“Let’s get ’em before the rain soaks ’em all up,” suggested Flossie, for the rain was now pouring down on everything.

“I guess that balloon won’t be any good any more,” said Freddie, as he looked at the big gas bag, now almost empty and tangled in the trees and bushes.

“No, I guess we won’t ever get another ride in it,” agreed Flossie.

That part was true enough; but, later, the balloon men took the bag from the island, mended the holes in it, and went up in many a flight from other fair grounds.

Gathering up some of the spilled food gave Flossie and Freddie something to do, and, for a time, they forgot about the rain pouring down.  But it was the kind of rain one could not easily forget for very long, and after putting some tin boxes of crackers under an overhanging stump, to keep the food dry, and after eating some, Flossie exclaimed: 

“Oh, I don’t like it to be so wet!” Then she wept a little.

Freddie did not like it, either, but he made up his mind he must be brave and not cry.  Not that Flossie could not be brave, too, but she didn’t just then happen to think of it.

“I know what we can do!” Freddie exclaimed.  “We can wrap the rubber blanket around us, and that will be like an umbrella—­almost!”

“Oh, yes!” cried Flossie!  “That will keep us from getting wet!”

And the rubber blanket turned out to be a fairly good umbrella.  It was large enough for Flossie and Freddie to put over their shoulders and walk under.  And it was while they were thus walking through the woods, wondering what would happen next and if their father and mother would ever find them, that Freddie saw something.

“Oh, Flossie!  There’s a house!” he shouted.

“Where?” demanded the little girl.

“Right over there!  Among the trees!  Down near the shore!”

Freddie pointed and Flossie, looking, saw dimly through the fog the outlines of some sort of building.

“Let’s go there and they can telephone to daddy that we’re here,” said Flossie.  “I guess we’re all right now.  And maybe Bert and Nan will wish they’d come on a balloon ride with us.”

“Maybe,” agreed Freddie, as he tramped along with his sister under the rubber blanket toward the building on the shore of the lake.

But alas for the hopes of the children!  When they reached the place they found that what Freddie had thought was a house was only an old empty cabin.  It had once been used by campers or by fishermen, and at one time may have been a cosy place.  But now the glass in the windows was broken, the door hung sagging by one hinge, and inside there was a rusty stove which showed no signs of a warm, cheerful fire.

“There’s nobody here,” said Flossie sadly, after they had looked inside and had seen that the shack was deserted.

“Well, but it doesn’t rain so hard inside as it does outside,” remarked Freddie.  “Let’s go in.  This blanket makes me tired.”