go. Follow close behind me.”

For a full half hour after that they waged a silent battle with nature. Over fallen trees that now tore at them with their tangled branches and now sank treacherously beneath their feet, around rocky ridges that offered dangerous descents into tiny valleys so dark that one might not see his hand before him, they struggled on until with a sigh the girl whispered:

“A trail.”

Too engrossed was Red in the unaccustomed struggle to ask: “What has made this trail?”

He was soon enough to know. In his pocket he carried a small flashlight. Judging that they were now far enough from the cabin to use this, he pressed the button, then cast the light down the trail.

Instantly he sprang back. The light was reflected by a pair of large and burning eyes.

A confused impression of brown hair, of antlers like spiked slabs of wood, and those burning eyes held him rooted to the spot until the girl’s hand at his elbow guided him off the trail and into the broad-spreading branches of a fir tree. There, after a false step, he tumbled into the fragrant boughs.

Without willing it, he drew the girl after him. After that, for a full moment he remained half reclining, feeling the wild beating of the girl’s heart and listening for he scarcely knew what.

When he heard the sound he recognized it; a slow, soft-padded plump-plump, and he was relieved.

“The thing we have met on the trail,” he told himself, “was not a horned demon, but a giant moose.” That he had been utterly at a loss, and that the girl had directed their course in a safe and sensible manner, he also recognized.

After listening to the padded footsteps until they faded out into the silence of the night, he assisted the girl to her feet and whispered:

“You are not a real person. You come from a book. Your name is Alice, and we are having adventures in Wonderland.”

“I am real enough.” She laughed a low laugh. “My name is not Alice, but Berley Todd. I am five feet tall and I weigh ninety pounds. My favorite dish is blueberries with ice cream on top.” She laughed again.

“And that moose, I suppose, was quite an old friend.”

“I suppose not. But a moose will not harm you if you give him the right of way, which I suppose is fair enough since this is his forest.

“But come. We must be near the end of the island.”

Red did not ask, “How do you know this?” He merely followed on.

Scarcely a moment had passed when they came out upon a pebbly shore. And there, as he flashed his light about, he discovered a nondescript raft of spruce logs. Dragged half way up on the shore, it seemed for all its crudeness to be a rather substantial affair.

“I suppose,” he said in a low tone, “that this entire affair has been arranged. You knew the raft was here.”

Becoming suspicious, he flashed his light into a pair of very innocent-appearing blue eyes. “I suppose,” he said slowly, “you know why I have been carried away.”

“Don’t you?” The eyes opened wide.

“As I live, no.”

“Then you’ll have to ask some one else. It’s plain enough why they took me. Want my dad’s money. Expect my help in getting it. They’ll have no help from me!

“And now, Mister Man-who-don’t-know-why-he’s-here, let’s thank kind Providence for this raft which some summer fisherman left here, and shove off. Looks like we might go across with nothing more than wet feet. What luck!”

“And what do you think is on the other shore?”

“Cabins. Cabins and cottages, fireplaces, blankets, easy chairs, and things to eat; not so near, but not so far away, either.”

Red stared at her in silence. Did this girl speak from knowledge of the island, or was she romancing, bolstering up courage with dreams that might prove false?

He dared not ask. Putting his stout shoulders to work at shoving off the raft, he had it afloat at once. Then, after selecting a stout spruce pole and assisting the girl to a place beside him, he shoved away toward that other shore that, looming dark and distant, seemed to beckon and to whisper of “cabins and fireplaces, blankets, easy chairs, and things to eat.”

“Well,” he sighed, “thus far we get the breaks.”