The clouds seemed to be gathering more thickly, and with rather anxious looks at the sky the members of the Camping and Tramping Club hastened on.

“Girls, we’re going to get wet!” exclaimed Mollie, as they passed a cross-road, pausing to look at the sign-board.

“And it’s five miles farther on to Broxton!” said Amy.  “Can we ever make it?”

“I think so—­if we hurry,” said Betty.  “A little rain won’t hurt us.  These suits are made to stand a drenching.”

“Then let’s walk fast,” proposed Grace.

“She wouldn’t have said that with those other shoes,” remarked Amy, drily.

“Got any candy?” demanded Mollie.  “I’m hungry!”

Without a word Grace produced a bag of chocolates.  It was surprising how she seemed to keep supplied with them.

The girls were hurrying along, now and then looking apprehensively at the fast-gathering and black clouds, when, as they turned a bend in the road, Amy, who was walking beside Grace, cried out: 

“Oh, it’s a bear!  It’s a bear!”

“What’s that—­a new song?” demanded Mollie, laughing.

“No—­look! look!” screamed Amy, and she pointed to a huge, hairy creature lumbering down the middle of the highway.

CHAPTER XVI

THE DESERTED HOUSE

The girls screamed in concert, and whose voice was the loudest was a matter that was in doubt.  Not that the Little Captain and her chums lingered long to determine.  The bear stopped short in the middle of the road, standing on its hind legs, waving its huge forepaws, and lolling its head from side to side in a sort of Comical amazement.

“Run!  Run!” screamed Betty.  “To the woods!”

“Oh!  Oh!  Oh!” That seemed the extent of Mollie’s vocabulary just then.

“Climb a tree,” was the advice of Grace.

“Is he coming?  Is it coming after us?” Amy wanted to know.

She glanced over her shoulder as she put the question, and there nearly followed an accident, for Amy was running, and the look back caused her to stumble.  Betty, who was racing beside her, just managed to save her chum from a bad fall.  All the girls were running—­running as though their lives depended on their speed.  Luckily they wore short, walking skirts, which did not hinder free movement, and they really made good speed.

[Illustration:  THE BEAR STOPPED SHORT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD.]

They crossed the road and plunged into the underbrush, crashing through it in very terror.  They clung to their small suitcases instinctively.  Then suddenly, as they ran on, there came the clear notes of a bugle in an army call.  Betty recalled something.

“Stop, girls!” she cried.

“What, with that bear after us?” wailed Grace.  “Never!”

“It’s all right—­I tell you it’s all right!” went on Betty.

“Oh, she’s lost her mind!  She’s so frightened she doesn’t know what she is saying!” exclaimed Mollie.  “Oh, poor Betty!”