lower beds close to the house been made, no one came near her
hiding-place. Between her and the open garden was only a flimsy screen
of rose bushes, but it proved enough.

She stayed there, scarcely daring to breathe, while the men searched the
grounds and the beach. And she was still there, more than an hour later,
when they returned, tired and discouraged, to report the failure of
their search to Holmes, who was back in the room from which she had
escaped.

"Fury!" cried Holmes. "She must be on the island! There's no way that
she can have got away! Well, watch the boats! That will have to do for
to-night. She can't get away without a boat--and they are all in the
boat-house. If she wanders down to the other end, to the fort, we can
catch her in the morning. They won't believe any story she can tell
them, if she should happen to get there. And I don't want to disturb
them to-night--I'd rather wait until morning, when they will be over
with the papers. I haven't any real right to hold them to-night, except
the right of force."

Bessie thrilled at the information those few words gave her. She
remembered now that there was a fort, manned by United States soldiers,
on Humber Island. It was one of the chain of forts that guarded the
approaches to Rock Haven. And Bessie had an idea that she would be able
to find someone at the fort to believe her story, wild and improbable as
she knew it must sound. The great problem now was to get out of the
grounds unseen.

And that problem, of course, her cleverness in hiding so close to the
house had made much easier to solve. No one would suspect now that she
was there; if she waited until the house was quiet, and the men who were
to watch the boats had gone to their post, she should be able to steal
out of the garden and in the direction of the fort.

To be on the safe side, she waited nearly an hour longer. Then, as
quietly as she could, she began her solitary walk. Fortune, and her own
ability to move quietly, favored her. In five minutes she was out of the
grounds, and in woods where, though the walking was difficult, and she
stumbled more than once, she at least felt safe from the danger of
pursuit.

Soon the woods began to thin; then they grew thicker again. But, after
she had been walking, as she guessed, for more than an hour, it grew
lighter and she saw ahead of her the outlines of dark buildings--Fort
Humber, she was sure. And a minute later the sharp hail of a sentry