For the room was furnished with some chairs, a table, and in one corner was a cot bed, with the clothes tossed aside as if someone had lately been sleeping there. There was a small stove in the room, and pots, pans and dishes scattered about, as if meals had been recently cooked. A cupboard gave hint of things to eat.
All this the girls took in by means of the rapid flashes of lightning, for it was growing too dark to see well inside the cabin, which was of logs, and with only small windows.
"Yes, he must live here," agreed Ruth. "Oh, I hope he doesn't come back before the storm is over, so we can get away. You'll not go upstairs now; will you, Alice, dear?" Ruth looked pleadingly at her sister.
"No, I guess not," was the answer. "We couldn't see much, anyhow. And if that man really lives here it wouldn't be exactly polite to go about his place without a better invitation than we have. He spoke truly when he called this his cabin."
"Unless he just found it empty and took the use of it without asking the owner," suggested Ruth. "I wish we knew more about him."
"So do I," agreed Alice. "I wonder if he really had to go away in the storm, or whether he knew we would not come in the cabin while he was here, and so made an excuse to leave it to us alone?"
"If he did that it certainly was very kind of him," said Ruth.
"Perhaps he is bashful and shy," observed Alice. "He ran before, when he saw us on the bridge, and now he runs away and leaves us his house—such as it is. Clearly there is some mystery about him. Oh, listen to the rain!"
Indeed the storm was at its height now, and the girls were glad of the shelter of the cabin. As the man had said, there was a leak somewhere in the roof, and they could hear the steady drip, drip of water falling. But they did not see it, and the cabin seemed quite dry. It was a shelter from the wind, too, which was now blowing fiercely, bending the trees before the might of its blast.
But, like all summer showers, this was not destined to last long. Its fury kept up a little longer, and then began to die away. Gradually the lightning grew less vivid, and the flashes were farther apart. The thunder rumbled less heavily and the rain slackened. The girls went to the entrance room and gazed out.