“Thave me!” she screamed.  “Oh, thave me!”

“You get in here again and I will call the guardian,” declared the girl into whose cot Tommy had thrown herself.

“I heard thomething growl,” shivered Tommy.

“It is the supper you ate,” suggested Harriet “I don’t wonder you heard growls.  You ate more than any of the rest of us.”

“She’s haunted,” suggested the girl on the cot.  Then suddenly she whispered:  “Sh-h-h-h!”

A guardian came hurrying into the tent, holding a lantern above her head.  Neither Harriet nor Tommy had seen her before.  Tommy sat in the middle of the floor the picture of woe.  Harriet stood near by with a look of deep concern in her eyes.

“Young ladies, I am amazed,” exclaimed the guardian.  “Miss Kidder, what is the meaning of this?”

“I don’t know.  Patricia had some difficulty with one of these girls,” was the reply.

“She jumped on me,” answered Patricia.  “I don’t know what for, but she knocked the breath right out of me.”

“You are the new girls, are you not?” asked the guardian, turning abruptly to Harriet and Grace.

“Yes, we are the Meadow-Brook Girls,” answered Harriet.

“What appears to be the trouble?”

“Something startled my friend.  What was it, Grace, dear?”

“Thome—­thomething growled perfectly awful.  It wath right by the head of my bed.  It thounded like a wild animal,” explained Grace wide-eyed.  “Yeth, and I could hear it’th teeth thnap.  It wath going to bite me.”

“Nonsense, child.  You were dreaming.  Did you have a late supper?”

“We ate supper, after midnight,” explained Harriet.

“That accounts for it.  Get back into bed, at once, girls.  I am Miss Partridge, your guardian.”

“I am Harriet Burrell.  This is Grace Thompson,” introduced Harriet, as she slipped back into her cot.

“Now that I understand I shall not be alarmed again,” said the guardian.  “I trust you will be quiet, Miss Thompson.  Remember you are disturbing others when you permit yourself to raise your voice.”

“Yeth’m,” answered Tommy.  The guardian tucked her into bed, then left the tent.

“Don’t you dare to jump on me again,” warned Cora in a low voice.

“She didn’t mean to,” answered Harriet.  “I am sure Grace is sorry that she disturbed you.”

“Yeth.  Beg your pardon,” said Grace.  “But what wath it that growled at me?”

“I tell you, you’re haunted,” answered Cora.  Tommy snuggled down trembling.  She had begun to believe that she was haunted.  After this interruption the girls slept soundly until late in the night, when all those in that part of the camp were again aroused by a series of piercing screams and cries for help.  The cries sounded from the tent occupied by Harriet and Tommy.  Not only Miss Partridge, but the Chief Guardian came running to the scene.

The interior of the tent was in an uproar, but as the guardians neared the scene they were alarmed to discover that the cries came from without rather than from within the tent.