The afternoon school session received scant attention from the
prospective hikers, the Tenderfoots especially being absorbed in
the prospects of a spring afternoon in the woods.

So interested were Grace and Madaline they exchanged preparatory
notes in the five minute rest period, although that time was set
aside for real relaxation, and no one was supposed to use eyes or
fingers during the short rest.

When school was finally dismissed the girls arranged to pass the
homes of most of the group, as many of them lived on the same
Oakley Avenue, and thus notify parents of their scout plans for
the hike, and when Lieutenant Lindsley was eventually picked up
from the practicing department of the Normal School, the ranks
were filled, and the hike moved off towards the River Road.

It was a glorious afternoon, in late April. The peach blossoms
were just breaking into pink puff balls, and the pear trees were
burdened with a crop of spring "snow," fragrant in their whitest
of dainty blossoms.

But the still life beauties were not more attractive than the
joyous, happy, romping girls, who capered along from the more
noisy town streets, into the highways and byways of the long green
stretch of country leading to the river brink, and to the woods on
its border.

"I'm going to do something really great," declared Grace. "I don't
care just what it is, but I want to have a real record, when I am
called up to take my degree test. I am not afraid of anything in