“Wait till you get to the tip-top,” said Dorothy, her eyes sparkling from the exercise.  “Can you stand it to climb for five minutes more?”

“Of course,” answered Ruth stoutly, “though I’m not sorry that we’re almost there,” she added in a low tone to Katharine French who, with Alice Stevens and Louise Cobb, made up the membership of the club.

The climb of the last five minutes was harder than ail the rest, and Ruth groaned as she sank on the ground at the very top.  “My Chicago training hasn’t prepared me for this,” she said plaintively.  “You’ll have to take me in hand, Miss Burton, and help me to get my muscles in condition.”

“Don’t sit too long on the ground now,” laughed Miss Burton, “or we shall have to carry you home.”

“Miss Burton, would you and Ruth mind going over behind that big rock for a few minutes?” asked Dorothy.  “The club always has its business meeting the first thing, and as we are to admit a new member it will take longer than usual.”

Over behind the big rock proved to be a very agreeable place to sit, for the girls had covered some smaller rocks with pine boughs and a golf cape, and the view of the surrounding country was glorious.

“Rather different from Chicago, isn’t it, Ruth?” asked Miss Burton.  “I’m a Western girl myself, and I taught in Chicago for ayear, so I know how this must seem to you.”

“Are you really a Western girl?” cried Ruth interested at once.  “Then you won’t mind if I talk Chicago to you once in a while, will you?  This is quite the most beautiful place I’ve ever lived in, but,” she added honestly, “I’m dreadfully homesick for Chicago sometimes, and I don’t like to confess it because they are all so lovely to me.”

“Come and talk to me when you feel like that,” said Miss Burton, with one of her radiant smiles; “it will do us both good.”

“I’d love to,” said Ruth fervently, “and——­”

She was interrupted by a call from the girls, and with Miss Burton hastened to join the others, only to stop short in amazement as they rounded the rock against which they had been sitting.  The girls had worked fast and with no noise, and it was so undeniably a gypsy camp into which Ruth had walked that she could hardly believe her eyes.  A small fire was built on some rocks, and over it hung in the crotch of a branch an odd-looking kettle.  Three of the girls had unbraided their hair and made themselves gay with artificial flowers, bright ribbons and brilliant scarfs.  Alice Stevens, who was dark enough to look really like a gypsy, was reading Louise Cobb’s hand, while Betty looked on and occasionally stirred an imaginary something in the kettle.  Charlotte, Dorothy and Katharine French, who were all tall and preferred masculine parts, sat on the other side of the fire dressed in colored paper caps, and bright sashes draped over one shoulder.

Miss Burton broke the silence by clapping her hands.  “It’s fine, girls,” she cried with enthusiasm.  “I didn’t know we were to see anything really artistic.”