With the White boys were two college friends, also home in North Birchland on their vacation, so that when the party actually started out they made up quite a squad.

“All got your guns?” asked Ned, as they sketched out their separate lines of advance, and made secret marks to show the starting points.

“Yep,” replied Ben Nichols, the biggest boy in all North Birchland, whose particular “gun” was a golf driver.

So they started off.  Roger insisted upon going, so Ned took him under his protection, while Joe kept within safe distance of Don Aikins, the young man from Bergen who claimed to be able to do anything, and any one, in the athletic world.  He swung his light stick expectantly at the underbrush.  Evidently he would be very pleased to have a swing at the boy with the roped-on armor.

It was splendid to have something real to hunt for—­what boy, or girl either, would not have enjoyed the prospect—­when there was not a question of being held up, but of holding up?

Then they separated.

Meanwhile Dorothy was very anxious.  What if the boys should really come upon this daring young villian?  What if little Roger should run off, and be overtaken?  She almost wished she had never told the whole story, for as she believed it all a wild whim of some foolish boy, she also felt that he would quickly see the danger of his sport.  It was the morning after her adventure, and she was able now to regard it with less terror.  Still her wrist did pain and she still trembled when she recalled how the knife had slipped, and how easily it could have severed her own vein, instead of severing the skin of the masked bandit.

She was thinking this all over, while shaking the creases from her lately-packed clothes, brushing the walking skirt, in which she had traveled to North Birchland, and generally putting her things in order, when Mrs. White, gowned for the street, entered the room.

“My dear,” she began, “I am afraid you will lose the out-door joy of this delightful morning.  Why not slip into your riding habit, and take a run on Cricket?  He would be so glad to do it himself, poor pony!  The boys are so busy with their camping that they forget a young horse wants some fun too.”

“I should be glad to, Auntie, but I feel I must get my things straightened out.  The night I was packing up, the girls cut up so I had to hurry everything into my boxes in all shapes,” replied Dorothy.  “But I will take a canter as soon as I have finished,” and she gathered up the pieces of broken crockery that had remained in her box after the “fall of China,” as Tavia designated the accident to her tea set.  “How lovely you do look, Aunt Winnie,” exclaimed the girl, gazing with sincere admiration at the superb figure in rose broadcloth.  “I do believe you have grown taller!”

“It’s the style of this gown, my dear.  These lines affect the Venus length.  Ned declared when he first saw me in this that I was put together in sections—­couldn’t possibly be all in one piece,” and she laughed in the deep, velvety tone that, perhaps, more than anything else about her interesting personality, proclaimed her the woman of unmistakable culture.