Their host started to draw up the one chair in the room, hesitated a moment then, as though he had just thought of something, turned and darted through the door, closing it with a little click behind him.

For the space of half a second, the girls looked after him.  Then they looked at each other.  Then they drew a long breath and let loose the flood of curious questions which had been struggling for expression for the past twenty minute

“Well, isn’t this a lark?” cried Mollie, her eyes dancing.  “Half an hour ago we were awfully bored, and now look at us.”

“Yes, look at us,” said Grace with a little sniff.  “I’m sure we’re not very much to look at right now with our hair wet, and our clothes—­”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, who cares about such things?” cried Betty gaily.  “I think this is a darling place and I’m having the time of my life.  I wonder who he is?”

“He seemed kind of scared just now, didn’t he!” chuckled Mollie, feeling her shoe to see if it was drying out any.  “It was funny the way he bolted out of the room.”

“Poor old dear—­ no wonder he was scared,” commented Grace, as she took off her hat and tried to do something with her hopelessly bedraggled locks.  “The way we look we’re enough to scare anybody.  Oh, dear, hasn’t any one a comb?”

“Why, of course, we carry a complete beauty parlor outfit just for your benefit, dear,” giggled Mollie.  “The rest of us don’t need it though.  We are too beautiful naturally.”

“You know I like him a lot, the queer little man, I mean,” said Amy, evidently following out her own train of thought.  “He seems kind of fussy and peculiar but he has an awfully nice smile.”

“Trust Amy to find the smile,” said Betty, putting an arm fondly about the younger girl.  “And of course we all like him,” she added seriously.  “If it hadn’t been for him we probably wouldn’t be feeling so happy right now.”

“Yes, we would probably be in some hospital with our unhappy relatives weeping over our mangled remains,” said the irrepressible Mollie, and laughed at the shriek that went up at her gruesome remark.  “There probably wouldn’t have been enough of us left to recognize,” she added by way of good measure, and they shrieked again.

“For goodness’ sake, let’s talk of something pleasant,” said Grace, rising suddenly and going over to the window.  “If you want to sit on that old bench all day, you can.”

It appeared that the girls had no intention of sitting on the bench all day.  They got up and sauntered about the room, examining the skins on the walls and looking, but without much curiosity, at the rifles.  They lingered longest before the shelves of butterflies and beetles, for some of the specimens were really beautiful and very rare.

After they had examined everything in sight they began to grow restive.  They must have been in the place nearly an hour and it suddenly occurred to them to wonder where their host had been keeping himself all this time.