“Yes, I understand,” replied Dr. Grayson quizzically.  “Have you taken any notes yet?” he continued.

“Nothing yet,” Monty admitted, “but I mean to begin immediately after breakfast.  I mean to flit unobtrusively about Camp, Uncle, and watch the young ladies when they do not suspect I am around, taking down their innocent girlish conversation among themselves.  So much more natural that way, Uncle, very!”

Dr. Grayson hurriedly took a huge mouthful of water, and then choked on it in a very natural manner, and Miss Judy’s coming in with the mail bag at that moment caused a welcome diversion.

“Ah, good morning, Cousin Judith,” drawled Monty.  “I see you didn’t get up as early as the rest of us.  Perhaps the fatigue of last night—­”

“I’ve been down the river for the mail,” replied Miss Judy shortly.  Then she turned her back on him and spoke to her father.  “The weather is settled for this week.  That rainstorm last night cleared things up beautifully.  We ought to take the canoe trip, the one up to the Falls.”

“That’s so,” agreed Dr. Grayson.  “How soon can you arrange to go?”

“Tomorrow,” replied Miss Judy.

“Ah, a canoe trip,” cried Monty brightly.  “I ought to get quantities of notes from that.”

Miss Judy eyed him for a moment with an unfathomable expression on her face, then turned away and began to talk to the Lone Wolf.

All during Morning Sing Monty sat in a corner and took notes with a silver pencil in an embossed leather notebook, staring now at this girl, now at that, until she turned fiery red and fidgeted.  After Morning Sing he established himself on a rocky ledge just below Bedlam, where, hidden by the bushes, he sat ready to take down the innocent conversation of the young ladies among themselves as they made their tents ready for tent inspection.

Katherine and Oh-Pshaw were in the midst of tidying up when the Lone Wolf dropped in to return a flashlight she had borrowed the night before.  She strolled over to the railing at the back of the tent and peered over it.  A gleam came into her eye as she noticed that one of the bushes just below the tent on the slope toward the river was waving slightly in an opposite direction from the way in which the wind was blowing.  Stepping back into the tent she stopped beside Bedlam’s water pail, newly filled for tent inspection.

“Your water looks sort of—­er—­muddy,” she remarked artfully.  “Hadn’t you better throw it out and get some fresh?  Here, I’ll do it for you.  I’m not busy.”

She picked up the brimming pail and emptied it over the back railing, right over the spot where she had seen the bush waving.  Immediately there came a curious sound out of the bush—­half gasp and half yell, and out sprang Monty, dripping like a rat, and fled down the path toward the bungalow, without ever looking around.

“Why, he was down there listening,” Katherine exclaimed in disgust.  “Oh, how funny it was,” she remarked to the Lone Wolf, “that you happened to come in and dump that pail of water over the railing just at that time.”