Just then there came an excited shriek from Sahwah. "It's coming out! I see the bushes moving."
The girls scattered in all directions; Miss Peckham, up on her rock, covered her ears with her hands, as though there was going to be an explosion.
"Here it comes!"
Sahwah, leaning low over her branch, nearly fell out of the tree in her excitement, as her eye caught the gleam of red and black among the bushes. Miss Judy scrambled up on the rock beside Miss Peckham.
There was a violent agitation of the ferns and bushes underneath Ponemah, a sort of scrambling movement, accompanied by a muffled squeaking, and then a truly remarkable creature bounced into view—a creature whose body consisted of a long stocking, red and black in alternate stripes, in the toe of which some live animal frantically squeaked and struggled, leaping almost a foot from the ground in its efforts to escape from its prison, and dragging the gaudy striped length behind it through a series of thrillingly lifelike wriggles.
"Hi!" called Sahwah with a great shout of laughter. "It's nothing but a stocking with something in it."
In reaction from her former alarm Miss Judy laughed until she fell off the rock, and sat helplessly on the ground watching the frantic struggles of the creature in the stocking to free itself. Hearing the laughter, those who had fled at the first alarm came hastening back, and all promptly went into hysterics when they saw the stocking writhing on the ground, and all were equally as helpless as Miss Judy and Sahwah.
"Only Tiny Armstrong's stocking!" gasped Miss Judy, wiping away her tears of merriment with her middy sleeve. "I told her they would cause a riot in camp!"
Only Miss Peckham did not laugh; she looked crossly around at the desperately amused girls.
"Oh, Miss Peckham," gurgled Bengal, "you said it reared up and menaced you with its great, wicked h-head! You said its hood was swelled up with ferocity and venom, and it hissed sibilantly at you."