“I can do that,” declared Tommy Thompson.

Janus unwound himself from his blanket and stood with his hands in pockets, observing the jolly party.

“Don’t lean over too far forward when you throw,” warned Harriet.

“You jutht watch me.  I’m going to make thith one thkip clear acroth the pond.  Here it goeth.  Oh, what a lovely Thlide!”

In her excitement, Tommy leaped to the end of the slippery course, jumping up and down.  In her left hand she held another round stone ready to send it after the previous throw before the latter should have reached the pond.  Margery was standing at hand ready to send hers down.

“Look out!” warned Harriet, who saw the danger of Grace’s position.  “Get back instantly!” Both she and Jane started on a run, fearing the result of Tommy’s imprudence.  But they were too late.

Tommy Thompson’s feet slipped from under her.  With a scream she plunged head first to the Slide, starting down it on her stomach.

“Catch her!” screamed Jane.

Margery made a frantic effort to do so.  Then her feet, too, went out from under her, but in making a desperate attempt to recover her balance, Margery turned completely around, landing on her back on the slippery Slide.

“Hold your breath,” screamed Harriet, starting to run again, for she had halted instinctively as she saw the two girls lose their footing.  Jane followed.  Janus stood fairly paralyzed with amazement.  It had all come about with such suddenness that he had had no time in which to collect his thoughts.  When he did, he uttered a yell.

“Come back!” he roared.

But the two girls were past coming back for the time being.  The third girl, Harriet Burrell, was running toward the upper end of the Slide, having made a short detour to enable her to get exactly in line with it.  Now she raised herself on her tiptoes, at the same time bending over and taking a low, shooting leap, dived headfirst to the Slide, down which she shot at a dizzy rate of speed.

“Oh, she’ll be killed!” Crazy Jane halted at the top, gazed down the long, slippery rock, then plumped herself down on the Slide in a sitting posture.  She was on her way before she found time to change her mind.  When she did change her mind it did her no good, so far as changing the situation was concerned.  A procession of Meadow-Brook Girls was well started on a perilous journey, the result of which could not be foreseen by the three members of the party left in the camp.

CHAPTER XVII

WHAT CAME OF SHOOTING THE CHUTE

Miss Elting had begun to unwind herself the instant her attention had been called to Grace Thompson’s perilous position at the head of the chute.  Hazel Holland also had rolled over to free herself of the blankets.  But before either of them had succeeded in getting to her feet, Tommy had taken the long dive, followed, as the reader already knows, by Margery, and later by Harriet Burrell and Jane McCarthy.