h ith troubled," observed Tommy wisely.

"What is it?" demanded the guardian.

"What is it? It's a rock, Miss."

"What do you mean?"

For answer he held out on the palm of one hand a chunk of granite, the
while surveying it ruefully. Miss Elting took and examined the rock,
then directed a look of inquiry at Janus.

"I don't understand," she said, with a rising inflection on the last
word.

"Well, I swum! no more do I!" he exploded. "Will you look into that
pack and see what you find? Maybe I can't see straight this evening.
Maybe I can't."

Harriet ran to the pack he had indicated and peered into it. She
uttered an exclamation, loosened the rest of the binding ropes and
turned the contents out on the floor of the Shelter. Exclamations of
amazement fell from the lips of the Meadow-Brook Girls. Instead of the
supplies that had originally been stowed in the pack, a choice
assortment of stones, chunks of granite, small hardheads and pebbles
rolled out on the floor. They were speechless for the moment. Janus
tugged nervously at his beard, too thoroughly astonished for speech.

"I gueth thomebody hath been throwing thtoneth at uth," observed Tommy
Thompson. "I wonder who liketh uth tho much that he wanth to knock our
headth off?"

"Open the other packs," directed Miss Elting calmly.

They did so, but with the same results. Each pack was filled with
stones, and, in some instances, pieces of wood, parts of limbs of
trees, dirt, shale and the like.

"Oh, my stars, what a mess!" cried Crazy Jane.

"Did you not say that our equipment was perfectly safe here?" demanded
Miss Elting, turning sharply on the guide.

"I--I thought it was, Miss."

"Then how do you explain this?" she asked with a comprehensive wave of
the hand.

"I don't explain it. I swum! I don't know what to think about it. I
wish I could get my hands on the scoundrel."

Miss Elting sat down to think. "It is plain that we have been followed
into the mountains. The man whom Hazel saw at the 'Slide' undoubtedly
is the one who has been causing us all the trouble. He may have been
hovering about us all the time, we knowing nothing about it. I am
afraid we aren't very clever, girls. We have allowed our enemy to
outwit us."

"I don't believe he has, Miss Elting," replied Harriet. "If so, he has
been watching us from a distance. We surely should have discovered if
the man had come close to our camp."

"It must have been the man th