“They are hiding the box!” exclaimed the girl under her breath.  “But why are they doing that?  What secret could be so dark that it needs hiding in the woods?  I shall make it my business to find out.  There, they are coming out.”

She threw herself on the ground.  She could hear the men approaching.  They seemed, from the sound of their voices, to be coming directly toward her.  Harriet gathered herself ready for a spring in case of discovery, which now seemed imminent, then again flattened herself on the ground.

“I won’t run until I have to,” she decided.  Courage was required for a girl to remain in Harriet’s position under the circumstances, but Harriet Burrell had plenty of this and to spare.  In the meantime the men were rapidly drawing near.  They were conversing in low tones, but the girl in hiding on the ground was unable to make out what they were saying.  Rather was her attention centered on what they were going to do, which was the all-important question at that moment.  But Harriet was not left long in suspense.  The men were coming straight toward her.  She could see them quite plainly now, and wondered why they did not see her.  It was evident that they had not yet done so, perhaps because they were so fully occupied with their own affairs.

Harriet Burrell braced herself.  To rise would mean instant discovery; to remain as she was, possible avoidance of it.  She decided upon the latter course and lay still.  Within a minute the expected occurred.  The men had swerved to their right slightly, raising the hope in the mind of Harriet that they were going to pass her without discovering her.  Instead a heavy boot came in contact with her own feet.  There followed a muttered exclamation, the man pitched headlong, the girl having stiffened her limbs to meet the shock the instant she felt the touch of the boot against her feet.

The man’s companion laughed uproariously and was called sharply to account by the one who had fallen.

Now came the supreme test for Harriet.  She could scarcely restrain herself from crying out, springing up and running away.  Instead, she lay perfectly quiet, breathing as lightly as possible.  The man got up growling.

“Confound these dark holes,” he snarled.

“Hurt yourself?” questioned his companion.

“No, only skinned my wrist.  Let’s get back to the boat.  Why doesn’t the Cap’n do it himself instead of asking us to take all the risks and all the knocks to boot?”

“Because he is paying us for doing it.  I reckon you’d better do as you’re told if you want to come in for the clean-up.  We’d better be hustling, too, for Cap’n wants to get under way.  We’ve lost too much time already and we’ll be in bad first thing we know.”

The man who had fallen answered with an unintelligible growl.  He had not looked behind him to see what he had fallen over.  Instead, he wrapped a handkerchief about his wrist and started on.  The two men trudged on down toward where they had left their boat.  They were nearly at the beach before Harriet Burrell finally sat up.