“What about supper?” was Janus’s first question.

“Yeth, that ith what I thay,” approved Tommy.  “Buthter would thay tho, too, only thhe is afraid I’ll teathe her about eating.”

“Afraid of you!” exclaimed Margery disgustedly.  “Well, I guess not.”

During this passage at arms Janus was making an industrious hunt for a frying-pan.  He opened one of the packs that had been left behind, thrust one hand inside, then paused, a look of astonishment on his honest face, underneath the frown that wrinkled his weather-beaten forehead.  For a few seconds the bewildered guide stared stupidly at the object he had taken from the pack.  The girls were busy undoing their tote-packs, so they failed to heed what he was doing until his peculiar attitude finally attracted their attention.

Janus thrust his hand in again, but the result was no less discouraging.

“Well, I swum!” he grumbled.  “I swum!”

“So you’ve said before,” smiled Hazel.

“Anything wrong?” asked the guardian, glancing up from her own pack, the contents of which were spread out on the floor before her.

The guide “swum” again.  Miss Elting paused in her work, turning to him.

“Mr. Januth ith troubled,” observed Tommy wisely.

“What is it?” demanded the guardian.

“What is it?  It’s a rock, Miss.”

“What do you mean?”

For answer he held out on the palm of one hand a chunk of granite, the while surveying it ruefully.  Miss Elting took and examined the rock, then directed a look of inquiry at Janus.

“I don’t understand,” she said, with a rising inflection on the last word.

“Well, I swum! no more do I!” he exploded.  “Will you look into that pack and see what you find?  Maybe I can’t see straight this evening.  Maybe I can’t.”

Harriet ran to the pack he had indicated and peered into it.  She uttered an exclamation, loosened the rest of the binding ropes and turned the contents out on the floor of the Shelter.  Exclamations of amazement fell from the lips of the Meadow-Brook Girls.  Instead of the supplies that had originally been stowed in the pack, a choice assortment of stones, chunks of granite, small hardheads and pebbles rolled out on the floor.  They were speechless for the moment.  Janus tugged nervously at his beard, too thoroughly astonished for speech.

“I gueth thomebody hath been throwing thtoneth at uth,” observed Tommy Thompson.  “I wonder who liketh uth tho much that he wanth to knock our headth off?”

“Open the other packs,” directed Miss Elting calmly.

They did so, but with the same results.  Each pack was filled with stones, and, in some instances, pieces of wood, parts of limbs of trees, dirt, shale and the like.

“Oh, my stars, what a mess!” cried Crazy Jane.

“Did you not say that our equipment was perfectly safe here?” demanded Miss Elting, turning sharply on the guide.