"Here I am to the left," she shouted back. "Come here and help me carry these things."
Madge pushed her way through the bushes, radiant and glowing with health.
"For mercy's sake, Phil Alden, what have you there?" she demanded, taking Phil's rifle and the dead rabbit, but looking askance at her live offering.
"I am ashamed of myself," apologized Phil, "but I found this beautiful little thing starving to death, in the woods. Do you think Miss Jenny Ann will mind if I take care of it and feed it until it is old enough to look after itself?"
"Of course not, Phil. But what do you expect to feed your adopted deer on? It seems to me that a little fawn like that must prefer milk as an article of diet, and we have found no cows on the island—up to the present." Madge patted the top of the fawn's soft head while she teased her chum.
Phil was thrown into consternation. "Gracious, Madge, you are right!" she agreed. "I never thought of it. But you know we are still having oatmeal for our breakfast. I'll ask Miss Jenny Ann to let me give my share to the fawn. Before the porridge gives out I expect we shall be rescued, or my baby will be grown-up enough to take care of itself."
Phil pronounced the word "rescued" in such fashion that Madge stopped in her forward march to question her.
"Out with it, Phil! You have something on your mind," she declared. "You might as well tell me."
After Phil had finished her story of seeing the men the two girls agreed not to mention Phil's encounter in the woods to Miss Jenny Ann or to the other two girls until they had had more time to think things over.
"I love our woods and sometimes I think I would like to live here always, Phil," returned Madge, "but it is our duty to get away when we can. It may be best for you and me to search over this whole island until we find those two men again."