heir ears. A sound that
came in muffled but rhythmic thumps. At intervals it paused, but then was
resumed again.

"Somebody chopping wood!" exclaimed Peggy, recognizing the sound.

"That's just what it is, if I ever wielded an axe in my life," agreed
Jimsy; "now logic tells us that an axe can't work itself. Therefore
somebody must be using it. Where there is human life there is--or ought to
be--food. How about it girls, are you hungry?"

"Hungry! I could eat anything," declared Jess.

"I'm almost as bad," laughed Peggy.

"Well," said Jimsy, "as there is no sign of the fog lifting yet awhile,
what's the matter with our starting out to find the wood-chopper and
seeing if he has anything to eat?"

"Jimsy, you're a genius," cried Jess.

"That's what all my friends tell me," rejoined the modest youth.

They set off over rough sand dunes, overgrown with coarse grass, in the
direction of the sounds of the axe. The sand was loose and their feet sank
ankle deep in it, but they plodded along pluckily.

All at once, just as if a curtain had been drawn, the outlines of a rough
shanty appeared in front of them. It was a tumble-down sort of a place,
seemingly made of driftwood and old sacks and bits of canvas. From a rusty
iron stove-pipe on top, a feeble column of blue smoke was ascending.

The noise of chopping had ceased on their approach and as they stood
hesitating a strange figure suddenly appeared round the corner of the
wretched rookery of a place. The man, who stood facing them, a startled
look in his light blue eyes, was apparently about middle age. He wore a
full beard of a golden brown color and was barefooted and hatless. His
clothes consisted of a tattered shirt and a pair of coarse canvas
trousers.

"Well, shiver my toplights!" he cried as his eyes fell on the trio, "whar
under ther sun did you come from? Drop from ther clouds?"

"That's just what we did," said the debonnaire Jimsy, as the girls drew
back rather affrighted at the weird looking figure and his queer, wild way
of talking.

"What's that? Don't try to fool with me young feller. I ain't as crazy as
I reckon I looks."

There was a certain dignity about the man when he spoke, that, despite
his ragged clothing and miserable habitation, was impressive.

"No, it's really so," Jimsy hastened to assure him, "we--we came in an
aeroplane, you know."

"Well, now," said the man scratching his head, "I reckon that's the first
of them contrivances to