"Listen," exclaimed Elinor, "I hear the music again." There came to them the sweet fairy notes of the zither. "Halloo!" called Ben again and again, and presently the others joined in the chorus. "What is it?" answered a voice quite near, and a figure bounded toward them through the mists. "We have been lost," answered Ben. "Do you think you could let these young ladies rest in your cabin while we get a vehicle and drive them home?" "Yes," answered the voice, and Billie then recognized the mountain girl who had sold them the blackberries that Mrs. Lupo had pitched out. [Illustration: After a stiff climb up a rocky path, they reached a little cabin.--Page 77.] "Come this way," she added, and they presently realized they were on rising ground and that the morass with its glimmering will-o'-the-wisps and its floating veils of thin mist was now well below them. After a stiff climb up a rocky path they reached a little cabin built in a clearing, commanding a wide vista of the treacherous Table Top and the mountains beyond. At the door of the cabin sat the zither player, his hands traveling aimlessly over the strings while he listened to the approaching footsteps. "Father," called the girl, "visitors!" "Eh? Eh?" answered the man. "Physicians, with medicines? Will they save her? Come in! Come in!" They filed slowly into the cabin wondering what sort of a person it was sitting in the darkness and calling for physicians. The girl struck a match and lighted two candles, and at least three of the visitors noticed that the candlesticks were of silver, tall and graceful in design, and as bright as rubbing could make them. The father like the daughter was tall and slender, with the same dark blue eyes, although his had a strange unseeing look in them. His hair was very thick and almost white, his frame spare to emaciation, but he carried himself erect and his shoulders were broad and well developed. "Make a fire, father," the girl ordered, and he obediently left the room, presently returning with an armful of wood. Oh, the joy of sinking to the floor in front of that warm blaze! Ben consulted with the girl at the door of the cabin, and the strange father, rubbing his hands and smiling absently, remarked with an accent that was very different from Mr. Lupo's or any of the natives thereabouts: "Not half bad, this fire, eh? Rather cheerful on a dull night." Presently his daughter began preparing supper on a little wood stove in the lean-to back of the house. Swiftly and silently, with Ben's assistance, she made coffee, scrambled eggs and fried bacon. "You may set the table," she said to Percy, pointing to some shelves at one end of the cabin.