“Oh, I can if I have to—­but I don’t have to now.  Come, Betty, tell us when we are to start.”

“Why, we can’t decide now.  Are you so anxious all of a sudden?” and Betty pulled down and straightened the blue middy blouse that had been rumpled by her energetic chums.

“Of course.  I detest waiting—­for trains or anything else.  I’m just dying to go, and I’ve got the cutest little traveling case.  It—­”

“Has a special compartment for chocolates; hasn’t it, Grace?” asked Mollie Billette, whose dark and flashing eyes, and black hair, with just a shade of steely-blue in it, betrayed the French blood in her veins.

“Oh, Grace couldn’t get along without candy!” declared Betty, with a smile.

“Now that’s mean!” exclaimed Grace, whose tall and slender figure, and face of peculiar, winsome beauty had gained her the not overdrawn characterization of “Gibson girl.”  “I don’t see why Billy wants to always be saying such horrid things about me!”

“I didn’t say anything mean!” snapped Mollie, whose pseudonym was more often “Billy” than anything else.  “And I don’t want you to say that I do!” Her eyes flashed, and gave a hint of the hidden fire of temper which was not always controlled.  The other girls looked at her a bit apprehensively.

“If you don’t like the things I say,” she went on, “there are those who do.  And what’s more—­”

“Billy,” spoke Betty, softly.  “I’m sure Grace didn’t mean—­”

“Oh, I know it!” exclaimed Mollie, contritely.  “It was horrid of me to flare up that way.  But sometimes I can’t seem to help it.  I beg your pardon, Grace.  Eat as many chocolates as you like.  I’ll help you.  Isn’t that generous?”

She clasped her arms about the “Gibson-girl,” and held her cheek close to the other’s blushing one.

“Don’t mind me!” she cried, impulsively.  Mollie was often this way—­in a little whirlwind of temper one moment, and sweetly sorry for it the next, albeit her little spasms of rage were never serious, and seldom lasted long.

“Forgiven,” murmured Grace.  “But I am really anxious to know when we can start our Camping and Tramping Club.  I think the idea is perfectly splendid!  How did you come to think of it, Betty?”

“I got the idea from a book—­it isn’t original by any means.  But then I always have been fond of walking—­out in the country especially.  Only it isn’t so much fun going alone.  So it occurred to me that you girls would like to join.  We can take a nice long tramp the first opportunity we get.”

“Just us four?” asked Grace.

“No, not necessarily.  We can have as many members as we like.”

“I think four is a nice number,” spoke Amy.  She was rather shy, and not given to making new friends.

“We four—­no more!” declaimed Mollie.  “Suppose we do limit it to four, Betty?”

“Well, we can talk of that later.  And I do so want to talk of it.  I thought we’d never get out of school,” and the four who had just been released from the Deepdale High School continued their stroll down the main street of the town, talking over the new plan that had been proposed that morning by Betty Nelson—­the “Little Captain,” as she was often called by her chums, for she always assumed the leadership in their fun and frolics.