"

"Did you ever hear the like?" gasped Lil, clinging to Nellie and
Jess. "That girl's mad."

"She is brave," muttered Jess. "But--but I wonder what she's up to?"

Laura did not question the maid-of-all-work. She thought she already
knew. There was method in Lizzie's madness, that was sure!

She was driving the bullying sheriff away from the cook-tent--away
from the camp, indeed. He was going sideways like a crab, and Barnacle
was growling and almost choking himself as he tugged at his collar.

"Git out! Scat!" exclaimed Liz. "I'm a-goin' to let this dawg _go_!"

"Don'cher dare!" shouted Sheriff Larkin.

But the girl deliberately stooped over Barnacle, and began to unfasten
the rope. At that the officer of the law turned and lumbered down the
hill.

Where his companions were the girls did not know. And the barge with
the bloodhounds had been poled off shore a few rods. The keeper was
sitting on it and calmly smoking his pipe.

Sheriff Larkin was some rods from the shore. With a sudden roar
Barnacle slipped his leash and tore down the slope. The dog had run a
lot of game on Acorn Island since being landed here; but never a
quarry like this.

The big man gave one glance behind and then lost all hope of reaching
the boat. There was a low-branching tree before him: He leaped for
the nearest branch and swung his booted legs for a moment while he
tried to hitch up on the limb.

The Barnacle jumped for him. The dog fastened to his heel, and for the
first time the girls saw that the mongrel-cur really had a terrific
grip.

Sheriff Larkin scrambled up into the tree; but for half a minute
Barnacle swung from him, clear of the ground. When he dropped to the
ground the heel of the sheriff's boot came with the dog's jaws!

Barnacle crouched down and began to masticate the heel. But the glare
that he turned upward at the man, from his red-rimmed eyes, proclaimed
the fact that he would "just as lives" chew on the sheriff's anatomy.

The camp on the top of the knoll had been left in confusion. The girls
were talking rather wildly--some praising Liz and others deploring the
happening.

Mrs. Morse commanded silence. She walked over to where the
maid-of-all-work stood before the cook-tent.

"What does this mean, Lizzie Bean?" she demanded.

"I tell you I ain't workin' for you no more," cried Liz, wildly. "I've
give up me job."

"But you had no right to do what you have done."

"I don't care, I'd done more. I'd gon