"Don't be frightened, Maggie," said Ruth. "It's only us two girls."
"My—my name is—isn't Maggie," stammered the strange girl.
And sure enough, having once seen her closely, Ruth Fielding saw that she was quite wrong in her identification. This was not the girl who had drifted down the Lumano River to the Red Mill and taken refuge with Aunt Alvirah.
This was a much more assertive person than Maggie—a girl with plenty of health, both of body and mind. Maggie impressed one as being mentally or nervously deficient. Not so this girl who was camping here in the snow on Bliss Island. Yet there was a resemblance to Maggie in the figure of the stranger, and Ruth noted a resemblance in her features, too.
"My goodness me!" she said, laughing pleasantly. "If you're not our Maggie you look near enough like her to be her sister."
"Well, I haven't any sister in that college," said the strange girl, shortly. "You're from Ardmore, aren't you?"
"Yes," Ruth said, Helen now having joined them. "And we saw your light——"
"My what?" demanded the camping girl, who was warmly, though plainly dressed.
"Your campfire. You see," explained Ruth, finding it rather difficult after all to talk to this very self-possessed girl, "we skated around the island to-day——"
"I saw you," said the stranger gruffly. "There were three of you."