tone Face won't hurt us."

"Not unless it falls on us," giggled Helen.

The grove of big trees that covered this part of the hillside was open,
and the chums very easily made their way toward the fire, even on
snowshoes. But the shoes naturally made some noise as they scuffed over
the snow, and in a minute Ruth stopped and slipped her feet out of the
straps, motioning Helen to do the same. They wore overshoes so there was
no danger of their getting their feet wet in the snow.

Hand in hand, Ruth and Helen crept forward. They saw the fire flickering
just before them. There was a single figure between the fire and the
very boulder of which Helen had spoken.

Reaching the edge of the grove the girls gazed without discovery at the
camp in the snow. The boulder stood in a small open space, and it was so
high and bulky that it sheltered the fire and the camper quite
comfortably. As Ruth had suspected, the latter was the girl she had seen
walking upon the southern shore of Bliss Island. She knew her by her
figure, if not by her face, which was at the moment hidden.

"She's alone," whispered Helen, making the words with her lips more than
with her voice.

"What _can_ she be doing out here?" was the black-eyed girl's next
demand.

Her chum put out a hand in a gesture of warning and at once walked out
of the shelter of the trees and approached the fire. Helen lingered
behind. After all, it was so strange a situation that she did not feel
very courageous.

The moon had quite broken through the clouds now and as Ruth drew nearer
to the fire and the girl, her shadow was projected before her upon the
snow. The girl who looked like Maggie suddenly espied this shadow,
raised her head, and leaped up with a cry.

"Don't be frightened, Maggie," said Ruth. "It's only us two girls."

"My--my name is--isn't Maggie," stammered the strange girl.

And sure enough, having once seen her closely, Ruth Fielding saw that
she was quite wrong in her identification. This was not the girl who had
drifted down the Lumano River to the Red Mill and taken refuge with Aunt
Alvirah.

This was a much more assertive person than Maggie--a girl with plenty of
health, both of body and mind. Maggie impressed one as being mentally or
nervously deficient. Not so this girl who was camping here in the snow
on Bliss Island. Yet there was a resemblance to Maggie in the figure of
the stranger, and Ruth noted a resemblance in her features, too.

"My goodnes