“Hold your breath, dear,” suggested Harriet sweetly.  “You will not swallow so much water that way.”

“How—­how long must I hold it?”

“Not more than five minutes,” comforted Crazy Jane.

“Thave——­” She did not complete the sentence, because a volume of water rolled into her open mouth.

They had nearly reached the middle of the pond, when Harriet stopped swimming.

“I am afraid we shall have to turn her around.  Tommy will persist in opening her mouth.  We mustn’t drown her,” said Harriet.

Jane righted their tow with a jerk.

“Those girls, those girls!” muttered Miss Elting, turning a laughing face to Janus Grubb.

“Well, I swum!” he answered, nodding.  “Never saw such a bunch of girls.  Are they always like they have been this time?”

“Always,” chuckled the guardian.  “Usually more so.”

“Well, I swum!”

“Will you swim, or will you drown?” demanded Jane of Tommy.

“I’ll thwim, I’ll thwim,” answered Tommy chokingly.  “I think you are horrid to treat me tho.  I’ll be even with you.”

Jane started for her.  Tommy got into instant action, and how she did swim!  Harriet and Jane were much faster swimmers than was Tommy, but they pretended to have difficulty in keeping up with her and lagged behind until their shoulders were even with the kicking feet of the little, lisping girl.  Then they began grabbing at her ankles, drawing fresh shouts and protests from Tommy.  They teased her all the way to the shore, up which Tommy staggered and ran to Miss Elting for protection.

“Don’t make me all wet,” objected the guardian, leaping back out of the way.

Tommy sat down and whimpered.  Jane and Harriet picked her up, placing her on a seat made of their four hands, and started up the mountainside with their burden.

“We aren’t afraid of getting wet, are we, Jane?” laughed Harriet.

“Not this morning, we are not, darlin’,” chuckled Jane.  But they did not carry Tommy far.  She decided that she would walk, fearing they were planning some trick on her.  She had no desire to be dumped off on a steep place as Hazel had been.  The girls clambered up the mountainside laughing over their mishaps of the morning, and ran bounding into camp far ahead of Miss Elting and the guide.  They found Hazel very much excited over something that had occurred in the camp during their absence.

CHAPTER XVIII

FACED BY A FRESH MYSTERY

There were serious expressions on the faces of the Meadow-Brook Girls when Miss Elting and the guide came in.  Miss Elting saw at once that something was amiss.  She demanded to know what it was.

“Hazel saw something that frightened her,” answered Harriet.

“Saw something?” repeated the guardian, looking from one girl to the other.