Over on a little moss-covered tree stump Tessie and Rose alone knew the complete story of that lost badge, and only their eyes attempted to give an expression to the details.

The call to “fall in ranks” was not sounded for a full hour later, for such a picnic as these girls enjoyed had never been heard of in River Bend Woods.

All the wealth and generosity of Gerald Douglass seemed poured out in his sister’s woody banquet; and as we have guessed he was by no means a stranger to the attractive Captain Clark.  In fact, the way these two worked to “lay out the spread” caused even the experienced Captain Cosgrove to raise an inquisitorial finger.

And now our mythical May-pole has swung around until its pretty ends all entwine the staff like a monument of mirth.

Rose and Tessie were reunited and nothing but the insistance of Jacqueline that Stacia (this name now became permanent, as did the brief title Dagmar had chosen) stay with her, kept the two companions even temporarily separated by the short distance of two intervening villages.

As Stacia was assisting the queen back to earth, and thence to her big limousine late that afternoon, she overheard Jacqueline telling Captain Cosgrove about the completion of her accounts for the Shut In Benefit.

“Cousin Marcia Osborne went to the coast a week ago,” Jacqueline said, “and she told me before she went she knew the returns would be made all right in time.  So when Stacia handed me the envelope the other day I wrote her immediately that it was all settled by now.”

Then Pan blew a reveille on his pipes and the troops left the woods, so we must leave them, to meet again in the next volume of the Scouts, to be called “The Girl Scouts at Bellair:  or, Maid Mary’s Awakening.”

THE END