And another girl in another town was thinking just that in another way.

CHAPTER XVI

MORE MYSTERIES

“I know what we’ll do,” decided Grace as the three young scouts discussed the secret correspondence with the man o’ the woods.  “We must tell Margaret Slowden.  She knows best and Margy wonders what we are whispering about all the time.”

“Yes,” promptly agreed Madaline.  “I think that is the best plan.  Margaret said the other day we were acting as if we had a troop of our own instead of being True Treds.”

“We would be perfectly safe in telling Margaret,” Cleo followed.  “And she can help us best because she has already received a merit badge.”

“And lost it,” added Grace.

“Received another,” amended Madaline.

“I feel a little timid about all the woodsy part,” admitted Cleo, “because we haven’t any way of finding out about our cave man except spying on him, and that would be so risky it would demerit instead of meriting us.  You know we all had to promise to be prudent,” she finished.

“But we won’t tell the twins,” Grace restricted, “that would spoil the whole secret.”

So it was arranged that Margaret Slowden should be admitted to the inner circle, and after school that afternoon the marvelous story was told.

Margaret finally gasped.  She swallowed something like a tiny bug with the intake.  The girls were all squatted in the little tepee made from the school-house shutters, and Margaret always chewed clovers and sweet grass.  After a coughing fit she was able to hear the remainder of the weird story of Grace and her man o’ the woods.

“And why couldn’t you see him?” demanded Margaret.

“Why!” exclaimed the indignant Grace.  “Do you think you would be able to take notes on appearances with a coil of rope in one hand and a big slip knot ready to work off in the other, when you had to run around a tree without waking the man!”

“But what did he look like?” demanded the inquisitor.

“All I could see was feet—­no, it was shoes—­and a hat pulled down.”

“All movie men have their hats pulled down,” interrupted Margaret.  “Maybe some one was working a camera on the other side of a tree.”

“You’re just horrid, Margaret,” Grace pouted, “and I won’t tell you another word about it!”

“Why, Grace, I’m not teasing!  You know, all big things like that turn out to be movie stunts—­making the pictures, you know.  Although, of course, your mystery may be real.  But what are you going to do about it?”

“We planned to send the scout book just as, he asked, and then wait, also as he asked, until something happens we don’t know what.  Then we expect he will reveal his identity,” and this last clause had a very dignified tone to the girlish ears.

“That seems perfectly all right,” Margaret rendered her verdict, “and none of our rules in any way could oppose that.  The only thing is, we girls would be obliged to shun the woods because we are ordered, you know, to avoid unnecessary danger, and cave men are supposed to be very wild and woozy.”