So we crept back again, ready to run if any one should come, but there was nobody in sight. One arrow was lying on the ground where the girl had been standing when we took her for a bear. It was Skinny's; we could tell by the way it was painted. It made him real chesty, after he had found out that we had not killed anybody. "Didn't I tell you, Bill," said he, "that I'd show you whether I could hit a bear or not? It must have struck a button or something, or whoever it was would have bit the dust, and don't you forget it." While we were standing there talking about it, a man burst through the bushes, followed by a girl, about eighteen years old, I guess. "Are these your Injuns?" he asked, before we had time to run. Then he burst out laughing in such a way that we were not afraid to stay. In a minute we had found out all about it. They were fern gatherers and Benny had taken them for bears. A lot of people go up on the mountain in August, picking what they call Boston ferns to sell to florists. They put them in cold storage and keep them a long time. There is a crazy little railroad at the foot of the mountain, on the east side, that carries whole train loads of those ferns to Hoosac Tunnel station, and afterward they are shipped all over the country to be put in bouquets. Skinny's arrow had struck the girl and hurt her a little, but not much. She was scared half to death. Mr. Norton had a fine supper ready when we reached the camp again, and we ate until we couldn't eat any longer. "You boys ought to know what you are doing every minute you are in the woods," he told us, after he had heard about the scare. "Suppose that Gabriel had been carrying a gun, as he wanted to, instead of a bow and arrows. Just think what would have happened. Hundreds of people have been killed in exactly that way. Careless hunters have mistaken them for bear or deer or some other game. You ought to have known what you were shooting at. It was a foolish thing to do, anyway. I don't believe there can be any bears around where so many people are looking for ferns and berries. We'll see dozens of pickers on the other side of the mountain, probably. If there ever were any bears they have been frightened away long before this. But suppose that had been a bear. For a bunch of boys to attack a bear with bows and arrows isn't bravery. It is foolishness. I am ashamed of you." We didn't feel quite so chesty when Mr. Norton had finished talking to us. "Well, I am not going to spoil the day by scolding," he went on, after we'd had time to think it over a little. "You can see the folly of it as well as I. Let us sit here and watch the sun go down behind the west mountains. Did you ever see such glory? Then, when it grows dark, we'll build a campfire and I'll tell you about a great scout and a trip he once made through a wilderness."