It was the rocky way toward the cave which they took, but they passed it, looking very uninteresting in the gray, early morning light, still misty from the lake. Some little distance beyond the ledge and cave was an irregular ascent, not easy to climb, but far from impossible, and what bird class minds a little trouble, when perhaps a dozen of the migrants as yet unseen will be flitting in their dainty spring costumes among the trees? And there they were, the beautiful black-throated warbler with its shining coat and excuse of a voice; the bay-breasted, and the orange-trimmed Blackburnian warblers. Shy thrushes slipped away in front of them and hid behind branches and leaves. Hilary was stealing away alone to follow a blue-headed vireo of whose identification she wanted to make sure. She kept to the edge of the woods along the cliff, according to directions, and was somewhat surprised to come upon a low, one-roomed house or hut of rocks or stone from the cliffs. She stopped and whistled a tune of the wood thrush, the call note of the Greycliff bird club. It meant, “come softly and see something.”
Lilian, who was not far away appeared, then Betty and Isabel came, parting the branches of the thick growth and creeping up quietly. Hilary made motions which might have made one outside of the bird atmosphere think that she was a fit subject for a brain specialist. She pointed up to where she had just located and identified the bird, then to the building, and described, as if drawing in the air, an interrogation mark.
Isabel the brave made an immediate choice between bird and hut, softly making her way up and trying to peer through the high window, which was curtained with a dark curtain or shade. All around the little stone hut she walked, slipping through the bushes, and trying the door which she found locked. “Nobody at home,” she said to Betty, who had come up. Then she crept out on the edge of the bluff and looked over. “As I thought,” she said, nodding, “just over the ledge of the cave.”
“That is queer,” said Betty, “I think some smugglers must have lived here, don’t you?”
“It looks like it. Perhaps this was only a sort of storehouse.”
Doctor Norris had drawn near, investigating the source of the whistle, and Hilary was now pointing out the little house to him. “We might as well tell him the funny history of the cave, Betty,” said Isabel, as they joined the rest.
“All right, I told Donald, and he promised to keep still about it, but to keep his eyes open, too.”
“Doctor Norris, that is a funny cave,” began Isabel, “and I find that this stone house is right above it. Let me tell you what we girls all saw, and what Betty and I did.”
Dr. Norris was interested enough to let the bird instruction and observation wait till he had heard what there was to tell. “It does seem odd,” said he. “I can’t think what Holley would be doing there. But he seems to be a fine fellow. Dr. Schafer has known him for a long time, and Dr. Carver likes him very much.”
“Her liking him wouldn’t be any recommendation to me,” whispered Isabel to Betty.