“In the cabin.  We are occupying it now.  Where were you going with that box?  You know there is nothing but the sea beyond here.  This is a bar.  The mainland is the other way.  Perhaps you thought you were headed up the beach?”

“Sure we did, Miss.  Thank you.  We’ll be going.  Sorry to have disturbed you.  Got some provisions for a friend of ours who is down this part of the coast on a fishing trip.  Thank you.”

They gathered up their burden and started back toward the beach as fast as they could stagger, Harriet in the meantime standing where they had left her, gazing after them with forehead wrinkled into ridges of perplexity.  Harriet watched the men all the way back to the beach.  She saw them put down the box they had been carrying and stand looking back at her.  Harriet quickly retraced her steps to the cabin, in the shadow of which she halted and continued her watching.

The men stood for some time, evidently engaged in a discussion, though no sound of voices reached the listening girl.  They then picked up their box and walked down the beach with it.

“That is odd.  They said they were going up the beach with provisions for a friend.  I don’t understand this proceeding at all, but it looks questionable to me.  I know what I’ll do; I’ll follow them.”

The Meadow-Brook Girl did not stop to consider that she had decided upon a possibly dangerous adventure.  Stooping over as low as possible and yet remain on her feet, Harriet ran full speed toward the beach.  She saw the men halt and put down the box, whereat the girl flattened herself on the sandy bar and lay motionless until, finally, they picked up their burden and went on.  She was able to make out the sailboat anchored some little distance out in the bay.

“They must have brought the box off from the boat,” she mused.  “I wonder what is in it?  I am positive that there is some mystery here.  It isn’t my affair, but my woman’s curiosity makes me wonder what it is all about.  There they go again.”  She was up and off, this time reaching the beach before they put down the box again.  Now Harriet was reasonably safe from discovery.  She crouched close to the sandy bluff and lay watching.  She saw one of the men put off in a rowboat, which he propelled rapidly over to the sailboat.  He did not remain there long, and she saw him pulling back to shore as if in more haste than when he went out.

“Now they are going to do something,” decided the watching girl.  “Yes, they are going to take the box.”

The men did.  Picking it up, they carried it back in among the trees, Harriet following at a safe distance, picking her way cautiously, not making the slightest sound in moving about among the spindling pines.

Finally, realizing that the men had stopped, the girl crouched down with eyes and ears on the alert.  She could hear them at work.  They were not going ahead, but they were engaged in some occupation the nature of which for the moment puzzled Harriet Burrell.  Then all at once the truth flashed into her mind.