“Where’s your ammonia gun?” cried Alice. “Shoot!” “Hush! Or you’ll have the boys over here!” exclaimed Mrs. Bonnell. “It’s nothing but a raccoon who stuck his head into Natalie’s vase. She’s gone to free it.” As she spoke the thumping noise outside increased. “Oh!” cried Mabel. “Quiet!” urged the Guardian. “There, there!” Natalie’s voice could be heard to murmur soothingly. “I won’t hurt you. Wait a minute now, and I’ll have it off you.” “She talks as if it were a pussy cat,” whispered Alice. There was a little squeal, a sort of grunt and then a hurried scurrying of feet over the boards. “I fixed him!” exclaimed Natalie in triumph, as she came into the tent carrying her vase. “However did you dare to it?” demanded Alice. “Why, the raccoon couldn’t see me, so I just grabbed him by the tail in one hand, and took the vase in the other. Then I—well, I just pulled them apart.” “Oh, dear!” laughed Marie. “Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” and she fell back on her cot in a paroxysm of laughter. “Oh, dear, girls! Hold me, some one!” “What’s the matter now?” demanded Mabel. “Oh, I just thought of the funniest thing!” and Marie redoubled her mirth. “Be quiet!” commanded Mrs. Bonnell, and then she joined in the gale of laughter that now swept through the tent. “What is it, anyhow? Tell us and we’ll laugh with you.” “Oh, dear!” sighed Marie, as the first spasm passed. “I just happened to think how dreadful it would be, if, when Nat was pulling on the raccoon’s tail, it had come loose instead of his head coming out of the vase. Oh, dear!” “Silly!” exclaimed Natalie. “It couldn’t happen. Anyhow if it had the tail would have made a lovely dusting brush!” And then there was more laughter. “We’d better bring in all the clay vases,” suggested Natalie, when quiet had been somewhat restored. “Some other night prowler may come along and get caught in the same way.” “I don’t believe that raccoon will,” was Marie’s opinion as she went off in another fit of laughter. “The idea of pulling him out by the tail!” “It’s the only way I could grab him,” explained Natalie. “I didn’t want to get scratched. Bur-r-r-r! It’s chilly!” and she crept back into bed, while the other girls made hurried trips out to bring in their handiwork. There were no more disturbances that night, though Marie kept them all awake for some time, with her fits of laughter and her murmurings of: “Suppose his tail had come off!” “Suppose you go to sleep,” directed Mrs. Bonnell, trying not to laugh. The clay ornaments were found hard enough by morning to harden in the fire, and while the girls were making a larger pit than the one Natalie had originally dug, the boys strolled over. “Going to have a feast?” asked Blake. “A feast? no,” replied Alice, who was scooping out the dirt. “Why do you ask?” “Because you’re digging a hole, and you have a lot of clay around. I thought maybe you were going to clay a chicken.” “Clay a chicken?” repeated Mrs. Bonnell. “Is that a new way of serving it?”