ou suppose there are bears in that woods?"

"If there are, we'll catch 'em and eat 'em," said Frank, practically.
"Now you know, Mina, there hasn't been a bear shot in this state since
your grandfather's time."

"Well, then, if there's been none shot, maybe there are a lot grown up
here in the woods," objected Mina.

"Don't scare a fellow to death with your croaking," admonished Percy.

Bessie had known that Polly Jarley had chosen the site for the camp; and
she was secretly prepared to find fault with it. But as they drove their
canoes ashore on the little, silvery beach below the green knoll where
the pennant fluttered, Bess could find in her heart no complaint.

It seemed an ideal spot. On three sides the thick woods sheltered the
knoll of green. In front the lake lay like a mirror--its surface
whitened in ridges 'way out toward the middle now, for the wind was
coming.

"Hurry ashore, girls," said Mrs. Havel. "And pull your canoes well up on
the sand. We must hurry to get our shelter up first of all. It will rain
before dark, and the night is coming fast."

"Wish the boys had stopped to help us," wailed Grace.

"And let their own stores get all wet--eh?" cried Wyn. "For shame! Come
on, girls. To the tent!"

There was a pile of canvas which had been dropped here by the bateau men
on their way to Gannet Island that forenoon. There were stakes and poles
with the canvas, and the girls had practised putting up the shelter and
striking it for some weeks in Wyn's back yard.

They were not so clumsy at this work, therefore; but it did seem,
because they were in a hurry, that everything went wrong.

Mina pounded her thumb with a stake-mallet, and the ridge pole fell once
and struck Grace on the side of the head. Poor Grace was always
unfortunate.

"Oh, dear me! I wish I was home!" wailed the big girl. "And ouch! it's
going to thunder and lightning just awful!"

"Now, keep at work!" admonished their captain. "Fasten those pegs down
well, Frankie," she added, to the girl, who had taken the mallet. "Never
mind crying over your poor thumb, Mina. Wait till the tent's up and all
our things brought up from the canoes."

"Here come the first drops, girls!" shrieked Frankie.

Drops! It was a deluge! It came across the lake in a perfect wall of
water, shutting out their view of Gannet Island and everything else.

The girls scuttled for the canoes, emptied them, turned the boats keel
upward, and then retreated to the