The woods reached, they separated, some to gather branches of leaves and others intent on filling their sacks with nuts.  The boxes of lunch were neatly piled under a tree, and sweaters were left with them, for it was comfortably warm even in the shadiest spots.

“I don’t believe we will have many more days like this,” remarked Frances Martin, her nearsighted eyes peering into a hollow tree stump.  “Girls, what have I found—­a squirrel?”

“Plain owl,” laughed Betty.  “Isn’t he cunning?”

They crowded around to admire the funny little creature, and then, admonished by Bobby, whom Constance declared would make a good drill sergeant, set busily to work again.  Nuts were not plentiful, but they filled half a sack, and then, a large pile of flaming branches having been gathered, they decided to drag their spoils back to the tree and to have lunch.

“Girls, girls, girls!” shrieked Libbie, who was in the lead, “our lunch is gone—­every crumb of it!”

Sure enough, the sweaters were all tossed about in confusion and the boxes had disappeared.

“Who took it?” demanded Bobby wrathfully.  “You needn’t tell me that lunch walked off!”

High and clear and shrill, a familiar whistle sounded back of them.

“That’s Bob!” Betty’s face brightened.  “Listen!”

She gave an answering whistle, and Bob’s sounded again.

There was a scrambling among the bushes, and a group of cadets burst through.  Bob and the Tucker twins were first, and after them came Gilbert Lane and Timothy Derby and Winifred Marion Brown.

“Hello, anything the matter?” was Bob’s greeting.  “You look rather glum.”

“So would you,” Betty informed him, “if you were starving after a morning’s work and your lunch was stolen.”

“Gee, that is tough!” exclaimed Bob sympathetically.  “Who stole it?”

“We don’t know,” volunteered Bobby.  “But all those boxes couldn’t take wings and fly away.”

“You go back and get the fellows,” Bob commanded Tommy Tucker.  “We were having a potato roast down by the lake, and while the potatoes were baking some of us came up for more wood,” he explained to the girls.  “We thought we heard voices, and so I whistled.”

Tommy Tucker was flying down to the lake before half of this explanation was given.

“Have you a holiday, too?” Betty asked.  “We’re out to get decorations for the play.”

“It’s the colonel’s birthday,” explained Bob, “and the old boy gave us the day off.  Here come the fellows.”

Half a dozen more cadets joined them, all boys the girls had met at the games.  They were loud in their expressions of sympathy for the disappointed picnickers and promptly offered their potatoes as refreshments when they should be done.

“Oh, we’re going to get that lunch back,” announced Bob Henderson confidently.  “Look here!”

He pointed to some footprints in a bit of muddy ground.