“I have found a nest, Lizzie,” she cried.  “Slip over and unfasten Mona Lisa.  She’s not near the other horses, which is fortunate.”

I then perceived that Tish’s yellow slicker was behind her on the ground and tied into a bundle, from which emerged a dull roaring.  I was wondering how Tish expected to open it, when she settled the question by asking me to cut a piece from the mosquito netting which we put in the doorway of the tent at night, and to bring her riding-gloves.

Aggie was darning a hole in the tablecloth when I went back and Bill was still engaged with the weapons.  Having taken what she required to Tish, under pretense of giving Mona Lisa a lump of sugar, I untied her.  What followed was exactly as Tish had planned.  Mona Lisa, not realizing her freedom, stood still while Tish untied the slicker and freed its furious inmates.  She then dropped the whole thing under the unfortunate animal, and retreated, not too rapidly, for fear of drawing Bill’s attention.  For possibly sixty seconds nothing happened, except that Mona Lisa raised her head and appeared to listen.  Then, with a loud scream, she threw up her head and bolted.  By the time Bill had put down the stove brush she was out of sight among the trees, but we could hear her leaping and scrambling through the wood.

“Jumping cats!” said Bill, and ran for his horse.  “Acts as though she’d started for the Coast!” he yelled to me, and flung after her.

When he had disappeared, Tish came out of the woods, and, getting a kettle of boiling water, poured it over the nest.  In spite of the netting, however, she was stung again, on the back of the neck, and spent the rest of the morning holding wet mud to the affected parts.

Her brain, however, was as active as ever, and by half-past eleven, mounting a boulder, she announced that she could see the Ostermaier party far down the trail, and that in an hour they would probably be at the top.  She had her field-glasses, and she said that Mrs. Ostermaier was pointing up to the pass and shaking her head, and that the others were arguing with her.

[Illustration:  “It would be just like the woman, to refuse to come any farther and spoil everything”]

“It would be just like the woman,” Tish said bitterly, “to refuse to come any farther and spoil everything.”

But a little later she announced that the guide was leading Mrs. Ostermaier’s horse and that they were coming on.

We immediately retreated to the cave and waited, it being Tish’s intention to allow them to reach the pass without suspecting our presence, and only to cut off the pseudo-bandits in their retreat, as I have explained.

It was well that we had concealed the horses also, for the party stopped near the cave, and Mrs. Ostermaier was weeping.  “Not a step farther!” she said.  “I have a family to consider, and Mr. Ostermaier is a man of wide usefulness and cannot be spared.”