ay at a trot.
Wonderingly, and somewhat disturbed, for the bedding and the clothing
packs contained articles that could not be done without, the girls
instituted a search of their own, but found nothing. The loss of the
packs meant their return to town to purchase more supplies. No one
wished to do that, in the first place; and, in the second place, they
needed warm, dry bedding and dry clothing for use that night.

While Jim was in search of the missing equipment the girls went to work
and collected the scattered contents of some of the packs. Suddenly
there came a long-drawn shout from down shore.

"I've got 'em!"

"I thought so," nodded Miss Elting.

Jim came back lugging a pack soon thereafter. The water was running
from the pack, under whose weight the driver was staggering.

"Found them in the river," he explained. "Had drifted into a cove. So
heavy I couldn't carry more than one at a time. The other packs are
open and the stuff spread all over the cove. I gathered it up as well
as I could. You'll have to give me a rope to tie the things up, or
else bring them back in wads."

"In the river?" cried the girls in chorus.

"Well, I swum!" muttered Janus, pausing from his labors long enough to
consult his whiskers. "Things are moving kind of fast."

"Oh, this is nothing, nothing at all," laughed Crazy Jane. "You will
think things are moving after you have been out with the Meadow-Brook
Girls for a time. Things always do move when we are around. Look out
that they don't move so fast as to sweep you with them. My! but this
is a heavy pack."

The girls had taken the wet pack from Jim and were dragging it up the
bluff. Janus tied this and two other packs on the back of one horse,
then began making ready for doing the game with the other animal. By
the time he was ready, Jim had returned with still another wet bundle
of equipment.

"Our clotheth are in that pack!" wailed Tommy, as she surveyed the
bedraggled outfit. "What thhall we do?"

"Keep quiet and go on up to camp," said Margery severely.

"Come, come, girls!" urged Miss Elting, a little irritated. She had
not yet quite recovered from the shock of Harriet's disaster. How
great a shock this had been her charges had not fully realized.

The heaviest packs were soon loaded on the horses, after which Janus,
leading one animal, went ahead to pilot them to the spot chosen for a
temporary camp. Nearly half an hour was consumed in finding t