too, as she could climb better in her petticoat.

The three girls below held their breath when she came to the final
stretch, and let go the last rickety nail to fling herself on to the
window sill.

"Eureka, girls!" she called down cheerfully, when she got her breath.
She was holding tightly to the window frame with both hands and
endeavoring to make her voice sound gay, though she was nearly worn out
with the fatigue of her dangerous climb. "Now I shall surely find a
way out for us. Please don't be frightened, Nellie, darling, if I have
to jump. It is not so bad." She gave a little inward shudder as she
looked through the tiny window frame. She could easily wrench the
broken bars away. That was not the trouble. But the window was so
small and the sill so narrow that Madge realized she could not get into
the proper position for a forward spring. However, she had made up her
mind; she might break her leg, or her arm, but she would open that
barred door if she died in doing it.

With determined hands she wrenched at one of the window bars. It gave
way. She seized hold of another, clinging to the sill with her other
hand, her feet in their insecure resting places.

"It's all right, chilluns," she smiled, as she swung herself up to the
window, "I'm going to jump."

Eleanor had closed her eyes. Phil and Lillian watched their friend,
sick with apprehension.

Madge gave one look down at the ground, at least fourteen feet below
her. Then she uttered a quick, sharp cry, and dropped back to her
resting place, her feet, almost by instinct, finding the open spaces in
the wall.

"Come down, Madge," called Phil sharply. "I was afraid you'd find the
distance too great. Don't try it again."

"No, no, it is not that," replied Madge, gazing through the window. "I
don't believe I shall have to jump. I am sure some one is near."

Sniffing the ground, near the side of the cabin, she had spied a dog
with a soft brown nose, a shaggy, red brown body and a tail standing
out tense and straight. It was a brown setter, and Madge knew he was
probably hunting for woodchucks. Surely the presence of the dog meant
a master somewhere near.

Her tired, eager eyes strained through the thick foliage of the woods
they had traversed so happily only the afternoon before.

Yes, there was a man's figure! He was coming nearer. A young man in a
hunting jacket, with a gun swung over his shoulder, was tramping along,
with his eye