rowing, seem to be talking together, and then turn
around to stare this way."

"Let's step out in the open, and I'll wave my big red bandanna to
them, Frank."

"They ought to see that easily enough," laughed the other; "I remember
the old bull did that time he had you treed for several hours. Now
stand ready, and as soon as I give the word start to waving, while we
both shout."

It was easy to tell when the rowers looked around again, thanks to the
powerful glasses; and while Will waved his red bandanna, both of them
yelled vociferously.

"They see us, because they're waving their hats now!" observed Frank.

"Yes, and I can hear them shouting," added his companion.

Slowly the boat drew nearer, until in the end it was run up on the
sandy beach of Cabin Point. Then Bluff and Jerry scrambled out,
stretched their stiff legs, and picking up several bundles that had
lain in the bottom of the craft, started toward the cabin, sniffing
the welcome odor of coffee as they came.

"Looks as if you'd got what you went for," remarked Frank, as he
hastened to relieve one of the boys of his burden, a cardboard box,
evidently holding several dozen eggs.

"We did all of that," replied Bluff, "and then had to hold the fort
through the night because of that nasty little tooter of a storm."

"Listen to him! Trying to make out it didn't amount to much after
all!" laughed Jerry. "I wish you could have seen him holding on to the
chair he was sitting in at the village inn, whenever there came a
terrific blast that made the house shake all over. I even heard him
ask the landlord if it was bolted down to its foundation."

"Well, to own up to the honest truth," said Bluff, with one of his
wide grins, "it was a regular buster of a howler. I never saw such
wind or rain, and my ears ring even yet from the smashing
thunder-claps. Wow! but you two must have wondered what was coming
when that big tree came tearing down to the ground not thirty feet
away from the cabin."

"But we didn't hear it fall," said Will, mysteriously.

"What do you want us to believe by your saying that?" demanded Jerry.

"We didn't happen to be around these parts just then, you see,"
continued the artist, smilingly. "Fact is, we spent the night under a
ledge of rock some miles away from here, hungry and cold as could be."

"Suppose you up and tell us what happened?" said Bluff. "Why so much
mystery, I want to know? What took you away, and how did it come that