and give a feigned story to his hosts, so this man said his name
was McFarlane--which it was not--and told a wily tale of having
been directed to a logging camp where hands were needed, of
alighting at the wrong station and losing his way in an attempted
short cut through the woods. Meanwhile his listener, a man of
weather-beaten face and a great shock of gray hair, observed him
with shrewd attention. At length he replied:

"Thar's few strangers git to Twinkling Island; but so long as
you're here, you're welcome to our plain victuals. The money's
neither here nor thar. Git supper, daughter. Seems you're mighty
particular to git that canoe high an' dry to-night."

The girl wheeled abruptly and strode indoors, flashing at the
stranger a covert, half-defiant glance.

"Gals are queer cattle," mused old Crane, drawing off his
fisherman's boots. " 'Pears to give 'em a kind o' satisfaction to
set a man to work. Her mother was just the same, before her."

The guest said nothing; but the realization that the girl who had
grudged his taking her basket had afterward suffered him to carry
her canoe quite an unnecessary distance, seemed to yield him no
unpleasant thoughts.

They sat down to supper in a low'ceiled room of smoked rafters.
The stranger ate hungrily and with few words, yet always his gaze
followed the girl's slim figure as she moved to and fro, waiting
on the board. As the food disappeared, the talk sprang up. The
girl brought in a huge pitcher of cider and left the men by the