"Here, here!" called out Major Dale. "When I was a lad it was
considered a crime to keep a mirror in one's room. We used to keep one
blind shut to get a reflection on the window pane for the neck-tie
business, and we took a chance at the hair-part. But to hear you young
ones! What you actually need, boys, is a little of the real thing in
training. Why don't you pitch a tent out on your own river here, and
go in for roughing it?"

"Great!" declared the boys' chorus.

"Now that's something like," continued Nat, "and it would do a lot
toward patching up a fellow's finances. Let's see. Where's that
itinerary? Suppose we make it two weeks at home--on the co-operative."

Like the proverbial wildfire, the suggestion spread, until within a
short hour the boys, with Dorothy, were out on the river edge,
selecting the spot upon which to pitch the "War Tent"--for war they
declared it would be, "against masculine beauties." Dorothy found
herself so busy planning the boys suits, figuring out what they would
require in the way of supplies and furniture, though this last was to
be cut down to mere necessities, that she almost felt her own camping
days had begun, as Nat expressed it.

"Now that comes of having a girl around," declared Ned. "If you had
not come, Dorothy, we would never have had that admiration conference,
and then we could never have discovered our own beautiful river, for
in this case, I don't mind using a correct, and all right adjective,
although usually I consider anything adjectivey rather too much of a
spread."