so it couldn't have been that."

"Maybe there are quicksands here!" exclaimed Amy, looking nervously
about. "There are such things, you know. The Goodwin Sands, in England,
are awful. If you once are caught in a quicksand you never get out."

"Nothing like that around here," asserted Betty. "If there was, you can
depend on it, Daddy never would have hired a cottage."

"Besides," added Grace, "if there had been danger the men would not have
been in two minds about coming back to warn us. They would surely not
have let us run into danger."

"No, it couldn't have been that," decided Betty. "But the men were
certainly divided in opinion about coming back here, and they must have
left just before we came in sight. Well, it will never be solved, I
suppose, but I don't know that it need worry us. Though if the boys were
here I think they would make quite a mystery of it."

"Will would make quite a fuss about it, if he were here, I guess,"
laughed Grace. "He'd be sure the men were pirates, or something like
that, show his new badge and want to question them."

"Then I'm glad he isn't here!" exclaimed Amy, with such warmth that
Grace exclaimed:

"Oh, Amy! I never knew you cared--so much."

"I don't! That is--yes, of course I care! That is--oh, I wish you'd let
me alone!" burst out the blushing Amy, whereas Grace teased her all the
more, until Betty put an end to it saying:

"Well, let's get along. The men don't seem to be coming back, and mamma
may be worried, knowing that we went out when a storm was brewing. Old
Tin-Back is sure to tell her that we went off defying the elements."

"Isn't he a queer old character?" remarked Mollie.

"Yes, but I like him," Betty answered. "He says he has never yet given
up hope of finding some treasure washed ashore from a wreck. He's always
looking as he walks along the beach."

"And that in spite of the fact that, with all his years of looking, he
has found only a pipe," laughed Mollie. "He is very persevering, is Old
Tin-Back."

"Most fishermen are," spoke Betty.

"I suppose things _are_ occasionally washed up by the sea," Amy
observed. "Let's look as we walk along the beach."

Hardly knowing why they did so, the eyes of the outdoor girls roamed the
beach, which, as the tide had just gone out, was strewn with odds and
ends. Nothing of moment, though, it seemed--bits of broken boxes and
barrels, bottles and tin cans, probably the refuse from coasting
vessels.

"Oh, I'm tire