The Cameron girl started again, and let out the last link of speed that there was in her. She ran straight down to the shore where Mrs. Havel just aroused by the shrieks, was starting to return to camp.
The other girls piled after her. But Wyn brought up the rear. She looked around now and then. Three bears! In a place where no bears had been seen for years and years! Wyn was puzzled.
“There are bears in the woods, Mrs. Havel!” gasped Grace.
“Nonsense, child!”
“I saw ’em. One almost grabbed me,” declared the big girl.
“And I saw them, Auntie,” urged Percy Havel.
“This way! this way!” cried Frank, running along the shore under the high knoll on which the camp was pitched. “They can’t see us down here.”
Mrs. Havel was urged along by her niece and Grace. Wyn brought up the rear. Oddly enough, none of the bears came out of the bushes–that she could see.
The girls plunged along the sand, and through the shallow water for several yards. Here the bushes grew right down to the edge of the lake. Suddenly Wyn caught sight of something ahead, and uttered a sharp command:
“Stop! every one of you! Do you hear me, Frank? Stop!”