rom there we'll go on blazing the trail back to
the place opposite Ellen's Isle where we are to signal Uncle Teddy. By
cutting across the corner of the lake that way we'll save three miles
that the others will have to walk, and they'll wonder and wonder how we
got so far ahead of them." The prospect of turning the hare and hound
chase into a joke on the Hounds was too funny to pass up, and with
giggles and chuckles they pinned the note on the tree back at the edge
of the woods where the road ran toward St. Pierre; then they rented two
rowboats and piled into them. Some distance to the east of St. Pierre
stood the old abandoned lighthouse, and they had to row past it. It
stood out in the water, several hundred feet from the shore, on an
island so tiny that it did no more than give a foothold for the tower.

"Let's stop and go into it," said Katherine. "I've never seen a
lighthouse close up before. And you ought to get a grand view of the
lake and the islands from that little balcony that runs around the top.
Maybe we can see the others trailing after us."

The rest were also anxious to see the old lighthouse and as their short
cut across the lake would gain them at least an hour they decided there
was plenty of time to go inside. So the boys rowed alongside and made
the boats fast and they all went up.

"It's horribly dilapidated and messy," said Gladys, viewing with
fastidious distaste a pile of crumbled bricks and mortar which lay at
the foot of the stairway, the result of an explosion which had blown a
hole in the wall.

"'If seven maids with seven mops swept it for half a year,
Do you suppose,' the Walrus said, 'that they could get it clear?'"

quoted Gladys, waving her hand in the direction of the heap.

"No doubt, but for a job like that I really wouldn't keer!" answered
Katherine. "Come on, you can climb over it." And suiting the action to
the word she took a long step over the pile of bricks and then reached
down and pulled Gladys up after her.

It was fun standing up in the top of the lighthouse and looking out over
the lake in all directions. The boats in the harbor of St. Pierre looked
like cute little toys, and Ellen's Isle seemed to have shrunk to half
its size.

"Come, Munson," said Katherine, "you get into the lantern and be the
beacon. You can see that red hair of yours a mile. Too bad Hinpoha isn't
here, she's a regular signal light."

"Get in yourself," retorted the Monkey. "Your nose