is attention to the cabin where until recently he had lived in
retirement, a hermit, as X-Ray Tyson called him.

Another dawn came.

Breakfast was prepared in almost abject silence. The little girl was
still sleeping. All of the boys had tiptoed up and taken a peep at her
lying there, as though hardly able to believe it could be so.

Phil had washed her face and hands the first thing, and with her rosy
cheeks and lips, with the masses of golden, natural curls she certainly
looked, as Lub expressed it, "pretty enough to eat."

So breakfast was prepared almost in silence. When any of them found
occasion to speak it was laughable to see how they got their heads
together and whispered.

Just before Lub had breakfast ready to serve, Mazie called out to Phil,
and was soon ready to sit down at the table with two of her newfound
friends, there not being room for all.

X-Ray, thinking to pick up some information, called the child's
attention to the scorched places on the heavy board, apparently done
with molten metal.

"See what daddy did!" he went on to say; and immediately the others,
guessing his game, waited to see the result.

The little girl looked from X-Ray down to the scarred surface of the
table. She shook her head vigorously in the negative, and looked
indignant.

"Daddy didn't!" she exclaimed, with a vigor that settled that question.

"These marks were here when you came, were they, Mazie?" asked Phil.

This time she nodded her little curly head in the affirmative.

No more was said. X-Ray took out his new fifty cent piece and looked
hard at it--but if he half intended asking the child whether she had
ever seen any like it he changed his mind. Perhaps he did not fancy
looking into those clear blue eyes, and coaxing the child to
unconsciously betray her "daddy."

After breakfast the boys started to do various things. Ethan and X-Ray
Tyson were more than ever bent upon fishing. They counted exactly even
now, and the excitement was running high.

"But after this," said Ethan, who had the soul of a true sportsman, "we
mean to put back all the ordinary trout that are uninjured. We're no
fish hogs, you must know. We'll carry the little scales, and the foot
rule along, so as to measure what we take."

"That's a sensible arrangement," Phil told them; "but then it's only
what I would have expected of you, Ethan."

They were still gathering bait close by the cabin when there broke out a
terrible din.

"It