Page:Betty Gordon at Boarding School.djvu/134

124 autumn day, warm and hazy, and the red and gold of the leaves showed burnished from the hillside. They tramped rather silently at first, and then, as the tense mood wore off, their tongues were loosened and they chattered like magpies.

"Here's a tree!" shouted Louise and Frances, who were in the lead.

When they had picked all the nuts on the ground, Bobby essayed to climb the tree. She made rather sad work of the effort, for a shag-bark hickory is not the easiest tree in the world to climb, and after she had torn her skirt in two places and mended it with safety pins, she gave up the attempt.

"Let's walk further," she suggested. "We'll mark our trail as we go like the Indians."

This idea caught the fancy of the girls, and they marked an elaborate trail, building little mounds at every turn and leaving odd arrangements of stones to mark their passing.

"Come on, I'll race you," shouted Bobby suddenly. "I feel just like exercising."

Betty wondered what she called the scramble through the woods, but she, too, was ready for a run. They set off pellmell, laughing and shouting.

"Look out!" shrieked Betty, stopping so