with Janet tagging at her heels, something happened. It was as though she really were seeing trees for the first time. They weren't the dusty, forlorn exiles she had known in Central Park. They weren't even the sheltering, friendly Camp trees. They were free and proud. It was terribly exciting to come out suddenly on an open space and look down on them brandishing their branches in the wind like the spears of a great army.

And when at midday the Penguins built a fire and cooked sausages and bacon over the embers, that was fun. Pip-Emma felt that even Ma would think it fun to cook under trees. One day when Pip-Emma was rich and famous, she'd bring Pop and Ma up here and show them how. Pride in herself as a woodsman who knew where you should build a fire and where you shouldn't began to kindle in her. When she got back, she'd tell the Gang. There were a lot of things the Gang didn't know that Pip-Emma knew now. She'd sit on the stoop of the shabby brownstone house, with her face between her fists, and tell them: "Then, one day, we went on a two days' hike. Gee, that was swell!" She wouldn't tell about her Gang, because it consisted of just one Penguin. And the kids wouldn't understand.

* * * * *

They began to climb again. But there was a change somewhere. The wind had died down. They were surrounded by a dense silence. And when they looked at one another, faintly uneasy, they saw that a thin veil hung over them. Prissy saw it first. She didn't like it. But just when she made up her mind that one of the mountain mists was creeping up on them and that they'd better turn back, she put her foot on a hidden root and went down as though she'd been shot. The pain was so bad that she cried out. Only once. Then she set her teeth. But she couldn't get up.

"It's my ankle," she said quietly. "I guess I've broken it."

The Penguins knew all about splints and first aid. Prissy sat very white with the sweat running down her cold face. She'd seen Pip-Emma watching her intently, and not for a king's ransom would she have so much as groaned. In a sort of way she was glad this had happened. She'd show Pip-Emma something.

"One of you had better go back to the Camp for help," she said.

And even as she said it she knew that no one must go. The mist was like a besieging enemy whose scouts having found them defenseless now bore down on them in full force. They could hardly see one another. They'd have to stay together till the fog lifted. Sometimes, if the wind didn't come up, a fog lasted for two days. And their provisions had been sent ahead to their night's camping place.

"Better build a fire," Prissy said calmly.

She was worried and in bad pain. But she mustn't show it. The fire was hard to start. The wood was damp, and they'd used all their kindling. They sat as close as they could get to the sullen, smoky warmth.

Pip-Emma put her arm over Janet's shoulders. Clara sat on her other side. Clara was shivering a little. Almost unconsciously she and Pip-Emma edged closer to each other.

They took turns finding wood. Night added black shadows to the muffling fog. It was getting colder. Pip-Emma had saved one of her sausages, wrapped greasily in a paper napkin. She'd been hungry before—that time Pop and Ma had both lost their jobs. There'd been days and days when Pip-Emma had had this gnawing pain. So it didn't worry her. But fat old Clara must be feeling real bad. She was always hungry anyway.

"Here," Pip-Emma said softly.

Clara VanSittart gave one look at the sausage. Then she shut her eyes tight. "Thanks—I guess I won't, though. The others haven't anything."

Pip-Emma looked at the sausage, too. She glanced anxiously at Janet. Janet shook her head. So Pip-Emma tossed the sausage over her shoulder into the forest. It was no good to any of them. One of the twins grinned at her—a friendly, shy sort of grin. And suddenly Pip-Emma was sorry.

She was sorry she'd made old Clara sick before the race. After all, Clara couldn't help being fat and always hungry. She was sorry she'd taken the kids' beads. Prissy was right—the shell trick was just a trick. So it wasn't fair. Prissy was a good guy. She had guts; she could take it.

The twins had put their extra coats over Prissy. There'd been quite a gay argument about it. Now Prissy leaned exhausted with pain against a tree, trying to smile at them.

"It's a real adventure," she said.

They nodded and tried to laugh back at her. All the same they were just kids. They were scared, too, and awfully cold and hungry. They were fighting back tears. Pip-Emma knew. And suddenly Pip-Emma began to sing.

    "We are the happy Penguins—
    We play without a care . . ."

At first they just gaped at her. They couldn't believe their ears. She'd never sung their songs. She'd made them feel how silly they were. And now suddenly, joyfully, they understood. Pip-Emma was a Penguin. She was one of them. And with a sensation like the breaking of a bad pain Pip-Emma knew, too. They were all her Gang.

The fog-smothered forest rang with their young voices.

* * * * *

Prissy had fallen into a doze, and Janet lay close to her for warmth.
But Clara and Pip-Emma talked softly to each other.

"We gotter do something," Pip-Emma said.

"I bet I could find the way," Clara whispered back, "if you'll come with me."

"Sure. You bet," Pip-Emma said.

They stood up cautiously. The Penguins roused themselves from their half-frozen torpor to look at them. Clara made an authoritative gesture, silencing them. After all, she was still top Penguin.

"We're going for help," she whispered.

The two slipped out of the clearing. They held hands. They knew that if they let go of each other they would be lost. They had only two ideas—to keep together and to keep going down, hoping that at the bottom they'd strike some familiar landmark. It wasn't much of a hope. They were like blind children, picking their way. Things hit them in the face and clutched at them. And when they stopped, breathless and shivering, they heard soft dreadful sounds. Their clothes were torn. Their hands and faces, though they did not know it, were scratched and bleeding.

"You awfully scared, Clara?" Pip-Emma asked.

"Not awfully—not with you, Pip."

Hell's Kitchen and Park Avenue pushed on together.

And at daybreak the forest ranger opened the door of his cabin to them. He and his wife had been up two nights with a sick child, and he was half-asleep and not at all sure that he wasn't seeing things.

"We're Happy Warriors," Pip-Emma said, "and we're all lost."

It wasn't anyone's fault that the forest ranger's child had the measles and that the Penguins who had never had the chance to catch anything went down with it like ninepins. The Penguin Circle was quarantined, and at night Pip-Emma sat alone by the campfire. The doctor had said: "She'll be all right. She's been exposed probably to every germ known to man. She's a survival of the fittest." So Pip-Emma was allowed to help nurse the Penguins and sit on their beds when they were convalescing and tell them hair-raising stories of Hell's Kitchen. She made up some of them. And the adventures of the mounted-cop uncle grew gorier and gorier. The Penguins seemed to like them gory.

Little Janet was sicker than any of them. But when Pip-Emma held her small feverish hand, she'd fall contentedly asleep.

Except for Janet's feeling so bad it was kind of fun. At night