opes above were already covered
with fast ripening blackberries; that there were flukes quite seven
inches long in the narrow channel on the north shore; and that the sands
beyond showed a perfect harvest of cockles and other shells. They had
gone perhaps halfway round the coast, and were on the south side, facing
the open sea, when suddenly, turning a corner, they found themselves in
a spot which made them stand still and look at one another with little
gasps of delight. Surely it was the ideal place for a camp. They were in
a small creek between two great overhanging crags, where brambles and
wood vetch hung down in delightful tangled masses, the fine white sand
under their feet alternated with soft green turf, spangled with tiny
sea-flowers, and there was quite a bank of small delicate shells left by
the high spring tides. Close under the rocks lay the wreck of a
schooner, driven ashore by winter storms, and stranded upon the shingle,
the broken spars and a fragment of the hull lying half buried in the
silvery sand, surrounded by a forest of sea-weed and drift-wood.

"Why, it just beats 'The Swiss Family Robinson' or 'The Boy Explorers'
hollow!" said Charlie, turning to his companions with something of the
look that Christopher Columbus may have worn when he stepped with his
followers on to the shores of the New World. "Here's the very place we
were hoping for! We'd soon get that old trail tilted out of the sand;
she only needs propping against the cliff, and she'd make a regular
Uncle Tom's cabin. With the Wrights and the Rokebys to help, we'd haul
her up in a jiffy. Some of these spars and planks would do for seats and
tables, and we could light fires with the drift-wood. It's a camp
almost ready made for us, I declare."

"And look!" cried Hilda, pointing to a sand-bank which lay at the mouth
of the creek; "the tide seems to have thrown up a great many things down
there." And she hurried to the water's edge, where the drifting current
had lodged a variety of miscellaneous articles--walking-sticks, tin
cans, a child's boat, a straw hat, several baskets, glass bottles, and
even a lady's parasol, all lying tangled among the sea-weed, washed
across the bay no doubt from the beach at Ferndale. "I've fished out a
little horse and cart, and there's something here that looks like the
remains of a gentleman's top hat. We can use the tins for the cabin.
They'll do for flower-pots. O Charlie! aren't you glad we came?"

"It'