typhoid and other germs holding a convention in it. It was sweet and
cool, and the girls voted it as good as ice-cream soda.

"At any rate as we can't get any we might as well pretend it is,"
declared Bess.

So the meal passed merrily. After it had been concluded, amid gay
chatter and fun, Peggy proposed an excursion to the woods for wild
flowers which grew in great profusion on the opposite side of the
stream. Crossing it by a plank bridge, the young people plunged into the
cool woods, dark and green, and carpeted with flowering shrubs and
vines.

For some time they gathered the blossoms, and were just about to return
to the aëroplanes and resume their journey when Peggy uttered a sudden
sharp exclamation:

"Hark! What's that?" she cried.

They all listened. Again came the sound that had arrested her attention;
a sharp cry, as if some one was in pain or fright.

Then came definite words:

"Don't! Please; don't hit me again!"

"It's a child!" exclaimed Jimsy.

"A girl!" cried Peggy, "some one is ill-treating her."