"Your steamer--no!" half-sobbed Mabel. "Oh, it is awful! We have been
lost a long time--it seems a month, but of course it isn't. We can't
find our way out of this wilderness. It is a labyrinth, and we dare not
go far from this hut for fear we shall never find it again. It has been
terrible. But if you are lost you cannot help us. What shall we do?"

"Let us eat first," suggested Russ, practically. "You have some birds
there. I fancy you are as hungry as we are. We have some crackers and
coffee. We'll get up a meal and then decide what to do. Come, Paul, we're
the commissary department."

"Oh, but we must hear your story!" cried Ruth to the lost girls, after
she had presented Mrs. Maguire and the boys. "We read about you in the
paper, and we heard of you from the hotel clerk in Sycamore."

"There isn't much to tell," said Mabel. "We started off after wild
orchids. Well, we became lost, and in trying to find our way back we
wandered farther and farther into the swamp. We had our motor boat, as
you see, and quite a quantity of provisions, which was lucky for us. We
tried our best to get out, but could not.

"Finally we found this spot--the hut was already here, built by alligator
hunters, very likely. We appropriated it, and the small quantity of food
it contained. Since then we have lived on that and what we could shoot.
Fortunately game was plentiful, but we have so longed for some bread and
coffee. I am dying for a cup."

"Dinner will soon be served," laughed Russ, who, with Paul, was preparing
a rude meal, broiling the birds over a camp fire.