Merry Maid," riding out on the
waves near the spot where they had first found refuge, had given their
shore almost a homelikeness.

This beach was dreadful! Besides, it was getting so late. Phil's black
eyes suddenly brimmed with tears of disappointment. Madge slipped her
arm in Phil's and the two forlorn girls walked up and down the shore,
looking in every possible direction for some sign of life.

A fish-hawk rose suddenly from the waves and wheeled over their heads.
It uttered a hoarse cry of fright and dropped a good sized fish at the
girls' feet. The fish had been too large for the bird to carry.

Madge picked up the fish, which had just been freshly caught out of the
sea. "Phil," she said, smiling bravely, "if we are deserted by human
beings, we are being fed from Heaven. Let us cook this for our supper.
Come, let us go back to the woods, swing our hammock and prepare to
make a night of it."

"Let's look just a little farther along," Phyllis begged.

The girls went a quarter of a mile farther up the silent shore, then
turned into the woods.

Madge, who was a few rods in advance, gave a sharp cry of surprise.

There, ahead of her, appeared most unexpectedly a small house, not a
great deal larger than their own lodge. But it was very differently
built. The door of this house had great bars across it; the windows
were securely fastened. The walls were fortified with heavy beams of
wood. The house looked deserted. Yet in front of the barred door stood
a bucket of fresh water and an ax lay on the ground, with some chips of
freshly hewn wood near it. Also the girls noticed that the way up to
the door had lately been trodden by heavy feet.

Without asking anybody's permission the girls drank long and deeply of
the fresh water. Then they knocked on the fast-locked door. There was
no answer. They banged again. Madge tried to shake the door. A heavy
chain rattled on the inside.

"The house must be empty, Phil," she suggested. "The men you saw must
have been here and gone away again. Perhaps they will be back soon. We
had better return in the morning to see."

Phil gave a farewell shake to the door.

A voice called out unexpectedly: "Stop shaking that door and come in.
What is the use of your trifling with me? Have you lost the key, so
that you can't get in? It would be good of you to leave me here to
starve."

Madge and Phil felt their knees shaking in sudden terror.

"We are strangers; we haven't the key to