They had walked not more than a quarter of a mile more when they came upon a stretch of road which was very muddy, with a piece of lowland bordering it. It was too dark to see clearly, but in the last remnant of daylight the boys could just distinguish a small, peculiar looking structure in the middle of this vast area. "That's a funny place to build a house," said Roy. "Maybe it's a fisherman's shack," Tom suggested. Whatever it was, it was a most isolated and lonesome habitation, standing in the centre of that desert flat, shut in by the precipitous hills. "It would be a good place for a hermit," said Roy. "You don't suppose anyone lives there, do you?" "Cracky, wouldn't you like to be a hermit! Do you know what I'd like to have now----" "An umbrella," interrupted Tom. The remark, notwithstanding that it shocked Pee-wee's sense of fitness, inasmuch as they were scouting and "roughing it," was not inappropriate, for even as Tom spoke the patter of great drops was heard. "Maybe it's been raining here this afternoon," observed Tom, "and that's what makes all this mud." "Well, it's certainly raining here now," said Roy. "Me for that shack!" The rain suddenly came down in torrents and the boys turned up their collars and made a dash across the marshy land toward the shadowy structure. Roy reached it first and, turning, called: "Hey, fellows, it's a boat!" The others, drenched, but laughing, followed him, scrambling upon the deck and over the combing into the cockpit of a dilapidated cabin launch. "What do you know about that!" said Roy. "Strike a light and let's see where we're at. I feel like a wet dish rag." Presently Pee-wee's flashlight was poking its bright shaft this way and that as they looked curiously about them. They were in a neglected and disheveled, but very cosy, little cabin with sleeping lockers on either side and chintz curtains at the tiny portholes. A two-cylinder engine, so rusted that the wheel wouldn't turn over and otherwise in a dubious condition, was ineffectually covered by a piece of stiff and rotten oil cloth, the floor was cluttered with junk, industrious spiders had woven their webs all about and a frantic scurrying sound told of the hurried departure of some little animal which had evidently made its home in the forsaken hull. "Oh, but this is great!" enthused Pee-wee. "This is the kind of an adventure you read about; _now_ our adventures have really started." "It'll be more to the purpose if we can get our supper really started," said Roy. "How do you suppose it got here?" Pee-wee asked. "That's easy," said Tom. "I didn't realize it before, but the tide must come up over the road sometimes and flood all this land here. That's what makes the road muddy. There must have been a good high tide some time or other, and it brought the boat right up over the road and here it is, marooned."