"Come along," called Alice over her shoulder, and Ruth came. The sisters reached the cabin just as a brilliant flash of lightning, with almost simultaneous thunder, seemed to open the clouds, and the rain came down in a veritable flood.
"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. "I guess that man was passing and took shelter in here, just as we intended to. But there's another room. We may as well inspect that, and there's another upstairs. That may be a little better. We'll look, Ruth."
"We'll do nothing of the kind!" exclaimed Ruth. "We'll just stay right by the door where we can run, in case—in case anything happens," she finished, rather falteringly.
"Silly!" exclaimed Alice. "There is no one in this place."