“I’ll tell you what,” said Keith, dancing up and down in his excitement, until he looked like a ridiculous little clown in the faded pink bathing-suit and his stripes of green paint, “let’s take each other’s pictures while we are dressed this way.  We may never look so funny again, and we can go down and take Ginger, too, while she is tied to the tree.”

“Can’t now,” said Malcolm, “it’s too dark down there in the woods by this time.  See! there is nothing left now of the sun but those red clouds above the place where it went down.  I’m afraid it is too dark even for us up here on the hill; but we can try.  You do look funny, just like a jumping-jack or a monkey on a stick.”

“Surely Ginger won’t mind waiting long enough for us to do it,” said Keith.  “Anyhow we can never dress up this way again, and grandmother will be coming home very soon, so you take mine quick, and I will take yours.”

The boys had had some practice before with a cheap little camera, but this required some studying of the printed directions before they could use it.  The first time they tried it the plates were put in wrong, and the second time they forgot to remove the cap.  There were other things in the box besides the camera:  some beautiful pink curlew’s wings, a handsomely marked snake skin, and some rare shells that had been picked up on the Gulf coast.  Of course the boys had to examine each new treasure as it was discovered.  One thing after another delayed them until it was dusk even on the porch where they stood, and in the woods below a deep twilight had fallen.

Every minute that had sped by so rapidly for the boys, seemed an age to the captive Virginia.  Her arms ached from the strain of their unusual position.  Swarms of gnats flew about, stinging her face, and mosquitoes buzzed teasingly around her ears.  She was unable to move a finger to drive them away.

When the boys had been gone fifteen minutes she thought they must have been away hours.  At the end of half an hour she was wild with impatience to get loose, but, thinking they might return any minute, she made no sign of her discomfort.  She would be as heroic as the bravest brave ever tortured by cruel savages.  As long as it was light she kept up her courage, but presently it began to grow dark under the great beech-trees.  A frog down by the spring set up a dismal croaking.  What if they should not come back, and her grandmother and Aunt Allison should miss the train, and have to stay in the city all night!  Then nobody would come to set her free, and she would have to stay in the lonely woods all by herself, tied to a tree, with her hands behind her back.

At that thought she began calling, “Keith!  Keith!  Malcolm!  Oh, Malcolm!” but only an echo came back to her, as it had to the dying Minnehaha,—­a far-away echo that mocked her with its teasing cry of “Mal-colm!” Call after call went ringing through the woods, but nobody answered.  Nobody came.