“Oh, oh, oh!” shrieked the plump girl, running down the aisle.  “Busy Izzy is left behind.”

“Stop your joking,” exclaimed Tom, peering out of his berth, which was an upper.  “He’s nothing of the kind.”

“He is!  He is!”

“Why, he’s all ready for bed,” declared one of the Tingley boys.  “He wouldn’t dare——­”

“We threw him out!” wailed Heavy.  “We didn’t know the train was to start so quickly.”

“Threw him off the train?” cried Mrs. Tingley, appearing in her boudoir cap and gown.  “What kind of a menagerie am I supposed to preserve order in——?”

“You can make bully good preserved ginger, Ma,” said one of her sons, “but you fall short when it comes to preserving order.”

Most of the crowd were troubled over Isadore’s absence.  Some suggested pulling the emergency cord and stopping the train; others were for telegraphing back from the next station.  All were talking at once, indeed, when the rear door opened and in came the conductor, escorting the shivering Isadore.

“Does this—­this tyke belong in here?” demanded the man of brass buttons, with much emphasis.

They welcomed him loudly.  The conductor shook his head.  The flagman on the end of the train had helped the boy aboard the last car as the train started to move.

“Keep him here!” commanded the conductor.  “And I’ve a mind to have both doors of the car locked until we reach Logwood.  Don’t let me hear anything more from you boys and girls on this journey.”

He went away laughing, however, and bye and bye they quieted down.  Madge insisted upon making some hot composition, very strong, and dosing Isadore with it.  The drink probably warded off a cold.  Izzy admitted to Bobbins that a sister wasn’t so bad to “have around” after all.

While they slept, the car was shunted to the sidetrack at Logwood and the western-bound train went hooting away through the forest.  It was still snowing heavily, there were not many trains passing through the Logwood yard, and no switching during the early part of the day.  The snow smothered other sounds.

Therefore, the party that had come to the lake for a vacation was not astir until late.  It was hunger that roused them to the realities of life in the end.  They had to dress and go to the one hotel of which the settlement boasted for breakfast.

“Can’t cross to the island on the ice, they say,” Ralph Tingley ran in to tell his mother.  “Weight of the snow has broken it up.  One of the men says he’ll get a punt and pole us over to Cliff Island if the snow stops so that he can see his way.”

“My! won’t that be fun!” gasped Ann Hicks, who had overheard him.

She had begun to enjoy herself the minute she felt that they were in rough country.  Some of the girls wished they hadn’t come.  Ruth and Helen were already outside, snowballing with the boys.

When Mrs. Tingley descended the car steps, ready to go to breakfast, her other son appeared—­a second Mercury.