“Fixing a burglar alarm. You’ll agree that it is all right after I have it finished. Now, I want to run this twine all the way around the camp. I shall need some round sticks. Help me find some, Tommy. You have sharp eyes.”
All hands set out to hunt for the desired sticks. Harriet began thrusting them into the soft ground at more or less regular intervals.
When the stakes had been placed loops of string were tied near the tops of them, and through these loops was threaded the long twine until the camp was entirely surrounded by it. It formed a thread-like barrier that seemed too slender a thing to be of much use. One end of the string was secured to the two sticks on which the pail had been placed. The slack in the string was taken up until the sticks and the pail tilted from the wall of the tent at a sharp angle.
“Hurrah!” cried the guardian. “That is a most ingenious contrivance. How did you come to think of it?”
“Nethethity ith the mother of invention, tho my father thayth,” spoke up Grace.
Harriet nodded approvingly. The others laughed.
“Tommy is becoming quite a philosopher,” averred the guardian. “Aren’t you going to give us a demonstration of your invention, Harriet?”
“Very well,” laughed Harriet. “Hazel, will you go out and stumble against the string? Don’t you dare to break it for—Oh!”
The two sticks had come down with a crash, the tin pail rattling as it rolled over the floor. Tommy screamed and so did Margery.
“There’s your demonstration,” announced Harriet. “Some one is coming. I hope it isn’t those Italians again.”