quipment,"
answered Harriet triumphantly.

"Hooee-e-e-e!" shouted the Meadow-Brook Girls in great glee.

"Wait! I'll be down there to help you gather it up," Janus called down
to them.

"Get the packs, girls," ordered Miss Elting.

Then there came an interruption that startled the girls into silence.
Something sped through the air over their heads, uttering a strange,
weird woo-woo-woo! It passed, followed by a distant report, the crack
of a rifle. Then, all at once, the lamp that Janus Grubb was holding
above his head crumbled into nothingness, the oil in the well of the
lamp streaming down over the guide's head and face.

CHAPTER XX

SEEKING A DESPERATE REVENGE

"Lie down!" bellowed Janus.

"Down!" commanded Miss Elting, in the same moment.

Janus moved more quickly than they ever had seen him do before. They
did not think him capable of such rapid action.

"Look out below!" he roared, as, with a series of rapid kicks, he sent
the burning sticks of the campfire tumbling over the edge into the
little ravine below the "Shelter."

"Get out of the light! Come up here as fast as ye can! Into the hut
with ye, every one!" Janus sprang from the rock and ran down the path
toward Harriet and Jane.

"What's the matter now?" demanded Jane, who did not understand.

"I don't know," answered Harriet, herself a little startled. "I heard
a gun fired twice. Can it be that some one is shooting at us? Oh, I
hope not. But we must get out of here! Mr. Grubb, is that you?" she
called, hearing some one floundering toward them.

"It's Grubb. Get out of that."

"What has happened?" begged Harriet, hurrying to meet the guide, who
came on a run to where they stood.

"Enough! Did you hear the shots?"

"Yes."

"Well, one of them snipped the lamp. I'm greased from head to foot.
The scoundrel!"

"But--but perhaps they were not intended for you, Mr. Grubb," suggested
Jane breathlessly.

"They were intended for me, all right. No mistake about that, young
ladies. Now, I want you to get into that shack on the double quick. I
haven't a rifle, but I have a revolver that's good enough to take care
of anything that gets close enough. Don't make too much noise; there
might be another shot."

"I think not, if we do not start any more fires. I have an idea that
the shots were intended for you, Mr. Grubb, not for us. If so, the man
will not shoot again in the dark, fearing to hit one of us."

"Well, I sw