The boys were more quiet now, the solemn scene filling their hearts with quiet joy. The large trees soon gave place to a smaller and thicker growth of spruce and balsam, the boughs of which now and then touched the cart-wheels as they passed. Somewhere in the dim wilderness, a thrush piped his evening song. "Hark!" said Perce. "I heard something besides a bird. Is somebody calling?" "A loon," said Moke. "A loon out on the water," said Poke. "The sea is just off here." They soon had glimpses of it through openings among the trees. But now the sound of it became louder; the woods, too, moaned like another sea in the wind, and the cries were no longer heard. They came out upon a spot of low grassy ground behind the sand-hills. There was a fresh-water pool near by. Perce thought it a good place for the oxen; and he turned them out on the road-side. Mrs. Murcher's boarding-house was in sight. "Suppose I run up there and find Olly before it gets any darker," said Perce. "You can be unhitching the steers from the cart, and getting 'em around in a good place to feed. Fasten 'em to the cart-wheel by this rope; tie it in the ring of the yoke. Let 'em drink first." "All right," said the twins. "Go ahead." And off Perce ran to summon his friend to their festivities. The twins turned the cattle into the grass, and then began to make things ready for their camp and supper; keeping up all the time an incessant dialogue, which prevented them from hearing again the cries of the supposed loon, growing fainter and fainter on the distant waves. Neither did Perce hear them as he hastened along the path in the gloomy hollow, and mounted the piazza steps. In the hall-door of the boarding-house, he was met by a tall girl of seventeen, with a fine brunette complexion, piercing dark eyes, and a high, thin, Roman nose. Overawed a little by her rather imposing style of dress and features, Perce took off his cap, and begging her pardon, inquired for Oliver Burdeen. "Burdeen? Oliver?" she queried. "Oh!" with a pleasant smile, "you mean Olly!" "Yes," he replied. "We all call him Olly where he lives, but I wasn't sure he would be known by that name here." "He isn't known by any other!" replied the young lady with a laugh. "He's about, somewhere; I believe he's always about, somewhere! Mrs. Merriman," she called to a lady in the parlor, "where's the ubiquitous Olly?" "I don't know, Amy," replied the lady. "Didn't he go with the gentlemen in the yacht?" Amy "almost thought he did"; yet it seemed to her she had seen him that afternoon; a position of uncertainty on the part of that young lady, which wouldn't have been highly flattering to the vanity of Master Burdeen, even if he hadn't been at that moment beyond the reach of flattery. "Mrs. Murcher can tell you," she said, turning to walk back to the end of the hall. "She is here, in the dining-room." Mrs. Murcher thought Olly must be in his room.