es, gigantic shapes, of threat.

"Let me get out! Oh-h! I want to get out, away--anywhere!" shuddered
Una. "This is no-o fun."

"Yes! it is--once you get used to it," laughed Pemrose, who--together
with the Jack at a Pinch still hovering near--liked her excitement warm.
"Look--_look_ at him crimp himself along! Ever--ever see anything
so crooked?" as the great muscle in the reptile's body contracted and
relaxed upon its hasty retreat. "When we girls had our War Garden, a
year ago, an old farmer said we planted our potato rows so straight that
he 'vummed 'twould make a black snake seasick to cross from one to the
other.'"

"Ha! Because he just naturally has to go ajee!" laughed her scout
knight, estimating the length of that scaly corkscrew, if uncoiled, with
his eye. "Pshaw! I've tamed 'em--and killed 'em, too," he added.

"Yes! a black snake wouldn't harm you, even if he did bite." Pem was
still reassuring her friend. "Did you hear him whistle?... But--but
what's that?" It was just half a minute later that she put the question.
"He isn't making that noise with his tail still; is he?"

She looked at Stud. Under the ruby eye of the lamp his face--the face of
a Stoutheart--had turned suddenly pea-green.

His eyes were fixed upon a gleam of bloated yellow dimly seen, under the
lee of a rock, not very many yards away--the venomous, pale yellow of
the dropsical cave fungi.

"Why--why! it's only one of those horrid, blowzy, mushroom things. But
_what's_ the noise--like--like somebody rattling little marbles,
dry peas?"

The girl felt her own breath go ratatat as she put the question.

"Oh-h! only some fellow rattling--rattling--beans in his pocket. Let's
get away--quick!"

And then Pemrose knew what it was to look upon a Stoutheart "rattled."

But, with that, a voice, a cry, not loud, but strong, exploded like a
spring gun in the cave,--suddenly halting advance.

"What's that outside? What's that outside?" it whooped. "Is it an
aeroplane? _Two_ aeroplanes? Oh! hurry out--and see."

"A dozen aeroplanes! A corps of aeroplanes!" boomed back those flaunting
big boys, of whom the nickum was leader, playing up to the cue of the
Scoutmaster who had started the concentrated cry. "Oh, hurry--hurry!"

She saw him fling his mayflowers on the ground, that strange youth, and
snatch at Una's hand, to drag her along towards the low cave entrance.
He made a wide, circling movement to catch at hers, too. But she dodged
it. Ne