His turkey feathers were all awry, standing out in a dozen different directions from his head, his blanket trailed behind him, and the fringe was hanging in festoons from his leggins, where it had come unpinned.  The red paint on his face made him look as if he had been in a fight with the carving-knife he carried, and had had the skin peeled off his face in patches.

Wild as he looked, his appearance was tame beside that of the impish-looking little savage who skipped in after him, in the scarlet bedroom slippers, pink striped bathing-suit and green striped skin.

“Keith Maclntyre, what have you been doing to yourself?” gasped his grandmother.  Both boys began an excited exclamation, but were stopped by Miss Allison’s question, “Where is Virginia?  Have you two little savages scalped her?”

“She’s tied to a tree down by the spring,” answered Malcolm.  “We are just starting down there now to cut her loose.  You see we were playing Indian, and she was tied up to be tortured, and we forgot all about her being there—­”

But Miss Allison waited to hear no more.  “The poor little thing!” she exclaimed.  “Tied out there alone in the dark woods!  How could you be so cruel?  It is enough to frighten her into spasms.”

“I’m awfully sorry, Aunt Allison!” began Malcolm, but his aunt was already out of hearing.  Out of the door she ran, through the dewy grass and the stubble of the field beyond, regardless of her dainty spring gown, or her new patent leather shoes.  Malcolm and Keith dashed out after her, ran on ahead and were at the spring before she had climbed the fence into the woodland.

Virginia was not crying when the boys reached her.  She remembered that she had once called Malcolm “Rain-in-the-face” because she caught him crying over something that seemed to her a very little reason, and she did not intend to give him a chance to taunt her in the same way.  She was glad that it was too dark for him to notice her tear-swollen eyes.

“Whew!  It’s dark down here!” said Keith.  “Were you frightened, Ginger?” he asked, as he helped Malcolm unfasten the cords that bound her.  But Ginger made no reply to either questions or apologies.  She walked on in dignified silence, too deeply hurt by their neglect, too full of a sense of the wrong they had done her, to trust herself to speak without crying, and she intended to be game to the last.  But when she came upon Miss Allison, and suddenly found herself folded safe in her arms, with pitying kisses and comforting caresses, she clung to her, sobbing as if her heart would break.

“Oh, auntie!  It was so awful!” was all she could say, but she repeated it again and again, until Miss Allison, who had never seen her so excited before, was alarmed.  The boys, who had run on ahead to the house again, before she gave way to her feelings, were inclined to look upon it all as a good joke, for they had no idea how much she had suffered, and did not like it because she would not speak to them.  They changed their minds when Miss Allison came out of Virginia’s room a little later, and told them that the fright had given the child a nervous chill, and that she had cried herself to sleep.