ned ones of her chum.

"I don't know that I think anything--just now," replied Mollie, in
rather gentler tones. "I'm afraid I was a bit cross, Grace, but you
know, dear it is----"

"A _bit_ cross! You were positively--horrid. But I forgive you."

"I'm always cross when I wake up suddenly," explained Mollie. "You
shouldn't have hit me on the nose, Grace."

"I wouldn't have, had I known you were such a--er--what animal is it
that has such a sensitive nose, Mollie?"

"Bear, I guess you mean," Mollie admitted.

"Yes, that's it. Oh, but I did have a nice sleep!" and Grace lazily
stretched first one arm and then the other. "But where are Betty and Amy
keeping themselves?" she asked.

"That's just what I've been trying to get you to realize," said Mollie.
"It's rather strange of them to go so far away."

"Oh, probably Betty wants to get some more shells for those string
portiers she is making," Grace said. "Come on, we'll walk down the beach
a little way ourselves."

Mollie assented and the two were soon strolling down the strand, looking
in advance for a sight of their chums.

But the seashore was deserted, save for the presence of some birds that
swooped down now and then to snap up the hopping white insects which
made such queer little burrows down in the sand.

A few hundred feet beyond the little grove where the picnic had been
held, Mollie and Grace came to a pause.

"I don't see them," Mollie said, and her voice was troubled.

"Nor I," conceded Grace. "Do you suppose they can be hiding to play a
joke on us?"

"They might," Mollie admitted. "But they would hardly go so far away."

"Let's look on the other side," proposed Grace. But that beach, of the
little arm of land that jutted out into the bay and ocean, showed no
sight of Betty and Amy.

"Oh, I--I'm getting--worried," returned practical Mollie. "Nothing could
have happened, unless one of them sprained her ankle, or something like
that, and can't walk. Even then the beach is so open, and there isn't a
place on it that one need fear----"

"Unless it's that old fisherman's hut," broke in Grace.

"Oh," observed Mollie, slowly, and there came a change over her face. "I
didn't think of that. Yes, they might----"

She was interrupted by a shrill whistle, as if of some boat. Both girls
turned quickly, and the same exclamation came to the lips of both.

"The boys!"

It was the _Pocohontas_ approaching, and Allen, Roy and Henry waved
their hands as