Alice B. Emerson

“ It was a delightful place, they all agreed.
"Hush! tell it not in Gath; whisper it not in Ascalon!" hissed The Fox, peering into the room. "You girls have the best there is. It's lots bigger than our quartette——"
"Oh, I don't think so. Only a 'teeny' bit larger," responded Ruth, quickly.
"Then it's Heavy that takes up so much space in our room. She dwarfs everything. However," said the red-haired girl, "you can have lots more fun in here. Shove back everything against one wall, roll up the rugs, and then we can dance."
"And have Picolet after us in a hurry," observed Helen, laughing. ”

“ The boys found the laden sled a good deal of a load and the girls had all they could do to follow in the track the sled made.
"We never could have reached home safely through this storm," declared Madge. "How clever of you to remember the cave, Ruthie."
"Ruth is always doing something clever," said Helen, loyally. "Why, she even falls over a cliff, so as to find a cave that, later, shelters us all from the inclement elements."
"Wow, wow, wow!" jeered Isadore. "You girls think a lot of each other; don't you? Better thank that Jerry boy for finding the cave in the first place." ”

“ It was born of experience. Some of us got all the tramping in a blinding snowstorm that we wanted a year ago. Never again! Eh, girls?"
"Quite right, Madge," said Ralph. "It is foolish to run into danger. We are all right here——"
"Why, the snow will drown out your fire in half an hour," scoffed Isadore. "And there isn't so much dry fuel."
"I know where there is plenty of wood—and shelter, too!" cried Ruth, suddenly.
"So do I. At the lodge," scoffed Belle.
"No. Nearby. Tom and I were just talking about it. Up that ravine yonder is the place where I fell over the cliff. ”

“ The distance was too great for the brute to pass immediately to the car; but it was plain that one more leap would bring her aboard.
"Start it! Quick, Tom!" gasped Helen.
"I—I can't!" groaned her brother.
"Then we must run——"
"Sit still!" commanded Jane Ann, with fire in her eye. "I'm not going to run from that cat. I hate 'em, anyway——"
"We can't leave Mr. Sheming," said Ruth, decidedly. "Try again, Tommy."
"Oh, don't bother about me," groaned the young man, who was still a stranger to them. "Don't be caught here on my account."
"It will not do us any good to run," cried Ruth, sensibly. ”

“ But some of the girls, as Isadore said, "began to weaken."
"We don't want to be lost in the snow as we were the time we went for balsam at Snow Camp," said Helen.
"How can you get lost—with us fellows along?" demanded Busy Izzy, in vast disgust.
"Can't a boy be lost?" demanded Ann Hicks, laughing.
"Not on your life!" declared the irrepressible Isadore.
But just then Madge Steele got up and declared she had had enough. "This hole in the ice is filling up with snow. We'll lose the fish we've already caught if we don't look out. ”

“ Down there in the chasm Ann Hicks saw no sign of the lost girl. The bottom of the place seemed heaped high with snow.
"She plunged right into the drift, and perhaps she's smothered down there," gasped Ann. "Oh! what shall we do?"
"If it's a deep drift Ruth may not be hurt at all," cried Tom. "Do let me look, Ann. That's a good girl."
The western girl was drawn back and the boy took her place. Bobbins and Ralph Tingley let Tom slide farther over the verge of the precipice than they had Ann.
"She went down feet first," panted Tom. "There isn't an obstruction she could have hit. ”

“ Helen's twin was a very good friend of the girl from the Red Mill and he quickly grasped her wish to speak with him alone.
In a minute he maneuvered so as to get into the stern with his sister's chum, and there Ruth whispered to him her fears and desires regarding Blent and Jerry Sheming.
"Say! we ought to help that fellow. See what he did for Jane Ann," said Tom. "And that old fellow looks so sour he sets my teeth on edge, anyway."
"He is going to do a very mean thing," declared Ruth, decidedly. "Jerry has done nothing wrong, I am sure."
"We must beat the old fellow." ”

“ Ralph sniffed, but Tom was unshaken in his confidence in his girl friend.
"Let me have the lantern, Tom, and you boys stay here," Ruth said, quickly. "I'll try them myself."
"Say! don't you get lost," cried Tom.
"And don't you leave us long in the dark," complained Ralph. "I don't believe we ought to let her take that lantern, Tom——"
"Aw, stop croaking!" commanded young Cameron. "You're worse than any girl yourself, Tingley."
Ruth hated to hear them quarrel, but she would not give up and admit that she was beaten. She took the lantern and ventured into the first tunnel. ”

“ The boys might throw straighter, but numbers told. The girls could divide and attack the boy defenders of the fortress on both flanks. They came in rosy and breathless at noon—to sit down to a most heart-breaking luncheon.
"Such an expanse of table and so little on it I never saw before," grumbled Heavy, in a glum aside. "How long do you suppose we would exist on these rations?"
"We're not dead yet," said Ruth, cheerfully, "so you needn't become a 'gloom.'"
"Jen ought to live on past meals—like a camel existing on its hump," declared Madge. ”

“ Tingley himself arrived, having reached Logwood on the early train and driven across the ice in a sleigh.
The Tingley young people met him hilariously. He was a big, bewhiskered man, with a jolly laugh and amiable manner. His eye could flash, too, if need be, Ruth judged. And almost at once she had an opportunity of seeing him stern.
"What crowd is that over at the west end of the island?" he asked his wife. "I see they have a fire. There must be four or five men there. Is it some of Blent's doings?"
"Oh, Dad!" cried Ralph Tingley, eagerly. "You ought to stop that. ”

“ Marthy Washington," laughed Heavy.
"Only her husband couldn't lie," declared Mercy. "And at that, they say that somebody wished to change the epitaph on his tomb to read: 'Here lies George Washington—for the first time!'"
"Everybody is tempted to tell a fib some time," sighed Helen.
"And falls, too," exclaimed Mercy.
"I must say I don't believe there ever was anybody but Washington that didn't tell a lie. It's awfully hard to be exactly truthful always," said Lluella. "You remember that time in the primary grade, just after we'd come here to Briarwood, Belle?"
"Do I?" laughed Belle Tingley. ”

“ By the time old Aunt Alvirah had hobbled to the porch, the automobile was being turned, and backed, and then it was off, up the river road. Uncle Jabez, in his dusty garments, appeared for a moment at the door of the mill as they flashed past in the big motor car. Evidently he was amazed to see the three—the girls hatless—starting off at such a pace in the Camerons' car.
Tom threw in the clutch at high speed and the car bounded over the road, gradually increasing its pace until the hum of the engine almost drowned out all speech. ”

“ Now, be a good child!"
"Huh!" grunted Isadore Phelps, trying to collect enough of the snow to make a ball to throw at her. "I wonder at you, Bobbins. Why don't you make her behave? Treatin' you like an over-grown kid."
"I'd never treat you that way, Master Isadore," said Madge, sweetly. "For you very well know that you're not grown at all!"
At that Isadore did gather snow—by running out for it. He brought back a dozen snowballs and the first thing the girls knew the missiles were dropping over the top of the curtains into the sheltered spaces devoted to the berths. ”

“ Ruth pondered.
"Why The Fox and Heavy will help us make the other girls toe the mark. And Madge Steele! She's a regiment in herself," declared Helen. "We all had such a fine time at Silver Ranch that the least we can do is to see that Jane Ann is not hazed like the other infants."
"I expect we all have to stand our share of hazing when we go into fresh company," said Ruth, reflectively. "But there will not be the same crowd to meet her that met us, dear."
"And the Sweetbriars will be on hand to preserve order," laughed her chum. "Thanks to you, Ruthie. Why—oh! see Tom!" ”

“ I guess Ruth has the right idea."
"We'll drag the sled and break a path for you girls," announced Tom. "All ready, now! Bring your snowshoes. If it stops snowing, we can get home on them to-night."
"Oh, dear, me! I hope so," cried Belle Tingley. "What will mother and father say if we're not home by dark?"
"They'll be pretty sure we wouldn't travel far in this storm. Preston and the other men will find us, anyway."
"I expect that is so," admitted Ruth, thoughtfully, "And they'll find Jerry's cave. ”

“ But the girls from Briarwood and their boy friends continued to have a delightful time during the remainder of their stay at Cliff Island, although their adventures were less strenuous than those that have been related. They went away, in the end, to take up their school duties, pronouncing their vacation on the island one of the most enjoyable they had ever experienced.
"Something to keep up our hearts for the rest of the school year," declared Heavy. "And you'll like us better, too, when we're gone, Mrs. Tingley. We all—even The Fox, here—have a good side to our characters." ”

“ The Cameron auto stopped for her at the Red Mill before mid-forenoon, and Ruth bade the miller and Aunt Alvirah and Ben—not forgetting Jerry Sheming, her new friend—good-bye.
"Do—do take care o' yourself, my pretty," crooned Aunt Alvirah over her, at the last. "Jest remember we're a-honin' for you here at the ol' mill."
"Take care of Uncle Jabez," whispered Ruth. She dared kiss the grim old man only upon his dusty cheek. Then she shook hands with bashful Ben and ran out to her waiting friends.
"Come on, or we'll lose the train," cried Helen. ”

“ Ann Hicks was so big, and blundering. She was taller than most girls of her age, and "raw-boned" like her uncle. Some time she might really be handsome; but there was little promise of it as yet.
When the principal started her in her studies, it was soon discovered that Ann, big girl though she was, had to take some of the lessons belonging to the primary grade. And she made a sorry appearance in recitation, at best.
There were plenty of girls to laugh at her. There is nothing so cruel as a schoolgirl's tongue when it is unbridled. ”

“ I'm 'most frozen."
"Shall we stop and make a fire here, girls, and warm up before we return?" asked Tom Cameron.
"And draw that constable right to this place where you want to leave Jerry's tin box?" cried his sister. "No, indeed!"
"We'd better keep moving, anyway," Ruth urged. "Less danger of frost-bite. The wind is keen."
Tom had already placed the box of food in a sheltered spot. "The meat will be frozen as solid as a rock, I s'pose," he grumbled. "I hope that poor fellow has some way of making a fire in his hide-out." ”

“ When they got them all in and packed upon the bobsled for transportation, the snow was a foot deep on the ice and it was snowing so fast that one could not see ten feet into the swirling heart of the storm.
"I declare! it looks as though we were in a mess, with all this snow," complained Tom Cameron.
"And with all these girls," growled Ralph Tingley. "Wish we'd started an hour ago."
"I don't know about starting at all," observed Bobbins. "Don't you see that the girls will give out before we're half-way there? We can't use snowshoes with the snow coming down like this. They clog too fast." ”

“ And Jerry's cave is right there—one end of it."
"A cave!" ejaculated Helen. "That would be bully."
"If only we could have a good fire and get dry and warm again," quoth Lluella, her teeth already chattering.
"I believe that would be best," admitted Madge Steele. "We never could get back to the lodge through this snow. The shore is so rough."
"We can travel on the ice," ventured Ann Hicks, doubtfully.
"And get turned around," put in Tom. "Easiest thing in the world to get lost out there on that ice without a compass and in such a whirlwind of snow. Ruth's right. Let's try to find the cave." ”

“ The face of the real cliff—because of which the island had received its name—was scarcely visible from Logwood. Jerry had told Ruth it was a very wild and desolate place, and the girl of the Red Hill could easily believe it.
The crowd had left the inn as soon as the clouds began to break and a ray or two of sunshine shone forth. Two ox teams were breaking the paths through the town. The boys and girls went down to the dock, singing and shouting. Mrs. Tingley and the foreman came behind.
Three other men were making ready a huge punt in which the entire party might be transported to the island. ”