There were several scattered farmhouses at the top of the hill that sloped down to the cove of the bay, but back of the farmlands lay a long stretch of forest.  The ground was covered with a carpet of wild flowers and a few late violets.

Once the chums were fairly in the heart of the woods they did not meet another traveler.  They seemed to have the forest to themselves.  They had no thought of danger in the quiet woods, and Madge and Eleanor, who had been brought up in the country, were careful to watch the paths they followed.

They had been in the woods for an hour or more when Lillian, who was stooping over a clump of big, purple violets, thought she heard a peculiar sound resembling light footsteps, Whether there was a human being or an animal near them she could not tell.  The footsteps would run rapidly and then stop abruptly.

“Phil,” called Lillian, “I thought I heard something.  Did you?  Listen once more.  There, did you hear that?”

Phil listened.  “Not a sound, Airy Fairy Lillian.  It must have been your fancy.”

But Lillian was not convinced.  Several times she believed she heard the noise again.  However, she did not mention it.

As the girls came out of the woods to a little clearing Phil, who was in the lead, ran forward.  “Madge, Eleanor,” she called, “come here, quick!  I am sure this must be a regular, old-time log cabin.”

Before them the girls saw an old cabin that looked as though it had been empty for a quarter of a century.  It was strongly built of logs, and the chinks between the logs were filled with mud that had hardened like plaster.  There were no windows in the cabin, except in the eaves.  The heavy door was half open, but it had an old-fashioned wooden latch on the outside.

“The old cabin looks rather creepy, doesn’t it, Madge?” asked Eleanor.  “It is built more securely than our cabins farther down south, too.  This place seems more like a prison.”

“It looks interesting.  Let’s go in to see it.”  Phil suggested.

The cabin stood in front of a stream of clear water.  Close around it grew a number of dark old cedar trees.

Phil and Madge shoved open the heavy door.  Inside, the one large room looked gray and dark, as the only light came from the two small windows so far overhead.

“I would rather not go in, Madge,” protested Eleanor, hesitating on the threshold after Lillian had followed the other two girls inside.

“Don’t be a baby, Eleanor,” scolded Madge.  “There is nothing to hurt you.”

Once inside the old house, Eleanor was as much interested as her chums.  There was no furniture in the place, but a few faded pictures were tacked up on the walls, and the corners of the room were thick with mysterious and inviting shadows.

As they clustered in a group under an old magazine picture of a darkey with a fiddle in his hand there was an unexpected sound just outside the door, and the big room grew suddenly darker.