"I am so thankful you saved them," she said. "Come aboard the launch, both of you. Where did you find them?"
"We ran away, and they came for us up at Mirror Lake," said little Bertie. "But, oh, mamma, we aren't going to run away again!" and he buried his head on her shoulder.
"No, no, I'll never, never run away again," burst out Gertrude. "Poor Polly is burnt up!" and she too began to cry.
In a few words, Dale and Owen related how they were on their way to a distant lumber camp, and how they had discovered the two little runaways just about the time the forest fire swept down upon them. Then they told of the run to the bluff, and what a narrow escape they had had from the flames.
"It was Providence that led you to find my children," said Mrs. Wilbur devoutly. "We have been searching for them for hours. They got Fanny, here, to go into the lodge for something, and then ran away, and we could not imagine where they had gone. I was afraid they might have been drowned. Then the fire came up, and I did not know what to do. Jasper, our man, advised that we take to the lake, so here we are on the launch."
"The fire isn't working around to the lodge just now," answered Owen. "The wind is shifting to where it came from."
"No, no, the whole place will be burnt up for a certainty," came from Jasper Nown. His face plainly showed that he was badly scared.
"Fortunately the visitors we have been expecting have not yet arrived," went on Mrs. Wilbur. "But there are several more servants at the lodge. Do you think we had better go back for them?"
"Don't go near that shore!" cried Nown. "We'll all be burnt up, take my word on't!"
"Jasper, I was talking to these young men, not to you," said the lady coldly.