“While we were digging up frog ponds looking for you,” he scolded, “here you had set yourself up in one of the best establishments in the State.”

“Oh, Nat,” she sobbed.  “If you only knew!”

“Every girl says that,” he replied.  “I suppose it would be a first rate thing if a fellow did only know—­about a girl like you.”  He was doing his best to quiet her, and he knew that to scold is a good sort of treatment for too much nerves.

Meanwhile Cologne and Ralph had ventured nearer.  They seemed afraid that a voice would harm some one, and Cologne only whispered.

“Tavia dear,” she said, “whatever has happened?”

“She has promised to tell me first,” said Nat, again showing his good sense in saving Tavia just then.  “And we are not to hear one word until we get back to camp.”

“Here come Ned, and Jack, and Doctor Ashton,” interrupted Ralph.  “Who is sick?”

“A friend of Tavia’s, with whom she was stopping,” said the wily Nat.  “That was why she could not get word to us.  Her friend was very sick, and her folks were all away.”

Tavia looked her gratitude into Nat’s manly face.  The boys and the doctor had reached the tent.

“Wait here,” ordered the doctor as he stepped within.

And it was Dorothy Dale who took up her place by the physician’s side, as he did all that he could to unfold the case of Mary Harriwell.

“And how ever did you find this camp, one of the best for miles around?” asked Nat of Tavia, as they awaited the doctor’s verdict.

“We fell into it.  Whose is it?”

“Why the Babbitts left in a hurry last week—­some one ill.  They have not sent down for their things yet.”

“Lucky for us,” remarked Tavia.  Then they heard the doctor moving about in the tent, and lowered their voices.

CHAPTER XXVIII

GOOD NEWS

“Oh, such good news!” exclaimed Dorothy, emerging from the tent.  “It is worth all our trouble.”

“What!” asked a chorus.

“She will be better!  She has recovered her reason.  The doctor says some shock——­”

“Oh, but it was an awful shock,” interrupted Tavia.  “I believe if I had any reason it would have destroyed mine.”

“Always knew there was a method in your madness, Tavia,” said Nat.  “Now, that’s something like!”

“We are going to take her to camp to-night,” went on Dorothy, too serious to take a joke.  “Doctor Ashton says nothing could be better for her.”

“There are camps, and camps,” persisted Nat.

Ned was talking to the doctor.  “We can carry her on the cot, just as well as not,” insisted Nat.  “There are four of us.”

“And put her in the boat—­well, I think that will be all right,” answered the doctor.  “The present trouble is more of a morbid fear than anything else,” and he put his stethoscope in its case.  “As soon as she feels the fresh air, and realizes that she is out of all harm’s way, I think she will——­”