nd then Bobby began to shriek with
laughter. It was too, too funny--with Jess begging the boys not to let
the Barnacle hurt "kitty."

It was impossible, however, to call the dog off the trail. That camp
scavenger, the American skunk, is the mildest mannered little creature
in the world--providing he is left strictly alone. Being timid and
otherwise defenseless, God has given him a scent-sack which----

"Nobody can tell me that the skunk only brought a _cent_ into the
Ark," declared the exhausted Bobby. "That fellow has a dollar's worth
himself!"

"Why--why did the Creator ever _make_ such a horrid beast?" demanded
Lil.

"You ask that and wear those furs of yours in the winter?" said
Nellie, laughing. "The pretty little fellow that the Barnacle has so
unwisely chased away from our vicinity is becoming very valuable to
the furriers. There are people who raise the creatures for the
market----"

"Excuse _me_!" gasped Bobby. "I'd want a chronic cold in the head, if
I had to work on a skunk farm."

As Barnacle and his quarry went farther from the camp the odor that
had risen drifted away, too; but for two days thereafter the girls
could easily tell in which part of the island Barnacle was running
game, by the way in which the odor came "down wind" to them.

Liz fed him at the edge of the wood; the girls chased him from the
vicinity of the tents whenever he appeared.

The Barnacle did not mind much; for he had struck a dog-hunter's
paradise. He was a fiend after small game and there had not been a dog
on Acorn Island for some years, in all probability.

He was running and yapping all day and pretty nearly all night. How
many groundhogs, chipmunks, muskrats, coons, and other small animals,
besides the rabbits, he chased and caught there was no telling.
Perhaps he did not kill one.

But he barked to his heart's desire and when he finally had driven
everything to cover, he came back to the tents, purified in soul as
well as in odor, and was willing to sleep during the day and sit up on
his haunches at night (when they tied him to the corner of the cabin)
and try to howl his head off at the moon.

The girls--even Lil and Nellie--lost their fear of a second visit from
the mysterious "kleptomaniantic." Nobody would land upon the island to
disturb them while that crazy dog was about.

So they fished, and swam, and picked berries, and hunted flowers and
herbs, and went out sailing with the boys in the powerboats, and d