We ate a substantial breakfast at Tish’s suggestion, because we expected to be fairly busy the first day, and there would be no time for hunting.  We had to walk ten miles, set up the tent, make a fire and gather nuts and berries.  It was about that time, I think, that I happened to recall that it was early for nuts.  Still there would be berries, and Tish had added mushrooms to our menu.

We found a man with a spring wagon to drive us out and Tish showed him the map.

“I guess I can get you out that way,” he said, “but I ain’t heard of no camp up that direction.”

“Who said anything about a camp?” snapped Tish.  “How much to drive us fifteen miles in that direction?”

“Fifteen miles!  Well, about five dollars, but I think—­”

“How much to drive us fifteen miles without thinking?”

“Ten dollars,” said the man; and as he had the only wagon in the town we had to pay it.

It was a lovely day, although very warm.  The morning sun turned the woods to fairylike glades.  Tish sat on the front seat, erect and staring ahead.

Aggie bent over and touched my arm lightly.  “Isn’t she wonderful!” she whispered; “like some adventurer of old—­Balboa discovering the Pacific Ocean, or Joan of Arc leading the what-you-call-’ems.”

But somehow my enthusiasm was dying.  The sun was hot and there were no berry-bushes to be seen.  Aggie’s fairy glades in the woods were filled, not with dancing sprites, but with gnats.  I wanted a glass of iced tea, and some chicken salad, and talcum powder down my neck.  The road was bad, and the driver seemed to have a joke to himself, for every now and then he chuckled, and kept his eyes on the woods on each side, as if he expected to see something.  His manner puzzled us all.

“You can trust me not to say anything, ladies,” he said at last, “but don’t you think you’re playing it a bit low down?  This ain’t quite up to contract, is it?”

“You’ve been drinking!” said Tish shortly.

After that he let her alone, but soon after he turned round to me and made another venture.

“In case you need grub, lady,” he said,”—­and them two suitcases don’t hold a lot,—­I’ll bring out anything you say:  eggs and butter and garden truck at market prices.  I’m no phylanthropist,” he said, glaring at Tish, “but I’d be glad to help the girl, and that’s the truth.  I been married to this here wife o’ mine quite a spell, and to my first one for twenty years, and I’m a believer in married life.”

“What girl?” I asked.

He turned right round in the seat and winked at me.

“All right,” he said.  “I’ll not butt in unless you need me.  But I’d like to know one thing:  He hasn’t got a mother, he says, so I take it you’re his aunts.  Am I on, ladies?”

We didn’t know what he was talking about, and we said so.  But he only smiled.  A mile or so from our destination the horse scared up a rabbit, and Tish could hardly be restrained from running after it with a leather thong.  Aggie, however, turned a little pale.