x heard her.

"We--we'll wreck the shell!" complained Trix. "It's so shallow."

"We'll not drown in shallow water," ejaculated Ruth, expelling the words
between strokes.

The coxswain shot them shoreward. She caught a glimpse of another boat
pulled up on the beach--the skiff they had earlier seen rounding the
point of the island.

In thirty seconds they were safe. The rain began to pour down upon them
in a brisk torrent. But that did not matter.

"Rather be half drowned in the rain than wholly drowned in the lake!"
Jennie Stone declared, as they scrambled out into the shallow water,
more than ankle deep, and lifted the treacherous shell out of the lake.

"Goodness! what a near one that was!" Helen declared.

Ruth looked at the skiff drawn up on the shore, and then up into the
grove of trees.

"I wonder where the girl is who was in that boat?" she said.

"Was it a girl?" asked Helen, with interest.

"Yes. She must have found shelter somewhere from this rain. Come on! We
may be able to keep reasonably dry up there in the woods."

The other girls followed Ruth, for she was naturally their leader. The
rain continued to beat down upon them; but before they reached the
opening in which was situated the Stone Face, Ruth spied an evergreen,
the drooping branches of which offered them reasonable shelter.

"Come on into the green tent, girls!" shouted Jennie Stone, plunging
into the dimly lighted circle under the tree. "Oh! Goodness! What's
that?"

"A dog!"

"A cow! and I'm afraid of co-o-ows!" wailed Sally Blanchard, seizing
upon Ruth as the nearest savior.

"Don't be silly, child," vouchsafed Helen, who had followed Jennie. "How
would a cow come upon this island--a mile from shore?"

"Or a dog?" laughed Ruth. "What _did_ you see, Jennie Stone?"

"She just tried to fool us," Helen declared.

"Didn't either," the stout girl said warmly. "Something ran out at the
far side as I came in."

"An animal?" gasped Trix Davenport.

"Well," returned Jennie Stone, "it certainly wasn't a vegetable. At
least, I never saw a vegetable run as fast as that thing did."

"You needn't try to scare us to death, Heavy," complained Helen. "Of
course it must have been the girl Ruth said came ashore in that skiff."

"Well, I didn't think of her," admitted Jennie. "But she ran like a
ferret. I'd like to know who she is."

"Remember the girl we found over here that night in the snowstorm?"
whispered Helen to Ruth. "The girl who