convinced that it contained no logs, they did not enter it.

The young leader was not giving much thought to either logs or his
immediate surroundings just then, for his ears were still filled with
the music that had come to him as mysteriously as had the vision of a
few days earlier.

So lost was he in reflection that he started abruptly when the rowing
again ceased, and one of the men whispered, hoarsely:

"Mist Pearl, look!"

He was pointing back from where they had come; and, turning, Peveril
saw, apparently gliding from the very shore of the island they had
just passed, a small schooner. She must have sailed from the bay into
which they had gazed, and yet they believed they had scrutinized every
inch of its surface.

"By gar!" cried Joe Pintaud. "Some more dev, hein?"

"It looks to me like the boat of your friends the smugglers,"
suggested Peveril, studying the vessel closely.

"Oui, certainment! It ees ze sheep of ze tradair."

"Then we will go and see where she came from, for so snug a
hiding-place is worth discovering."

So the skiff was put about and rowed back to the little bay bisecting
the island. Then it was found that there were two small islands, and
that the supposed bay was really an inlet from the lake, which made a
sharp angle at a point invisible from outside. This channel led to a
narrow sound, from which another inlet cut directly into the
rock-bound coast. It was quite short, and quickly widened into an
exquisite basin, completely land-locked and very nearly circular.

Peveril had followed this devious course with all the eagerness of an
explorer; but his men had cast many nervous glances over their
shoulders, and even Joe Pintaud had expressed a muttered hope that
they were not being led into some trap.

As the skiff emerged from the high-walled inlet and shot into the
smiling basin, an exclamation burst from all four men at once.

"Ze log!" cried Joe.

"Our logs!" echoed Peveril.

The others probably used words meaning the same thing. At any rate,
they talked excitedly, and pointed to the opposite side of the basin,
where was moored a raft of logs.

Two men with a yoke of oxen were in the act of hauling one of these
from the water, and a deeply marked trail, leading up the bank to a
point of disappearance, showed where a number of its predecessors had
gone.

"Give way!" cried Peveril, and the skiff sped across the basin.

As it ranged alongside the moored raft, the young