"I'm almost as bad," laughed Peggy.
"Well," said Jimsy, "as there is no sign of the fog lifting yet awhile,
what's the matter with our starting out to find the wood-chopper and
seeing if he has anything to eat?"
"Jimsy, you're a genius," cried Jess.
"That's what all my friends tell me," rejoined the modest youth.
They set off over rough sand dunes, overgrown with coarse grass, in the
direction of the sounds of the axe. The sand was loose and their feet sank
ankle deep in it, but they plodded along pluckily.
All at once, just as if a curtain had been drawn, the outlines of a rough
shanty appeared in front of them. It was a tumble-down sort of a place,
seemingly made of driftwood and old sacks and bits of canvas. From a rusty
iron stove-pipe on top, a feeble column of blue smoke was ascending.
The noise of chopping had ceased on their approach and as they stood
hesitating a strange figure suddenly appeared round the corner of the
wretched rookery of a place. The man, who stood facing them, a startled
look in his light blue eyes, was apparently about middle age. He wore a
full beard of a golden brown color and was barefooted and hatless. His
clothes consisted of a tattered shirt and a pair of coarse canvas
trousers.
"Well, shiver my toplights!" he cried as his eyes fell on the trio, "whar
under ther sun did you come from? Drop from ther clouds?"
"That's just what we did," said the debonnaire Jimsy, as the girls drew
back rather affrighted at the weird looking figure and his queer, wild way
of talking.
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