“Oh! somebody’s there!” muttered Jess, clinging to her chum’s hand.
Laura sprang forward and jerked apart the flap. She only feared that something was the matter with Liz.
And there was, apparently. She was crouching down, against the far wall of the tent, her hands over her face, and trembling like a leaf.
Afterward Laura thought over this scene with wonder. Lonesome Liz did not seem like a girl who would be so terribly disturbed about a thunder storm. She had shown no fear when the tempest began and the other girls had scampered for the cabin. 146
But now she was moaning, and rocking herself to and fro, and it was some moments before they could get a sensible word out of her.
“Oh! oh! oh!” wailed Liz. “I want to go back to town. I don’t like this place a little bit—no, I don’t! Oh, oh!”
“Stop your noise, Liz!” exclaimed Jess, suddenly exasperated. “You can’t go back while it is storming so. And when it stops you won’t want to.”
But Laura was worried. She looked all about the tent. What had the Barnacle barked so about?
Nor was he satisfied now. The storm held up after a time; but the dog kept rushing out and barking as though he had just remembered that there had been a prowler about, and he had not had a chance to chase him.
Laura understood that rain, or wet, killed the scent for dogs and like trailing animals. This that had disturbed the Barnacle must have been a person who had come very close.