"Land sakes!" declared Louise. "We were lucky not to be blown up. How did that start with no one in sight to start it?"
"Maybe we touched off a fuse," suggested Cleo jokingly.
"No, I'll tell you," offered Grace. "When we sat on the barrel we shut out the wind from the side, all but enough to create a draft; and the paper must have been smoldering. Now, just look at our perfectly good seat turned into a beach fire! We had better rescue our socks. Maybe those sticks will explode under them, next thing we know."
"Oh, just look here!" called Cleo. "See what I just kicked up! It's a bottle and has a note in it! Maybe it's a warning from the firebug," she finished, dragging from the sand a bottle and proceeding to pull out the paper which had been carefully wound with a cord, the end of which was brought out at the cork. Cleo promptly let the cork pop, yanked the string, and so dislodged the note.
"I knew it," she exclaimed, "a message from the pirates. Listen to this!"
Grace and Louise hopped back to hear the contents of the rolled slip of paper.
"Short enough," commented Cleo. "It simply says, 'Beware of the fire-bug' and it's signed 'The Weasle'. Well, I never! Beware of the fire-bug," she repeated, "and not a human in sight that fire-bug fires. And signing himself the Weasle! Must be pretty snappy. Well, I say girls, as early as we thought we were getting down, before all the other schools were dismissed, the little old fire-bug got here first. What do you make of it?"
"Maybe some one comes in by boat from some island, and leaves the fires to start up with a clock signal, like they do it in the movies," suggested Grace.
Louise and Cleo laughed the idea to scorn.
"Can you imagine an island in the ocean?" asked Louise. "And just look at the writing of this note! It is a perfectly modern school hand. Some small boy I suppose, who has been reading too much Captain Kidd. At any rate let us be glad we didn't burn up more skirts, although it is too bad to spoil that splendid new serge, Grace," she finished, commiserating with the girl who was just then judging the size of the hole burnt in her skirt by trying to view the sun through it.