wait until you find out if your friend’s here.”

The girls thanked the old man for his kindly help and scrambled from the sled. They were sure their troubles were over, for they could see Salt Sommers seated at a table in the lighted tower.

A flight of steps led to a narrow catwalk which ran around three sides of the glass-enclosed house. Before Penny and Louise could hammer on the door Salt opened it.

“Well, see what the storm blew in!” the young man exclaimed. “I didn’t expect you girls to pop in on a night like this.”

“Salt, how soon will you be driving to Riverview?” Penny asked breathlessly.

“About twenty minutes. As soon as my relief shows up.”

“May we ride with you?”

“Why, sure.”

Penny called down from the catwalk to tell Old Henry he need not wait. With a friendly wave of his hand, the cabin owner drove away. The girls then followed Salt into the drafty tower room.

Curiously they gazed at their surroundings. In the center of the room stood a small coal stove. Above it a tacked sign admonished: “Keep this fire going!” There was a table, two chairs and a telephone. Also a round clock which indicated seven-forty.

Before Penny and Louise could explain why they had come, Salt held up a warning finger.

“Listen!” he exclaimed. “Wasn’t that a plane?”

He ran out on the catwalk, letting in an icy blast of wind. In a moment he came back, grinning sheepishly.

“A passenger airplane is due through here about this time. Sometimes I listen for it so hard I imagine the sound of the engine.”

“The job must get tiresome at times,” Penny ventured, making herself comfortable by the glowing stove.

“Oh, it does, but I’m glad to serve my trick. What brings you girls here on such a wild night?”

The story was quickly told. Nevertheless, by the time Penny had telephoned to Mrs. Weems, it was after eight o’clock. Footsteps pounded on the stairway. An elderly man, his hat and overcoat encrusted with snow, swept into the room.

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