"Brer Fox, indeed! That wasn't Brer Fox but the one in Aesop," laughed Lil. "Well, he acted just like Brer Fox would have acted, anyhow, and I bet Aesop got him from Uncle Remus. But see, Lil! This isn't the same vine. We never could have skipped all these grapes. Only look what beauts!" "We might just as well pick 'em," said Skeeter, suiting the action to the word. "They might come in handy later on for eats if we can't find our way home." "Not find our way home!" scoffed Frank. "Why, home is just over the mountain. All we have to do is keep straight up and go down on the other side. These paths have mixed us up but the mountain is the same old cove. He can't mix us up." CHAPTER XV BABES IN THE WOOD The pull up that mountain was about the hardest one any of those young people had ever had. As a rule Lil and Lucy required no help from the boys, as they prided themselves upon being quite as active as any members of the opposite sex, but now they were glad of the assistance the boys shyly offered. "Just catch on to my belt, Lil; I can pull you up and carry the grapes and my gun, too," insisted Frank, while Skeeter made Lucy take hold of his gun so he could help her. "We are most to the top now," they encouraged the girls. Their way lay over rocks and through brambles, as they had given up trying to keep to a trail since the trails seemed to lead nowhere. They argued if they could get to the top they could see where they were. The top was reached, but, strange to say, it wasn't a top, after all, but just an excrescence on the side of the mountain, a kind of a hump. It led down sharply into a dimple covered with beautiful green grass, and then towering up on the other side of this dimple was more and more mountain. "Well, ain't this the limit? I didn't know there was a place like this on our mountain!" exclaimed Frank. "Th'ain't! This is no more our mountain than I'm Josephus," said Skeeter. "Do you think we are lost?" asked Lil. "Well, we are certainly not found," and Skeeter's young countenance took on a very grim expression. "Somebody please kick me, and then I'll feel better," groaned Frank. "Why kick you? You didn't lose us; we lost ourselves," said Lucy. "You just say that to keep me from feeling bad. I said all the time we were on our own mountain and I was certainly the one to suggest our climbing up to the top. I don't see how or when we managed to get in this mix-up." "You see, we were down at the foot of the mountain and we must have spilled over on another one without knowing it. They so kinder run together at the bottom," soothed Lucy. Lil was so worn out after the climb that she could do no more than sink to the ground; but she smiled bravely at poor self-accusing Frank as she gasped out: "What a grand, romantic spot to play 'Babes in the Wood'! I bid to be a babe and let you boys be the robins."