“Oh, that’s not so bad,” admitted Amy.

“I can easily do that,” assented Mollie.

“What about our meals?” asked Grace.

“Can’t you carry enough chocolate fudge to do between morning and evening?” asked Amy, with a laugh.

“I’ve got that part all planned,” began Betty.  “Or at least I have an idea about it.  We can get breakfast and supper at our friends’ or relatives’ and at noon we can go to restaurants, or to houses along the way.  Why, we can even take a little camping outfit with us, and make coffee on the road, carrying sandwiches, too.”

“Fine!” cried Amy and Mollie.

“Make chocolate—­not coffee,” begged Grace.

“Well, chocolate then,” assented Betty.

“I have a couple of aunts somewhere out Bessingford way,” spoke Amy.

“And mamma has a cousin or two near Millford,” went on Grace.

“Now, it’s your turn, Mollie,” said Betty.

“Oh, I have some wood-pile relations scattered about the country!” exclaimed the French girl, her eyes sparkling.  “I guess they would be glad to entertain us.”

“And I can fill in the between-spaces with uncles and aunts and cousins, I think,” spoke Betty.  “Now let’s make out a partial list.”

It took some little time to do this, but it was finally accomplished.

“Well, shall we decide on it?” asked Betty after a pause.  “Shall we form the Deepdale Camping and Tramping Club?”

“I move you, Miss Chairman, that we do!” exclaimed Grace.  “The sooner the better.”

“Second the motion!” came laughingly from Mollie.

“All in favor—­”

“Aye!” came in a joyous chorus, and the little club was thus quickly formed.

CHAPTER III

JEALOUSIES

“What do they find to talk about so often?”

“And so secretly.  As soon as any of us other girls come near they begin to speak of the weather—­or something like that.”

Thus remarked Alice Jallow to Kittie Rossmore a few days after the formation of the Camping and Tramping Club.  The question and comments took place in the court of the High School, just before the bell was to ring for the morning session.

“It’s all Betty Nelson’s doings,” declared Alice, who had often tried to make herself more intimate with the quartette of friends, but unsuccessfully.  The other girls did not care for these two.

“Yes.  Grace, Mollie and Amy will do anything Betty tells them,” asserted Kittie.

“I don’t see why she is so popular.  She hasn’t a bit of style about her.”

“I should say not!  Her skirt is entirely too wide, and her blouse never seems cut right.”

“They say her mother doesn’t believe in style.  But I do,” said Alice.  “I’d rather have a cheap dress, if it was in style, than something old-fashioned, even if it cost a lot more.”

“So would I. Look at them now, with their heads together!  I wonder if they’re going to have a dance?”