eizing Ruth's hand she darted toward the cabin. Then both girls saw
a man open the door and stand in it--a man at the sight of whom they
drew back in alarm.

CHAPTER XVI

THE MAN AND THE UMBRELLA

For a moment the man stood in the doorway of the cabin, staring at
Ruth and Alice standing there in the drenching rain. They had
recognized him at once as the man whom they had seen run out of the
old barn--the limping man who had fled down the moonlit road when he
espied them on the bridge.

Whether or not he knew the girls, they did not stop to consider.
Certainly they were dressed differently than on either of the
occasions they had encountered him; but that might not obviate
recognition.

"Come--come on back to the woods," whispered Ruth. "We--we don't want
to meet him, Alice."

"No, I suppose not," agreed Alice, "and yet," and she seemed to
shiver, "we ought not to stand out in this storm when shelter is so
near, no matter who that man is."

"Oh, Alice!" exclaimed Ruth.

"Well, I mean it! I am soaked, and you are, too. Besides, that
lightning is awful--and the thunder! I can't stand it--come on. I'm
sure he won't eat us!"

But the girls were saved any anxiety by the action of the strange
man. Alice was trying to draw her sister toward the cabin, and Ruth,
torn between a desire to get under shelter, and fear of the man, was
hardly able to decide, when the stranger darted back into the cabin,
and came out with an umbrella.

"Oh, he's going to offer it to us!" exclaimed Alice. "That is good of
him."

But, to her surprise, no less than that of Ruth, the man called out:

"Come in, and welcome, young ladies. You may stay in this cabin as
long as you like. The roof leaks in one place, but otherwise it is
dry. I have to go away. Come in!"

And with that he put up the umbrella and hurried off, limping through
the rain, but never once glancing back at the girls.

For a moment Alice and Ruth did not know what to do or think. The
action was certainly strange. And why had not the man come to meet
them with the umbrella, while he was about it? There was some little
distance to go, from the fringe of trees where the two girls stood,
to the cabin, and this space was open; whereas, by keeping under the
leafy boughs they were, in a measure, protected from the pelting
rain.

"What shall we do, Ruth?" asked Alice. She wanted to defer to the
older judgment of her sister. But Ruth answered:

"I don't know, dear.