"That's just what she does!" exclaimed Katherine. "I've been wondering all the while what that gesture reminded me of. Wouldn't it be great fun to name her Eeny-Meeny?"
The name seemed so admirably suited to the droll figure that they began calling her that forthwith.
"After such a strenuous experience I think Eeny-Meeny ought to be put to bed," remarked Slim artfully. He was trying to get the decks cleared for action with pan and spoon.
"Of course," replied Katherine. "How thoughtless of me not to offer to do it sooner! Come on, poor dear, and have a nice nap. You carry her feet, Slim, and I'll carry her head. Put her in on Hinpoha's bed for a gentle surprise party. Here, hold her head while I slip the pillow underneath."
Then she covered Eeny-Meeny carefully with the blanket so that only her outline showed and returned to the fire, which Slim was rapidly reducing to the proportions of a "kettle boiler."
"Don't you think," said Slim, as she came up, "that Eeny-Meeny would like some fudge when she wakes up? There's nothing like fudge to restore you after you've been drowned."
Katherine agreed with this idea also and soon had the ingredients bubbling in the kettle, while Slim glowed with satisfaction toward the world at large.
"Here come the folks!" cried Katherine half an hour later, when the fudge was cool and most of it inside of Slim. "We must run down and tell them the great news."
The boys and girls swarmed noisily out of the launch onto the beach, calling back and forth to one another. Slim and Katherine came hurriedly down the path with their fingers on their lips. "Sh-h!" said Katherine. "Don't make so much noise. Hello, Antha; hello, Anthony." She greeted them hurriedly and with a preoccupied air.
"What's up?" asked Gladys. "Is mother's headache much worse?"
"There's a lady here who's very sick," continued Katherine in a low, grave voice. "She was getting drowned in the lake and Slim and I brought her in in the launch and revived her, and now she's in our tent asleep."
A murmur of excitement rose up from the crowd, which Katherine stilled with uplifted hand.
"Oh, the poor thing!" said Gladys in a whisper. "How dreadful it must be! Will she be all right now, do you think?"