ed the frightened one.

"It _might_ be a bear, you know," quavered Mina.

The breakfast was being neglected. Mrs. Havel was down at the edge of
the lake washing out some bits of lace. She had not heard the rumpus.

"I'm going to see," announced Frank, and ran back over the course Grace
had come.

She reached the berry bushes. She parted them and peered through. She
began to enter the jungle, indeed, in search of bruin.

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

TIT 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 shore 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 shore 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 bush