The sisters sat and talked of many things, speculating on the ident.i.ty of the mysterious man and wondering if the Apgars would ever discover Uncle Isaac's missing money and so save the farm.

The day was drawing to a close, and the girls felt that they must soon return to the farmhouse.

"Hark! What's that?" asked Alice, suddenly, after a period of silence. A distant rumble came to their ears.

"Wagon going over a bridge, I should say," replied Ruth.

"More like thunder," Alice went on. "It _is_ thunder," she said a moment later, as a sharp clap reverberated through the still air.

"Come on, Ruth, or we'll be caught."

They scrambled up from the mossy bed, and hurried from the little glen. But the storm came on apace, and before they were half-way out of the woods there was a sudden flurry of wind, and then came a deluge of rain, ushered in by vivid lightning, and loud thunder.

"Oh, Alice, we'll be drenched--and our new dresses!" cried Ruth.

"Let's get under a tree," suggested the younger girl. "That will shelter us."

"And get struck by lightning! I guess not!" protested Ruth. "Trees are always dangerous in a thunder storm."

"But we must find shelter!" said Alice, as they ran on.

They came to a little clearing in the woods, and pausing at the edge saw a lonely cabin in the midst of it.

"Come on over there!" cried Alice. "They'll take us in, whoever they are, until the shower is over."

Seizing Ruth's hand she darted toward the cabin. Then both girls saw a man open the door and stand in it--a man at the sight of whom they drew back in alarm.

CHAPTER XVI

THE MAN AND THE UMBRELLA

For a moment the man stood in the doorway of the cabin, staring at Ruth and Alice standing there in the drenching rain. They had recognized him at once as the man whom they had seen run out of the old barn--the limping man who had fled down the moonlit road when he espied them on the bridge.

Whether or not he knew the girls, they did not stop to consider.

Certainly they were dressed differently than on either of the occasions they had encountered him; but that might not obviate recognition.

"Come--come on back to the woods," whispered Ruth. "We--we don't want to meet him, Alice."

"No, I suppose not," agreed Alice, "and yet," and she seemed to shiver, "we ought not to stand out in this storm when shelter is so near, no matter who that man is."

"Oh, Alice!" exclaimed Ruth.

"Well, I mean it! I am soaked, and you are, too. Besides, that lightning is awful--and the thunder! I can't stand it--come on. I'm sure he won't eat us!"

But the girls were saved any anxiety by the action of the strange man. Alice was trying to draw her sister toward the cabin, and Ruth, torn between a desire to get under shelter, and fear of the man, was hardly able to decide, when the stranger darted back into the cabin, and came out with an umbrella.

"Oh, he's going to offer it to us!" exclaimed Alice. "That is good of him."

But, to her surprise, no less than that of Ruth, the man called out:

"Come in, and welcome, young ladies. You may stay in this cabin as long as you like. The roof leaks in one place, but otherwise it is dry. I have to go away. Come in!"

And with that he put up the umbrella and hurried off, limping through the rain, but never once glancing back at the girls.

For a moment Alice and Ruth did not know what to do or think. The action was certainly strange. And why had not the man come to meet them with the umbrella, while he was about it? There was some little distance to go, from the fringe of trees where the two girls stood, to the cabin, and this s.p.a.ce was open; whereas, by keeping under the leafy boughs they were, in a measure, protected from the pelting rain.

"What shall we do, Ruth?" asked Alice. She wanted to defer to the older judgment of her sister. But Ruth answered:

"I don't know, dear. What had we better do? I'm afraid----"

"And so am I afraid--but I'm more afraid of this thunder and lightning, to say nothing of the rain, than I am of what may be in that cabin, now that the man has so kindly left it to us. I'm going in there, Ruth, and stay until the storm is over."

With that, picking up her skirts, Alice sped across the open s.p.a.ce, leaving Ruth to do as she pleased. And, naturally, Ruth would not stay there to be drenched alone.

"Wait for me, Alice--wait!" she pleaded. But there was no need for Alice to delay, since she would only get the wetter, and Ruth was in no danger.

"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 pa.s.sing 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."

"But that man might come back."

"Not likely. Besides, don't you know that it's the worst thing in the world to stand in an open doorway, before a fireplace or in a draft of any kind when there's lightning. Lightning is always attracted by a draft, or a chimney, or something like that."

"Oh, why do you always think of such nervous, scary things?" cried Ruth.

"Because they're true," answered Alice. "And I want to get you into the other room. We might find out something. And if you won't come upstairs, I'll go alone."

"And leave me down here? I'll not stay!"