r of Tommy, and now that she had come to grief, the
entire party, not excepting Miss Elting, could not resist teasing her a
little.
"Thave me!" Tommy's screams had now become despairing wails.
"Just make believe you're watching a bird fly through the air," was
Jane's sarcastic advice. "Lean back and take it easy."
"We will save you, Tommy. Pull her up, Mr. Grubb," urged Harriet, her
sympathy overcoming her laughter.
"What, that way?" inquired Janus doubtfully.
"Yes, certainly."
Janus grinned, then began hauling in on the rope with both hands. He
did it rapidly. Tommy began to move up the slope, her feet still
entangled with the rope. Janus pulled stolidly, paying no attention to
the torrent of expostulations that Tommy shrieked at him. Her
companions were shouting, cheering and offering aggravating suggestions
to the little girl, Margery Brown's voice being heard above the rest.
It was the happiest moment she had known since the Meadow-Brook Girls
had started out to spend their vacations in the open. Janus was
grinning almost from ear to ear. Tommy lay on her back, gazing
scowlingly up into the grinning face of the guide. Suddenly her
expression changed. A look of cunning appeared in her eyes. Then
Tommy Thompson turned the tables on her tantalizers in a way that set
the party in a greater uproar. Janus Grubb, too, learned a lesson that
he did not soon forget.
CHAPTER XI
THE TRAGEDY OF CHOCORUA
"Pull harder!" screamed Tommy. "I'm getting a ruthh of blood to my
head. Pull fatht, Mr. Januth."
This sally was greeted with another shout from the girls. Tommy,
having turned her head to one side to glance up the slope, had
discovered something. That something was a little nub or projection
that protruded from the rock directly in her path. Unless they changed
her course she would be scraped over the projection, which the girl
well knew would cause her some pain as well as tear her skirt. But it
was not of this latter that she was thinking when she called to the
guide to hurry. The little, lisping girl had evolved a plan; but, that
they might not suspect her of any trickery, she screamed the louder.
In her quick survey of the situation above her she also discovered that
the upper end of the rope was tied to a rock, so that the rope could
not get away.
"Fathter, fathter!" urged Tommy.
"The little one is planning mischief," declared Jane, gazing narrowly
up the slope.
"Ye
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