They put up some sandwiches and fruit in a basket in case they were not able to get home by noon.  Then they locked the door of the little lodge and started down the steps.  They hesitated before starting into the woods, and Mollie had a happy thought.

“We can go part of the way along the road,” she said.  “And then there is a path that leads directly through to the head of the falls.”

The celerity with which they accepted this suggestion seemed funny to them afterward, but at the time they had other things to think about.  Mostly they were wondering if they would realty be able to hold on to their nerve long enough to see the adventure through.

“I wish,” said Betty wistfully, as she had wished so many times of late, “that the boys were here.  They could help us out so beautifully.”  And she sighed, for when she spoke of “the boys,” she always thought of one boy most—­ and that one was Allen.

“Well, there’s no use wishing for what can’t possibly happen,” Grace was saying, when there came a whistle so clear and penetrating that it made them jump—­ then another, and another.  Was it just that they were nervous or was there really something peculiarly familiar in the sound?  At any rate they stopped and turned around to see who the whistlers could be.

There were three soldiers coming down the road, broad-shouldered, vital looking fellows who swung along toward the astonished girls as though they owned the world.

“Betty, oh, Betty!” whispered Grace in a tense voice, grasping Betty’s arm so hard it hurt.  “It can’t be, oh, it can’t be the boys!”

But Mollie had broken away from the group and was rushing toward the soldier lads like the wild little tomboy she was.

“Girls, it’s the boys! it’s the boys! it’s the boys!” she yelled.  “They’re all tanned and they’re at least ten inches taller, but it’s the boys just the same.”

And before any of the other girls knew what she was about she had kissed each one of them twice and was hanging on the tallest one’s arm, who happened to be Frank, laughing and crying at the same time.

Then the girls seemed to decide that she had had the lads to herself long enough, and they immediately entered the contest, all laughing at once, all crying at once, and all talking at once, until it was a wonder the boys did not lose their heads entirely.

The only one who was not absolutely and completely and deliriously happy was Betty.  For the other three boys were there, but Allen had not come!

As though reading her thought, Will, who was much handsomer and more manly than when he went away, put an arm about the Little Captain’s shoulder big brother fashion and drew her aside from the rest.