"For comfort's sake, girls, unbutton your clothes and remove your shoes. They can be dried by the fires to-night so they will feel better in the morning," advised Anne. The pine fires were burning beautifully, and Anne, completely tired out, was soon asleep. Barbara and Eleanor had succumbed to weariness the moment they rolled over on the beds. But Polly, tired and fatigued, too, knew that some one must keep the fires going all night, so she merely reclined on the pine-bough bed and started up at every sound or crackle of the fires. She piled pine upon them all night through until the first faint gleams of dawn, and then there was no more wood on hand to use. She worried over the fact that the pine had given out and just as she turned from the fires, having deposited the last small kindlings she had found lying about, she heard the yelping of the mountain-lion and the deep growl of a grizzly bear. She ran and caught up the rifle, planning to shoot up at the cliff in a venture to frighten them away. She aimed, pulled the trigger, and the rifle-shot rang out making the echoes roar and roll through the chasm as if an army was shooting. The three girls who had been sleeping, jumped out of the spruce beds and screamed with fright. Barbara ran madly over the ground, back and forth, not certain where to hide. Eleanor stood shivering and Anne rushed over to ask Polly what had happened. Polly explained in a whisper, and Eleanor, as in a trance, watched her sister running about with something that seemed to cleave to her foot closer than a porous-plaster. Finally, Eleanor came to her senses and ran over to keep Barbara from rolling under the burros for hiding. "For the love of Mike! What's all over your foot?" cried Eleanor, dragging Barbara out from the "finger-stall" to exhibit her foot to the other girls. At sound of the unexpected shot, Barbara had jumped up frantically and darted hither and thither, taking little heed of where she ran. Now, as her companions gazed at that foot exposed by Eleanor, they all laughed hysterically while Anne shouted: "Oh, our _custard pie!"_ And sure enough. Lemon meringue clung tenaciously to as much of a nicely-formed foot and lower limb as it possibly could. In spite of the fears over wild animals, the adventurers had to laugh at the sight. "_How_ will I ever get it off?" wailed Barbara, when she realized how sticky the custard was. "Rather ask: 'How shall we dispense with our breakfast?'" retorted Anne. But another mad howl from without now made the horses cry and quiver with dread, while the girls blanched in fear. Polly had not told them that the wood was used up, and now Anne ran to carry an extra armful of pine to replenish the fires. When she discovered the truth of the situation, she slowly turned and exchanged a meaning look with Polly.