achfully.
"At last I am convinced you are not fairies. And for once I am glad
that my mother is always certain that I am on the point of starving."

He reached back into his pocket and brought out a package and a flask.
"Here is some good, strong coffee. I am sorry it is cold, but it is
better than nothing." He turned to Madge, who looked exhausted.

She shook her head, though she gazed at the flask wistfully. "I won't
drink first. I don't need it as much as the other girls."

Eleanor took the bottle from his hands and held it to Madge's lips.
The exhausted girl took a long drink. Then the others followed suit,
while the young man watched them, smiling with satisfaction. He was
tall and strong, and not particularly handsome, but he had fine brown
eyes, a firm chin and thick, curly, light hair. After the girls had
finished the coffee he broke open his package of sandwiches and found
exactly four inside.

"Please take them," he urged, handing the open package to Lillian.

"We mustn't take them from you," protested Lillian. "We thank you for
the coffee. That will do nicely until we get back to our boat."

The stranger laughed. "See here," he protested, "not an hour ago, when
I left the hotel, where my mother and I are spending the summer, I ate
three eggs, much bacon, four Maryland biscuit and drank two cups of
coffee. Fragile creature that I am, I believe I can exist on that
amount of refreshment for another hour or so. But whenever I go out on
a few hours' hunting trip, my mother insists that the steward at the
hotel put me up a luncheon. She is forever imagining that I am likely
to get lost and starve, a modern 'Babe in the Woods,' you know. By the
way, I haven't introduced myself. My name is Curtis, Thomas Stevenson
Curtis, if you please, but I am more used to plain, everyday Tom."

The girls acknowledged the introduction, then by common consent they
began walking away from the cabin.

A short distance was traversed in silence, then Madge said abruptly,
"Who do you suppose locked us in, Mr. Curtis?"

"I don't know," answered Tom Curtis darkly, clenching his fist. "But
wouldn't I like to find out! Have you an enemy about here?"

Madge shook her head. "No; as I said, we came to the neighborhood only
yesterday. We have met only the farmer and his wife, who allowed us to
land."

"I'll make it my business to find out who served you such a dastardly
trick, Miss Morton," Tom returned. "I expec