e cliff, some twenty feet above the water, and
leaning slightly forward, stood a girlish figure gazing directly at
him with great, wondering eyes. For an instant she seemed to read his
very soul. Then a vivid flush sprang to her cheeks, and with a quick
movement she disappeared as though the solid rock had opened to
receive her.

Peveril rubbed his eyes and looked again. She certainly was not there,
nor could he discover the slightest indication of an opening through
which she could have vanished. Yet, even as he looked, a pebble
leaped, apparently from the unbroken face of the cliff, and dropped
with a clatter to the ledge close beside him.

He paddled farther out into the lake, but still failed to discover
any aperture. He moved for short distances both up and down the coast
without any better success. To be sure, a stunted cedar growing out
from the rocky face near where the girl had disappeared showed the
existence of either a crevice or ledge, and she might have concealed
herself behind it, though Peveril did not believe she had. Even if she
were thus hidden, how had she gained that perilous position?--how
would she escape from it?--who was she?--and where had she come from?

She was not one of the fisher-women from the cove; of that he was
certain. Neither was she an Indian girl, for the face, indelibly
pictured in his memory, was fair and refined. It had not struck him as
being beautiful, except for the glorious eyes that had looked so fully
into his.

He called several times: "Are you in trouble? Can I help you?" But
only mocking echoes, and the harsh screams of a flock of gulls
circling about the very place where he had seen her, came to him in
answer. He sought for some means of scaling the cliff, but found none.
Everywhere it was smooth and sheer. Never in his life had the young
man been so baffled and never so loath to own himself beaten; but he
was at length warned by the setting of the sun to give over his quest
and row vigorously back the way he had come.

Twilight was merging into darkness when he again entered Laughing Fish
Cove, but a bright fire on the beach served at once as a beacon and a
promise of good cheer.

A comfortable cabin of poles and bark had been built by the men during
his absence. In it were all the stores, as well as a quantity of
spruce boughs and hemlock tips for bedding. The chill evening air was
filled with a delicious fragrance of burning cedar, mingled with the
pleasant