sing girls. The aid of the police was called in, but they could find
no clue. Early on the morning of the fourth day Mrs. Evans was called to
the phone and was overjoyed to hear Gladys's voice on the wire. She and
Nyoda were at a house on the lake shore and would be home soon. There
was a happy home-coming that morning. Nyoda and Gladys told the almost
unbelievable tale of their imprisonment and escape from the tower. After
lying exhausted on the beach for a time, they had walked until they came
to a house where they were warmed and lent dry clothes, for they had
lost their bundles in the waves.

"And that's what would have become of us," said Antoinette Rogers with a
shudder, when Nyoda and Gladys had finished their story, "if we had not
made a mistake and gotten into the wrong automobile."

The police were informed of the matter and as soon as Mr. Thurston
returned to his place of business he was arrested and charged with the
conspiracy to abduct and forcibly detain his two wards. At first he
denied any knowledge of the affair, but the proof was overwhelming.
Nyoda accompanied a delegation of police and witnesses in a motor boat
to the foot of the tower and showed them the bent-out bars and the very
place where they had jumped into the water, and later they raided the
house from the land side. The deaf mute was nowhere to be found. She had
fled when she discovered that her charges had escaped and was never
heard of again. They ascended in the elevator but were unable to find
the contrivance which opened the door into the room, so cunningly was it
devised, and had to be content with looking through the grill-work into
the lavender room.

The Rogers girls, who were taken away from the guardianship of Mr.
Thurston, went to stay with friends in Cincinnati. Mr. Thurston was left
to pay the penalty of his villainy alone, for Mr. Scovill had made good
his escape before the plot was disclosed.

Thus Nyoda and Gladys all unknowingly were the cause of a great crime
being averted, and were regarded as heroines forevermore by the
Winnebagos and their friends.

CHAPTER XVII.

JOY BEFORE US.

Aunt Phoebe and Hinpoha, armed with sharp meat knives, were cutting up
suet in the kitchen. Hinpoha, as usual, under her aunt's eye, did
nothing but make mistakes. "How awkward you are," said Aunt Phoebe
impatiently. "You don't know how to do a thing properly. I wish that
Camp Fire business of yours would teach you something wo