ing.

"Don't go through the woods," she begged, her teeth chattering. "We'll
fall into that awful Indian Chasm."

Bobby's heart reproached her for her thoughtless joke and she put an arm
around her cousin.

"Libbie, you never thought I was serious about pushing you into the
chasm, did you?" she asked anxiously. "Is that what has been making you
act so queerly ever since? I was only fooling."

So, thought Betty, Bobby, too, had noticed Libbie's unnatural behavior.

"Oh, it isn't that," sobbed Libbie. "I can't explain--but if we go
through the woods, I'm sure I shall go crazy."

"Well, then, that settles it," said Bob comfortably. "Better to be
drowned than to go crazy. Can you turn up your sweater collars, girls? I
wish we'd brought some raincoats along."

Splashing and stumbling, they followed Bob down to the shore and began
the weary walk that would lead them back to the school. After fifteen
minutes' steady walking they came to a dense undergrowth that was
impossible to penetrate.

"No use, we'll have to make a cut through the woods," announced Bob. "Up
this way and over, ought to bring us out right."

He was so cheerful and patient that the tired, rain-soaked girls could
not do otherwise than follow his example. Libbie was crying silently, but
the others tramped along cheerfully, singing, at Betty's suggestion, old
college and school songs.

"Look here, Bob," said Tommy Tucker in an undertone, "I don't think we're
going in the right direction. Don't you say it would be better to take
the girls to that deserted cabin we found the other day and leave them
there while we explore a bit? They're getting soaked through, and Libbie
Littell is fixing to have hysterics. Leave a couple of the boys with 'em,
so they won't be afraid, and then we'll locate the right trail and take
'em over it home in a hurry."

This suggestion sounded like good, common-sense to Bob, and he said so.

"Betty could walk ten miles and be all right," he declared proudly, "and
I think Bobby is good for a hike, too. But Frances Martin can't see when
the rain gets on her glasses, and, as you say, something is the matter
with Libbie. So let's make for the cabin, quick."

The Salsette boys had explored the woods pretty thoroughly, and on a
recent expedition Bob and his chums had stumbled on an old one-room
cabin, buried deep in the woods and evidently unoccupied for years. It
was not far from the end of the lake, and toward it they now led t