Dorothy Dale's Camping Days Part 11

"And if we take our eyes off it we run the risk of having it under the bed to-night," said Tavia. "Now if only we could shoot a gun," and she looked at the line of weapons that decorated the side of the loft.

"I can load and fire a gun," declared Dorothy. "Wasn't my father a soldier?"

"Wasn't her father a soldier!" repeated Tavia. "Cologne you hump down there, and keep your eye on the bear, while we get a gun, and load it.

Then if it's all the same to you, I'll do down stairs, and out in the back yard until it is all over. I hate murder close by."

"I'll choose my own gun, if you please," said Dorothy, as Tavia was about to hand her an old musket. "I like the vintage of the last century at least."

"Are you sure you won't hurt yourself?" asked Cologne anxiously. "I think perhaps we had best try to box the thing in here. Shooting is rather risky."

"Not if I can get a gun I happen to know," said Dorothy. "You may both go out in the back yard if you choose. I must try the rifle first--oh, here is one just like father gave Joe his last birthday. I had a mind to borrow it to come out here to Maine woods, but I never dreamed of getting game right in camp."

"Don't shoot dis n.i.g.g.ah!" pleaded Tavia, actually making for the ladder.

Dorothy went over to the open window and put the rifle to her shoulder. She pulled the trigger. There was no discharge. Not satisfied with one trial she worked the rifle until there was positively no possibility of any load being in the weapon.

"There, that's clean," she said. "Now for the cartridge."

Over on the wall hung Jack's ammunition box. Cologne was watching at a safe distance. Tavia had gone downstairs by way of a rope that Jack Markin used for descending. Dorothy put the load in, made sure it was all right, then went over to the beast's hiding place. She crouched down and took aim.

"Do--be--careful, Dorothy."

Crack!

"There! That fetched him!" exclaimed Dorothy. "I saw him roll over."

"Make sure he is dead before you pull the door away," again cautioned Cologne.

"Dead as a carpet tack," declared Dorothy. "Let's call Tavia and get her to pull him out. She ought to do something in this, our first hunt."

Tavia was called, and being a.s.sured that the thing had rolled the death roll, she came up the ladder, and with the aid of a long handled hay rake, she just ventured to touch the strange thing.

"It's dead!"

This was the signal for a series of antics such as Tavia might imagine to be popular in the Figi Islands when some real dainty morsel fell into the camp kettle.

"Oh, let us see what it is!" ordered Cologne. "Maybe we won't have to go trout fishing, it may do for dinner."

"It may, then again it may not," replied Tavia. "But May or Mamie, let's haul her out."

Dorothy put her shoulder to the frame door, back of which the thing was hidden.

"One, two, three!" she shoved it over. "Are you ready?"

"Let her go!" called Cologne, springing up on an old trunk.

But it didn't go, neither did it come.

The girls waited breathlessly.

"Pull him out, Tavia! What's the use standing there with a rake in your hand," said Dorothy.

"I want to make sure he does not revive," she replied, gingerly poking the rake handle a little further under the hidden corner.

"Oh, here," exclaimed Dorothy impatiently. "Let me take that implement and you hold this door. We ought to get the animal out in time for lunch."

They shifted positions. Dorothy jabbed the rake recklessly into the corner. Tavia moaned, and Cologne groaned.

Drag--drag--It was coming out.

"Mercy!" exclaimed Tavia.

"Goodness me!" gasped Cologne.

But Dorothy, who was the only one near the thing, simply dropped the rake and stood aghast--too dumbfounded to utter a syllable!

"What is it?" begged Cologne.

"_A WINDOW BRUSH!_" she gasped, at the same moment stooping to pick up the beast--the thing with the straight, long black hair that stood up in fierce bristles!

[Ill.u.s.tration: "A WINDOW BRUSH!" SHE GASPED. _Dorothy Dale's Camping Days Page 84_]

"But the eyes!" asked Tavia. "I saw terrible eyes!"

"Might have been imported fire flies," answered Dorothy. "I believe Jack has a penchant for odd bugs!"

"Oh, isn't that too mean!"

"And Jack's good cartridges!"

"But the brush is all right," declared Cologne. "We just needed a window brush to make the camp outfit complete. But don't let's tell the boys," she pleaded hastily.

"Oh, no!" chimed Tavia and Dorothy. Then all three in turn took the rope route down to the lower floor.

CHAPTER IX

A STRANGE MEETING

For several days after the "hunt" the girls kept up the joke on themselves. Time after time they threatened to let Jack, and his friend Percy, guess the truth, but Tavia, the most to be feared, did manage to keep the laugh purely feminine.

Dorothy and Cologne were gathering berries this morning, while Tavia ran off to a spot where she declared she could get the better kind of fruit, better than any they had yet secured. She turned in back of the big barn, then ran over behind the ice-house, and then she smelled apples, ripe apples.

"There are harvest apples around here, somewhere," she told herself.

"I simply must find them."