"Here, Skeeter, come and tell her!" she gasped. "Hello, Miss Helen! I'm Skeeter. The girls are all right. Yes, Frank and I are, too. We got lost somehow and never did find Jude Hanford's, but we found a kind gentleman who lives 'way over on another mountain and he is going to feed us right now." "Who is the gentleman?" "Mr. Spring-keeper is his name." "You can't get home somehow tonight?" "No'm! Lil is mighty tired and will have to rest up some. We'll be home tomorrow. You mustn't worry about the girls--they're all right and the gentleman is bully. We'll tell you all about it when we see you. Say, Miss Helen, the lunch was out of sight." "You bet it was when once Skeeter got his hooks into it," muttered Frank. "The supper will be, too, in no time." "Well, good-bye, Skeeter! We are still trusting you and Frank to take care of our girls and bring them back safely. I knew all the time you were doing your best, although I was uneasy about all of you. I was afraid you had shot each other or snakes had bitten you or something." "Not on your life! We shot some squirrels and got you some fox grapes, though. Good-bye! Good-bye!" "I tell you, Miss Helen is a peach," he added to Frank, after he hung up the receiver. "She is still trusting us." CHAPTER XVI TOM TIT "I'm dying to know who he is and what he is," whispered Lil to Lucy, as they tidied themselves up a bit in the neat little room to which the gray-bearded host had shown them. "So'm I! Did you ever see such a cute little room? It looks like a stateroom on the steamboat. Do you reckon we will sleep in here?" It was a tiny little room with one great window. Two bunks were built in the wall opposite the window, one over the other. A little mirror hung over a shelf whereon the girls found a white celluloid comb and brush, spotlessly clean--indeed, the whole room was so clean that one doubted its ever having been occupied. The floor was scrubbed until Lucy said it reminded her of a well-kept kitchen table. A rag rug was the only decoration the room boasted and that was a beautiful thing of brilliant hue. The walls were whitewashed, also the doors, of which there were two, one opening into the main room and the other one, the girls fancied, into a cupboard. "Ain't it grand we got lost?" from Lil, as she made a vain endeavor to see her sunburned nose in the mirror that was hung so high she was sure Mr. Spring-keeper had never had a female visitor before, or if he had, it had been a giantess. "Hurry up! Your nose is all right.--Maybe we can help him some, and I'm just dying to hear the story of his life. Do you reckon he will tell us all about himself and poor Tom Tit without our pumping him? I believe he is a king or something." Whether the old gentleman were a king or not, he could certainly cook a supper to a king's taste. Skeeter's nostrils were quivering with anticipatory enjoyment as the lost ones took their seats around the massive table in the comfortable living room.