tell us what you think.”

“Pleathe don’t,” commanded Tommy sharply. “If I know, then I won’t be curiouth any more. If I don’t know, I’ll lie awake all night thinking and guething about it, and oh, I tell you I’ll enjoy it! I do love a mythtery, and thith ith a mythtery, ithn’t it, Harriet?”

“We will call it that. No, not a word, girls; not another word to-night. I don’t want to spoil Tommy’s pleasant prospects. Think what a lot of comfort she will get out of worrying for fear that sometime during the night a party of Indians may swoop down on us, cut off the top of Tommy’s head and run away with her flaxen locks.”

“Can you beat it?” glowed Jane McCarthy. “I almost have the shivers myself.”

“If you girls persist in working up a fright, I see a nice case of nightmare for some of you before morning,” warned Miss Elting. “I am inclined to the belief that what you saw must be a camp of timber cruisers or lumbermen. There are no Indians up here, nor would any tramps come to this desolate place. Please don’t be foolish. Go on with your supper and put aside this nonsense.”

“I don’t want to put it athide!” exclaimed Tommy. “I jutht want to be thcared till I’m all fluthtered up; then I want to be thcared thome more.” Tommy leaped from the blanket and dived head first into their little tent.

At that moment a chorus of wild war-whoops rose from the bushes all about them. Yell upon yell sounded, and a great threshing about in the bushes sent the hearts of the Meadow-Brook Girls to their throats—so it seemed to them. Margery Brown, frightened nearly out of her wits, sprang up and started to run down the hill diagonally from the camp. She caught her foot on the stub of a burned-off sapling, plunged headforemost and went rolling down a sharp incline, her cries of alarm heard but faintly by her companions.

CHAPTER II
THE TRAMPS GUARD THEIR SECRET

Tommy and Margery were the only girls to ran away. Harriet, Jane, Hazel and Miss Elting stood their ground. Hazel for a few seconds was on the point of running when she saw that Harriet seemed to understand the meaning of the sudden uproar, which was still going on.

There came a lull in the whooping and the shouting. Harriet spoke then.

“Now that we are properly scared, you may come out, boys,” she said.

“Boys? My stars!” muttered Jane. “What boys are you looking for, darlin’?”

“Come out! We know you,” commanded Harriet.

Captain George Baker of the Tramp Club stepped out into the light of the campfire, a little shamefaced and uncertain as to how his attempt to frighten the Meadow-Brook Girls might be received.

“Mr. Baker!” exclaimed the guardian.

“Yes, ma’am,” answered George, twisting his hat nervously in his hands. “I—I hope we didn’t frighten you too much. I—we—I thought you knew we were here.”

“We certainly did not. We did know that some one was up yonder in the woods, because Harriet saw and answered signals. Was it you who made the smoke signals?”

“I and the Pickle,” he answered, referring to his friend, Dill Dodd. “How do you do, Miss Brown? Why, what has happened? Been hit by a cyclone?” Certainly Margery looked much the worse for her tumble. Her skirt was torn, and her face and hands were scratched, but her chin was not too much injured for her to be able to elevate it.

“I haven’t met a cyclone, nor is anything the matter with me, Mr. Baker,” replied Margery, rather haughtily. “When did you come in? Until just now I didn’t know that you were here.”

George smiled sheepishly.

“But where are the boys, George?” asked Harriet.

“Out yonder in the bushes,” he replied, conscious that his face was redder than usual.

“That is too bad. I should have thought of them before this. Boys, come into camp!” called Harriet. “We wish to see you.”

“It’s all right, fellows. Hike along!” commanded Captain George.

So one at a time the boys of the Tramp Club filed into the camp of the Meadow-Brook Girls. They tried to look solemn-faced, yet their eyes were full of merriment. Dill Dodd led the way; then came Fred Avery, Sam Crocker, Charlie Mabie, Will Burgess and Davy Dockrill. The boys were about the same age as the Meadow-Brook Girls, though taller and of stronger build.

As the reader of this series knows, this was not the first meeting of the two clubs. Harriet and her friends were introduced in the first volume of this series, “The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas,” which told of their enjoyable adventures in the Pocono Woods. In that volume the reader became acquainted with the grit, zeal and purpose of Harriet Burrell and her chums, and with the fine influence that Miss Elting, their teacher-guardian, exercised over them.

In the second volume, “The Meadow-Brook Girls across Country,” the five girls and their guardian were shown on their long “hike” homeward, as they had elected to go on foot rather than resort to comfortable travel by train. Though at this time the Meadow-Brook Girls met with some unexpected hardships, the pleasant experiences through which they passed repaid them for their many troubles. In this volume, too, as our readers will recall, the girls first made the acquaintance of the boys of the Tramp Club, who were destined to prove valued friends in many a difficulty. But the pranks of these mischievous lads forced the girls to retaliate in kind, and not only did they pay their score, but proved themselves the boys’ equals in achievement and endurance on the homeward hike.

In “The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat,” as the third volume of the series is entitled, the little company of girls encountered stirring adventures as well as mirth-provoking incidents during their vacation spent under decidedly trying circumstances on an old houseboat. With the help of the Tramp Club a mysterious enemy, who had caused the Meadow-Brook Girls no little annoyance, was captured, but not until he had succeeded in setting fire to and burning their vacation home.

After the destruction of the “Red Rover,” their boat, they started at once for the White Mountains on a long, muscle-trying experiment in mountain-climbing. All that befell them of adventure, mystery and rollicking good times is set forth in “The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills.”

Not one of our readers has yet forgotten the great enjoyment furnished by the fifth volume, “The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea.” Here Harriet and her friends were found setting forth on an expedition without knowing whither it led, that secret being in the possession only of Miss Elting, their high school teacher, who accompanied them on all their jaunts. However, the trip proved the most exciting that they had yet had either ashore or afloat.

And now we return to the Meadow-Brook Girls in camp, to find them at the outset of still another vacation hike. So far, however, this experience had proved anything but exciting. So much adventure on previous trips made the present life in the woods seem dull by comparison. So even the coming of the boys was welcomed as a real event by the Meadow-Brook Girls.

As the boys came one by one into camp they were greeted with smiling faces and cordial handshakes. There could be no doubting the pleasure of the girls. Harriet had promptly suspected the presence of the boys when she observed the smoke signals earlier in the evening. She knew of no others who