"I'se losted!" she said, simply, with a little sob in her voice.
Phil had now reached her side. She did not shrink from him as he bent down and put his hand gently on her curly head. Something that she saw in his kind eyes, perhaps the vein of sympathy so pronounced in his tones, told her this strange boy could be safely trusted.
"Now, that's too bad," Phil went on to say, just as if he himself had been "losted" and hence knew how it felt. "But who are you lost from?"
"Daddy," she said, simply, as though taking it for granted that every one must know who was implied by that term; because to her mind there was only one "daddy" on earth.
Phil believed he saw it all now. The man who had occupied the cabin, had this child with him. For some unknown reason he had taken alarm, perhaps because of their coming to the lonely lake, and made a hurried change of base.
Why he had prowled around on that first night it was of course impossible for the boy to say, unless he simply meant to satisfy himself with regard to their intentions.
And now the little girl had managed to lose herself in the woods. No doubt the father would be searching everywhere for her.
Phil thought it all over, even while he was soothing the child and telling her he would see to it that she found "daddy" again.
He could not leave her there in the open pine woods, that was sure, and since there could be no immediate way of learning the present abode of the mysterious man, the only thing left for Phil to do was to take the little girl to camp with him.
In due time no doubt the father was sure to turn up there to claim the child. They would try to convince him that it was none of their business what made him hide away from his fellows as he was doing.