“Oh, Grace, shame!  That’s not scouty.  You must not speak so of the mill girls.  We hope to take some of them in our troop before long.  We would have no right to public support if we did not do something definite for others, and the mill girls have so few chances.  So don’t, Gracie dear, ever speak like that again.”

“I won’t if you say so, also if it isn’t scouty.  I am out to win the goal, and I don’t mind what I may have to do to get my scout good conduct ball into the official basket.  Now, how’s the heel?  Did the little pad of soft leaves help to keep the pressure off?”

“Yes, that was a fine idea, and I shall see to it that some day, when original work is called for, you get credit for the nature-aid heel pad.  Rather a clumsy title, but when we explain how easy it is to get soft leaves to make pads for suffering feet, I am sure it will be welcome news to many an ambitious hiker.”

“Oh, Madie dear,” suddenly exclaimed Grace.  “Where are the girls gone?  They are not in the hazel nut clump, and I can’t hear a sound!”

“Oh, my!  Suppose they have gone looking for us the other way?”

Both girls in alarm, now scurried through the woods, calling and giving the “Coo-ee” call, but not a sound answered them.  Birds were flitting about from limb to branch, and the strange stillness of the woods frightened the little Tenderfoots.

“You go along the bank, and I’ll scour the elderberry patch.  This wood is so dense in spots, and so clear under the hemlocks, it is easy to lose and hard to find anyone in it,” declared Grace.  “I’m glad I brought my big rope.  I intended to tie every knot in the course, and cut them all out to fetch back finished, and I haven’t even unwound the rope.”

“If there is anything easier than getting lost in the woods it must be getting caught at whispering in the eighth grade,” grumbled Madaline.  “I wish my old heel had behaved itself.”

“And all the plans for my brave stunt gone to naught,” put in the now breathless Grace.  “I would never have made up the hike if I had not determined to get a glory mark out of it.  Now see where we are!  Miles from home, and darkness coming on at each end.  Where could those girls have gone to?”

“Sure as shooting they have gone on searching for us.  There’s the reservoir road, going in the opposite direction, and also Chestnut Hill.  To go either of those roads meant getting entirely away from the foolish little scouts who stopped to chatter and chin.  Just shows what we can do when we don’t know we shouldn’t.”

For some moments they brushed their way through the thicket, beating down briars with their stout sticks, then coming to a broad clearance they found themselves in a great grove of pines, clean as a floor, except for the layer of savory pine needles, and almost dark as night from the density of the pine canopies.

“My, how lovely!” exclaimed Grace.

“Yes, if we could only enjoy it,” demurred Madaline.