“We are playing on the jewsharp!” replied a familiar voice.  “What are you doing, if it comes to that?”

“Oh, Jerry! oh, Phil! how could you frighten us so?  We thought,—­I don’t know what we didn’t think.  We came to see if the canoe was safe.  We forgot to see that you put her up after tea.”

“Just what we came for,” said Phil.  “She isn’t here; I’m afraid she’s gone.”

The girls uttered a cry of dismay.

“Oh, it can’t be!  Look in the boathouse, boys; it is possible—­”

“It is highly possible,” said Jerry, “that she got up on end and walked in, as soon as she saw that the weather looked squally.  She’s a very sensible boat, but weak in the legs, if you follow me.  I think she’s gone; and a very pretty kettle of fish she makes to seethe two tender bodies in.  I wouldn’t be us, Fergs, my boy, when the Cap’n finds it out to-morrow.”

“Wait,” said Hildegarde, “oh, wait!  Don’t let us give up hope.  It will do no harm to look, Jerry.”

“No harm in life,” said Jerry.  “Just hold on to this wind, will you, while I get in.”

With some difficulty he opened the boat-house door; then, sheltered behind it, he struck a match, while all pressed eagerly forward.  There in her place, high and dry, lay the birch canoe.  Nobody said anything for a moment; the relief was too great.  Hildegarde felt the tears come to her eyes, she could not tell why; but she found herself saying under her breath, “We might have known he would do it; he always takes care of everything.”

“Roger is a tedious person,” said Gerald, turning off his satisfaction with a laugh.  “The amount of virtue that he staggers under is enough to swamp anybody.  He will come to the gallows yet, you’ll see!  Human nature must assert itself some time.  Whew! there goes my head!  Catch it, Bell, will you?”

“I am very, very hungry!” Phil announced with mournful emphasis.  “It makes me starved to play this kind of game in the middle of the night.  Can’t we have some food, to celebrate the safety of the Cheemaun?”

“Me, too!” cried Gerald.  “I am dying, Egypt, dying! a corpse among the alders dank—–­”

“Oh, do stop, boys!” cried Bell.  “I’ll push you off the wharf if you go on so.”

“Oh, wouldn’t us lorf, if she pushed us off the wharf!” cried Gerald.

“I am cross!” said Bell.  “My hair is wound all round my neck, and I am half strangled.  You boys think of nothing but eating from morning till night.  But I am hungry myself, so come along!”

The four buffeted their way back to the house, and Phil climbed in at the pantry window and opened the kitchen door for the dripping party.  They lighted a lantern, and judicious rummaging produced crackers and cheese, gingerbread, and some bottles of root beer.  Merrily the four adventurers gathered round the table, dripping, rosy and breathless; the girls’ long locks hung down over their shoulders, the boys’ short curls were plastered close to their heads.