Slowly she pushed back her blanket and looked down whence the clamor had come. The roar was followed by a tearing sound and a noise of struggle.
"Oh, girls," cried Ethel Blue, "it's a cow! It's nothing but a cow! Poor old thing, she's caught her horns under the edge of the tent and she can't get loose."
Dorothy's head came out from its covering.
"A cow!" she breathed with relief and sank back, weak but thankful.
"She's going to pull the tent down!" screamed Della.
"Can't you shoo her out, Ethel Blue?" asked Ethel Brown. "You're nearest."
Ethel Blue was well aware that she was nearest. She was startlingly near. But the cow seemed to want to withdraw quite as much as the girls wanted her to, and that encouraged Ethel Blue to help her. Leaning out of her cot she lifted the edge of the tent as far as she could with one hand and with her slipper in the other slapped the cow on her forehead as a hint that backwards was her next best move.
With a gasp of disgust the invader departed and the girls heard Miss Roberts, who had been aroused from her tent, driving her away. In fact, everybody was wide awake by this time.
"Let's get up," suggested Della. "I've never seen the sun rise and this is a good chance."
Evidently the girls in the other tents were holding a caucus to the same effect and there shortly appeared a shivering group of campers. Ethel Brown was the only one who seemed not to think the happening good fun, but she was ashamed to seem cross when everybody else was in good humor, and when Miss Roberts set her to work on the breakfast preparations she soon forgot that she had not made a brave showing before the marauder. Dorothy was pale but gave no other sign of having been especially disturbed. After breakfast came the packing up and setting of the camp in order and then two of the girls who had been studying signalling, wig-wagged across the lake for the launch to come for them.