ing
tide. "I hope the next set of waves will be polite enough to keep their
distance. Come on to the barrel and let's hear about Madaline. Why
couldn't she come down?"

They adjusted themselves again on the great cask, and Cleo proceeded to
narrate the details of her recent letter from their chum, Madaline.

"Her folks are going to travel this summer so we can't have our little
roly-poly Madaline with us," she explained. "Of course, we shall miss
her, but we are going to have Mary. Her rich relations are coming down
to the Colonade."

"To that immense gold-and-white hotel over there!" exclaimed Grace.
"Then we shall have wonderful times visiting her. And we can see all the
dances and masquerades--I suppose they have a very gay season at a hotel
like that."

"I saw a circular announcing the opening on the fifteenth," said Louise.
"Perhaps Mary will be down then and we may be invited."

"I smell fire," interrupted Cleo, "and there isn't a streak of smoke in
sight. Wonder where it can be?"

"I am sure that _is_ fire somewhere," declared Grace. "Where _can_ it
be!" and she too sniffed the odor of smoke.

"Oh my!" exclaimed Louise, jumping up and dragging her chums with her.
"We are on fire! See, it is in the barrel!"

"And my skirt is burned!" declared Grace. "Just see!" exhibiting a
singed hole in her blue serge skirt.

"However did a fire start in there?" questioned Cleo. "Let's see."

But there was no need of investigation, for scarcely had they jumped
from their places when a sheet of flame shot out from the open end of
the otherwise innocent looking cask.

"Land sakes!" declared Louise. "We were lucky not to be blown up. How
did that start with no one in sight to start it?"

"Maybe we touched off a fuse," suggested Cleo jokingly.

"No, I'll tell you," offered Grace. "When we sat on the barrel we shut
out the wind from the side, all but enough to create a draft; and the
paper must have been smoldering. Now, just look at our perfectly good
seat turned into a beach fire! We had better rescue our socks. Maybe
those sticks will explode under them, next thing we know."

"Oh, just look here!" called Cleo. "See what I just kicked up! It's a
bottle and has a note in it! Maybe it's a warning from the firebug," she
finished, dragging from the sand a bottle and proceeding to pull out the
paper which had been carefully wound with a cord, the end of which was
brought out at the cork. Cleo promptly let the cork pop,