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Page 21
Phil listened. "Not a sound, Airy Fairy Lillian. It must have been
your fancy."
But Lillian was not convinced. Several times she believed she heard
the noise again. However, she did not mention it.
As the girls came out of the woods to a little clearing Phil, who was
in the lead, ran forward. "Madge, Eleanor," she called, "come here,
quick! I am sure this must be a regular, old-time log cabin."
Before them the girls saw an old cabin that looked as though it had
been empty for a quarter of a century. It was strongly built of logs,
and the chinks between the logs were filled with mud that had hardened
like plaster. There were no windows in the cabin, except in the eaves.
The heavy door was half open, but it had an old-fashioned wooden latch
on the outside.
"The old cabin looks rather creepy, doesn't it, Madge?" asked Eleanor.
"It is built more securely than our cabins farther down south, too.
This place seems more like a prison."
"It looks interesting. Let's go in to see it." Phil suggested.
The cabin stood in front of a stream of clear water. Close around it
grew a number of dark old cedar trees.
Phil and Madge shoved open the heavy door. Inside, the one large room
looked gray and dark, as the only light came from the two small windows
so far overhead.
"I would rather not go in, Madge," protested Eleanor, hesitating on the
threshold after Lillian had followed the other two girls inside.
"Don't be a baby, Eleanor," scolded Madge. "There is nothing to hurt
you."
Once inside the old house, Eleanor was as much interested as her chums.
There was no furniture in the place, but a few faded pictures were
tacked up on the walls, and the corners of the room were thick with
mysterious and inviting shadows.
As they clustered in a group under an old magazine picture of a darkey
with a fiddle in his hand there was an unexpected sound just outside
the door, and the big room grew suddenly darker.
The four girls turned simultaneously.
The heavy door through which they had entered the cabin, and which was
the only entrance, had been shut fast. At the same instant there was
the sound of a heavy, sliding bolt, then the rush of flying feet.
For the moment no one of the girls realized the seriousness of what had
happened.
"Some one must have locked us in for a joke," declared Phil stoutly.
Madge ran to the door and shook it with all her strength. It was built
of heavy logs, and, though the girls could see the daylight through the
cracks between the timbers, the door showed no sign of opening.
"Don't work so hard, Madge," remonstrated Phil. "Whoever shut us in
will come back in a moment to unfasten the bolt."
The girls waited a long time. No one returned.
"Perhaps the person who closed the door did not know there was any one
in the cabin," suggested Eleanor faintly.
"But we were all talking, Nellie. No one but a deaf person could have
failed to hear us," Lillian insisted.
Eleanor realized the truth of the words.
"Don't be frightened, Nellie," begged Madge remorsefully. "Let's all
push against the door at the same time. I am sure we shall be able to
break the bolt. One, two, three! Now--all together!"
The four girls shoved with all their might, until their arms ached and
their faces perspired from the exertion. Still the old door resisted
them. Perhaps Eleanor was right and the log house had been built as a
prison.
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