“Where’s Mary?” cried Helen.
“The Fox has run away!” exclaimed Madge.
“I’ll bet she has!” exclaimed Jane Ann Hicks. “Didn’t you see her, Jib?”
“We didn’t pass her on the path,” said Tom.
Ruth’s keen eye discovered the missing girl first. She ran with a cry to a little shelf upon which the foxy maid had scrambled when the excitement started. The Fox was stretched out upon the rock in a dead faint!
“Well! would you ever?” gasped Madge. “Who’d think that Mary Cox would faint? She’s always been bold enough, goodness knows!”
Ruth had hurried to the shelf where The Fox lay. She was very white and there could be no doubt but that she was totally unconscious. Jib lent his assistance and getting her into his arms he carried her bodily down the steep path to the camp, leaving Tom and Bob to guard the bear until he returned to remove the pelt. The other girls strung out after their fainting comrade, and the journey to the summit of the natural bridge was postponed indefinitely.
Cold water from the mountain stream soon brought The Fox around. But when she opened her eyes and looked into the face of the ministering Ruth, she muttered:
“And you saw him, too!”
Then she turned her face away and began to cry.