“Do,” said Nyoda. Gladys nudged Hinpoha and drew her down the ladder and together they sped after canned shrimp and condensed milk.
“Now, if you’ll excuse us a minute,” said Nyoda to the San-Clus, “we’ll retire behind our curtains and prepare to do the stunt with which we always inflict company. Come, girls,” she added in a whisper, “the Battle of Blenheim.” And the players retired to array themselves in the necessary sheets.
Five minutes later the curtains were shoved aside, and the players stood before the audience. They looked in bewilderment. For seated where they had left the San-Clu Camp Fire Girls were the Captain, Bottomless Pitt, the Monkey, Dan Porter, Peter Jenkins and Harry Raymond. The girls had vanished.
“Why, when did you come in, boys?” asked Nyoda in surprise. “And where are the girls?”
“Why, the San-Clu Camp Fire girls,” said Nyoda, “who were visiting us.”
“Here they are,” said the six boys, rising and speaking together. “We are the ‘San-Clu’ Camp Fire Girls. ‘San-Clu’—short for Sandwich Club! Ho-ho-ho, Katherine! You’d know us in a minute with girls’ clothes on, would you!” And from under the rugs and furniture they drew the dresses, hats, gloves and wigs which the late San-Clus had worn a-calling. “Oh-h-h, Katherine, we do this to each other!”
The girls sat staring, speechless for a minute, unable to believe that there really had been no girls there. But the evidence was before their eyes and it could not be doubted. And they were far too game not to see that the joke was on them, and laughed just as heartily over it as the boys did.
“We’ll have to have the spread, anyhow, for your benefit,” said Nyoda, taking up the cans of supplies that Hinpoha and Gladys had just brought in. “You carried that off too splendidly not to be rewarded. We congratulate you on your ability to act, and confess that we were completely taken in. Where’s Slim?”
“We left him behind the fence,” said the Captain, with a start of recollection. “We didn’t dare let him come in with us, because you’d have recognized him right away.”
“Figures never lie, especially stout ones,” laughed Nyoda. “Go and bring him to the spread.”
“Are you folks going on a trip?” inquired the Monkey, with his mouth full of Shrimp Wiggle and his eyes on the ponchos piled in the corner.