All at once Harriet, in the midst of one of these remarkable tales, tilted her head back, her eyes apparently studying the stars that hung over the mountain range to the south of them. She gazed thoughtfully. After a few seconds of this, she shifted the position of her head, supporting the latter with her clasped hands. After remaining in this position for several minutes the girl got up, yawned and began walking slowly back and forth, the while listening to the guide's story.
"Harriet, are you nervous or tired?" questioned the guardian, eyeing her shrewdly.
"I believe it must be nerves," answered Harriet laughingly. She strolled off into the shadows, there to sit down on a rock within easy sound of the voices of her companions, who soon forgot that she was not among them. After making sure that she was safe in doing so, she slid slowly from the rock, and walking on all fours ran away into the bushes and out of sight. It was a most unusual thing to do. Had Crazy Jane been guilty of such an act, nothing would have been thought of it, but had Harriet Burrell's companions observed her they would have opened their eyes in amazement. Fortunately, they were too fully occupied with Janus Grubb's story.
Harriet sat down on the ground, after having moved away some two hundred yards from the camp.
"I hope they don't miss me," she thought. "I hope, too, that I haven't been seen. Now I will try to see something for myself." The girl sat perfectly still, with ears more than eyes on the alert.
Harriet had not been in her position very long before her ears caught a faint sound directly ahead of her. Still she did not move, except to raise her head a little. A bird hopped into a bush close at hand without discovering her presence. The faint noise ahead grew more pronounced, the whip of a bush as it was released by the hand that had pushed it away was heard and understood. Harriet Burrell was woodsman enough to recognize all such sounds instantly upon hearing them.
She crouched low, fearing that the intruder might approach close enough to discover her. Every faculty was on the alert. Who or what the unseen intruder might be, of course, Harriet did not know. It might be a mountaineer who, seeking camp for the night, was first doing a little investigating to satisfy himself that he would be welcome. Then, again, it might be a different sort of visitor.
Harriet's attention was distracted by a burst of laughter from the camp of the Meadow-Brook Girls. Then there followed a long-drawn "Hoo-e-e-e!" that she knew was meant for her.
"Harri—et!" It was Margery who was calling. Harriet groaned under her breath. Were her companions to persist, were they to get an idea that she had strayed from the camp, her quest would come to a sudden end, for the guide and his charges would soon be piling over the rocks, searching and shouting for her.
It was Miss Elting, however, who, quick to understand, quieted Margery Brown.