Into the pleasant woods the girls went, Betsy, of course, in the lead. Sometimes there were open places among the trees where they could walk easily, but, at other times, they came to tangles of bushes that were very difficult to break through.

Suddenly the leader paused and held up a warning finger. “Hst!” she whispered in the dramatic way she seemed to enjoy, “I thought I heard sort of a rustling noise in the bushes over there.”

“It might be snakes—” Barbara began, when Sally uttered a piercing scream. “I stepped on one! I know I did!” she was screaming hysterically.

“No, you didn’t. That’s only a big stick. Here, give it to me. I remember now, in Swiss Family Robinson, when the boys went through dense underbrush, they pounded the bushes ahead of them to frighten away snakes and other wild creatures.”

They moved forward, but it was Virginia herself who soon called a halt. “Girls,” she said in a very low tone, “it may be my imagination but ever since Betty spoke, I, too, keep hearing a rustling noise back of us. It stops when we stop, then begins again when we start on.”

“I believe we are being followed,” Betsy turned to say. “I remember how tigers and things used to trail after the Robinson boys, waiting for a good chance to spring out and eat them.”

At that Sally just sank right down on a stump and began to cry. Virginia tried to comfort her. “Dear,” she said, with a pleading look at the tormentor. “Betsy is just trying to tease. You know, Sally, as well as we do that there are no tigers near Boston. I ought not to have mentioned the rustle I heard. I thought it might be a squirrel or some harmless little wood animal—”

“That we might catch and eat instead of its catching and eating us,” Babs said cheerily. Then she called the command: “Procession, proceed!”

Virginia, the last in line, looked back when the rustle began again, but because of the density of the leaves she could not see the little creature that was indeed following them with bright eyes that never permitted them to get out of sight.

“How imaginative we are becoming,” Barbara remarked. “That surely ought to please Miss Torrence.”

“I say, Virg,” Betsy, in the lead, stopped swinging her big stick to call, “ask me to write a story for your next Manuscript Magazine, will you? I’ll name it ‘How six shipwrecked girls perished on a deserted island.’”

“If we’re going to perish,” Sally said dismally, “I guess we won’t be writing compositions about it.”

They had been climbing the wooded hill which they had seen from the boat and when they reached a clear place on the summit, they saw far below, on the other side, a sheltered valley-like depression which had a narrow opening toward the sea.

“Oh, how picturesque this place it,” Virginia exclaimed. “If I were sure that some day we would be rescued, I would be glad that we had had an opportunity to visit this island.”

“Me, too,” Betsy chimed in ungrammatically as she delighted in doing. Then, as she sank down on the soft mossy ground to rest, she remarked: “Girls, we started out with the avowed purpose of hunting for the fortune hidden by Eleanor’s grandfather, Captain Burgess, but, as an adventure, I do believe even such a search is backed off of the map.”

Eleanor laughed as she leaned against a tree. “It is indeed, especially since, as I have told you, my grandfather probably wrote that note just to cause anxiety for those who were left. I am not at all sure that he ever had a fortune to hide. Of course he owned the fine old place on the County Road, and mother and her sister Dorinda had every comfort provided for them, but they were never given any money to spend.”

“If there was a fortune, it would rightfully belong to your mother and to her sister Dorinda.” Babs lying flat on the ground with her hands clasped under her head, remarked.

“Yes, of course. I had a boy cousin whom I would so like to see. Mother is trying hard to locate him. He and I would have a share in the money, I suppose, if there were any.”

“Whizzle.” Betsy leaped to her feet. “Here it is mid-morning and we haven’t had a bite to eat since yesterday noon.”

“I’m thirstier than I am hungry,” Barbara remarked, as they began the descent.

Virginia turned her head to listen and to her unexpressed delight that strange rustling sound which had suggested that they were being followed was no longer to be heard.

“After all, it was my imagination,” she had just decided, when there was a joyful shout from Babs, seconded by one from Betsy. They had scrambled down into a little dell, which looked especially green and inviting, and there they had found a spring of clear, cold water.

The older girls were overjoyed at this discovery, for well they knew that one could live longer without food than without water. One by one they knelt among the ferns to quench their thirst. Virg made a mental note of the location of the spring that they might return to it later, if they so desired.

Even Sally became more optimistic when her thirst was quenched. Betsy and Babs were running a race down the last gentle slope of the hill, and so they were quite a distance ahead, when the girls following saw them stop suddenly, then Betsy dropped to her knees and began examining the ground.

Leaping up, she beckoned frantically for the others to make haste. It was plain that the two girls were much excited.

Eager to know the cause of it, the other four started on a run.

“What is it?” Virg called as soon as they were near enough. “What have you found?”

For answer Betsy pointed at the black wet soil down which water from the spring trickled. The prints of small bare feet were plainly to be seen. After examining them for a moment, Virginia exclaimed glowingly, “It is surely the print of a child’s foot, which means that we were right in believing that a fisherman lives on this island. Perhaps even now, we are near his cabin.”

The oldest girl sincerely hoped that the dwellers on the island might be fisher folk, but well she knew that sometimes smugglers and even outlaws hid among seldom frequented islands off the coast.

Betsy, delighted to have something to detect, was following the way the footprints led and soon they beheld before them a sheltering wall of rocks, and nestled close to it, as though for protection, the oddest kind of a dwelling. It had been crudely fashioned with small logs laid one on another, fastened to upright trees at the four corners by stout reeds that had been procured from some swamp. The roof was thatched with interwoven branches and a door, similarly constructed, was closed and fastened. There were no windows to the house and the owner was evidently away.

“Maybe it was made by savages,” Sally ventured. “There’s a picture something like it in the big geography on the page that tells about the South Sea Islands.”

“And there is a crude outdoor open,” Babs pointed, “and right by it are scooped out stones and big shells as though they were cooking utensils.”

Virginia gazed about for a thoughtful moment, then she said, “I’m almost inclined to think that whoever lives here has been shipwrecked like ourselves, and so, of course, he would have to resort to primitive methods of building and cooking.”

“Look!” Babs clutched Virginia in real terror. “The door of that queer hut opened a crack. I’m just ever so sure it did, and I know that I saw eyes peering out at us.”

“What if it’s some shipwrecked sailor who has gone crazy from living so long alone?” Sally began, frightening herself more than her listeners with her fancy.

“Sh! The door is opening again.” Betsy walked boldly toward the hut and then she smiled and nodded as though she were talking to someone, as indeed she was. “Don’t be afraid of us!” Could the girls believe their ears. “We won’t hurt you. Come out and get acquainted.” That was what Betsy was actually saying.

The door again opened, and this time it did not close and out of the house stepped the queerest little creature imaginable.

“It’s a dwarf,” Sally began, but Virginia was hurrying forward.

“It’s a little child,” she said; and indeed it was. A small girl with a mat of long tangled hair and a dress made of a burlap bag with openings that had been haggled in it for arms. Her eyes were dark and very bright.

“I’m not scared of you,” she said, as she walked toward the girls. “I saw you long ago when you first came ashore. I was over there looking for May apples. I followed after you part of the way, then I darted down here to hoist the flag up there on the rocks. That’s to tell my brother to come ashore quick. He won’t know what’s happened. He’ll think something has scared me and so he’ll come in a hurry.”

Virginia decided that the girl was older than she had at first supposed, and in answer to the question usually put to small children, she unhesitatingly answered, “I’m eight, going on nine.” Then gleefully, “Won’t brother be surprised though. He’s catching fish for our dinner.” She started running toward the shore, then turned to inform them. “Here he comes now. Oho, Winston! Here’s some girls.”

A small raft had appeared and on it a tall graceful lad was standing. With a long stout pole he was pushing his craft toward the beach. There he made it fast, by driving other stout sticks through the two corners that were high and dry, then taking up a long reed on which fish were strung, he shouldered a pole and started on a light run toward the wondering group.