And then the girls all heard a sort of snuffling growl--just the sort of a noise they _thought_ a bear must make. Frank jumped out of those bushes as though they had become suddenly afire!

"Wha--what did I tell you?" screamed Grace.

"He's there!" groaned Mina.

Then suddenly a dark object appeared among the saplings and underbrush.

"Look out, Frank! Run!" cried the other girls, in chorus; but Miss Cameron needed no urging; she ran with all her might!

CHAPTER XVI

t.i.t FOR TAT

But instead of returning toward the tents she ran straight across the clearing. Possibly she did not stop to think where she was going, for she came against the underbrush again and that terrific growl was once more repeated.

Frankie stopped as though she had been shot. Right in front of her loomed a second black, hairy figure.

She glared around wildly. At the back of the clearing was the opening into the wood path leading from Windmill Farm down to the boat-landing at John Jarley's place. And in that opening, and for an instant, appeared likewise a threatening form!

"Come here! Come here, Frank!" shrieked Bess. "There's another of them--we're surrounded."

The Cameron girl started again, and let out the last link of speed that there was in her. She ran straight down to the sh.o.r.e where Mrs. Havel just aroused by the shrieks, was starting to return to camp.

The other girls piled after her. But Wyn brought up the rear. She looked around now and then. Three bears! In a place where no bears had been seen for years and years! Wyn was puzzled.

"There are bears in the woods, Mrs. Havel!" gasped Grace.

"Nonsense, child!"

"I saw 'em. One almost grabbed me," declared the big girl.

"And _I_ saw them, Auntie," urged Percy Havel.

"This way! this way!" cried Frank, running along the sh.o.r.e under the high knoll on which the camp was pitched. "They can't see us down here."

Mrs. Havel was urged along by her niece and Grace. Wyn brought up the rear. Oddly enough, none of the bears came out of the bushes--that she could see.

The girls plunged along the sand, and through the shallow water for several yards. Here the bushes grew right down to the edge of the lake.

Suddenly Wyn caught sight of something ahead, and uttered a sharp command:

"Stop! every one of you! Do you hear me, Frank? Stop!"

"Oh, dear! they can eat us here just as well as anywhere," groaned Grace.

"Now be quiet!" said Wynifred, in some heat. "We've all been foolish enough. _Those were not bears._"

"Cows, maybe, Wynnie?" asked Mrs. Havel. "But I am quite as afraid of cows----"

"Nor cows, either. I guess you wouldn't have been fooled for a minute if you had seen them," said Wyn.

"What do you mean, Wyn?" cried Frank. "I tell you I saw them with my own eyes----"

"Of course you did. So did I," admitted Wyn. "But we did not see them right. They are not bears, walking on their hind legs; they are just boys walking on the only legs they've got!"

"The Busters!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Frank.

"Oh, Wyn! do you think so?" asked Mina, hopefully.

"Look ahead," commanded Wyn. "There are the boys' canoes. They paddled over here this morning and dressed up in those old moth-eaten buffalo robes they had over there, on the island, and managed to frighten us nicely."

"That's it! They played a joke on us," began Frank, laughing.

But Mrs. Havel was angry. "They should be sent home for playing such a trick," she said, "and I shall speak to Professor Skillings about it."

"Pooh!" said Wyn. "They're only boys. And of course they'll be up to such tricks. The thing to do is to go them one better."

"How, Wyn, how?" cried her mates.

"I do not know that I can allow this, Wynifred," began Mrs. Havel, doubtfully.

"You wish to punish them; don't you, Mrs. Havel?"

"They should be punished--yes."

"Then we have the chance," cried Wyn, gleefully. "You go back to the camp, Mrs. Havel, and we girls will take their canoes--every one of them. We'll call them the trophies of war, and we'll make the Busters pay--and pay well for them--before they get their canoes back. What do you say, girls?"

"Splendid!" cried Frank. "And they frightened me so!"

"Look out for the biscuits, Mrs. Havel, please," begged Bess. "I am afraid they will be burned."

The lady returned hurriedly to the camp on the top of the hillock. When she mounted the rise from the sh.o.r.e, there was a circle of giggling youths about the open fireplace and a pile of moth-eaten buffalo hides near by. Dave was messing with the Dutch oven in which Bess had just before put the pan of biscuit for breakfast.

"Ho, ho!" cried Tubby. "Where are the girls?"

"Bear hunting, I bet!" cried Ferd Roberts.

"Good-morning, Mrs. Havel," said Dave, smiling rather sheepishly. "I hope we didn't scare _you_."

"You rather startled me--coming unannounced," admitted Mrs. Havel, but smiling quietly. "You surely have not breakfasted so early?"

"No. That's part of the game," declared another youth. "We claim forfeit--and in this case take payment in eats."

"I am afraid you are more slangy than understandable," returned Mrs.

Havel. "Did you come for something particular?"