"Maybe we are on the wrong road," said Anne.
"We're right, all right, but I see a boulder in the way. If you don't believe me, come here and sprain your toe kicking it!"
A few of the scouts crowded in front to peer through the puzzling fog to see the questionable boulder, but it unexpectedly got upon its clumsy feet and started for the girls. In the fog it loomed up as big as an elephant.
"Murder! Fire! Help! Help!!" came in confused screams from the scouts in front, as they turned precipitously to flee from this unknown danger. The confusion, as they fell back upon the scouts behind, while the great "boulder" still advanced slowly, was awful!
But the soft earth of the bank had been washed out from under the top layer of roots and grass, and when so many stamping, crowding girls brought their weight upon the crumbling ground, it caved in with them. Jumping, screaming, tumbling scouts now went headlong down the slide of five feet into the roadway.
The Captain and Betty had been far enough in the rear to escape this general stampede, but they, too, saw the dark object trying to skirt the newly broken-down embankment, and they slid quickly down the wet weedy bank to get away from this ghostlike creature that crept towards them.
While brave scouts were getting up from the little ditch where they had rolled, a plaintive call from the "boulder" above identified the creature as belonging to the bovine kingdom. A second "Moo-oo," as the cow passed slowly down the bank to the road, where she hoped to find some one to lead her home, created a wild laugh from every one.