CHAPTER XIIIA SERIOUS ADVENTURE

On the next morning Grace and Percy were not allowed to lag over the breakfast dishes till all hours.

“This shall be no lazy girls’ camp,” declared Mrs. Havel. “The quicker you all get your tasks done, the better. Then you can have games, and go fishing, and otherwise enjoy yourselves.”

The fish-fry they had enjoyed at Cave-in-the-Wood Camp the evening before had given them all an appetite for more, and as Polly Jarley appeared early, according to promise, Wyn beganto bustle around and hunt out the fishing tackle.

There probably wasn’t a girl in the crowd who was afraid to put a worm on a hook, save Mina. She owned up to the fact that they made her “squirmy” and she hated to see live bait on a hook.

“But that’s what we have to use for lake fish–or river fish, either,” Wyn told her. “You’re not going to be much good to this fishing party.”

“I know it, Wynnie. And I sha’n’t go,” said the timid one. “Mrs. Havel is not going fishing, and I can stay with her.”

“You’ll have company,” snapped Bessie Lavine. “I’m sureI’mnot going,” and she said it with such a significant look at Polly Jarley, who had come ashore, that the boatman’s daughter, as well as the other girls, could not fail to understandwhyshe made the declaration.

“Why, Bess Lavine!” exclaimed Frankie, the outspoken.

Polly’s face had flushed deeply, then paled. Bess had avoided her before; but now she had come out openly with her animosity.

“Is your name Miss Lavine?” asked the boatman’s daughter, her voice quivering with emotion.

“What if it is?” snapped Bess.

“Then I guess I know why you speak to me so—”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Miss! I don’t care to speak to you,” said Bess.

“Nor do I care to have anything to do with you,” said Polly, plucking up a little spirit herself under this provocation. “You are Henry Lavine’s daughter. I am not surprised at your speech and actions. He has done all he could to hurt my father’s reputation for years–and you seem to be just like him.”

“Hurt your father’s reputation–Bosh!” cried Bess. “You can’t spoil a—”

But here Wyn Mallory came to the rescue.

“Stop, Bess! Don’t you pay any attention to what she says, Polly. If this quarrel goes on, Bess, I shall tell Mrs. Havel immediately. You come with us, Polly; if Bessie doesn’t wish to go fishing, she can remain at camp. Come, girls!”

Bess and Mina remained behind.

“I told you how ’twould be, Miss Wyn,” said Polly, her eyes bright and hard and the angry flush in her cheek making her handsomer than ever. “I shall only make trouble among your friends.”

“You don’t notice any of the rest of us running up the red flag; do you?” interposed Frank Cameron. “Bess’s crazy.”

“The Lavines have been our worst enemies–worse than Dr. Shelton,” said Polly, with half asob. “Mr. Lavine is up here at the lake in the spring and fall, usually, and he will always talk to anybody who will listen about his old trouble with father. And he is an influential man.”

“Don’t you cry a tear about it!” exclaimed Frank, wiping her own eyes angrily.

Wyn had put a comforting arm over the shoulder of the boatman’s daughter. “We’ll just forget it, my dear,” she said, gently.

But it was not so easy to forget–not so easy for Polly, at least, although the other girls treated her as nicely as they could. Her face remained sad, and she could not respond to their quips and sallies as the fleet of four canoes and Polly’s skiff got under weigh.

Polly pulled strongly along the shore in her light craft; but of course the canoes could have left her far behind had the girls so wished. Their guide warned them finally against loud talking and splashing, and soon they came to a quiet cove where the trees stood thickly along the lake shore, and the water was not much ruffled by the morning breeze.

Polly had brought the right kind of bait for perch, and most of the girls of the Go-Ahead Club had no difficulty in arranging their rods and lines and casting for the hungry fish. Perch, “shiners,” roaches, and an occasional “bullhead” began tocome into the canoes. These latter scared some of the girls; but they were better eating than any of the other fish and both Wyn and Frank, as well as Polly, knew how to take them off the hook without getting “horned.”

Polly did not remain with them more than an hour. She was sure the girls would get all the fish they would want right at this spot, and so, excusing herself, she rowed back to the landing.

“It’s a shame!” exclaimed Frank, the minute she was out of hearing. “I don’t see what possesses Bess to be so mean.”

“I am sorry,” rejoined Wyn. “Polly will not come to the camp again–I can see that.”

“A shame!” cried Percy. “And she seems such a nice girl.”

“Bessie ought to be strapped!” declared Frank.

“I am sure Polly seems just as good as we are,” Grace remarked. “I don’t see why Bess has to make herself so objectionable.”

“She should be punished for it,” declared Percy.

“Turn the tables on her,” suggested Frank. “If she will not have anything to do with Polly, let’s giveherthe cold shoulder.”

“No,” said Wyn, firmly. “That would beadding fuel to the flames–and would be unfair to Bess.”

“Well, Bess is unfair to your Polly Jolly,” said Frankie.

“Two wrongs never yet made a right,” said the captain of the Go-Ahead Club.

“Well!”

“Bessie is a member of our club. She has greater rights at Green Knoll Camp than Polly. It is true Polly will not come again, unless Bessie is more friendly. The thing, then is to convince Bess that she is wrong.”

“Well!” exclaimed Frank again. “I’d like to see you do it.”

“I hope you will see me,” returned Wyn, placidly. “Or, at least, I hope you will see Bessie’s mind changed, whether by my efforts, or not. Oh, dear! it’s so much easier to get along pleasantly in this world if folks only thought so. Query: Why is a grouch?”

Percy suddenly uttered a yell and almost plunged out of her canoe. She had whipped in her line and there was a small eel on the hook.

It is really wonderful what an excited eel can do in a canoe with a girl as his partner in crime! Mr. Eel tangled up Percy’s line in the first place until it seemed as though somebody must have been playing cat’s cradle with it.

Percy shrieked and finally bethought her to throw the whole thing overboard–tangled line, rod, and Mr. Eel. In his native element, the slippery chap in some mysterious way got off the hook; but the linen line was a mess, and that stopped the fishing for that morning.

They had a nice string, however, and when the odor of the frying fish on the outdoor fire began to spread about Green Knoll Camp, Frank declared:

“The angels flying overhead must stop to sniff–that smell is so heavenly!”

“Nonsense, child!” returned Grace. “That thing you see ’way up there isn’t an angel. It’s a fish-hawk.”

There were letters to take to the Forge that afternoon, and the girls all expected mail, too. But after the fishing bout, and the heavy dinner they ate, not many of the Go-Aheads cared to paddle to town.

“The duty devolves on your captain,” announced Wyn, good-naturedly. “Of course, if anybody else wants to go along—”

“Don’t all speak at once,” yawned Frank, and rolled over in the shade of the beech.

“It’s a shame! I’ll go with you,” said Bessie Lavine, getting up with alacrity.

“All right, Bess,” said Wyn, cheerfully. “I am glad to have you go.”

The other girls had been a little distant to Bess since their return from the fishing trip; but not Wyn. She had given no sign that she was annoyed by Bessie’s demeanor towards Polly Jarley.

Nor did she “preach” while she and Bess paddled to the Forge. That was not Wynifred Mallory’s way. She knew that, in this case, taking Bess to task for her treatment of Polly would do only harm.

Bess had probably offered to come with Wyn for the special purpose of finding opportunity to argue the case with the captain of the club. But Wyn gave her no opening.

The girls got to the Forge, did their errands, and started back in the canoes. Not until they got well out into the lake did they notice that there were angry clouds in the northwest. And very soon the sun became overcast, while the wind whipped down upon them sharply.

“Oh, dear, me!” cried Bess. “Had we better turn back, Wyn?”

“We’re about as far from the Forge as we are from Green Knoll Camp,” declared the other girl.

“Then let’s run ashore—”

But they had struck right out into the lake from the landing, and it was a long way to land–evento the nearest point. While they were discussing the advisability of changing their course, there came a lull in the wind.

“Maybe we’ll get home all right!” cried Bess, and the two bent to their paddles again, driving the canoes toward distant Green Knoll.

And almost at once–her words had scarcely passed–the wind whipped down upon them from a different direction. The surface of the lake was agitated angrily, and in a minute the two girls were in the midst of a whirlpool of jumping waves.

In ordinary water the canoes were safe enough. But when Bess tried to paddle, a wave caught the blade and whirled the canoe around. She was up-set before she could scream.

And in striving to drive her own craft to her friend’s assistance, Wyn Mallory was caught likewise in a flaw, and she, too, plunged into the lake, while both canoes floated bottom upward.

Wyn Mallory was a pretty cool-headed girl; nor was this the first time she had been in an accident of this nature.

Naturally, in learning to handle the light cedar craft as expertly as they did, the members of the Go-Ahead Club had much experience. While the weather was good the girls plied their paddles up and down the Wintinooski, but seldom was the river as rough as this open lake in which Wyn and Bessie Lavine had been so unexpectedly overturned.

“Oh! am I not the unluckiest girl that–that ever happened?” wailed Bess, when she came up puffing.

“N-o-no more thanI, Bess,” stammered Wyn.

“Get your canoe, Wyn!” cried Bess.

“Oh, yes; but we can’t turn them over in this sea. Oh! isn’t that horrid!” as another miniature wave slapped the captain of the club in the face and rolled her companion completely over.

Bess lost her grip on her canoe. The latter floated beyond her reach while Wyn was striving to get her friend to the surface again.

“Why! we’re going to be drowned!” shrieked Bess, suddenly horror-stricken.

“Don’t youdarelose your nerve,” commanded Wynifred. “If we lose courage we certainly will be lost.”

“Oh, but, Wyn—”

“Oh, but, Bess! Don’t you dare. Here! get hold of the keel of my canoe.”

“But it won’t bear us both up,” groaned Bessie Lavine.

“It’s got to,” declared Wyn. “Have courage; don’t be afraid.”

“You needn’t try to tell me you’re not afraid yourself, Wyn Mallory!” chattered her friend.

“Of course I am, dear; but I mean, don’t lose your head because youareafraid,” said Wyn. “Come, now! Paddle with one hand and cling to the keel with the other. I’ll do the same.”

“Oh, dear, me! if we were only not so far from the shore,” groaned Bess.

“Somebody may see us and come to our help,” said Wyn, with more confidence in her tone than she really felt.

“The canoes couldn’t live in this gale.”

“It’s only a squall.”

“That’s all very well; but they wouldn’t dare to start out for us from Green Knoll.”

“But the boys—”

“Their camp isn’t in sight of this place, Wyn,” moaned Bess. “Oh! wewillbe drowned.”

But Wyn had another hope. She remembered, just before the overturn, that she had caught a glimpse of the red and yellow cottage behind Jarley’s Landing.

“Oh, Bess!” she gasped. “Perhaps Mr. Jarley will see us. Perhaps Polly—”

Another slapping wave came and rolled them and the canoe over. The frail craft came keel up, level full of water. The least weight upon it now would send it to the bottom of the lake.

“Oh, oh!” shrieked Bess, when she found her voice. “What shall we do now?”

They could both swim; but the lake was rough. The sudden and spiteful squall had torn up the surface for many yards around. Yet, as they rose upon one of the waves, they saw the sun shining boldly in the westward. The squall was scurrying away.

“Come on! we’ve got to swim,” urged Wyn.

“That’s so hard,” wailed Bess, but striking out, nevertheless, in the way she had been so well taught by the instructor in Denton. All these girls had been trained in the public school baths.

THEY COULD BOTH SWIM, BUT THE LAKE WAS ROUGH.Page 146.

THEY COULD BOTH SWIM, BUT THE LAKE WAS ROUGH.Page 146.

“There’s the other canoe,” said Wyn, hopefully.

“But we–we don’t want to go that way,” gasped Bess. “It’s away from land.”

Now Wyn knew very well that they had scarcely a chance of swimming to the distant shore. In ordinarily calm weather–yes; but in this rough sea, and hampered as they were by their bloomers and other clothing–no.

The two girls swam close together, but Wyn dared not offer her comrade help. She wanted to, but she feared that if she did so Bess would break down and become helpless entirely; and Wyn hoped they would get much farther inshore before that happened.

The squall had quite gone over and the sun began to shine. It seemed a cruel thing–to drown out there in the sunlight. And yet the buffeting little waves, kicked up by the wind-flaw, were so hard to swim through.

Had the waves been of a really serious size the struggle would have been less difficult for the two girls. They could have ridden over the big waves and managed to keep their heads above water; but every once in a while a cross wavelet would slap their faces, and every time one did so Bess managed to get a mouthful of water.

“Oh! what will papa do?” moaned Bess.

And Wyn knew what the poor girl meant. She was her father’s close companion and chum. The other girls in the Lavine family were smaller and their mother was devoted to them; but Bess and Mr. Lavine were pals all the time.

Bess repeated this exclamation over and over again, until Wyn thought she should shriek in nervous despair. She realized quite fully that their chance for life was very slim indeed; but moaning and groaning about it would not benefit them or change the situation in the slightest degree.

Wyn kept her head and saved her breath for work. She raised up now and then, breast high in the water, and tried to scan the shore.

Suddenly the sun revealed Green Knoll Camp to her–bathing the little hillock, with the tents upon it, in the full strength of his rays. But it was quite two miles away.

Wyn could see no moving figures upon the knoll. Nor could her friends see her and Bess struggling in the water at that distance. If their overset had not been sighted, Mrs. Havel and the four other members of the Go-Ahead Club would not be aware of their peril.

And, Wyn believed, the swamping of the canoes could only have been observed through a glass.Had anybody along shore been watching the two canoes as the squall struck the craft and overset them?

In that possibility, she thought, lay their only hope of rescue.

As the squall threatened in the northwest, it had been observed by many on the shores of Lake Honotonka–and many on the lake itself, as well. Sailing craft had run for havens. The lake could be nasty at times and there might be more than a capful of wind in the black cloud that spread so quickly over a sky that had–an hour before–been of azure.

Had the two girls from Green Knoll Camp been observed by the watermen as they embarked in their canoes at Meade’s Forge, they might have been warned against venturing far from the shore in those cockleshells. But Wynifred and Bessie had not been observed, so were not warned.

The squall had come down so quickly that they were not much to be blamed. It had startled other people on the lake–and those much more used to its vagaries.

In a cove on the north shore a small cat-rigged boat had been drifting since noon-time, its single occupant having found the fishing very good. Thisfisher was the boatman’s daughter, Polly Jarley.

She had now a splendid catch and she knew that, if the wind held true, a sharp run to the westward would bring her to Braisely Park. At some one of the private landings there her fish would be welcomed–she could get more for them than she could at the Forge, which was nearer.

But the squall gathered so fast that she had to put aside the thought of the run down the lake. The wind would switch about, too, after the squall. That was a foregone conclusion.

She waited until the blow was past and then saw that it would be quite impossible to make the park that afternoon and return to the landing in time for tea. And if she was later her father would be worried.

Mr. Jarley did not like to have his girl go out this way and work all day; but there seemed nothing else to be done this summer. They owed so much at the stores at the Forge; and the principal and interest on the chattel mortgage must be found before New Year or they would lose their fleet of boats. And as yet few campers had come to the lake who wished to hire Mr. Jarley’s boats.

So by fishing (and none of the old fellows who had fished Honotonka for years was wiser about the good fishing places than Polly) the girl added from one to two dollars every favorableday to the family income. Sometimes she was off by light in one boat or another; but she did not often come to this northern side of the lake. This cove was at least ten miles from home.

As the last breath of the squall passed, the wind veered as she had expected, and Polly, having reeled in her two lines and unjointed the bamboo poles, stowed everything neatly, raised the anchor, or kedge, and set a hand’s breadth of the big sail.

The canvas filled, and with the sheet in one hand and the other on the arm of the tiller, the girl steered the catboat out of the cove and into the rumpus kicked up by the passing squall.

The girls of the Go-Ahead Club would surely have been frightened had they been aboard the littleCoquette, as the catboat was named. She rocked and jumped, and the spume flew over her gunwale in an intermittent shower. But in this sea, which so easily swamped the canoes, the catboat was as safe as a house.

Polly was used to much rougher weather than this. In the summer Lake Honotonka was on its best behavior. At other seasons the tempests tore down from the north and west and sometimes made the lake so terrible in appearance that even the hardiest bateau man in those parts would not risk himself in a boat.

Polly knew, however, that the worst of thesquall was over. The lake would gradually subside to its former calm. And the change in the wind was favorable now to a quick passage either to the Forge or to her father’s tiny landing.

“Can’t get any fancy price for the fish at Meade’s,” thought Polly. “I have a good mind to put them in our trap and try again for Braisely Park to-morrow morning.”

As she spoke she was running outside the horns of the cove. She could get a clear sweep now of the lake–as far as it could be viewed from the low eminence of the boat–and she rose up to see it.

“Nobody out but I,” she thought. “Ah! all those folk at the end of the lake ran in when the squall appeared. And the girls and boys over yonder—”

She was peering now across the lake ahead of theCoquette’snose, toward the little island where was Cave-in-the-Wood Camp, and at Green Knoll Camp, where the girls from Denton were staying.

Her face fell as she focused her gaze upon the bit of high, green bank on which the sun was now shining again so brilliantly. She remembered how badly she had been treated by Bess Lavine only that morning.

“I can’t go over there any more,” she muttered. “That girl will never forget–or let the othersforget–that father has been accused of being a thief. It’s a shame! A hateful shame! And we’re every bit as good as she is—”

Her gaze dropped to the tumbling wavelets between her and the distant green hillock. She was about to resume her seat and catch the tiller, which she had held steady with her knee.

But now her breath left her and for a moment she stood motionless–only giving to the plunge and jump of theCoquettethrough the choppy waves.

“Ah!” she exclaimed again, after a little intake of breath.

There were two round objects rising and falling in the rough water–and far ahead. They looked like cocoanuts.

But a little to one side was a long, black something–a stick of timber drifting on the current? No!An overturned boat.

There was no mistaking the cocoanut-like objects. They were human heads. Two capsized people were struggling in the lake.

Polly, in thirty seconds, was keenly alive to what she must do. There was no time lost in bewailing the catastrophe, or wondering about the identity of the castaways.

Who or whatever they were they must be saved. There was not another boat on the lake. And theswimmers were too far from land to be observed under any conditions.

The wind was strong and steady. The wavelets were still choppy, but Polly Jarley never thought of a wetting.

Up went the sail–up, up, up until the unhelmed catboat lay over almost on beam ends. The girl took a sailor’s turn of the sheet around the cleat and then swung all her weight against the tiller, to bring the boat’s head up. She held the sheet ready to let go if a warning creak from the mast should sound, or the boat refuse to respond.

But in half a minute theCoquetterighted. It had been a perilous chance–she might have torn the stick out. The immediate peril was past, however. The great canvas filled. Away shot the sprightlyCoquettewith the wind–a bone in her teeth.

Now and then she dipped and the spume flew high, drenching Polly. The boatman’s daughter was not dressed for this rough work, for she was hatless and wore merely a blouse and old skirt for outside garments. She had pulled off her shoes and stockings while she fished and had not had time to put them on again.

So the flying spray wet her through. She dodged occasionally to protect her eyes from the spoondrift which slatted so sharply across the deck andinto the cockpit. The water gathered in the bottom of the old boat and was soon ankle-deep.

But Polly knew the craft was tight and that this water could be bailed out again when she had time. Just now her mind and gaze were fixed mainly upon the round, bobbing objects ahead.

For some minutes, although the catboat was traveling about as fast as Polly had ever sailed, save in a power boat, the girl could not be sure whether the swamped voyagers were girls or boys. It might be two of the Busters, from Gannet Island, for all she knew. She had made up her mind that the victims of the accident were from one camp or the other. There were no other campers as yet on the shore at this end of the lake.

Then Polly realized that the heads belonged to girls. She could see the braids floating out behind. And she knew that they were fighting for their lives.

They swam near together; once one of them raised up breast high in the water, as though looking shoreward. But neither turned back to see if help was coming from behind.

With both hands engaged with sheet and tiller Polly could not make a megaphone to carry her voice; but several times she shouted as loud as she could:

“Ahoy! Hold on! I’m coming!”

Her voice seemed flung right back into her face–drowned by the slatting spray. How viciously that water stung!

TheCoquettewas traveling at racing speed; but would she be in time?

How long could those two girls bear up in the choppy sea?

One of the heads suddenly disappeared. Polly shrieked; but she could do nothing to aid.

The spray filled her eyes again and, when she had shaken them free, Polly saw that the other swimmer–the stronger one–had gotten her comrade above the surface once more.

Indeed, this one was swimming on her back and holding up the girl who had gone under. How brave she was!

The sun shone clear upon the two in the water and Polly recognized Wynifred Mallory.

“Wyn! Wynnie! Hold to her! Hold up!” cried the boatman’s daughter. “I’ll help you!”

But she was still so far away–it seemed as though the catboat neverwouldcome within hailing distance. But before she turned over in the water to swim with Bessie’s hand upon her shoulder, the captain of the Go-Ahead Club beheld the catboat rushing down upon them.

She could only wave a beckoning hand. She could not cry out. Wyn was well-nigh breathless,and Bessie’s only hope was in her. The captain of the canoe club had to save her strength.

Down swooped the catboat. Polly was shouting madly; but not for an instant did she lose control of the boat or ignore the work she had in hand. She wanted to encourage Wyn and the other; but she was taking no chances.

Suddenly she let the sheet run and loosed the halliards. The canvas fluttered down on the deck with a rustle and crash. The catboat sprang to even keel, but shot on under the momentum it had gained in swooping down upon the swamped girls.

“Wyn! hold hard!I’ve got you!”

But it was the other girl Polly grasped. Wyn had turned, thrust the half-drowned Bessie before her, and Polly, leaning over the gunwale of the tossing boat, seized her by the shoulders.

In a moment she heaved up, struggled, dragged the other girl forward, and together rescuer and rescued tumbled flat into the cockpit of theCoquette.

Polly shouted again:

“Wyn! Wyn! I’ll come back for you—”

“Give me a hand!” cried Wyn, hanging to the rudder. “Polly! you old darling! If you hadn’t got here when you did—”

Polly left Bess to her own resources and rushed to the stern. She helped Wyn clamber into theboat. Then she hoisted the sail again, and got way upon the boat. She raised the canvas only a little, for she had risked all the weight she dared upon the mast before.

“Are you all right, Bess?” cried Wyn.

“I–I’m alive. But, oh! I’m so–so sick,” gasped Miss Lavine.

“Brace up, Bess! We’re all right now. Polly has saved us.”

“Polly?” cried Bess, sitting up, the better to see the boatman’s daughter as the latter sat again at the helm. “Oh, Polly!”

“You’d better both lie down till we get to the camp. I’ll take you right there,” said the other girl, briefly.

“We’d have been–been drowned, Wyn!” gasped Bess.

“I guess we would. We are still a long way from shore.”

“And Polly saved us? All alone? How wonderful!”

But Polly’s face was stern. She scarcely spoke to the two Denton girls as theCoquetteswept across the lake. Wyn told her just how it all happened and the condition of the two canoes when they lost sight of them.

“I saw one; maybe the other can be found,” Polly said. “I’ll speak to father and, if the mooncomes up clear bye and bye, we’ll run out and see if we can recover them.”

But for Bess she had no word, or look, and when the other put out her hand timidly and tried to thank her, as they neared the shore, Polly only said:

“That’s all right. We’re used to helping people who get overturned. It really is nothing.”

She would not see Bessie’s hand. The latter felt the repulse and Wyn, who watched them both anxiously, dared not say a word.

The other girls and Mrs. Havel were all down on the beach to meet the catboat and her passengers. To see Wyn and Bessie returning across the lake in the sailboat, instead of the canoes, forewarned the Go-Aheads that an accident had happened.

But although the girls were wet and bedraggled, the captain of the club made light of the affair.

“Where are your canoes?”

“What’s happened?”

“Who is it with you?”

“What under the sun did you do–go overboard?”

Wyn answered all questions in a single sentence:

“We were capsized and lost the letters and things; but Polly picked us up and brought us home.”

Then, amid the excited cries and congratulations, her voice rose again:

“Isn’t she brave? What do you think of my Polly Jollynow? Can you blame me for being proud of her?”

“I tell you wh–what she is!” gasped Bessie. “She’s the bravest and smartest girl I ever heard of.”

“Good for you, Bess!” shouted Frank Cameron, helping the castaways ashore. “You’re coming to your senses.”

“And–and I’m sorry,” blurted out Bess, “that I ever treated her so—”

Polly shoved off the catboat and proceeded to get under way again.

“Oh,docome ashore, Polly!” begged Grace.

“I want to hug you, Miss Jarley!” cried Percy.

“What? All wet as I am now?” returned the boatman’s daughter, laughing–although the laugh was not a pleasant one. “You make too much of this matter. We’re used to oversets on the lake. It is nothing.”

“You do not call saving two girls’ livesnothing, my dear–surely?” proposed Mrs. Havel.

“If I saved them, I am very, very glad of it,” returned Polly, gravely. “Anybody would be glad ofthat, of course, But you are making too much of it—”

“My father will not think so!” exclaimed thealmost hysterical Bess. “When he learns of this he will not be able to do enough for you—”

“Your father can do nothing for me, Bessie Lavine!” cried the boatman’s daughter, with sharpness.

“Oh, Polly!” said Wyn, holding out her arms to her.

“He’ll–he’llwantto,” pursued Bess, eagerly. “Oh! he will! He’d do anything for you now—”

“There’s only one thing Henry Lavine can do for me,” cried Polly, turning an angry face now toward the shore. “He can stop telling stories about my father. He can be kind to him–be decent to him. I don’t want anything else–and I don’t want that as pay for fishing you out of the lake!”

She had got the sail up again and now the breeze filled it. TheCoquettelaid over and slipped away from the shore. Her last words had silenced all the girls–even Mrs. Havel herself.

Bess burst into tears. She was quite broken down, and Wyn went off with her to the tent, her arm over her shoulder, and whispering to her comfortingly.

“I don’t care. Polly’s served her right,” declared Frank Cameron.

“I do not know that Polly can be blamed,” Mrs. Havel observed. “But–but I wish she was more forgiving. It is not for herself that she speaks, however. It is for her father.”

“And I’ll wager he’s just as nice a man as ever was,” declared Frank. “I’m going to askmyfather if he will not do something for Mr. Jarley.”

“Do so, Frances,” advised the chaperon. “I think you will do well.”

The accident cast a cloud over Green Knoll Camp for the evening. The girls who had been swamped went to bed and were dosed with hot drinks brewed over the campfire by Mrs. Havel. And when the boys came over in their fleet for an evening sing and frolic, they were sent back again to the island almost at once.

The boys did not take altogether kindly to this rebuff, and Tubby was heard to say:

“Isn’t that just like girls? Because they got a little wet they must go to bed and take catnip tea, or something, and be quiet. Their nerves are all unstrung! Gee! wouldn’t that make your ears buzz?”

“Aw, you’re a doubting Thomas and always will be, Tub,” said Ferd Roberts. “You never believe what you’re told. You’re as suspicious as the farmer who went to town and boughta pair of shoes, and when he’d paid for ’em the clerk says:

“‘Now, sir, can’t I sell you a pair of shoe trees?’

“‘Don’t you get fresh with me, sonny,’ says the farmer, his whiskers bristling. ‘I don’t believe shoes kin be raised on trees any more ’n I believe rubbers grow on rubber trees, or oysters on oyster plants, b’gosh!’”

“Well,” snarled the fat youth, as the other Busters laughed, “the girls are always making excuses. You can never tell what a girl means, anyway–not by what shesays.”

“You know speech was given us to hide our thoughts,” laughed Dave.

“Say! I’ll get square just the same–paddlin’ clear over here for nothing. Humph! I know that Hedges girl is afraid there’s bears in the woods? Say, fellers! I’vegotit! Yes, I’ve got it!”

When Tubby spoke in this way, and his eyes snapped and he began to look eager, his mates knew that the fat youth’s gigantic mind was working overtime, and they immediately gathered around and stopped paddling.

As Dave said, chuckling, a little later, “trouble was bruin!”

In the morning the girls found the two lostcanoes on the shore below the camp. Polly and her father had evidently gone out in the evening, after the moon rose, and recovered them. Neither, of course, was damaged.

“And we must do something nice to pay them for it!” cried Grace.

Bessie was still deeply concerned over Polly’s attitude.

“I am going to write father at once, and tell him all about it,” she said. “And Iamsorry for the way I treated Polly at first. Do you suppose she will ever forgive me, Wyn?”

Just as Wyn had once said in discussing Bessie’s character: when the latter realized that she was in the wrong, or had been unfair to anyone, she was never afraid to admit her fault and try to “make it up.” But this seemed to be a case where it was very difficult for Bessie to “square herself.”

The boatman’s daughter had shown herself unwilling to be friendly with Bess. Nor was Polly, perhaps, to be blamed.

However, on this particular morning the girls of Green Knoll Camp had something besides Bessie’s disturbance of mind and Polly Jarley’s attitude to think about.

And this “something” came upon them with a suddenness that set the entire camp in an uproar.Grace, the dilatory, was picking berries before breakfast along the edge of the clearing, and popping them into her mouth as fast as she could find ripe ones.

“Come here and help, Grace!” called Percy from the tent where she was shaking out the heavy blankets. “I’m not going to do all my work and yours, too.”

“You come and helpme. It’s more fun,” returned Grace, laughing at her.

Then the lazy girl turned and reached for a particularly juicy blackberry, in the clump ahead of her. Percy saw her struck motionless for a second, or two; then the big girl fairly fell backward, rolled over, picked herself up, and raced back to the tents, her mouth wide open and her hair streaming in the wind.

“Whatisthe matter?” gasped Percy.

“Oh, Grace! you look dreadful! Tell us, what has happened!” begged Bessie, as the big girl sank down by the entrance to the tent, her limbs too weak to bear her farther.

“What has scared you so, Grace?” demanded Wyn, running up.

Grace’s eyes rolled, she shut and opened her mouth again several times. Then she was only able to gasp out the one word:

“Bear!”

The other girls came crowding around. “What do you mean, Grace?” “Stop trying to scare us, Grace!” “She’s fooling,” were some of the cries they uttered.

But Wyn saw that her friend was really frightened; she was not “putting it on.”

“You don’t mean that it was arealbear?” cried Frank Cameron.

“A bear, I tell you!” moaned Grace, rocking herself to and fro. “I told you they were here in the woods.”

“Oh, dear me!” screamed Mina. “What shall we do?”

“You didn’tseeit, Grace?” demanded Wyn, sternly. “You only heard it.”

“I saw it, I tell you!”

“Not really?”

“Do–do you think I don’t know a bear when I see one?” demanded Grace. “He–he’ll be right after us—”

“No. If it was a real, wild bear he would be just as scared at seeing you as you would be at seeing him,” remarked the decidedly sensible captain.

“He–hecouldn’tbe as scared as I am,” moaned Grace, with considerable emphasis.

“I don’t believe there’s a bear within miles and miles of here!” declared Frank.

“Well! I declare I hope there isn’t,” cried Bess.

“I’ll look,” offered Wyn. “Grace just thought she saw something.”

“A great, black and brown hairy beast!” moaned Grace. “He stood right up on his hind legs and stretched out his arms to me—”

“Enamored of all your young charms,” giggled Frank.

“It’s no joke!” gasped the frightened one.

“Itmightbe a bear, you know,” quavered Mina.

The breakfast was being neglected. Mrs. Havel was down at the edge of the lake washing out some bits of lace. She had not heard the rumpus.

“I’m going to see,” announced Frank, and ran back over the course Grace had come.

She reached the berry bushes. She parted them and peered through. She began to enter the jungle, indeed, in search of bruin.

And then the girls all heard a sort of snuffling growl–just the sort of a noise theythoughta bear must make. Frank jumped out of those bushes as though they had become suddenly afire!

“Wha–what did I tell you?” screamed Grace.

“He’s there!” groaned Mina.

Then suddenly a dark object appeared among the saplings and underbrush.

“Look out, Frank! Run!” cried the other girls, in chorus; but Miss Cameron needed no urging; she ran with all her might!

But instead of returning toward the tents she ran straight across the clearing. Possibly she did not stop to think where she was going, for she came against the underbrush again and that terrific growl was once more repeated.

Frankie stopped as though she had been shot. Right in front of her loomed a second black, hairy figure.

She glared around wildly. At the back of the clearing was the opening into the wood path leading from Windmill Farm down to the boat-landing at John Jarley’s place. And in that opening, and for an instant, appeared likewise a threatening form!

“Come here! Come here, Frank!” shrieked Bess. “There’s another of them–we’re surrounded.”

The Cameron girl started again, and let out the last link of speed that there was in her. She ran straight down to the shore where Mrs. Haveljust aroused by the shrieks, was starting to return to camp.

The other girls piled after her. But Wyn brought up the rear. She looked around now and then. Three bears! In a place where no bears had been seen for years and years! Wyn was puzzled.

“There are bears in the woods, Mrs. Havel!” gasped Grace.

“Nonsense, child!”

“I saw ’em. One almost grabbed me,” declared the big girl.

“AndIsaw them, Auntie,” urged Percy Havel.

“This way! this way!” cried Frank, running along the shore under the high knoll on which the camp was pitched. “They can’t see us down here.”

Mrs. Havel was urged along by her niece and Grace. Wyn brought up the rear. Oddly enough, none of the bears came out of the bushes–that she could see.

The girls plunged along the sand, and through the shallow water for several yards. Here the bushes grew right down to the edge of the lake. Suddenly Wyn caught sight of something ahead, and uttered a sharp command:

“Stop! every one of you! Do you hear me, Frank? Stop!”

“Oh, dear! they can eat us here just as well as anywhere,” groaned Grace.

“Now be quiet!” said Wynifred, in some heat. “We’ve all been foolish enough.Those were not bears.”

“Cows, maybe, Wynnie?” asked Mrs. Havel. “But I am quite as afraid of cows—”

“Nor cows, either. I guess you wouldn’t have been fooled for a minute if you had seen them,” said Wyn.

“What do you mean, Wyn?” cried Frank. “I tell you I saw them with my own eyes—”

“Of course you did. So did I,” admitted Wyn. “But we did not see them right. They are not bears, walking on their hind legs; they are just boys walking on the only legs they’ve got!”

“The Busters!” ejaculated Frank.

“Oh, Wyn! do you think so?” asked Mina, hopefully.

“Look ahead,” commanded Wyn. “There are the boys’ canoes. They paddled over here this morning and dressed up in those old moth-eaten buffalo robes they had over there, on the island, and managed to frighten us nicely.”

“That’s it! They played a joke on us,” began Frank, laughing.

But Mrs. Havel was angry. “They should besent home for playing such a trick,” she said, “and I shall speak to Professor Skillings about it.”

“Pooh!” said Wyn. “They’re only boys. And of course they’ll be up to such tricks. The thing to do is to go them one better.”

“How, Wyn, how?” cried her mates.

“I do not know that I can allow this, Wynifred,” began Mrs. Havel, doubtfully.

“You wish to punish them; don’t you, Mrs. Havel?”

“They should be punished–yes.”

“Then we have the chance,” cried Wyn, gleefully. “You go back to the camp, Mrs. Havel, and we girls will take their canoes–every one of them. We’ll call them the trophies of war, and we’ll make the Busters pay–and pay well for them–before they get their canoes back. What do you say, girls?”

“Splendid!” cried Frank. “And they frightened me so!”

“Look out for the biscuits, Mrs. Havel, please,” begged Bess. “I am afraid they will be burned.”

The lady returned hurriedly to the camp on the top of the hillock. When she mounted the rise from the shore, there was a circle of giggling youths about the open fireplace and a pile of moth-eaten buffalo hides near by. Dave was messingwith the Dutch oven in which Bess had just before put the pan of biscuit for breakfast.

“Ho, ho!” cried Tubby. “Where are the girls?”

“Bear hunting, I bet!” cried Ferd Roberts.

“Good-morning, Mrs. Havel,” said Dave, smiling rather sheepishly. “I hope we didn’t scareyou.”

“You rather startled me–coming unannounced,” admitted Mrs. Havel, but smiling quietly. “You surely have not breakfasted so early?”

“No. That’s part of the game,” declared another youth. “We claim forfeit–and in this case take payment in eats.”

“I am afraid you are more slangy than understandable,” returned Mrs. Havel. “Did you come for something particular?”

“Goodness! didn’t you see those girls running?” cried Ferd.

“Running? Where to?” queried the chaperone.

Dave began to look more serious.

“Perhaps they are running yet!” squealed Tubby, only seeing the fun of it.

“Bet they’ve gone for help to hunt the bears,” laughed another of the reckless youngsters.

“They’ll get out the whole countryside to find’em,” choked Ferdinand Roberts. “That’stoorich.”

“Are you sure the girls didn’t come your way, Mrs. Havel?” asked Dave, with anxiety.

“Oh, the girls will be back presently. I came up to see to the biscuit, Mr. Shepard. About inviting you to breakfast–You know, I am only a guest of Green Knoll Camp myself. I couldn’t invite you,” said Mrs. Havel, demurely.

The boys looked at each other in some surprise and Tubby’s face fell woefully.

“Ca-can’t we do something to help you get breakfast, Mrs. Havel?”

Mrs. Havel had to hide a smile at that, but she remained obdurate. “I have really nothing to do with it, Sir Tubby. You must wait for the girls to come,” she said.

The boys began whispering together; but they did not move. They had scuttled over from their own camp early with the express intention of “getting one” on the girls, and making a breakfast out of it. But now the accomplishment of their purpose seemed doubtful, and there was a hollow look about them all that should have made Mrs. Havel pity them.

That lady, however, remembered vividly how she had run along the shore in fear of a flockof bears; this was a part of the boys’ punishment for that ill-begotten joke.

The biscuit were beginning to brown, the coffee sent off a delicious odor, and here were eggs ready to drop into the kettle of boiling water for their four-minute submersion. Besides, there was mush and milk. Every minute the boys became hungrier.

“Aren’t the girls ever coming?” sighed Tubby. “Theycouldn’tbe so heartless.”

“They haven’t gone far; have they?” queried Dave Shepard. “We saw their canoes on the beach.”

Just then the laughter of the girls in the distance broke upon the ears of those on the hillock. They were approaching along the shore–apparently from the direction of Jarley’s landing.

“They don’t seem to have been much scared, after all,” grumbled Tubby to Ferd.

“It was a silly thing to do, anyway,” returned young Roberts. “Suppose we don’t get any breakfast?”

At this horrid thought the fat youth almost fainted. The girls came in sight, and at once hailed the boys gaily:

“Oh! see who’s here!” cried Frank. “What a lovely surprise!”

“Isn’t it?” said Bess, but with rather a vicioussnap. “We couldn’t get along, of course, without having a parcel of boys around. ’Morning, Mr. Shepard.”

Bess made a difference between Dave and the rest of the Busters, for Dave had helped her in a serious difficulty.

“Where’s the professor?” demanded Grace. “Isn’t he here, too?”

“He’s having breakfast all by his lonesome over on the island,” said Ferd, and Tubby groaned at the word “breakfast,” while Dave added:

“We–we got a dreadfully early start this morning.”

“Quite a start–I should say,” returned Wyn, smiling broadly. “And now you’re hungry, I suppose?”

“Oh, aren’t we, just?” cried one of the crowd, hollowly.

“How about it, Bess? Is there enough for so many more?”

Bess was already sifting flour for more biscuit. She said: “I’ll have another panful in a jiffy. Put in the eggs, Mina. We can make a beginning.”

“There’s plenty of mush,” said Mina. “That’s one sure thing.”

“But we can’t all sit down,” cried Grace.

“You know, there are but six of these foldingseats, and Wyn’s been sitting on a cracker box ever since we set up the tents.”

“Feed ’em where they’re sitting,” said Wyn, quickly. “Beggars mustn’t be choosers.”

“Jinks! we didn’t treat you like this when you came over to our camp,” cried Ferd.

“And we didn’t come over almost before you were up in the morning,” responded Frank, quickly. “How did you know we had made our ‘twilights’ at such an unconscionable hour?”

The girls were all laughing a good deal. Nobody said a word about the “bear” fright, and the boys felt a little diffidence about broaching the subject. Evidently their joke had fallen flat.

But the girls really had no intention of being mean to the six Busters. The first pan of biscuit came out of the oven a golden brown. Grace and Percy set them and the bowls of mush on the table, and handed around other bowls and a pitcher of milk to the circle of boys, sitting cross-legged on the ground like so many tailors.

There was honey for the biscuits, too, as well as golden butter–both from Windmill Farm. The eggs were cooked just right, and there were plenty of them. Crisp radishes and sliced cucumbers and tomatoes added to the fare.

“Gee!” sighed Tubby, “doesn’t it take girlsto liverightin camp? And look at those doughnuts.”

“I fried them,” cried Mina, proudly. “Mrs. Havel showed me how, though.”

“Mrs. Havel, come over to Gannet Island and teach us how to cook,” cried Dave. “We don’t have anything like this.”

“Not a sweetie except what we buy at the Forge–and that’s baker’s stuff,” complained Tubby.

“Don’t you think you boys had better be pretty good to us–if you want to come to tea–or breakfast–once in a while?” asked Wyn, pointedly.

“Right!” declared Dave.

“Got us there,” admitted Ferdinand.

“I’llsee that they behave themselves, Wyn,” cried Tubby, with great enthusiasm. “These fellows are too fresh, anyway—”

But at this the other boys rose up in their might and pitched upon Master Blaisdell, rolling him over and over on the grass and making him lose half of his last doughnut.

“Now, now, now!” cried Mrs. Havel. “This is no bear-garden. Try to behave.”

The boys began to laugh uproariously at this. “What doyouknow about a bear-garden, Grace?” Ferd demanded.

“And wasn’t that growling of Dave’s awe-inspiring?” cried another.

“And weren’tyouscared, Frank Cameron?” suggested Tubby, grinning hugely when his mates had let him up. “I never did know you could run so fast.”

“Why, pshaw!” responded Frank. “Did you boys really think you had scared us with those moth-eaten old robes?”

“How ridiculous!” chimed in Bess. “A boy is usually a good deal of a bear, I know; but he doesn’tlooklike one.”

“And–and there haven’t been any bears in this country for–for years,” said Grace, though rather quaveringly.

“Say! what do you know about all this?” demanded Dave, of his mates.

“Do you girls mean to say that you weren’t scared pretty near into fits?” cried one lad.

“Did we act scared?” laughed Wyn. “I guess we fooled you a little, eh?”

“You’re just as much mistaken,” said Frank, “as the red-headed man was who went to see the doctor because he had indigestion. When the doctor told him to diet, it wasn’t his hair he meant; but the red-headed man got mad just the same. Now, you boys—”

“Aw, come! come!” cried Dave. “You can’t say honestly you were not scared. You know you were.”

“I am afraid your joke fell flat, Davie,” laughed Wyn. All the girls were enjoying the boys’ discomfiture. “Of course, I suppose you thought you deserved your breakfast as a forfeit because you got a trick across on us. But you’ll have to try again, I am afraid. Just because we ran doesn’t prove that we did not recognize the combination of a boy and a buffalo robe.”

“Aw, now!” cried one of the boys. “What did you run for?”

“There’s a reason,” laughed Percy.

“Wait!” advised Frank, shaking her head and her own eyes dancing. “You will find out soon enough why we ran.”

“‘He laughs best who laughs last,’” quoted Grace. “Bears, indeed!”

The boys were puzzled. Breakfast being over the girls went about their several tasks and paid their friends of the opposite sex very little attention. To all suggestions that they get out the canoes and go across to the island with the boys, or on other junkets, the girls responded with refusals. They evidently thought they had something like a joke themselves on the boys, and finally the latter went off through the brush toward the spot where they had tied their canoes, half inclined to be angry.

They were gone a long while, and were veryquiet. The girls whispered together, and kept right near the tents, waiting for the explosion.

“At least,” Wyn said, chuckling, “we gave them a good breakfast, so they won’t starve to death; but if they want to go to the island they will have to swim.”

“We’ve given them ‘tit for tat,’” said Frankie, nodding her head. “Glad of it. Andthey’llpay the forfeit, instead of us.”

“If they don’t find the canoes,” whispered Grace.

“They wouldn’t find them in a week of Sundays,” cried Percy.

“Then let’s set them a good hard task for payment,” suggested Bess.

“That’s right. They oughtn’t to have tried to scare us so,” agreed Mina.

“I guess it is agreed,” laughed Wyn, “to show them no mercy. Ah! here they come now.”

The Busters slowly climbed the knoll in rather woebegone fashion. Their feathers certainly were drooped, as Frank remarked.

“Well,” said Dave, throwing himself down on the sward, “we must hand it to you Go-Aheads. You’ve got us ’way out on the limb, and if you shake the tree very hard we’ll drop off.”

“No, thanks!” snapped Bess. “We don’t care for green fruit.”

“Oh, oh!” squealed Ferd. “I bet that hurt me.”

“Now, there’s no use quarreling,” said Dave. “We admit defeat. Where under the sun you girls could have hidden our canoes I don’t see. And your own haven’t been used this morning, that’s sure.”

Wyn and her mates broke into uncontrollable laughter at this.

“Who’s the joke on now?” cried Bess.

“What will you give to find your canoes?” exclaimed Frankie.

“Aw–say–don’t rub it in,” begged Tubby. “We own up to the corn. You beat us. Where are the canoes?”

“Ahem!” said Wynifred, clearing her throat loudly, and standing forth.

“Hear, hear!” cried Mina.

“Oh! you’ve got it all fixed up for us, I see,” muttered Ferd.

“The understanding always has been,” said Wyn, calmly, “that if one party succeeded in playing a practical joke on the other, and ‘getting away with it,’ as you slangy boys say, the party falling for the trick should pay forfeit. Isn’t that so?”

“Go on! Do your worst,” growled Ferd.

“That’s right. You state the case clearly, Miss Mallory,” said Dave, with a bow of mockery.

“And they never paid a forfeit for the time Tubby slid down our boathouse roof, plunk into the water,” cried Bessie.

“Aw–that’s ancient history,” growled Tubby.

“Let us stick to recent events,” agreed Wyn, smiling. “If we girls were at all frightened by your ‘bear-faced’ attempt to frighten us this morning, we have paid with a breakfast; haven’t we?”

“And it was a good one,” agreed Dave.

“It’s made me go right to cooking again,” said Bess. “A swarm of locusts would have brought about no greater devastation.”

“Then, gentlemen,” said Wynifred, “do you admit that the shoe is now on the other foot? You cannot find your canoes. Will you pay us to find them for you?”

“That’s only fair,” admitted Dave.

“Say! how do we pay you?” demanded Ferd.

“Shall I tell them what we demand, girls?” asked Wyn.

“Go ahead!” “It’ll serve them right!” “They’ve got to do it!” were some of the exclamations from the Go-Aheads.

“Oh, let the blow fall!” groaned Dave.

“Then, gentlemen of the Busters Association,it is agreed by the ladies of the Go-Ahead Club that while we remain in camp on Green Knoll this summer, you young gentlemen shall cut and stack all the firewood we shall need!”

“Ow-ouch!” cried Ferd.

“What a cheek!” gasped Tubby, rolling his eyes.

“Allthe firewood you use?” repeated one of the other boys. “Why–that will be cords and cords!”

“Every stick!” declared Wyn, firmly.

“And I’d be ashamed, if I were you, to complain,” pursued Bessie. “If you had been gentlemanly you would have offered to cut our wood before. You know that that is theonething that girls can’t do easily about a camp.”

“Gee! you have quite a heap of stove wood yonder,” said Tubby.

“That is what Mr. Jarley cut for us,” Wyn said. “But it doesn’t matter what other means we may have for getting our firewood cut. Will you accept the forfeit like honorable gentlemen?”

“Why, we’vegotto!” cried Ferd.

“We’re honestly caught,” admitted Dave Shepard. “I’ll do my share. Two of us, for half a day a week, can more than keep you supplied–unless you waste it.”

“And we can have the canoes back?” demanded one of the other Busters, eagerly.

And so it was agreed–“signed, sworn to, and delivered,” as Frankie said. With great glee the girls led the Busters to the steep bank by the waterside, over which a great curtain of wild honeysuckle hung. This curtain of fragrant flowers and thick vines dragged upon the ground. There was a hollow behind it that Wyn had discovered quite by chance.

And this hollow was big enough to hide the six canoes, one stacked a-top of the other. One passing by would never have suspected the hiding place, and in hiding the craft the girls had left no tell-tale footprints.

So, for once at least, the Go-Aheads got the best of the Busters.

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