next morning. Ponchos had to be rolled for this trip, as they intended camping in the woods somewhere for one or, perhaps, two nights.