"Just in time!" cried Alice. "We would have been drowned if we had
stayed out there. That man has some good qualities about him, at any
rate. He was nice enough to give us the use of this place."
"And maybe we're wronging him," panted Ruth, out of breath after her
little run, and her hair all awry. "He may be all right, and it is
foolish to suspect him of something we know nothing about."
"Perhaps," admitted Alice. "But there is a look in his face I do not
like. I can't explain why, but he looks, somehow--oh, I can't explain
it, but he looks as if he had been in prison--or some place like
that."
"What a strange idea," responded Ruth. "I can't say I think that of
him, but I agree with you that there is something repulsive about
him. And that seems a mean thing to say, after he has given us the
use of the cabin."
"How do we know it was his?" asked Alice. "It doesn't appear to me to
belong to anybody. Certainly it isn't very sumptuously furnished!"
and she looked about the place in considerable curiosity.
It was devoid of anything in the way of furniture, and only a few
rough boxes were scattered about. On a stone hearth were the gray
and blackened embers of a fire, and in one corner was a broken
chair.
"It seems to have been deserted a long time," said Alice.
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