the boys were talking about.

She had wanted to remain there when the party had started for the
mountain path, and she had been very impatient during the long tramp.
She cared nothing for the view, and determined, on the return, to stop,
if only for a few moments, at the hut.

CHAPTER VI

THE ECHO CAPTURED

FLORETTA had intended to hunt for treasure, hoping to get something more
valuable than the brass button that her mother had found.

She was not at all afraid of Jack Tiverton, but of those larger boys she
was not quite sure.

As she knelt beneath the window she could hear only the voices of the
boys that were nearest to the hut, and hearing only parts of their
conversation, she could not understand what the first speaker expected
to find.

"If I find it, I'll put it where it will be safe," he said.

There was a pause, and then a voice more distant replied.

She did not hear what it said, but she did hear the answer made by the
boy who had first spoken.

"If the ghost of the old hermit was in the hut, it might hear you."

"Yes, and what would he say about your hunting for things that may have
belonged to him?" said another, with a teasing laugh.

"Oh, I'm not afraid," was the careless answer.

"You're not?" jeered a laughing voice.

"I think we've poked around out here long enough without finding
anything," said Jack Tiverton, "let's hunt inside the house."

"Wait a minute," called a boy who had not yet spoken, "just till I've
looked into this hollow tree trunk."

"And _then_ what?" asked a merry voice.

"_Then_ hunt in the house, of course!" was the curt reply.

Floretta thought she saw a chance for fun.

Softly, yet quickly, she crept up the rickety little stairway, built
close against the wall, and leading to the tiny loft.

The loft was really little more than a space beneath the roof where the
old hermit might have stored a few provisions. She could not stand, or
even sit, erect, and she crouched upon the bit of dusty flooring.

She was none too soon, for in a few seconds the boys rushed in, and then
began a discussion as to whether it would be safe to take a plank up
from the floor to look beneath it for hidden treasure.

"You oughtn't to do that," said Jack Tiverton, "somebody might arrest
you, or all of us, if folks found out we did it."

"Arrest us for spoiling a floor in this old hut!" cried an older boy. "I
wonder you don't think the old hermit might holler if he heard u