"Better than to let it drift," Cora said, "but I am sorry if you were timid."

"Oh, we were not," declared Belle, stoutly. "Only we distinctly heard someone on the back porch."

"At our ice box!" gasped Cora.

"Oh, we never thought of that!" exclaimed Belle.

"Then likely we will be without breakfast," responded Cora. "But here we are. Who has the key?"

Belle opened the door. "The light is out!" she whispered. "Cora," she said, aside, "I left it burning!"



CHAPTER IX

A MERRY TIME

"Yes, I say it's a shame!" cried Jack, indignantly.

"Perfectly awful," confirmed Dray.

"Our meeting is at nine," announced Walter, "and when I went on the soup shift, I did not agree to do the waiting. That's not my part."

Ed tucked an end of white mosquito netting in his belt, draped it jauntily, and appeared ready to do the "waiting." Walter was frying bacon and eggs on the oil stove. Jack threw dishes at the oilcloth-covered table in imitation of a game of quoits, and he rarely missed the mark. They were about to have breakfast, and in spite of the difficulties encountered in the way of modern improvements omitted in the arrangement of Camp Couldn't (the camp got that name for a million reasons), the boys were having a fine time.

"That coffee will be cold," protested Dray, "and my doctor says cold coffee is slow poison. I prefer my poison quick." The joke about Dray's doctor was that Dray never knew a doctor other than the medical inspector at school. He had such astonishingly good health that they used the idea of sickness in reference to him as a "counter irritant."

"But this stove is a trifle small," said Walter. "What do you say we buy that one from Camp Cattle? It's a peach."

"If the Cattle crowd have a good stove they won't sell it," replied Jack. "You will likely find a second-hand flue in it, or a rubber hose leader. Those boys are brilliant. If we need a new stove let it be from Duke's, with a cast-iron guarantee."

"Right-o," seconded Dray. "The cast-iron is always useful about a camp. But I say, what about the racket at the Mote last night? That sister of yours, Jack, is wasting her talents. She ought to be chief of a detective bureau."

"Cora is all right," Jack returned, proudly. "And while we are on the subject, and not to brag, of course, I might say that some of the other girls are in the same class. First few years they came out to the woods I used to be rather doubtful, but now we often find that the maids can take care of the masters; don't we, Wallie? More of that odor, please. I wonder why bacon turns all to odor when it's cooked up!"

"There are only two more pieces of odor left," complained Walter, "and I'd like the smell myself."

"Oh, all right. I have had more than enough." Jack waved a disdainful hand loftily. "I believe, as it is, I should be more careful what I eat."

A huge, very hard bun, the sort found only in bakeries near Summer resorts, hit Jack squarely in the face. Without any comment he caught it, cut it in half, and with a tin spoon plastered it with butter. Then he put "the lid on it," and tried to get it between his teeth. It was heroic exercise, but Jack had been trained at a reputable college, and had learned to eat what he wanted.

"But those duffers, the land men," continued Dray, "what are they after the girls for? I had an idea one of them must be trying to claim relationship with the fair Freda. He kept so close to her when she was out after Denny."

"Relationship!" Jack repeated, with a laugh. "You almost hit it, Dray. I guess the bear would like to be her first cousin, for he is trying to get her goods and chattels from her."

"How?"

"Oh, we must not go into that; at least not just yet. I promised Cora not to be hasty with Moran. He's the 'gent' who is supposed to be president of the company."

"The one who wears the Panama? I wonder if anyone would think of haste in connection with that duffer. It took him just one hour to buy three soft crabs from some kids at the dock yesterday," said Walter. "I wouldn't like to be his messmate. But I don't like his eye; it's made on the bias."

"Yes, always looks as if it were going to slip out of the socket," confirmed Jack. "Well, I hope the girls won't go in too deep with their schemes. Those fellows are from little old N'Yawk."

"Quick!" whispered Walter. "There's that Black. If he lays eyes on your plates he'll lick them."

The last morsels of food were crammed into mouths before the call from the neighboring camper was answered.

"Come right in," Ed said, finally, "and help yourself. Have you had your grape fruit?"

"Oh, no," sighed Tom Black, "I didn't feel exactly right this morning." (He brushed a brown hand across his brow.) "Nerves, I guess."

"Nerves? Grub!" shouted Jack. "Didn't I see a can marked 'soup' in your back yard this a. m.?"

"Might have, but I didn't. Else I would have had soup."

"There were grubbers around last night," went on Jack, "and we thought we found a thread that matches your sweater, sticking to a nail in our grub box."

"My sweater is not ripped that I can see," replied Tom, innocently, "but if you are so kind I might take it. Don't think we put our sewing boxes in the kit, come to think of it."

"It will be ripped presently," announced Ed. "We have reason to suspect the Cattle; in fact, we have engaged counsel."

"The motor girls, I fancy, will defend you," said Tom, nonchalantly, "but I assure you, you will have no case. We are absolutely without grub; in fact, our case is pitiable."

"And you had a 'Doins' last night," Dray reminded him. "Now, Tom, we want to be fair, but we have arranged to form a housewives' league for the purpose of swiping systematically. For instance," (here he got a burnt match and tried to trace something on the oilcloth), "if we have company, and no olives, we could go over to your cupboard, take a bottle and deposit in its stead, say, a can of beans."

"Great!" shouted Tom, tossing up his cap, that landed on the flaming oil stove. "You should not waste oil," he said, as he rescued the cap. "It's always wise to turn out the stove when you take off the pan."

"The meeting is to be held in our living room," Ed said, pointing outside to a bench made of a tree limb au naturel. "When we have formed our committees and settled on our constitution——"

This last word seemed to give every boy present a sort of agony, for each began to "feel for his constitution," as if that important part of his physique had been lost in the camp woods.

"I wish you could settle my constitution," remarked Tom. "Once I get that settled, I don't care what happens."

"Now, quit your fooling," returned Walter. "I have an engagement and I would like to get my housework done. Tom, help yourself to a towel, and be careful not to wipe the plates on a glass towel. You can tell the difference by the border. The dish towel is all border, the center or hole went up on the oil stove, a little trick our stove has—it does not like towels. The proper towel for the glasses is that one with the black line drawn through the middle. The black line is not important, it was put there with a single wipe of the spark plug from the Lassie. Ed did it, very neatly."

Tom took the towel tossed to him, and, as only a boy can, began to dry the dishes that Walter was piling in front of him. First he patted and rubbed the towel on one side of the dish that lay before him; then he turned the same dish over with a bang and repeated the patting and rubbing on the other side. After that he gave the plate a spin. If it landed right side up he left it so; if the trade-mark showed he counted it a "foul," and tried the trick again. How boys can get work done that way is always a mystery to girls, who find the same play labor.

"Do I stay for lunch?" Tom asked. "I suppose when a fellow helps with the general housework he is entitled to his 'keep.'"

"Oh, we would just love to have you," replied Jack, with mock seriousness, "but the fact is, we are all invited out. We lunch on the Chelton to-day," and he strutted around with such wide sweeping curves, and twists, that he knocked from the narrow board table every last bit of butter the "Couldn'ts" had in their camp. Gingerly he scooped up the top lump, that lay on the store dish, but the scraps had to be scraped up with the egg turner, and the spot on the floor (they had a board floor in the camp) had to be washed up with the dish water, when Walter finally relinquished that important commodity.

"More careful next time," commanded Dray. "I'm off to call the meeting. Where's that dinner bell?"

The "bell," a very old and very large tray, was found outside under the bench, and with a good strong stick Dray beat it furiously, until it might easily be heard by every camper on the grounds. At the first signal boys came scampering from all directions. Some carried towels—too much excited to drop them in their camps; others dashed through the woods with sweaters on their arms, and reluctant neckties in their fists, for it was early and the campers had scarcely time to make "careful" toilets.

"Grub?" they asked in chorus. "Let us see it? Lead us to it!"

"Grub nothing!" replied Walter. "You just get outside on that bench, the overflow can take the reserved seats on the nice green moss. This meeting has been called for the purpose of organizing the Housewives' League of Crystal Bay."

"Aoo-oo-ou—oh!" came a groaning reply from those who felt able to groan. "And I left sugar in my coffee cup," wailed he with the dish towel.

"And there were perfectly good crumbs at my place," sighed Teddy, a boy with so many colors in his face that they called him "Rainbow."

"Come to order!" called Jack, banging on the tent table, which was to serve as the chairman's desk. "Every camp must qualify."

"We do! We do!" shouted the majority, the rest being engaged in a rough and tumble for places near the "door."

"The purpose of this meeting," went on Jack, ducking a lump of moss tossed in lieu of a bouquet, "is to formulate plans, whereby the humans of Prowlers' Paradise may continue to defy the birds of the air, and the beasts of the field, and live in a perfectly human way."

"Hurrah for the humans!" shouted Rainbow, and the cheers that followed did more than merely consume time.

"Let me explain," interrupted Dray, pushing Jack from his place, and taking the stand pompously. "We have been the victims of prowlers. We have lost our soup; we also lost our cans of milk—in fact, the cruel ones took everything but our appetites, and now we propose to put a stop to such depredations. We will form a league to borrow and to lend, also to pay back, but he who taketh his brother's soup and returneth not a can of beans shall be expelled from the Prowlers' Paradise!"

"We did lose five small cans of milk," reiterated Walter to Dave, the head or chief of a big camp called "We-like-it," "and if we find the rowdy who took that he shall be court-martialed."

A commotion then started that broke up the meeting. The boys, in rolling and tumbling about, rolled Dainty, so-called because he never could get enough to eat, and because his quest showed in unweighable pounds of fat, deliberately down the small hill at the side of Camp Couldn't. Two of the Cattle did the rolling, and as Dainty made one full turn a can of milk squirmed out of his pocket.

"Robber! Thief! Traitor!" screamed the rollers, and then poor Dainty was lugged back to the camp.

Making the charge against him, and making an example of him would be too sad a tale for words; sufficient to say that the meeting adjourned at the request of a peace commission.

When the last visitor had been "shooed" away and the Couldn'ts had carefully prepared for the lunch to be taken on the Chelton (although Ed claimed that Walter had appropriated his most becoming tie, and that the shade of tan rather marred Wallie's own "tannery" effect), the boys finally put the camp flap down good and tight, and were off to the bay.



CHAPTER X

TOO MUCH JOY

Far out in the pretty bay the Chelton was anchored. It was arranged that the luncheon should be given too far from land to get anything in supplies that might have been forgotten. In fact, it was to be a test meal, such as might be a necessity in case of "shipwreck" or accident.

It was such a day as sometimes makes early Summer copy Spring, when the mists of morning mingle with the sun's rays, and send up shafts of haze to pillar the sky from land or water.

There had been great preparations for this salt water lunch. The girls, enthusiastic over the possibilities, had vied with one another in arranging the affair.

Dray ran his boat, the Dixie, alongside, and together the fleet of two comprised what the boys termed a "White House Lunch." The cooking was all done on the Chelton and the eatables were handed over the brass rail to Lottie and Marita, who served as waitresses on the Dixie. First there were lettuce sandwiches, rolled. Any girl who can successfully roll bread and lettuce is termed proficient by the cooking teachers, and it was a tie between Belle and Cora as to who did the most and best of the rolling.

With the lettuce came the greatest treat to the boys—homemade crab salad—home caught crabs and handmade dressing thereon.

"I caught the biggest crab," declared Lottie, handing the wooden plate to Belle. "Isn't that fine!"

"Finest!" she repeated, enthusiastically. "But say! Why don't the boys catch crabs?"

The boys did not waste time asking questions. Lettuce sandwiches! Crab salad! They would be serving frappe next!

"Eat plenty of salad," Cora ordered. "We spent all yesterday evening crabbing."

"Will—we—eat—it?" exclaimed Walter. "I won't dare look at a frying pan again this week, and my term ends with the week," he said, between bites.

Next came baked potatoes. These had been done on the electric toaster, right aboard the Chelton, and while scarcely a correct following for salad, the first was given as an appetizer, and the potatoes as food.

The latter were served on the smallest of wooden plates, with the most extravagant little butter plates—really sauce or cream "thimbles," all fluted and shaped from white paper.

A dozen of these cups had been Belle's contribution to the feast. She spied them at the news stand, over at the point, and could not leave them.

Dried beef went with the potatoes, also dill pickles, and while Cora kept the electric toaster going, and saw to it that the "kitchen" did not run out of hot water from a reserve tank, the other girls took turns eating their own lunches. Of course, as the boys were guests, it was important their wants should be first supplied, a matter not easily managed, as the girls soon found out.

"More! More!" called Ed, who was eating the browned potato skin, or bark, with unmistakable relish. "Potatoes are good for the nerves!"

"Robber!" shouted Jack, grabbing a second supply that had just been adjusted on Ed's plate. "Potatoes are good for the lungs, and I am—winded."

"I should like just a tiny bit more crab," simpered Dray. "Fish is good for——"

"We have something more," Cora announced, "don't each too much solid stuff."

"We couldn't," declared Belle, "not if we kept eating for the rest of our mortal lives, it wouldn't be too much."

"There are the 'Likes'!" announced Lottie, indicating a canoe gliding up the bay, in which were two members of the "We-like-it" camp. "Now we will have to hide things."

"Hide things!" Belle tossed her sweater over her plate as she saw the canoe. "We are lost!"

"Oh, let us invite them alongside," suggested Lottie, who, up to that moment had been so busy with setting out plates that she had scarcely spoken to the visitors. "We have plenty of stuff."

"Nix, nary, not much!" cried Ed, in protest. "That's 'Dainty' there, the stroke, and if he gets in here he'll eat the dish pan and the cooker. I say, young ladies should be most careful what sort of fellows they associate with."

But in spite of this the "Likes" were invited. Possibly they smelled the eatables, for they came up to the side of the Chelton as nicely as if they had set out from shore with that intention.

"Thanks," called Dainty, the fat one, "we would be pleased to," although no one had asked him to do anything.

"Delighted," affirmed Kent, the other of the party. "We sent our cards by messenger."

The canoe bobbed up and down, until Cora took an extra rope from the Chelton and threw it to Dainty, who in turn tied it to a small hook in the green Snake. This served to keep the canoe from capsizing as Dainty and Kent crept into the Chelton.

Just what saved all three boats from being turned upside down in the racket that followed only Neptune knows, for in their delight at seeing real food the boys from the "Likes" grew so impetuous that the "Couldn'ts" felt called upon to interfere.

Crabs, sandwiches, potatoes—each in turn were hailed with gales of glee, until the girls fell back exhausted with the strain of providing and cooking.

"Let me, let me," begged Dray, "I know exactly how to handle electric appliances. I press my neckties—with an electric iron."

He was over into the Chelton, and piling more potatoes under the little tin cover on the toaster, before anyone had time to answer.

"Turned or unturned?" he asked, surveying a smoking potato critically.

"Both or neither," answered the famished Dainty between gasps.

"I'll take my coffee now," announced Jack, sitting back in the cushions, and flicking an imaginary speck from his sweater.

"Now, you must wait," Cora ordered. "We have not caught up to you yet. We are only at the entree."

Lottie declared she never had such a splendid time in her life, and the brightness of her cheeks catching the flame from her eyes bore out this statement. Marita, too, seemed to have "shook her cocoon," Jack said, his economy of language scarcely making up for the little difference in "shook" and "shaken." Certainly she managed to climb from one boat to another with remarkable alertness, while Bess, Belle and Cora acted like up-to-date society maidens, only they acted a little in advance of the "date" usually adhered to.

"And do we have to leave these shores?" wailed Ed, sipping a real good cup of coffee. "Why not anchor here for now and for eternity!"

"I thought you liked camping," said Belle. "Surely you are not tired of housekeeping. Doesn't it run smoothly?"

"Sure," replied Ed, "but the grub is the trouble. I wonder why mammas, with good moral intentions, train little boys to eat?"

"Do you see those clouds," remarked Cora, "they are just swooping down on us, and we are miles from home. My, but it is going to be a quick shower!"

The young people had been enjoying themselves so much that not until Cora spoke did they realize that the sky had become overcast.

"Oh, I'm scared to death," cried Marita. "Those clouds are so near—you would think they would touch the water!"

"Oh, aren't they black!" gasped Belle.

"Come, get everything under cover," called Jack, thinking first of the danger to the girls and their boat. "Dray can get his awning up quickly enough, but this one has not been opened yet."

"You boys just tie your canoe tight to us," Cora said, as the two visitors were about to climb into their frail skiff. "You would be washed out during the storm that's coming. Here, Bess, hold this," handing Bess one end of the awning tie. "Belle, can you keep that rope taut?"

It was astonishing how quickly the scene of enjoyment turned to one of alarm. Those of the girls who were active and eager to assist in making things safe, did not suffer so much from fright as did they who took time to watch the clouds. The first severe storm of Summer usually has a more terrifying effect upon the timid ones than those that may follow, and this one certainly was a "star" for a starter.

The lightning soon began to flash intermittently and the thunder to rumble. The clear expanse of horizon afforded such a wide view of the storm that it was small wonder those out in the bay feared for their safety.

"Oh!" wailed Marita, as one flash of lightning seemed to dart directly at the brass rail of Dray's boat. "I thought I was struck!"

Her words had not been uttered before the clap of thunder followed. This had that queer, deep sound peculiar to the water, and certainly the heart of the storm seemed to hover over the little fleet.

All over the bay sail boats, canoes, motor boats, row boats and every sort of craft were making for shore, but in most of these there were little or no goods that might be damaged by rain or waves, while both the Dixie and the Chelton would have suffered severely had they encountered a down-pour uncovered.

The awnings were up at last, and Jack had started the Chelton. Directly after that the chug of the Dixie was heard.

Then it was all storm! Raging! Roaring! Which way could two small motor boats hope to plough their way in such a fury of wind, rain and lightning?

The waves had assumed the proportions of billows, and every time a boat lifted with the crest, a huge bank of water would break over it.

Jack clung to the steering wheel, and Cora never took her eyes off the engine. But how they whirled and twirled! There was the Dixie! It was keeping near—one good thing. The canoe had broken loose and was soon lost to sight. No one bewailed it; there was too serious work at hand for that.

"Let me look after the gas!" begged Kent of Cora. He was at her elbow, but she had insisted on personally attending to the machine.

"I know it better, perhaps," she shrieked back, "but stay close. If I cannot manage I will let you know!"

One terrific clap, then a roar sounded in the ears of all, but seemed to paralyze Lottie.

She fell in a heap and lay speechless. Up to this time she had been half sitting in the bottom of the boat.

"She's struck!" shrieked Belle. Then Cora left the engine to Kent and took charge of the senseless girl.



CHAPTER XI

THE RESCUE

The coffee that stood on the still warm electric stove proved a valuable aid in restoring the stunned Lottie. She had not been struck; her nerves had simply given out, and she had collapsed.

Finally she opened her eyes.

"I'm all right now," she said faintly, and it was evident the shock had dulled her terror, at least.

"Just lie still," whispered Cora, encouragingly. "The storm will soon be over."

"The storm?" Lottie repeated. Then she closed her eyes again, but this time it was only exhaustion, not faintness.

The other girls had been roused to activity by Lottie's condition. They could now see a rift in the clouds, and one after another hurried to say that the storm was breaking, and it was not so bad; that boats could be seen, and perhaps they would soon sight land.

But those at the wheels of the boats knew how little they could do in the way of steering. Every time the wheel was turned one way the force of the rollers would wash it completely around. In fact they were making absolutely no progress, and might almost as well have allowed the powerless craft to submit to the fury of the waters.

Cora realized this, as did the boys, but the other girls, except perhaps Bess, felt more secure as the sound of the motor indicated motion. The clouds were lifting, but the force of the storm seemed to be coming in from sea, and had little to do with the appearance of the sky.

"Oh, if help would only come!" Cora whispered to Bess. "I'm afraid another and worse storm is gathering!"

"Don't give up," replied the girl, her own face gray in the mist and spray that covered the deck even under the awnings.

"I—see—something bobbing up and down over there!" Cora continued. "See! It is—a big, strong boat, perhaps a lifeboat!"

"Let us hope so," answered Bess, fervently.

Not one word could Cora exchange with Jack, he was too far from her to hear her voice. The Dixie was still near enough to be sighted, but how the boys managed to keep her so was as remarkable to themselves as to those on the Chelton.

"That's a boat, all right," said Bess with more vigor in her voice, "and it looks like one from the life-saving station."

Cora peered anxiously in the direction of the speck that played upon the waves.

"Hey!" yelled Jack, "there comes Denny!"

"Denny!" repeated Cora wonderingly.

"Oh, there's Freda!" called Belle, jumping up from the bottom of the boat and promptly falling back again.

"It's Freda and Denny, and someone else?" asked Bess, breathlessly. "Oh, what a mercy!"

"It's a boy," declared Kent. "See the rain-hat and slicker?"

"Yes, and see Freda's hair floating out from under that rubber hat!" insisted Bess. "Oh, I know it's Freda, and I can see Denny plainly!"

The boat was coming nearer. On the crest of a roller it fairly soared towards them. Then Cora saw it was Denny and Freda, with another man whom they did not know.

"Head up into it!" came a voice from the dory, for even in a storm Denny knew how to make his voice carry over the water.

Jack heard, and swung the wheel toward the left. That would put them "into the storm," instead of on the edge of it.

At that moment the Dixie shot past and dashed right up to the dory.

"Here," called Jack, "can you make it to get in here?" This was called to those in Denny's boat.

"Not now!" shouted back the man. "Keep close!"

The roar of the storm increased. Just as Cora had predicted, the new squall was worse than the first. For some moments all three boats tossed and tumbled as if they had neither master nor man, but it was the Chelton that righted herself first.

By an ungiven signal the three boats got into line. The dory was directly in the center and the two motor boats served to shield it from the waves that lashed them on either side.

"Quick! Freda!" yelled Cora, grasping the line Denny tossed to her. "You can climb in! We can hold it tight!"

Like a sprite, the girl in the yellow slicker and rubber hat made for the highest end of the boat, measured her distance to the Chelton, and while Kent and Cora strained to hold the rope steady, sprang.

It was not the distance, which was but a few feet, but the uncertainty of the boats' motion that made the leap perilous. But Freda landed safely in the Chelton.

"None too soon!" gasped Cora, pressing her arms around the wet oilskin coat. "See where they have gotten to now!"

The boats had drifted apart again. The girls clung to Freda as if she had really brought them safely to shore, instead of adding her own weight to their burden, but it was the message from land that reassured them.

"Isn't it dreadful!" moaned Lottie, still trembling from her collapse.

"No!" replied Freda, cheerfully. "It isn't so bad out there. But we knew what it was on this bar, and could tell by the wind just about where you were drifting. If Jack will let me take the wheel I will follow Denny's orders and ride into it. Then we can go around the island—and see a blue sky!"

"Blue sky!" came the exclamation from the girls in unison.

"Certainly. But I must have the wheel, Jack."

Having satisfied them that she could run the boat, Freda changed places with Jack, while Cora let her brother take up her watch beside Kent. Then Cora went to the steering wheel with Freda.

"Don't be afraid," the latter said. "I have ridden out worse storms than this with Denny. They have a way of turning things upside down, but you are all right as long as you can keep well on top."

She was driving directly into the smother. The girls shut their eyes, and it must be admitted that more than one put their fingers in their ears, for indeed the roar was deafening.

"There are Denny and the man getting into the Dixie!" breathed Cora. "Oh, I am so glad, for it must have been dreadful to row that boat."

"It was no joke, but Denny likes hard work," Freda answered. "Now here is where we ride it out!"

Every bit of power was turned on and with one well directed plunge the Chelton was shot through what seemed to be a "comber" as if she had been a submarine.

"Oh!" gasped Cora. Freda dropped into the "V" space at the base of the wheel. Still, she did not take her hands from the spokes. It was a serious moment. What if the boat could not ride those waves? The time it took to get out of the harder waves could not be estimated by the hands of a clock or watch; but in gasping breaths, thumping hearts, pale faces and fears—for boys as well as for girls—it must have been a long, long time.

Finally Freda stood up.

"There!" she exclaimed. "What did I tell you?"

"Sky!" they all shouted, clapping their hands like children.

"And—it—took a girl—to—do it!" exclaimed Jack, who would not have been blamed for hugging Freda had the opportunity offered. Instead, however, he made his way back to the wheel and allowed Freda and Cora a chance to look at their blistered hands, for both girls had been tugging at the spokes.

"Who would believe a storm would end like that?" said Belle, with the relief that comes so quickly upon intense strain.

"We have got to keep in out of the rain for a while," Cora cautioned. "There are enough water-loaded clouds over there yet to dampen our enthusiasm."

This proved to be true, for torrents of rain followed in the wake of the vanishing thunder clouds.

But the wind had ceased, and the waves soon quieted. With more than a sigh of relief the Chelton girls and boys fell into the course made now by the Dixie, for in that boat Denny Shane was at the wheel.



CHAPTER XII

THE CALM

A more delightful scene than Crystal Bay presented, two hours after the squall, could scarcely be imagined. To the motor girls it was particularly effective, as may easily be imagined. Coming back around the island the Dixie picked up the lost canoe, so this left nothing to be worried over in the record of adventure.

"How do you feel, Lottie?" Cora asked, when all had landed safely and stood looking over the waters that could be so deceptive.

"Oh, I am all right, really," answered Lottie, a little ashamed that she should have allowed herself to give way.

"But be careful," cautioned Cora. "Take it easy for the rest of the day, at least. It doesn't do to try too much."

"Grandmother!" Lottie answered, with an affectionate squeeze of Cora's arm. "What about you? Who did all the engineering in the storm? And who is still 'on deck' giving orders?"

"Oh, I am strong," replied Cora, though strong as she was the last few hours had told in the paler tint of her cheeks.

The return of the storm-stricken ones attracted crowds of bungalowers and campers to the beach; for, of course, craft of all sorts had been caught in the gale. The center of interest, however, was the Chelton, for that boat had already gained a reputation at Crystal Bay.

Not one person came in from the bay in dry clothes; in fact, many were drenched, and naturally the girls showed the effects of the storm more conspicuously than did the boys. Bess happened to be the one "who got the worst of it," among the motor girls—perhaps because there was more of her for the waves to hit.

"You are certainly a beauty," commented Belle, who had been more fortunate in dodging the water. "You look like a swimming lesson in the first stage."

"I feel as if I needed artificial respiration," replied Bess, good-humoredly, "but I want to forget it all—all but this. Isn't this wonderful?"

"Almost enough to make up for the danger," Belle returned. "But wasn't Freda splendid? What good training she must have had to be able to manage that boat. No one else except Cora could have done it, and she was unfamiliar with the tricks of the bay. I do feel so sorry for Freda and her mother!" This last was said with a wistful sigh, for all the members of the Mote were now much attached to the motherly Mrs. Lewis.

"Cora must have known those men were going to put the 'for sale' sign on the cottage, when she hurried so to get Freda and her mother over to our place the other night," went on Bess. "I knew there was something more important than merely taking care of us."

"Oh, of course, that's just like Cora. Fancy Mrs. Lewis never hearing a word about it. If she had been in the house when they tacked that sign on——"

"It must be perfectly awful to lose everything that way; to feel it is all an injustice, yet not to be able to prove one's own claim," said Belle. "Tricky business men are worse to watch than spiteful girls, and we always thought they were about all that we could handle. There's Ted and Jean. Just look at their boat!"

Among the last of the storm-bound ones to "enter port" were Ted and Jean, members of "Camp All Alone." They certainly presented a sorry spectacle, as they came up to the dock.

"How do you feel?" asked Lottie, who was down near the water's edge, in spite of Cora's admonition.

"I feel like playing a spaghetti obligato on a big hot bowl of soup," replied Jean. "That would be the song to reach my heart."

"The sun is clucking, girls," announced Walter. "She may set at any time. Is there aught to eat at the Mote? Let us thither. We intended to go to the store before tea."

"After giving you your lunch!" exclaimed Cora, in surprise.

"But, don't you see, that is why we didn't get to the store. You are really liable for our suppers. Don't you think so, fellows?" he asked.

"Not only liable, but accountable," added Ed. "Of course we will go home and dress. I wonder what on earth the squall did to headquarters?" he asked, suddenly realizing that the camp had had need of secure moorings during the last two hours.

"Let's look," suggested Dray, who had now moored the Dixie securely, while Jack and Cora had attended to the Chelton.

"Oh, you ought to see your tent," sang out a little fellow, who wore little beside a shirt and bathing trunks. He had been out in the squall and had, very likely, enjoyed it immensely.

"What's the matter with it?" inquired Jack.

"Oh, it's all flippy-floppy," replied the urchin. "But some lady saw it goin' and she tied it back to the stakes."

"Some lady?" repeated Jack.

"Mrs. Lewis, likely," suggested Cora. "I hope she did not go out in that down-pour to tie the tents."

"I rather hope she did," admitted her brother. "I had some things in that tent not warranted rainproof. Hey, fellows!" he called to the other members of Camp Couldn't. "Hurry up. Our tent was struck, they say."

At the word the crowd from the beach ran helter-skelter through the woods toward the camp colony. Surely there was enough excitement around Crystal Bay that afternoon to last for some time, and there was every prospect now of new adventures developing.

"Any tents down?" asked Dainty, as he puffed along.

"Thinking of spilled grub?" queried Walter. "Nothing doing. We have a salvage corps department to our housewives' league, you know, and they are bound to protect the members from bandits. So you may just run along and see what is going on at the Cattle."

The storm had played havoc in the woods. Pine branches had scratched deep furrows in the white sand paths, beautiful bushes of blooming mountain laurel and mountain pinks were shorn of every bloom, and the wild roses were scattered like pink butterflies on the catch leaves of shrubs.

The first camp to be met by the boys was Camp Hyphen. This was quite a pretentious establishment with a smaller tent adjunct. The adjunct stood for the hyphen, and it now lay in a heap like a discarded potato sack, its store of supplies settled uncertainly in nearby bushes.

"My, and they had just joined the League," wailed Jack. "I suppose we will all have to put up for the reinforcements."

"We are not an insurance company," Ed objected. "Why should we make good for a storm?"

"Because we have a calamity clause. You had better look up your rules and regulations, young man. The last time I saw them they were pasted with a daub of good family flour on our back door."

"Thank goodness the rain will have suspended our constitution," Ed replied. "That back door never could have gone dry through the torrent. Don't you remember how the small showers doused it?"

"We do," Walter answered, "and as we have the only written rules, that same fact of the back door may stand us in well."

"Pikers!" Jack called them with a laugh. "But will you observe the Hys! They are going to rebuild!"

A hyphenated name seemed the worst of luck for this camp, for there was no strong pole or cast iron bar to hold the two tents together, and the "hy" was merely a strip of ground that gave extra play to the wind. The smaller tent was now being dragged from the bed of wet sand into which it had partly buried itself, and the campers were struggling heroically to get it back to its pegs.

"Too bad!" called Walter, sympathetically.

"Worse than that," replied one fellow, who looked as if he might have been shipwrecked.

"But we are insured—in the league, you know," shouted another member of the demolished camp. "We are coming up for supper."

"You are?" returned Dray. "Say, fellows," to his own camp company, "the best thing we can do is to take what stuff we find left and hide up at the Mote. Those fellows will come down on us and won't believe about the washed-away constitution. Who on earth put that indemnity clause in, anyhow?"

"Oh, Clem did. He's studying engineering, and I suppose he is lonesome for his math. We ought to make him pay the assessment. But I agree with Dray," continued Walter. "We ought to 'beat it' up to the Mote, quick. There are other tents flopping around, and everybody will be good and hungry, you can be sure."

"Queer how old Denny made for his shack as soon as we got in," Ed remarked. "I wonder if he thought that would be demolished?"

"No, not likely," Jack said, "but the old fellow was pretty wet and played out. He's plucky, all right, and I don't believe we would be in yet but for him and Freda. But he is old, just the same, and only his pluck keeps him up to it. I would like to have been more decent to him, but he won't give one a chance. We must fix it up some way, though."

"We sure must," agreed the others.

"There's another," announced Jack, as a perfectly flat tent almost blocked their way. This was evidently deserted, for not a boy was to be seen, either lamenting or trying to right the canvas.

"Funny," commented Ed. "They must have gone to the hotel."

"Hotel!" exclaimed Jack. "Why, they borrowed a pint of our kerosene this morning. They may have gone to jail."

"Let's run," suggested Ed. "This funeral march is getting on my nerves. Besides, I am anxious to see the Couldn't."

In a few minutes the boys sighted their own tent. It looked all right.

"Thank goodness!" breathed Dray, fervently. "I really couldn't stand any more nerve-racking experiences."

"We look intact," said Walter. "I wonder if my dress suit is still unwrinkled."

"Your overalls?" asked Jack, mimicking Walter's tone of voice. "Oh, I am sure they are perfectly all right, for I saw them in the wood box just before we left."

"Brute!" responded Walter. "But I say! What's that? We are inhabited!"

Sounds of voices issued from inside the tent. Jack dashed ahead and raised the flap.

"Robbers! Thieves! Police!" he yelled, then he had to dodge something.

"We are here for our rights," sang out a strong voice. "We demand our insurance!"

"Seems to me the demand is rather violent," replied Ed, as the Couldn'ts saw what was going on. The entire tent was filled with boys from the wrecked camps, and they were making away with practically everything in the line of eatables they could lay their hands on.

"Clear out!" ordered Dray, "or we will call the police. What sort of way is this to keep law and order?"

"The only way," replied Hal, a boy from the "Mist." "We couldn't even keep up in starvation, but with something to sustain us we might be able to keep the law. As a matter of fact, it was civic pride that compelled us to come in here and eat."

There was no help for it now, the Couldn'ts had been robbed. Even their party paper napkins were being made into balls.

"Isn't it awful!" moaned Jack, falling into the one dry spot on the sandy floor. "And we were the real benefactors of this ranch. That's the way goodness is repaid in this hard, cruel world."

Nobody noticed the sermon—everyone was too busy looking for food. Finally Walter and Ed, after a private conference with Dray and Jack, decided to give to the unfortunates all the food they possessed, "in order to avert worse damage to their property."

"But we are dining out," Ed put in, "and it's only fair that you should take the provender home. We want to wash our little faces, you know. We dine with ladies."

"Oh, we will pay it all back," declared Clem, who was scooping up empty boxes in the hope of being agreeably disappointed in their contents as compared with their weight.

"Yes—you—will!" mocked Jack, "when we can skate on the sand of the desert. But hustle. There's not another scrap around. Land that oil can, Ted. It's empty."

After considerable urging, ordering and coaxing, the Couldn'ts rid themselves of their uninvited guests, and were once again in possession of their own tents.

"Did the girls invite us?" asked Dray. "I hate to intrude."

"They did not," replied Jack, "and we are not going to intrude. We are just going over to thank Mrs. Lewis for saving this camp from destruction. She hammered down those stakes. Look at them!" he ordered. "Ed, did you ever wield a hammer as truthfully as that?"



CHAPTER XIII

SUSPICION

"Of course we can get supper for everyone," declared Mrs. Lewis, cordially, when Cora spoke of the determination of the boys to come down upon the Mote for tea. "We have plenty of food."

"You are a wonder, Mrs. Lewis," declared Cora. "You always have a full larder. I don't see where it comes from, for you don't even use up the budget."

"It's a matter of experience," answered Mrs. Lewis. "When one has to do things, my dear, one learns how. I am so glad we have macaroni cooked. Boys love big, steaming dishes."

Cora gave a sigh of relief. What a blessing Mrs. Lewis had proven to be! After finding themselves shut out of their house by a trick of the land agents she and her daughter had taken up a permanent residence in the girls' camp. Freda, in spite of all opposition, had installed herself as "maid." She insisted on waiting on the table, and attending to rooms, and helping her mother generally, although the girls wanted her to be one of them. Everyone declared that her mother, with her wonderful management and activity, more than made up for Freda being a visitor at the Mote.

Freda seemed happier now than when she shared the little cottage with her mother, but this was easily understood. Under the new arrangement Mrs. Lewis was earning an honest and comfortable living, and Freda was more than willing to assist her in every way possible. Before, they had lived in constant dread of the land agents putting them out of their home. Even the fact that the sign "For Sale" had been placed on the cottage did not seem so unbearable, for the girls and boys had insisted that that was only a "scare" on the part of the land agents, and that while the town constable would not interfere to the extent of taking down the sign, he had promised to investigate the rights of those who put it up.

But town constables are slow and timid when strangers, with big-brimmed hats, and plenty of cigars, come from the city, and order papers signed at so much per sign—for the constable.

The boys had come, and the supper was almost ready. Lottie looked as pretty and as well as ever, for she had dressed in a chic pink frock, and with a pink snood binding her brow looked as fresh as though she had just come from the hands of a beauty specialist. After all, such vigorous treatment and baths of spray as the girls had encountered all that afternoon amounted to just that—beauty treatment; and Lottie was not the only one whose cheeks glowed, and in whose eyes shone the light that comes only from youth and health.

The rumpus that always followed the boys' arrival was in full sway, Jack and Ed chasing Bess around the bungalow to make her give up an imaginary lost scarf pin, while Dray and Walter contented themselves with the less violent exercise of rocking on the front porch, where the other girls were scattered. They certainly were "scattered," for there was so much to tell and hear of the afternoon's adventure that each girl chose her own listener and her own corner.

Everyone seemed deeply absorbed in this when Freda appeared at the door with the warning bell. That meant that in five minutes the tea bell would ring—only it was going to be dinner to-night.

"That sounds fine," Dray told Freda, who in her blue linen sailor suit looked quite as well as the young ladies who put in most of their time "leisuring." "Our Belle is not nearly as aristocratic as that."

"I hope dinner will bear out the reputation," Freda replied, a bit shyly, for Dray was somewhat of a stranger to her.

"Dinner will make that reputation immortal," Jack declared, as he and Ed gave up their chase and joined the others on the porch. "But hello! Here comes Denny! And he has no pipe! Something surely is wrong."

Everyone ceased chattering as Denny Shane appeared on the tan bark path.

"Hello, there, Denny!" called Jack, getting up from his porch chair. "What's up?"

"A-plenty," answered Denny with a sweep of his cap that took everyone in the greeting. "Where's the Widder Lewis?"

"Oh, what's the matter, Denny?" asked Freda, aghast. "Can't you tell me first? You know how weak mother is."

"'Tis nothing bad," replied Denny, as he sat down on the bottom step of the porch, in spite of all invitations to come up and have a chair. He settled his cap more securely on his gray head. "I just want to—tell her something."

"But what?" insisted Freda, who now sat beside the old sailor on the step. "I know all about the business, you know."

"Do come in, Denny," pleaded Cora. "It will be easier to talk in the living room. We young folks can go into the dining room and start our dinner while you settle it all quietly among yourselves."

"Thank you, Miss," Denny replied, promptly accepting Cora's invitation. "That will be the best way, I guess."

Famished as everyone seemed to be, the visit of Denny somewhat shifted the interest from appetites, and curiosity strayed from the dining room toward the living room.

"What can have happened?" whispered Belle to Marita. "Denny looks positively—angry."

"Doesn't he?" Marita replied. "I suppose it is something about Freda's property; don't you think so?"

"Likely."

The voices from the other room, that had been subdued, now rose in tones of surprise. Freda and her mother were both trying to talk at the same time, evidently.

Cora was serving the dinner and endeavoring not to spoil it. The boys were too hungry and too glad to eat to allow any interruption to interfere with their pleasure, but the girls were prone to whisper, and even to listen when a voice penetrated the room.

"It was them!" they heard Denny exclaim, "and I'll have the law on them!"

Then Freda said something like: "Can't be sure!"

"Sure as me name's Dinny Shane!" exclaimed the old man. "Who else would have tied up little Brian, the dog that was never tied before in his life! Sure I'd like to 'a caught them at it," and he brought his fist down hard on something.

The boys and girls exchanged glances.

"Something doing," ventured Jack. "I'll bet Denny has seen the witches."

"No—banshees," corrected Ed. "Witches aren't ripe this time of year. But Cora, don't let us keep you. Really, Walter would love to take your place up head there, when you have finished."

Cora was anxious to join in the conversation with Freda and her mother, Freda having whispered to her that they would like to have her do so as soon as the dinner was over.

"Then I will be excused," she said, "although I hope you won't hurry."

"Don't be alarmed," said Walter. "It's very bad to eat in a hurry."

"I'll serve," proposed Bess, "I know just how much everyone has had, and how much more they ought to have. Dray, you cannot have another bit of pudding."

Dray was stretching far out for the dish. He did love apple slump. And Mrs. Lewis knew just the right amount of cinnamon to season with.

A hush followed Cora's entrance to the living room. Not a single word or exclamation escaped through the Summer hangings that hid the narrow door.

"Do you think it's a conspiracy?" remarked Walter. "I'm glad we had dinner first. I had no idea that a hurricane went straight to the hunger zone like that."

"You would be a star to go up North," commented Ed. "Just fancy carrying stuff in your pockets and starving because the exact latitude for grub had not been reached—wow!"

"I would insist upon being made chairman of the latitude committee," replied Walter, "and my moves would be swift and certain."

The door opened and Freda entered. She was not exactly all smiles, but the serious look on her face was not deep enough to cause comment.

"I came to fetch your coffee," she announced, cheerfully. "You must think we are planning to dynamite something," she added.

"Oh, worse than that," replied Dray, getting one more spoonful of slump on the sly. "We thought you were taking a negative vote on the coffee. Nerves, at night, you know."

"Let me help you," insisted Belle. "I am almost stiff from sitting, or maybe it is from the way I wasn't sitting in the bottom of the boat."

"Very likely," affirmed Jack. "I would not be surprised if we had to come around in the morning with nippers to get the kinks out. I see one forming, right now, in Lottie's cheek."

"We will be stiff, I am sure," added Bess, "although our muscles ought to be in good form."

"When you have finished," Freda whispered to Belle, "we want to give Denny something."

"Of course," Belle replied. "How selfish we are, sitting here 'gabbing,' and neither you nor your mother has had supper yet. I'll serve coffee at once."

"Don't hurry," Freda said. "We have time enough."

Everyone, however, seemed to guess at once that they should make room for the next "table," and the coffee was swallowed, hastily.

"What is it?" Lottie ventured to ask Freda. "We are just dying of curiosity. What has happened?"

"Oh, I can't tell you now," Freda answered, evasively. "I guess everyone knew we were shipwrecked this afternoon."

Cora appeared at the door. "May we come to eat now?" she asked. "I have only succeeded in making Denny stay with the understanding that we won't keep him long. He is anxious to get back to his cabin."

"I am that," said Denny, following Cora into the dining room. "Can't tell what'll happen now."

"Then something did happen," Bess said aside, to Marita. "I can't imagine what."

"Now you must eat a good meal," Mrs. Lewis insisted to Denny. "I remember well how you always loved macaroni and cheese."

"And I remember well how you fixed it up," answered Denny, gallantly. "This is a bit like the old days; isn't it? When I used to eat you out of house and home, when Len would fetch me into your house to tempt me appetite," and he chuckled at the recollection. "Freddie, you were only a tot then, but you could climb on my knee right smart. I guess you were always a romp." This last was plainly intended as a compliment, for Denny smiled at Freda as she handed him his steaming coffee.

If the young folks thought that by special attention to Denny and his wants at the table they might get an inkling of the mystery that had so excited the old man they were disappointed, for he never betrayed a word of it, and only an occasional absent look in his sober gray eyes betokened anything unusual.

He scarcely took time to swallow the tempting food, however, when he jumped up and declared he could not stay another minute, although Cora, Freda, and Mrs. Lewis urged him to remain.

"I must run—I really must," he insisted, "and mind what I tell you," to Freda and Cora, "look out for yourselves!"



CHAPTER XIV

AN ANGRY DRUGGIST

"We didn't want to make a fuss over it before the boys," Cora explained to a number of the girls, who, next morning, were seated about the bungalow side porch, trying to get in a few stitches of embroidery. "They would be sure to go straight at those land fellows, and we think—Denny and all of us—that the best way to do is to watch them carefully for a while."

"But what happened?" demanded Lottie, impatiently.

"We don't know exactly what, but it appears that while Denny was out, fishing us in, someone entered his shack and ransacked it."

"Burglars! What for? In that hut!" exclaimed Belle.

"We don't know that, either," continued Cora. "We can only surmise. They must have been after something that was neither money nor table silver." She laughed a little at the idea of anyone trying to rob the humble cabin of a fisherman. "The little terrier is never tied up and never troubles anybody, but it seems he did object to the intrusion, for he has a cut on one leg, made, possibly, by a heavy shoe, and when Denny found him he was tied tight to a hook in the woodshed. Denny will never forgive whoever tied Brian."

"But did the thieves take anything?" Bess wanted to know.

"Not a thing. Of course there was nothing an ordinary thief would have any use for; but it looks as if they were searching for something in particular, for everything was turned inside out. Every strip of carpet was pulled up and loose boards in the floor pried away. It really is too bad for Denny. He will have a lot of trouble getting things in order again, and you know he is neat, for a lone fisherman."

"Isn't that outrageous!" exclaimed Belle. "I think, Cora, we should have told the boys and had them make a charge against whoever may be guilty. They will be ransacking here next."

"Oh, goodness! I hope not," cried Marita. "I think we should have police protection."

"And have officers ringing our door bell all hours of the night because someone forgot to turn out the dining room light, or the side window was found unlocked," said Cora. "They have very few officers here, I should imagine, and if we really gave them something to do they might insist on doing it."

"Tell us more about it," begged Marita, who was naturally fascinated with the "scary" part.

"I only know that his shack was entered and all but torn down," said Cora. "As to who did it, or why it was done, we can only surmise. But don't talk too much about it. We want to keep it quiet."

"Why?" demanded Marita.

"Because by letting other people talk about it we may be able to trace the perpetrators. We could easily find out who knew it had happened, in that way."

"Oh, I see," Marita answered vaguely, although her tone did not indicate comprehension. "Freda and Mrs. Lewis are going out; aren't they?" This question implied "why" also.

"Yes," Cora answered again. "They have some business to attend to. I told them not to hurry back for lunch—we would attend to it. We really need the exercise."

"But I am going canoeing directly after lunch," Lottie objected.

"After lunch?" repeated Belle. "This will be before lunch—the getting ready."

"Oh, you know what I mean," Lottie grumbled. "It makes one's hands so horrid to handle cooking things."

"Were you going to paddle?" asked Cora, innocently.

"I was going to try," admitted Lottie.

"Then your hands will be in better shape from some active work," Cora added, mischievously. "It is awful to try to paddle with soft hands."

"Oh, I guess mine are not any too soft," Lottie retorted, a bit abashed that she should have fallen into the trap.

"Where are you going, Lottie?" asked Marita. "You know it is only safe to canoe near the shore. The water can be very rough sometimes."

"I don't think you ought to go in a canoe until you can swim," said Cora. "You know a canoe is the most uncertain of craft, except that it is absolutely certain to upset if you draw a breath in, when you should send a breath out. Jack says a canoe is more than human, but I won't shock your ears by saying what he thinks it is."

"I am sure there is no danger when one sits still," Lottie insisted, "but if you don't want me to go, Cora——"

"Of course I want you to go, and have a nice time," Cora explained, "but I don't want you to upset. You should wear a bathing suit and be ready to swim in case of a spill."

"Oh, I couldn't do that!" exclaimed Lottie, rather shocked. "I am going with Clem."

"Well, I hope Clem will put you in the very bottom of the boat, and not trust to a seat. Even a big cushion is wobbly," finished Cora. "Now, young ladies, are you ready for a tramp? We have to walk to the old village this morning to shop, unless you want to go to the dock and take Frank's ferry. He will take us across for ten cents each, and we need things to eat."

"Oh, do let us walk," begged Bess. "I haven't seen half the things that grow around here."

"Do you grow around here?" asked Belle, maliciously, inferring that the desired walk was needed to "reduce." A withering look was the answer she received from her twin sister. Just the same the walk was decided upon, and a little later the wintergreen path was alive with voices. It was one of the delights of Summer to tramp and ramble; and in spite of the joys of motor boating the girls were not slow to appreciate the pleasures of dry land decked in various shades of foliage green and floral tints.

The mountain laurel was at its best—that little tasselled thing we call "pfingster," but which looks quite aristocratic enough to belong to the orchid family, made bouquets of itself in every appropriate spot, while the glorious rhododendrons put forth a display sufficiently beautiful and courageous to last all Summer.

"Oh, my, look at the style!" Lottie exclaimed as a party of young folks appeared before them. They were evidently coming from the Cliff Hotel, and made the most of that fact.

"There's Hilda Hastings!" Cora said, in surprise. "I didn't know she was down here."

A remarkably pretty girl, light-haired and wearing lilac shades, with a parasol that reflected that becoming tint, was Hilda. She evidently saw, and recognized Cora just as the latter spied her.

"Cora Kimball!" cried Hilda, in the delighted way that usually marks a meeting with a home friend in the midst of vacation time. "Where did you come from?"

"Oh, Hilda!" answered Cora, advancing to meet the girl who almost ran to greet her, "I am so glad to see you. We are stopping at our own little bunk—the Motely Mote—on Pine Shade Way. And where do you put up?"

Introductions followed, and girls from the Mote were plainly delighted to meet the others from a fashionable hotel. The meeting also resulted in a general invitation from the Cliff girls to the Motes to attend a hop to be given the next evening at the hotel.

"And do bring every boy you can scrape up," Hilda enjoined. "We shall be sure to need them."

"What dress?" asked Lottie the Vain.

"Linen or lace, doesn't matter in the least," declared a young girl whom they called Madge. "We will wear whatever we fall into for dinner."

"All right," answered Lottie for all, fluttering at the prospect of a real hotel hop. "We will wear whatever we may find pressable—we have the awfullest time with wrinkles down here."

"Don't mind them," answered Hilda. "Wrinkled clothes are a seaside fad, you know. If you have none you will be suspected of being the Press Club Trust. That's a clothing club—not literary."

With other pleasantries the two sets parted, but not until all sorts of invitations to come and visit had been extended and accepted.

"What nice girls," the timid Marita remarked as the fashionable ones turned into the lane. "Isn't Hilda pretty? Are they from Chelton?"

"She is and they are," answered Cora. "But I do not see how we are going to that hop. The boys were going to take us out in a sail boat, you know."

"Oh, I would be frightened to death in a sail boat," objected Lottie.

"And perfectly safe in a canoe," observed Belle. "Charlotte, that is scarcely understandable."

"Well," said Lottie, turning a deeper shade of pink, "I am afraid of that big pole in a sail boat. It looks as if it would sweep one's head off every time it veers around."

"Just duck," advised Belle. "It's a great teacher of the proper mode of ducking; and that is not to be despised, Lottie, whether one has to duck harsh words, or big poles. But I want to go sailing. I can't see what fun there is in going into a stuffy hotel on a beautiful moonlight evening when we can go out on the water and see something."

"Don't you think we would see something in the Cliff ball room?" challenged Lottie.

"Peace!" called Cora, good-naturedly. "It looks as if we might have to take a vote on the question. But I can't say that the boys would be willing to accept a negative answer."

"Oh, won't they come?" Lottie asked in surprise.

"I don't believe they will forego the sail," replied Cora. "However, we won't decide until we ask them. If they want to postpone the water sport we may take in the hop."

This was looked upon as a reasonable solution of the problem, and while some of the girls hoped for the sail, perhaps an equal number wished to go to the dance.

It was a delightful morning, and the woods were fairly alive with young folk. It seemed there could be very few mothers or chaperones at Crystal Bay, for even in marketing hours it was always the girls with baskets, or the boys with huge paper bags, who were encountered. On benches along the beach, to be sure, "elders" might be found sunning themselves and ruining their fading sight with alleged art embroideries, but in the matter of housekeeping it was youth that prevailed at the bay.

It was a long walk to the general store at the point, but there was a resting place there, and if one wanted to tarry and felt like dancing, a very accommodating young man sat near the piano ready to play at the shortest notice. Belle and Lottie usually took a twirl while Bess and Cora did the shopping, but to-day having walked instead of coming by motor boat they sank into a seat at the water's edge and watched others try the newest steps.

Around the drug counter a number of men were engaged in earnest conversation with the salesman. Belle needed cold cream and was waiting her turn to tell the clerk so.

"We just about have it," said one man to the man behind the counter. "There is no question about the legal right; it is only a matter of a lost document. We may get along without it, but we understood you were a life-long resident, knew the people, and thought perhaps you could tell us something about it. Of course we don't want anyone's time for nothing."

The clerk scratched his head and looked over his glasses. The scale was tipping with white stuff and a customer was waiting.

"That may be so," he replied, slowly, "but I should think, young fellow, that them folks themselves would know more about their own business than anyone else. Why don't you go to them?"

"Do you think for a moment that anyone is going to do themselves out of house and home like that?" asked the taller man, angrily.

"Oh, that's the game; is it? Well, see here! Do you think for one moment that I, Bill Sparks, am going to do a poor widow out of house and home to suit you!"

He had raised his voice to angry tones, a remarkable thing for Bill to do in business hours, but those around who heard had no blame for him. The strangers left without taking up their cigars or paying for them. Bill looked after them quizzically.

"That's the way to answer that sort," he remarked to no one in particular. "Too many of them speculators around the bay, lately. Cold cream?" he inquired of Bess.

Cora had seen the men, although she was in the grocery department, and when Bess told her what she had overheard she looked troubled.

"We must not put that off another day," she told Bess. "I am convinced that those men are dishonest, for why should they go sneaking around that way? Why not ask for information from the proper persons?"

Scarcely had she spoken than Mrs. Lewis and Freda appeared in the doorway that led from the boat landing. Freda's face was flushed, and Mrs. Lewis's was pale.

"What is it?" Cora asked, hurrying up to them.

"They have started a mill dam across the creek," replied Freda. "If they turn that water into use for mill purposes the whole shore of the bay will be ruined!"

"Don't go so fast, daughter," urged Mrs. Lewis. "We can stop them; we must get a lawyer at once."

"Of course," answered Cora, "I think they call it an injunction, or restraining papers. Who is your lawyer, Mrs. Lewis?"

"We haven't any," Freda replied for her mother. "We were told if we engaged counsel they would eat up the whole thing. Oh, isn't it dreadful!" and the brave Freda was on the verge of tears.

"I'll see Jack at once," declared Cora, "and if there are not trustworthy lawyers here we will fetch our own down from Chelton. The senior member of the firm would do anything reasonable for our family, and when mother is away she leaves Jack and me full discretion. Let us hurry back before the boys get out on the water. Bess, call Belle and Lottie."

The look of relief that spread over the widow's face was a more eloquent form of thanks than words could have been, so without further delay they all hurried to the motor boat in which Mrs. Lewis and Freda had come over. It was from a bay front hotel and had come over for the eleven o'clock mail.

The boy at the wheel started up as soon as all were seated, and as the launch was a good-sized one the trip across the bay was both comfortable and enjoyable. Of course Belle and Lottie wanted to know more than they could be told about the coming of Freda and Mrs. Lewis, so they had to content themselves with a word and a look from Cora.

The boys were at the landing as the boat came in. This was exactly what Cora had wished for.



CHAPTER XV

AN ALARM

"I will go to Lamberton this afternoon," declared Mrs. Lewis, after having conferred with Cora and Jack. "I know a man there who was a great friend of my husband. He told me to come to him any time I needed advice, and he is a prominent lawyer. I have never troubled him—had no good cause to until now."

"I think that would be a good plan," Jack agreed. "I fancy as soon as we come down on those fellows good and hard, they will be forced to show their hand."

So it was arranged that Mrs. Lewis should go to the town, some twenty-five miles away.

"And Freda," she said, "don't worry if I am not back until the last train, for if he should happen to be in New York I will wait for him."

"Be careful of that cut in the old road," Freda warned. "Mother, you know it is always dark through there, even in broad daylight, and after dark it is pitchy."

"I can't get any train until one o'clock," went on Mrs. Lewis, "so, Freda, we will hurry back to the bungalow and leave everything ready for tea. We can prepare things while the girls are lunching."

"Now, you needn't do anything of the kind," objected Cora, "we girls can well enough take care of ourselves once in a while. Why, Mrs. Lewis, you have us all spoiled. We are supposed to do most of our own housekeeping in Summer camp, you know."

"Indeed, you do that now," returned Mrs. Lewis, who was more than grateful for the opportunity for work that Cora had afforded to her. "I like housekeeping when there is someone to keep for."

"You had Freda," Jack reminded her.

"And she wouldn't let me do enough to keep in practice," replied Mrs. Lewis. "Here we are, and the young ladies are stringing beans!"

"Now that is what I call sweet of you," Jack observed as he greeted the four girls, all seated around a low porch table with knives and beans plying from basket to pan. "Who told you we were coming to dine?"

"You positively are not, Brother Jack," Cora declared. "You boys think our place is an elastic delicatessen. Why, we never know whether we are going to have enough for another meal or not, and we can't go to the point again to-day."

"All right, Little Sister. If you have the heart to eat good string beans from old Henry's garden, and know that your brother is starving for a single spoonful, just go ahead. They will rest heavy on your heart, though. I warn you."

"You may help!" offered Lottie. "Just take that paper bag and scoop up the ends. Bess spilled them."

"I absolutely refuse," replied Jack, haughtily, "to be a scraper-up for such mean people. No, sir! I have just been manicured," and he gazed lovingly at his much-neglected hands.

"It does seem as if all we do is to get ready to eat and then eat," said Belle with a sigh. "I would never keep house for myself if I starved. At least, I would manage on fewer meals. We have only been to the point since breakfast and now it is time to eat again."

Cora had gone in with Freda and Mrs. Lewis and very soon afterward luncheon was announced—the beans were laid over for the evening meal. Jack stayed, of course, and wondered (so he said) why the other fellows did not come in search of him.

An hour or two later Mrs. Lewis hurried off to the little station, after promising Freda that she would be most careful of the dark road known as the "Cut."

"For, Mother dear," warned Freda, "I do believe those land sharks would do almost anything to scare the information out of us. They have threatened to have it at any cost, you know."

"Oh! I am surprised at you being so nervous, dear," replied the mother, kissing Freda reassuringly. "I never felt less nervous. In fact, I think now things will soon be righted. Good-bye, dear. And have a good time with your friends."

Freda watched the little woman step lightly away over the white path. Then, with a sigh, she turned back to the bungalow.

"Freda! Freda!" called Bess. "You have not eaten yet, and I'm to do the dishes. Hurry this minute and just fill up! I must be finished in time for a nap, for I am nearly dead."

Freda did eat, though somehow she felt unusually depressed. Even Cora's encouraging words, given into Freda's ear when no one else was at hand, did not seem to cheer her.

"Just come down to the bay and go out with me," urged Cora. "I want to try the boat with the new control, and I don't want to go out alone!"

"Of course I will go with you," assented Freda. "I have only to change my blouse."

The motor trip was delightful. The Chelton seemed to have missed the guiding hand of its fair owner, for while the new piece of mechanism was being put in Cora had not been using the boat.

"How different from the one we rode in this morning," Freda remarked. "I always feel as if something were going to explode when I sit near a noise such as that old engine made. I wonder that a big house like the Laurel can keep such a tub."

"Guests are always glad to get on the water," answered Cora, "and I suppose they are not particular as long as they do not have to pay extra for the sail. Most of the hotels down here hire out their launches, I believe."

They headed straight for the island, and then ran around it to come back on the east shore. In many of the passing boats were young friends of Cora, and all sorts of messages were shouted back and forth.

"I guess I had better go in early," Cora remarked, "as we really have not decided on this evening's plans. Some want the hop and others want the sail."

"And I have a lot to do, too," Freda said. "Mother and I have to take so much time from what we would like to do for you girls."

Cora protested against this, of course, declaring that the girls never had such help before, and regretting that Freda should take the matter so seriously.

"I cannot get over the attempt to rob Denny," Cora went on, as they neared the bungalow. "I am glad they chose a time when he was not around, for he would certainly fight. He thinks he has the same strength he enjoyed years ago, and I hate to think what might have happened had he met those fellows."

"Wasn't it awful?" commented Freda. "And to think that it must have been on our account, for I am convinced that those men were searching for papers they believe Denny has."

"No doubt about it," said Cora. "But he has none; has he?"

"He has never mentioned such a thing, and with us worrying as we are, I am sure that if he had any of our papers he would show them to mother. I know my grandfather trusted him more than he even trusted my father, his own son; but that is easy to understand, for Denny had settled for life here, near the property, while father was likely to go to any part of the world, had he lived. He always wanted to travel."

"This is a splendid afternoon to write letters," Cora remarked, "and I owe a very long one to mother. That, at least, I will get off on the last mail."

"I have some to write, too," Freda rejoined. "I had that very task in mind. I have to write to those 'in-laws' I interviewed last week. They will think I am very ungrateful not to have written since my return. So long," she called out cheerily. "I hope when mother comes back we will all have cause to rejoice. That friend of father's is a very good lawyer."

"But he may not be able to say much until he has had a chance to look into the case," said prudent Cora. "We must not expect results so soon."

"Oh, I do," persisted Freda. "I know when he hears all that mother has to tell him he will be able to say something quite definite."

So the girls parted, Cora to go to her letter writing, and Freda to hers. It seemed the entire household at the Mote was very busy that afternoon, some resting for the evening, others arranging the fussy trifles so important to young girls.

It was getting dark when Freda came out at the side porch and looked anxiously down the road.

"Mother should have come on that train," she told herself. Then she waited to hear the train pass at the second crossing. "She would be on her way up now if she came," Freda reflected, "I'll get my things on and go to meet her."

Coming down the stairs she called Cora, but receiving no reply she did not wait to find her. She expected to be gone only a few minutes and it was not worth while to wait to tell Cora where she was going.

The dusk came down quickly. Even as Freda passed under the big elm tree she could not see the moss at its trunk.

She hastened on, and was almost startled into a scream as she heard a noise. It was but the tinkle of a bell.

"Someone on a bicycle!" exclaimed Freda, in relief.

The bell tinkled again, and through an opening in the trees she caught a glimpse of the messenger boy from the railroad station. He saw her and called:

"A message for you!"

"A message for me?" she repeated in surprise. "Who can it be from?" At once she thought of her mother.

"I don't know," answered the lad. "Mr. Burke, at the station, took it over the telephone, and wrote it out. Here it is," and he held up an envelope. "It's all paid, and you don't have to sign the book; it isn't a regular telegram."

With trembling fingers Freda tore open the envelope. There was a single slip of paper inside and on it was written in the hand of the station agent:

"If you would do your mother a service come to Wickford Junction at once."

* * * * *

"Wickford Junction!" gasped Freda, as the messenger boy rode away. "Why, how did mother get there? That's in the opposite direction from Lamberton. Oh, there must have been some accident, and she has been taken there! I must go to her!"

Hastily Freda looked in her purse. She had barely money enough for the ticket, but she would go. On eager and anxious feet she sped toward the railroad depot. It was getting much darker.

"Oh, Mr. Burke!" Freda gasped, when she saw the agent behind his little wicket gate, "I've got to go to Wickford Junction. Mother is there."

"She is, Freda? Why I sold her a ticket to Lamberton this morning."

"I know. But there must have been some accident. I just got a message from Wickford Junction."

"I know, for I wrote it down. The person wouldn't give any name, but I'm sure it wasn't your mother."

"No, it couldn't have been! She's hurt!"

"Hurt?"

"Well, of course I'm not sure, but I fear she is. She must have told someone to send it. I've got to go. How much is a ticket?"

"Eighty-five cents. The train's due now. There she comes," he added, as a distant whistle sounded.

Freda had barely time to get her ticket and hurry aboard.

"Don't worry," the agent called out to her. "There hasn't been any accident, or I'd have heard of it."

But Freda did worry. All the way in the train she was a prey to nervous fears, and when the Junction was finally reached she was hardly able to keep up.

But there was no sign of an accident, and her mother was not there when she alighted—the only passenger to get off.

Wickford Junction was hardly more than a flag station, and there was an agent there only part of the time. He was not there now, but in the dingy waiting room, where Freda went to make inquiries, she found a shabbily dressed woman.

"Are you Freda Lewis?" the latter asked, starting forward.

"Yes, I am. But how did you know? Where is my mother? Did you send me a message? Oh, tell me quickly, please!"

"Now, dearie, don't get excited," soothed the woman in accents that only made Freda worry more. "It will be all right. I sent for you to come here because I wanted to have a chance to talk to you alone. Now if you'll sit down——"

"What do you mean?" asked Freda, quickly. "I don't know you. What do you want?"

"Just to have a little talk with you. I thought it better to take this means than to go to your house. Sit down. You and your mother are trying to establish a claim to some property; aren't you?"

"Yes, that is well known. But what do you——"

"Never mind about that. I will tell you all in due time. Have you any papers to prove your claim?"

"Any papers?" asked Freda, suspiciously.

"Yes—deeds, mortgages or the like. I have studied law, and I may be able to help you. I have had experience in many disputed claims."

"We don't know where——" Freda was about to say that they did not know where the papers were, when she thought better of it. Was it right to confide thus in a stranger?

"Now, dearie, tell me everything," said the woman. "You can trust me. Or, better still, if you will come with me to the country hotel where I am stopping we will not be disturbed. Better come with me," and in her eagerness she caught Freda by the arm.

"No, no! I'll not go!" gasped the girl. "I want to find my mother. Who are you, and why do you ask me these questions? Did you send me that false message? What was your purpose in so deceiving me?"

"I did not deceive you!" replied the woman, sharply. "It was for the good of your mother that I asked you to meet me here. I will explain all to you later, but not here. I can do you good. Only trust me. Come with me. I have a carriage waiting outside."

Again she caught Freda's arm.

Then the harassed and nervous girl burst into tears. A kindly-faced hack driver, waiting outside in the hope of having some belated traveler hire him, heard. Dick Bently was a benevolent sort of chap, with daughters of his own. Hearing a girl crying he went into the depot.

"What's the matter, Miss?" he asked, and his tone was reassuring.

"Oh, it's my mother!" gasped Freda. "She isn't here, and this—this person sent me a message——"

"It was for your good, my dear," interrupted the strange woman, with an evil smile. "I'm trying to settle that property matter for you, my dearie!"

"Who are you, anyhow?" asked Dick belligerently. He did not like the appearance of the woman, nor her tone.

"It is not necessary for me to tell you anything," she replied, with assumed dignity. "If I am not wanted, I will go."

"Maybe it would be better," said the hackman. "Now, can I help you, young lady?" he asked kindly, as the woman hurried off.

"I only want to go home to Crystal Bay, and to my mother," said Freda, and she briefly explained the circumstances.

"Well, it's too bad, but I'm afraid you can't get back to Crystal Bay to-night," declared the hackman. "The last train has gone."

"The last train gone!" gasped Freda. "Oh, what am I to do?"

"Now don't you worry a mite," replied Dick. "I'll just take you home to my wife, and she'll look after you. Don't you worry," and, after some persuasion he prevailed on Freda to go in his ramshackle rig to his home, where she was kindly received by his wife.

"I'll go back to the station to meet the express that sometimes stops at the Junction," explained Dick, "and, Miss, if there come any inquiries for you I'll tell where you are. But you'll have to stay with us till mornin', I reckon."

Freda's mind was easier now, but she could not imagine what had been the object of the strange woman, nor why she had sent the telegram.

Meanwhile, back in the bungalow, there was much alarm when Freda was missed. And when her mother came home safely, and found her daughter gone, she almost collapsed.

"Where can she have gone?" she wailed.

Hasty inquiries were made, and one of the boatmen told of having seen Freda start out through the woods, and meet the station messenger boy. After that it was easy to trace her.

Mr. Burke told of the 'phone message, and of having seen Freda board the train for the Junction.

And then a new difficulty arose. There was no train to the Junction that night; but Mrs. Lewis was in such a state that nothing short of a visit to the place would satisfy her. There was no telephone available then, the Junction station being closed.

Cora solved the trouble.

"We can go to Hartford in our boat," she said, "and from there it is only a short trip to the Junction. We could hire an auto."

This was done. In the Chelton, the motor girls and the boys went to Hartford, making good time in getting there. A neighbor came over to the bungalow to stay with Mrs. Lewis, who grew more alarmed as the night deepened.

The trip by auto, which was taken only by Jack, Cora and the chauffeur, was marked by the mishap of a blown-out tire, but that was all. When the Junction was finally reached, there, true to his promise, was the hackman, and to Cora's excited inquiries he gave reassuring answers.

Yes, Freda was all right, and safe at his house. He directed Jack and Cora there, and soon all were reunited. Then explanations were offered, Freda's fears about her mother were quieted, and the trip back to Hartford made, where the motor boat party was anxiously waiting.

"And now for the bungalow!" sighed Cora, as she took her place at the familiar wheel. A little later it was reached, and mother and daughter were together again telling their stories, and speculating much about Freda's strange message and the mysterious woman. But the puzzle could not be solved.



CHAPTER XVI

A BAD CASE OF NERVES

"Would the boys have anything in their camp, do you suppose?" asked Bess, with a long sigh.

"Anything for what?" asked Lottie, as she looked surreptitiously into the mirror of her vanity box. Lottie was always worried about the effect of late hours.

"Is it something to eat?" asked Marita in her timid way. "If you want that, Bess, I'll go over and help you carry it."

"Gracious, I hope we don't need anything in the food line," said Cora. "I thought we stocked up with enough to last the rest of the week."

"I want something for my nerves," went on Bess. "They're on the ragged edge, and I jump at every sound."

"And no wonder," agreed Belle, as she went over to a hammock suspended between two trees. "Get something for mine, while you're at it, Bess. I think they use bromide, or something like that. But I doubt if the boys would have any. They don't seem to have a nerve in their bodies, though goodness knows they're 'nervy' enough at other times. Pardon the colloquialism," she murmured as she sank back.

It was the morning after Freda's return, and the night had been rather a troubled one. No one in the girls' camp felt much like eating breakfast, though they managed to nibble at a bit of toast and drink some coffee.

The alarm about Freda had giver the motor girls the keenest anxiety, and while Jack and the boys tried to make Freda and the girls believe the woman and the telephone message had been a joke, it looked to be too serious a matter to be lightly passed off.

The odd woman who had met Freda at the country junction had shown, by her questions, that she knew much about the disputed property. And her manner had been, in a way, rather threatening. It was too unusual to have been accidental, at any rate.

But Freda had reached home in safety. The motor girls were glad of that, but they were all suffering from a bad case of nerves, though, so far, Bess and Belle had been the only ones to admit it openly.

"I wouldn't take any of that bromide, if I were you, Bess," said Cora, as she straightened out some of the things in the living room. The usually homelike apartment had taken on a most woebegone appearance since the previous night. Everyone had left everything just where she had happened to let it fall.

"But I've got to do something!" declared the plump twin. "My hand shakes—see, I can't hold it still," and in proof she held it out.

"It does shake," spoke Marita, in an awed whisper. "Maybe she had better have a doctor."

"Doctor! Nonsense!" laughed Belle. "Her hand trembles because she had her arm up so long this morning, trying to do her hair up that new way. Sit down, Bess, and you'll be all right in a few minutes."

"But I can't sit still, that's the trouble. I'm so nervous!" and Bess hastily arose from a chair in which she had seated herself, and began pacing up and down the broad bungalow porch.

"I have an idea!" exclaimed Cora.

"Don't let it die of lonesomeness," suggested Belle, with a laugh. "Think up another and have a pair of ideas."

"I will," replied Cora, promptly. "I think if we go out for a little spin in the boat it will do us all good. It's a lovely day—too lovely to let our nerves get the best of us. What do you say?"

"I'll do anything rather than sit here and think of what might have happened," sighed Bess.

"Oh, you're taking it entirely too seriously," put in Lottie, as she used a buffer on her already pink and polished nails. "What could have happened?"

"Why, they might have taken Freda away!"

"Who would?"

"Those persons—men or women—or both—who are trying to get possession of the Lewis property. And, in a way, we might have been involved," went on Bess.

"I don't see how," observed Cora.

"Why, we've given advice to Freda and her mother, and if things went wrong some persons might say we had an object in it."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Belle. "You've surely got a case of nerves, all right. Come on, let's do as Cora says and take a trip on the water." She got out of the hammock—Belle could accomplish this difficult feat more gracefully than anyone else, Cora always said.

Then they all went down to the little dock where the Chelton was tied, and Cora, with a quickness born of long experience, ascertained that there was plenty of gasoline and oil in the craft. She tested the vibrator and found the current good, though at times, when not suffering from a fit of stubbornness, the engine had been known to start with the magneto. But it was not safe to depend on it.

"Are you all ready?" asked Cora.

"I guess so," answered Bess. "I guess I won't have to have bromide, after all. I feel better already."

"I thought you would," laughed Cora. "Marita, just straighten out that stern flag, will you? Thank you. You're a dear!"

"Look out!" laughed Belle. "When Cora begins calling names there is no telling when she will stop."

"Don't worry," was Cora's answer, as she stooped over to crank the motor. It started on the first turn and soon the Chelton was chugging a course over the sun-lit waters of Crystal Bay.

"Do you see anything of the boys?" asked Cora, as she turned to the others from her place at the steering wheel.

"No, there's their boat—at least Jack's apology for one—tied to the stake," said Lottie. "Does that boat ever go out two days in succession, Cora?"

"I don't believe it does," answered Jack's sister. "It was a sort of makeshift, anyhow. Jack only got her running because someone said it couldn't be done—it was a sort of dare. But the poor old boat seems to suffer from some intermittent fever. It runs one day and rests the next."

"And the Dixie—she's resting, too," went on Bess, as she looked down the bay to where Dray Ward's fine racing craft was moored. "The boys are not around yet."

"Probably sleeping," murmured Belle. "The indolent creatures!"

"Folks who live in glass houses—and all the rest of it," said Cora. "It's nearly eleven, and we haven't been long away from the breakfast table ourselves."

"It's a case of carrying coals to Newcastle; isn't it?" asked Lottie, drying with her filmy handkerchief a drop of water on her dress.

"You mean the pot calling the kettle black," laughed Cora. Lottie never could get her proverbs just right.

"Oh, well, it's all the same as long as there's black in it," responded Lottie. "I knew I had part of it right."

On went the Chelton, and she had that part of the bay all to herself for the time being. A little breeze ruffled the water, and the sun shone brightly. Under these calming influences of nature the girls—even nervous Bess—felt themselves growing calm, and at peace with the world. The trouble of the night before seemed to melt away, and assume a less sinister aspect. But Cora could not get over the feeling that something akin to a tragedy had nearly happened.

"And it may again," she thought. "I do wish we could help Freda and her mother, but I don't see how. Land troubles are always so complicated."

As Cora turned the wheel and swung the boat about in a wide circle, she was aware of another craft coming toward her. She did not remember having seen it before, and as it drew nearer she noted that it contained but a single occupant—a young man, who, as Lottie said afterward, was not at all bad-looking.

The young fellow guided his boat closer to the Chelton, and after she had done making mental notes of the new craft's characteristics, Cora had an idea that the stranger wanted to speak to them. Such evidently was his intention, for he slowed down his engine, so as to muffle the noise of the exhaust, and called out:

"On which point is Bayhead, if you please?"

"Over there," answered Cora, pointing to a promontory that jutted out into the bay. "But be careful and go well out when you round it. There are some dangerous rocks at low tide. How much do you draw?"

"Thirty-four inches."

"That's too much to try the short cut."

"Thank you for telling me," went on the young man. He certainly was good-looking. Even Cora, conservative as she always was, had to admit that.

"We are going over that way," went on Cora. "If you like, I will pilot you."

"You are very good," returned the young man. "If it will not be too much trouble, and not take you out of your way, I would like very much to have you show me the course. I'm a stranger here."

Cora and the motor girls had been on so many trips on land and water that they had learned how to meet and accept the advances of strangers, even when they were good-looking young men. There was, too, a sort of comradeship about a motor boat that lent a chaperonage to the effect of girls talking to men to whom they had never been introduced. Cora's chums realized this and thought nothing of her offer.

"Follow me," Cora called, as she opened the throttle a little wider, and the Chelton shot ahead. The other boat came right after, with a promptness that caused Cora to think it had more speed than she at first suspected.

"My nerves are much better—now," said Bess in a whisper to Lottie, as she stole a surreptitious glance at the young man.



CHAPTER XVII

A LITTLE RACE

For some time Cora held the lead in her boat, with the other following in her wake. The girls talked among themselves, speculation being rife as to what the young man wanted in Bayhead.

"It's an awfully swell place," said Lottie. "I spent one Summer there, and it was nothing but dress, dress, dress all the while! Either for motoring, tennis or bridge. Oh, I got so weary of it!"

"But you liked it—especially the dressing," put in Belle.

"I should have, my dear, I don't mind admitting that, if only I had had enough gowns," went on Lottie, with a sigh. "But I didn't have half enough. Papa was dreadfully poor that year. I believe he said there had been a 'slump in the market,' whatever that means.

"Anyhow I know I couldn't begin to dress as those in my set did. So that's how I remember Bayhead. I should like to go there again. It's perfectly stunning."

"That young fellow doesn't look to be any too well dressed," remarked Bess.

"Naturally he wouldn't—going out in a boat," said Cora. "Something seems to be the matter with his engine," she added, for the stranger was bending over it.

Whatever it was did not seem to be serious, for the lone motorboatist straightened up again presently. He increased his speed, and came alongside the Chelton.

"We seem to be some distance from the point," he said, with a smile. "Don't you want a little race? You can call it off before we get near the danger spot."

Cora was rather taken aback by the proposal. It was one thing to direct a stranger, even when he was a youth good to look at, and it was all right, too, to even pilot him on his way in strange waters; but it was quite another matter to have the aforesaid stranger invite himself to a race. It was like having a beggar apply at your front door, and when given a sandwich, calmly ask for soup.

"I don't believe——" began Cora, but Bess slid up to her on the long seat and whispered:

"Oh, do, Cora! It won't do any harm, and it will complete the nerve cure you have begun so well. Besides, we need a little practice in racing. We may take part in the water carnival down here."

"Well, if the rest of you are willing, I'm not going to be the one to object," returned Cora, smilingly.

"Will—will it be dangerous?" faltered timid Marita.

"Not a bit—you dear little goose!" exclaimed Belle, putting her arm about the shrinking one. "We've raced lots of times—and won, too!"

"Against such appealing strangers?" asked Lottie, raising her eyebrows in a rather affected way.

"Oh, it's all in the game!" laughed Bess. Certainly her nerves seemed all right now.

The young man—he had refrained from giving his name, either by accident or design—had been bending over his motor during the whispered talk among the girls. Now he looked up again.

"Well," he asked, pleasantly, "is it to be a race?"

"If you like," answered Cora, calmly.

"I certainly do like. I'm going to enter some of the Bayhead races, and I'd like to see how my boat will go."

"But it's a lighter boat than ours," returned Cora, who was not willing to give nor take an unfair advantage. "And we have five passengers."

"I've thought of that," the young man went on. "I'm willing to accept a handicap. I'll drop back about five hundred feet and allow you that much."

"That would be fair," assented Cora, who, from having taken part in various races knew what would be about right.

"Then here goes!" cried the stranger, as he throttled down his motor. "I'll give you a hail when I'm coming on."

The Chelton at once began drawing away from the Pickerel, which was the name of the stranger's boat.

This craft, it seemed, had a clutch arrangement, so that the motor could be allowed to run without the propeller revolving. Cora's boat was likewise equipped.

"Are you going to beat him?" asked Lottie, as she moved back where no drop of spray could spot her blue dress.

"I am certainly going to try," said Cora with a smile. "What does a race amount to if you don't try to win?"

"Oh, of course, but then I thought this was only in fun."

"It's a race for keeps," announced Cora. "And I think we'll win. That last gasoline we got is the best we ever had. It gives us more power, and the Chelton is running like a sewing machine, as Jack says. I think we're going to win!"

She opened the throttle a little wider and the Chelton responded instantly.

A moment later there came a hail from the rear.

"Distance enough! I'm coming!"

Cora glanced back.

"He certainly was generous," she said. "That's a good five hundred feet."