"You've been dreaming, old chap," said Robin sleepily; "it's nothing at all."  He closed his eyes as he spoke and drew a deep breath, and after a minute or two his younger brother followed his example.  "Suppose it must have been a dream," he muttered as he drifted off, "but——"  There was a snore—Peter, too, was fast asleep. 

 CHAPTER V 

 Both boys seemed to waken at the same instant next morning. The birds were singing all round them; the light was dancing on the river; the Chase stood out before them framed in a cloudless blue sky, and the camp-fire was practically out! 

 But a little energy soon put that right. A few red-hot cinders still remained, and last night's heap of dead wood served as morning fuel. Very soon the fire was crackling away merrily enough.  "Isn't this A1 and O.K.?" shouted Peter, splashing in the river.  "Hurray and Hurroosh! Oh, isn't a night-camp grand? I could eat my breakfast, though, at any minute you like to name." 

 "We'll have to catch and cook it first," said his brother. But when, after a ten minutes' swim, the boys returned to the camp-fire it was to find Jan, the good fairy, in charge. "Breakfast at the Cottage for me!" she repeated indignantly; "what an idea! I'm camping out as much as you are! I'm cook, too, aren't I? No,—if you'll only just go off for five minutes and fetch fuel or something, I'll have hot tea ready by then." 

 In five minutes she was as good as her word; a dixie full of hot tea for each awaited them, and the remains of the loaf and the butter.  "There's not very much," Jan announced to the approaching pair, "but I thought we wanted to be self-supporting now we've begun, so I just brought a few tea-leaves along, and——" 

 "Right you are. So we will be"—the boys produced a pretty good cupful of wild raspberries.  "If we can't make a good breakfast on these——!" they said. And the meal in the open air, of bread and butter and wild fruit, was not to be despised. Hardly was it over when the horn sounded on the other side of the water.  "There's Mother. We'll tidy up the camp and make up to-day's arrangements when we've heard what she has to say," said Robin as they raced off. 

 The morning bulletin was good. Dick's attack was evidently slight—he had had a good night; and it seemed a very mild sort of scarlet fever, so the children's mother informed them.  "He doesn't seem to have caught cold on the journey, for which I am thankful; but the queer thing is that Donald hasn't got 

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