over the concealed gopher-holes, a mirror in her hand and an
expression of abject misery on her countenance.

'What's the matter?' cried the girls in one breath. But they needed
no answer, as she turned her face towards the light, for it was
plainly a case of poison-oak--one eye almost closed, and the cheek
scarlet and swollen.

'Where do you suppose you got it?' asked Bell.

'Oh, I don't know. It's everywhere; so I don't see how I ever hoped
to escape it. Yet I've worn gloves every minute. I think I must
have touched it when I went up the mountain trail with Jack. I'm a
perfect fright already, and I suppose it has only begun.'

'Is it very painful?' asked Polly, sympathetically. 'Oh, you do look
so funny, I can hardly help laughing, but I'm as sorry as I can be.'

'I should expect you to laugh--you generally do,' retorted Laura.
'No, it's not painful yet; but I don't care about that--it's looking
so ridiculous. I wonder if Dr. Winship could send me home. I wish
now that I had gone with Scott, for I can't be penned up in this tent
a week.'

'Oh, it won't hurt you to go out,' said Bell, 'and you can lie in the
sitting-room. Just wait, and let mamma try and cure you. She's a
famous doctor.' And Bell finished dressing hurriedly, and went to
her mother's tent, while Polly and Margery smoothed the bed with a
furtive kick of straw over the offending gopher-holes, and hung a
dark shawl so as to shield Laura's eyes.