of their lodge,
hoping and praying for the return of the wanderers. What did it matter
if they stayed all the rest of their lives on the deserted island, if
only Madge and Phyllis were with them!

About eight o'clock in the evening Miss Jenny Ann, who was patroling
the woods near by, heard a faint halloo. A few minutes later two
homesick and footsore girls stumbled into her arms.

CHAPTER XVII

CAN WE GO TO THE RESCUE?

Several days had passed since Madge and Phil had returned. A big fire
roared up the chimney. Madge lay on a blanket spread over some hemlock
boughs in one corner of the room. Phil sat near her, feeding the fawn
from a cup with a spoon.

Miss Jenny Ann had an open book in her lap, while Eleanor peered over
her shoulder. A single candle burned near them. Lillian sat by the
fire. Every now and then she threw an armful of pine cones on the fire
to make more light in the room.

Miss Jenny Ann was trying to instruct four of her pupils from "Miss
Tolliver's Select School for Girls" in the intricacies of algebraical
problems.

Since the disappointing trip to the opposite shore of the island Madge
had not been well. The sunshine had faded. The cold autumn rains had
begun. The food in the larder, supplied from the houseboat, had grown
perilously low. It was hard work to spend many hours in hunting or in
fishing in such weather. Nuts had commenced to pall as an article of
daily diet. Fight as they might, the spirit of the houseboat party had
begun to sink toward zero.

Suppose, after all, thought they, that they should not be rescued, even
by the first Monday in November, when Madge assured them the duck
shooting began? Perhaps there would not be any ducks this year, or else
no one would come to shoot them? There was nothing too dreadful to
imagine!

Instead of being comforted by Madge's and Phil's report that they were
not alone on the island, Miss Jenny Ann was the more uneasy. She did
not believe that such a man as the girls had seen would help them to
leave this island.

Miss Jenny Ann had been trying to beguile the tedium of the stormy days
by interesting the girls in the lessons they would even now have been
studying at Miss Tolliver's school if their houseboat had not sailed
away from her anchorage. All the old school books had been brought up
from the "Merry Maid." At first the girls were much pleased with Miss
Jenny Ann's idea. Eleanor declared that it would be splendid not to be
beh