“It’s falling!” cried Miss Elting warningly.

“Get to the other side,” shouted Harriet Burrell, herself leaping to the right-hand side of the tent in a single bound.  Her companions fell, rather than sprang, aside.  They were none too soon as it was, for the tent swayed, then lurched to the right, collapsing over the heads of the Meadow-Brook Girls amid the continued snorts of horses near at hand, accompanied by the sound of beating hoofs and the shouts of the two men at the other side of the camp.

CHAPTER VIII

Crazy Jane’s “Find”

Tommy, having been unable to free herself from her blanket, had rolled over and over until she reached the opposite side of the tent.  Margery Brown, not having got out of the way, had been hit on the head by a tent-pole, which knocked her down and so dazed her for the moment that she lay whimpering where she had fallen.

Of this Harriet and Miss Elting were unaware.  Their efforts were directed toward getting out of the tent to learn what had occurred.  They could hear the canvas ripping; and the noise of the floundering hordes just outside was still going on.  Together the two women fought their way out from under the canvas.

“Catch ’em!  Catch ’em!” Jim was yelling at the top of his voice.  “The horses are getting away!”

“Yes, and they have taken a good part of the tent with them,” called Harriet.

The men had halted, not knowing whether they should proceed or not.

“Come on! come on!” cried Miss Elting.  She could not see the horses, but she could hear them crashing through the bushes whinnying in terror.  There was something sinister in this sudden outbreak, something that neither Miss Elting nor Harriet Burrell understood.  Jane, having crawled from beneath the overturned tent, came running to them.

“What a mess!” she cried in dismay.  “I feel as though I had been in a railroad wreck.  What was it?”

“The horses,” answered Harriet.

“Is that all?  Didn’t anything fall on us?”

“I think we had a narrow escape from being trampled by the horses.”

The guide came running to them.

“Was any one hurt?  What, the tent down?”

“Yes.  The animals ran into it and tore it down,” replied the guardian.  “I don’t understand it at all.  Do you, Mr. Grubb?”

“I swum, I don’t!” he exploded.  “Run into the tent?  Why should they do that?”

“They must have been terribly frightened,” averred Jane McCarthy.  “Now, what could have frightened a pair of horses enough to make them so blind they couldn’t see a tent?  Will you tell me that?”

The guide kicked the embers of the campfire, and piled on some light wood.  At this juncture Hazel came out, leading Margery, who had both hands pressed to her head.

“Something fell on her head,” explained Hazel.