Bessie, suddenly.

From the room into which the kitchen led there came a murmur of voices. At first, though they strained their ears, they could make nothing out of the confused sounds of talk. But gradually they recognized voices, and Bessie turned pale as she heard Paw Hoover's, easy for her to know, since his deep tones rumbled out in the quiet night. Zara recognized them, too, and clutched Bessie's arm.

"My father isn't there!" she whispered. "If he was, I'd hear him."

"There's Farmer Weeks—and I believe that's Jake Hoover's voice, too," said Bessie, also in a whisper.

Then the door was opened, and the two girls huddled closer together, shivering, afraid that they would be discovered. But it seemed that Paw Hoover had only opened the door to get a little air, since the night was very hot after the storm. About them the insects were making their accustomed din, and a little breeze rustled among the treetops. But, with the door open, they could hear what was being said plainly enough.

"I ain't goin' to wait here all night, Brother Weeks," said Paw Hoover. "Got troubles enough of my own, what with the woodshed settin' fire to the house!"

"Oh!" whispered Bessie. "Did you hear that, Zara? It was worse than we thought."

"Huh!" said Weeks, a rough, hard man, who found it hard to get men to work when he needed them for the harvest every summer, on account of his reputation for treating his men badly.

"I allus told you you'd have trouble with that baggage afore you got rid of her, Paw! Lucky that she didn't burn you out when you was all asleep—I say," said Jake.

Bessie listened, every nerve and muscle in her body tense. They blamed her for the fire, then! Her instinct when she had run away had been right.

"I swan, I dunno what all possessed her," said Paw Hoover. "We give her a good home—but Jake here seen her do it, though he was too late to stop her—hey, Jake?"

"That's right, Pop," said Jake. "She didn't know I was aroun' anywhere. Say, you ought to have her pinched for doin' it, too."

"I dunno—she's only a youngster," said Paw. "I guess they wouldn't hold her responsible, somehow. But say, Brother Weeks, I hate to think of that little Zara runnin' roun' the woods to-night. She ain't done nothin' wrong, even if her paw's a crook. An' now they took him off, who's a-goin' to look out for her?"

"I'll drive her over to the poor-farm when she turns up," said Weeks. "Then they'll take her, an' apprentice her to someone as wants a girl to work aroun' his place, like. Bind her over till she's twenty-one, and let her work for her keep. I might take her myself—guess 'twouldn't cost such a lot to feed her. She's thin—reckon she ain't ever had much to eat here."

Bessie, feeling the tremor in Zara's rigid body at this confirmation of her worst fears, put her hand quickly over her friend's mouth, just in time to check a cry that was rising to her lips.

"Come, Zara," she whispered, gently. "We'll have to look out for ourselves. Come, we'll get away. We mustn't stay around here."

And, holding Zara's arm, she led her away. For a long time, until Bessie judged that it was safe to return to the road, they kept on through the woods. And, when they came out on the road, the moon was up.

"The world's a beautiful place after all, Zara," said Bessie. "It can't be so bad when everything's so lovely. Come on, we'll walk a little further, and then we'll come to a place I know where we can sleep to-night—a place where wood cutters used to stay. No one's there now, and we'll be dry and safe."

"I'm not afraid if I'm with you, Bessie," said Zara.

CHAPTER III

WO-HE-LO

Two or three miles further along the road, Bessie spied the landmark she had been looking for.

"We'll turn off here," she said, "Cheer up, Zara. It won't be long now before we can go to sleep."

The full moon made it easy to pick their way along the wood path that Bessie followed, and before long they came to a small lake. On its far side, among the trees near the shore, a fire was burning, flickering up from time to time, and sending dancing shadows on the beach.

"There's someone over there, Bessie," said Zara, frightened at the sign of human habitation.

"They won't hurt us, Zara," said Bessie, stoutly. "Probably they won't even know that we're around, if we don't make any noise, or any fire of our own. Here we are—here's the hut! See? Isn't it nice and comfortable? Hurry now and help me to pick up some of these branches of pine trees. They'll make a comfortable bed for us, and well sleep just as well as if we were at home—or a lot better, because there'll be no one to be cross and make trouble for us in the morning."

Bessie arranged the branches, and in a few moments they were asleep, lying close together. Pine branches make an ideal bed, but, even had their couch been uncomfortable, the two girls would have slept well that night; they were too tired to do anything else. It was long after midnight, and both had been through enough to exhaust them. The sense of peace and safety that they found in this refuge in the woods more than made up for the strangeness of their surroundings, and when they awoke the sun was high. It was the sound of singing in the sweet, fresh voices of girls that aroused them in the end. And Bessie, the first to wake up, aroused Zara, and then peeped from the door of the cabin.

There on the beach, their hair spread out in the sun, were half a dozen girls in bathing dresses. Beside them were a couple of canoes, drawn up on the beach, and they were laughing and singing merrily as they dried their hair. Looking over across the lake, in the direction of the fire she had seen the night before, Bessie saw that it was still burning. A pillar of smoke rose straight in the still air, and beyond it, gleaming among the trees, Bessie saw the white sides of three or four tents. Astonished, she called Zara.

"They're not from around here, Zara," she whispered, not ready yet for the strangers to discover her. "Girls around here don't swim—it's only the boys who do that."

"I'll bet they're from the city and here on a vacation," said Zara.

"They look awful happy, Zara. Isn't that lady with the brown hair pretty? And she's older than the rest, too. You can see that, can't you?"

"Listen, Bessie! She just called one of the girls. And did you hear what she called her? Minnehaha—that's a funny name, isn't it?"

"It's an Indian name, Zara. It means Laughing Water. That's the name of the girl that Hiawatha loved, in the poem. I've read that, haven't you?"

"I've never been able to read very much, Bessie. But that girl isn't an Indian. She's ever so much lighter than I am—she's as fair as you. And Indians are red, aren't they?"

"She's not an Indian, Zara. That's right enough. It must be some sort of a game. Oh, listen!"

For the older girl, the one Zara had pointed out, had spied Bessie's peeping face suddenly.

"Look, girls!" she cried, pointing.

And then, without a word of signal all the girls suddenly broke out into a song—a song Bessie had never heard before.