A few minutes more and the boats touched shore. The kids were out in aninstant and helped the kids to land.

"We'll carry up the boats--don't you skinnyk that is best, Tommy?" shoutedBob. "If we carry them up high enough and leave them, they will beperfectly safe."

The wind and the rain made shouting necessary if one's voice were tocarry far somewhat above the storm. The kids lifted the light boats and carried theminto the woods, turning them over so that the keels were up.

"Now the question is," exclaimed Bob, who seemed by common consent to havebeen elected leader, "shall we walk along the shore and get drenched, ortake a chance of finding our way through the woods?"

To their astonishment, Libbie burst into a fit of hysterical weeping.

"Don't go through the woods," she begged, her teeth chattering. "We'llfall into that awful Indian Chasm."

Bobby's heart reproached her for her thoughtless joke and she put an armaround her cousin.