It was not till the dishes had all been cleared away and Mollie took up her candle to show them their quarters that the unwelcome thought of the thing that had so frightened them again crept terrifyingly into their minds.  Try as they would to forget it, they could not.

There were three small sleeping rooms in the lodge, but, small as they were, they were comfortable and contained beds that seemed the height of luxury to the tired girls.

Because of the indistinct and flickering candle light the girls could make out very little of what the rooms really looked like, and they postponed any close examination until the morning.  Back of the lodge was a shed for the cars.

The bedrooms were all joined by doors, which gave the girls a safe and sociable feeling.  Mrs. Irving, of course, had one room to herself, Betty and Mollie slept together and Grace and Amy paired off.

They wasted little time in getting ready—­ Betty and Mollie had appointed themselves a committee of two to bring in the grips from Mollie’s car—­ and before long they tasted the exquisite restfulness of comfortable beds after a long nerve-trying day in the out-of-doors.

“I don’t believe I shall close my eyes all night,” said Amy with conviction.  “I’m too horribly nervous.”

But three minutes later she was sound asleep!

The sun had been up a good two hours before any one stirred in Wild Rose Lodge.  Betty was the first to awake, and in fifteen minutes she had the rest of the sleepy-eyed and protesting girls up and nearly dressed.

“What’s the idea, anyway?” yawned Grace lazily.  “I could have slept at least a good two hours more.”

“On a day like this?” sang Betty, breathing in deep breaths of the wood-scented air.  “And isn’t this just the dearest room you ever saw?” she added, wheeling about and regarding the apartment delightedly.  They were in Grace and Amy’s room, for, as usual, Mollie and Betty had been the first dressed and had gone into their chums’ room to hurry them up—­ if such a thing were possible.

Betty’s summing up of the room they were in was indeed well deserved, for the place was charming.  There was a dresser, a bed, and three chairs, and all of these articles of furniture had been rough-hewed out of logs, giving the place a delightfully rustic appearance.  There was a grass rug on the floor and in one corner a little table covered with books.

“Isn’t it darling?” cried Mollie, following Betty’s glance about the place.  “Uncle John built the lodge and made all of the furniture himself, you know.  And he bought the grass rugs from the Indians.”

They were still exclaiming about the place when Mrs. Irving called to them that breakfast was ready.  With a whoop of delight they answered the summons, and a moment later sat themselves down to a most satisfying meal of omelet and toast and coffee with real cream in it.  Also Mrs. Irving set on the table a yellow-topped pitcher of milk fresh from the cow.