poor things!" murmured Ruth. "Tell us more about them. Who are
they?"

"Mabel and Helen Madison," was the answer.

Ruth and Alice cried out in surprise.

"Those girls!" voiced Alice.

"The ones we met in the train," added Ruth. "It seems incredible!"

"Did you know them?" asked the clerk, for the remarks and demeanor of
Ruth and Alice were too marked to pass over without comment.

"We did not exactly know them," replied Ruth, slowly. "We met them in the
train when we were going to the New England backwoods to get moving
pictures last winter. One of them had a headache--I think it was Helen."

"No, it was Mabel, dear," corrected Alice. "They seemed such nice girls."

"They _were_ nice!" the clerk declared. "I did not know them very well,
but I have often seen them about the hotel here. Some of their friends
stopped here. Their folks live just outside the town."

"And you say they went out to get rare flowers?" asked Ruth, as she noted
Miss Pennington and Miss Dixon coming into the hotel parlor.

"Yes. The girls are real outdoors girls," went on the clerk. "They can
hunt and fish, and Miss Mabel, I believe it was, once shot a big
alligator."

"Alligators! Oh, dear! Are any of the horrid things around here?" broke
in Miss Dixon.

"Not right around here," was the reassuring answer. "This was out in the
swamps."

"We are talking about two girls who have disappeared from here, and can't
be found," explained Alice, for the story was bound to come out now.

"Oh, how perfectly dreadful!" cried Miss Pennington, as the account was
completed. "We must be careful about going out alone, my dear," she added
to her friend.

"Not much danger--you'll always want some of the men along," thought
Alice.

"What sort of flowers were they after?" Ruth wanted to know.

"Some sort of orchid," was the hotel man's answer. "I don't know much
about such things myself, but Mr. Madison, the girls' father, is quite a
naturalist, and I guess they take after him. He collects birds, bugs and
flowers, and the girls used to help him.

"As I heard the story, he has been for a long time searching for a rare
orchid that is said to grow around here. He never could find it until one
day, by chance, an old colored man came in with a crumpled and wilted
specimen, mixed in with some other stuff he had. Mr. Madison saw it, and
grew excited at once, wanting to know where it had come from.

"The colored man told him as well as he could, and Mr.