“Whatever you do don’t drop it!” exclaimed Miss Elting.  “We cannot get along without the lamp.”

“We can build up a fire outside, if necessary.  I rather think that would be a better idea still.  What do you say, Mr. Grubb?”

Janus consulted his whiskers, then decided that the idea was an excellent one.  He said he would go out and get some fuel for the fire, and did so.  While he was thus engaged, Harriet cleaned the lamp chimney, Miss Elting hung canvas over the glassless windows and the other girls washed and put away the few dishes that had been used.  A fine, large fire was started on the ledge of rock that extended out from the “Shelter” to a drop-off of some twenty feet.  Harriet was very much interested in the fire that night.  Then, after it was well started, she walked to the edge, and, with her back to the flames, peered down.

All at once she started to run down the path to the left.  She called to Jane to come with her.  They had to clamber over some rough ground in order to reach a point below the hut.  The light from the fire made the shadows dance down there.

“I saw something glisten down here,” explained Miss Burrell.  “I am certain it was a tin can.  Wouldn’t it be fine were we to find our canned supplies down here, Jane?”

“Then it is fine, for here’s the very thing you were looking for.”  The Irish girl stooped, then held up a tin can.  Harriet uttered a little exclamation and reached for it.  “But it’s empty,” chuckled Jane.

“Oh, fudge!  Some one has thrown it over.  Other picnic parties have been up here.  Besides, this is not one of our cans.  But that doesn’t mean we shan’t find any of our own.  Look hard, Jane.”

“I’m looking hard, so hard that my eyes ache,” replied Jane dryly.  An instant later she cried out, “Will you look at that?”

Harriet was at her side in a couple of seconds from the uttering of that cry.  Then she, too, raised her voice in a shout that called her companions from the hut.  Miss Elting came out carrying the lamp.  Janus took it from her, and, standing on the very edge in the full light of the campfire, held the lamp above his head and peered down.

“What is it?” cried the guardian.

“We have found our canned stuff and a whole lot of our equipment,” answered Harriet triumphantly.

“Hooee-e-e-e!” shouted the Meadow-Brook Girls in great glee.

“Wait!  I’ll be down there to help you gather it up,” Janus called down to them.

“Get the packs, girls,” ordered Miss Elting.

Then there came an interruption that startled the girls into silence.  Something sped through the air over their heads, uttering a strange, weird woo-woo-woo!  It passed, followed by a distant report, the crack of a rifle.  Then, all at once, the lamp that Janus Grubb was holding above his head crumbled into nothingness, the oil in the well of the lamp streaming down over the guide’s head and face.