“No, it was Mabel, dear,” corrected Alice.  “They seemed such nice girls.”

“They were nice!” the clerk declared.  “I did not know them very well, but I have often seen them about the hotel here.  Some of their friends stopped here.  Their folks live just outside the town.”

“And you say they went out to get rare flowers?” asked Ruth, as she noted Miss Pennington and Miss Dixon coming into the hotel parlor.

“Yes.  The girls are real outdoors girls,” went on the clerk.  “They can hunt and fish, and Miss Mabel, I believe it was, once shot a big alligator.”

“Alligators!  Oh, dear!  Are any of the horrid things around here?” broke in Miss Dixon.

“Not right around here,” was the reassuring answer.  “This was out in the swamps.”

“We are talking about two girls who have disappeared from here, and can’t be found,” explained Alice, for the story was bound to come out now.

“Oh, how perfectly dreadful!” cried Miss Pennington, as the account was completed.  “We must be careful about going out alone, my dear,” she added to her friend.

“Not much danger—­you’ll always want some of the men along,” thought Alice.

“What sort of flowers were they after?” Ruth wanted to know.

“Some sort of orchid,” was the hotel man’s answer.  “I don’t know much about such things myself, but Mr. Madison, the girls’ father, is quite a naturalist, and I guess they take after him.  He collects birds, bugs and flowers, and the girls used to help him.

“As I heard the story, he has been for a long time searching for a rare orchid that is said to grow around here.  He never could find it until one day, by chance, an old colored man came in with a crumpled and wilted specimen, mixed in with some other stuff he had.  Mr. Madison saw it, and grew excited at once, wanting to know where it had come from.

“The colored man told him as well as he could, and Mr. Madison decided to set off in search of this flower—­if an orchid is a flower?” and the clerk looked questioningly at the girls.

“Oh, indeed it is a flower, and a most beautiful one,” Ruth assured him.

“Well, Mr. Madison was about to start off on a little expedition, when he was taken ill.  He was much disappointed, as some naturalist society had offered him a big prize for a specimen of this particular plant.

“Then the girls, wishing to help their father, said they would go in search of it.  They owned a good-sized motor boat, and had often gone off before, remaining several days at a time.  They know how to take care of themselves.”

“That’s the kind of girls I like,” declared Alice.  “It seems doubly hard on them, though, that they should be lost.”

“And lost they are,” concluded the clerk.  “Not a word has been heard of them since they set off into the wilds.  When they did not come back, after several days, Mr. Madison organized a searching party.  But, beyond a few traces of the girls, nothing could be found.”