“And ripe ones, too!” added Clarence, with a grimace.
“Give them the chase!” said Bob.
“No, they’ll round on us and spoil our campfire,” said Dave.
The triumphant cries of “The Blues” died away in the distance. Then Dave suggested a game.
The crowd was divided. A space about twenty feet either side of the fire was marked with stakes. It was a sort of “Hunt the Gray,” only that one side was given time to disappear in the darkness. They could hide along the beach, or in among the shrubbery of the bluff side, as they chose.
Six of the party held “the fort,” as the staked-off space was called, three at either end. The other six were called “scouts.” They were sent out to rout out and capture “the enemy.” Any of the latter who got into the fort without being tagged, became a “ranger” for the next game as well.
Every once in a while it was the rule that a ranger should give out a signal shout, so as to direct the scouts in the direction of his hiding place.
Bob kept with his fellow rangers until they scattered to different points along the bluff side. Then he tried a scheme of getting into the fort on his own hook.
There was not a foot on the bluff that Bob did not know by heart. He aimed to reach a point where a sharp descent led right down to the campfire. If he could get on a line between the stakes, and could run, tumble or slide fast enough, he counted on landing in the fort before any one could reach and tag him.
Edging along in among the shrubbery, Bob finally reached the bare spot in the shelving bluff where he was to try his dash for the fort.