"A bateau!" she exclaimed. "And—with the wind the way it is—she must have come right out of our cove, Wynnie."

"Do—do you really think anybody was listening to us when we were talking there on the landing, Polly?" Wyn asked. "And are they aboard that bateau?"

"I don't know. But I know I heard something then."

"But that boat isn't following us."

"It may be. We can't tell. They can watch us just as easily as we can watch them."

But when the Coquette got around to the side of Gannet Island where the boys' camp was established, the shadow of the high, wooded ridge was thrown out so far across the lake that the swimming raft and its neighborhood were in darkness.

The catboat, with her sail dropped and her nose just touching the edge of the float, was quite hidden by this shadow of the island, which was all the darker in contrast with the brilliant moonlight lying on the water farther out.

"I'll carry the kedge to the float," whispered Polly, "and then we'll pay out the line till the Coquette floats about over the spot where you think the thing you hit lies."

"Let's get my canoe out of the way, too," urged Wyn. "Oh! I hope the boys will not wake up."

"What's that light up there?" exclaimed Polly, suddenly.

"That's the spark of their campfire. It's in the rocks, so no harm can come from it; they don't trouble to cover it when they go to bed."

"Now, Wyn—push the boat off."

They worked the catboat from the float for several yards. "Wait," whispered Wyn. "Let's try here."

"Are you going to dive?"

"Yes. It will make some splash; but I don't believe I can reach the bottom of the lake otherwise, it is so deep here."

"Careful!" cautioned Polly. "You may hurt yourself on whatever is down there."

"I'll look out," returned Wyn, again filling her ears with cotton. She slipped off the skirt of her bathing suit, too, so as to have more freedom. Then she poised herself for a moment on the decked-over part of the sailboat—a slim, lithe figure in the semi-darkness—and gradually bent over with her arms outstretched to part the water.

As she dived forward she thought she heard a quick exclamation from Polly; but Wyn believed it to be an encouraging cry. At least, she gave it no attention as she clove the water and went down, down, down into the depths of the lake.

She opened her eyes, but, of course, saw nothing but a great, shadowy mass below her. Toward this mass she swam eagerly; the lake seemed much deeper than it had by daylight.

Struggling against the uplift of the water, she beat her way down into the depths for more than a minute. That was a goodly length of time for the first submersion. And she did not reach the bottom, nor find any object like the thing she had struck against some hours before.

It was necessary for her to rise. As she turned over, a luminous spot appeared over her head, and toward this spot she sprang. With aching chest she reached the surface, and sprang breast high out of the water—some yards from the catboat. There was a strong current here.

"Polly!" she gasped.

"Sh!" hissed her comrade's voice, in warning.

Surprised, Wyn obeyed the warning. Causing scarcely a ripple in the water, she paddled to the boat. There she clung to the rail and listened. She could not see Polly.

"Dunno where they went to in that cat, Eb," growled a hoarse voice out of the darkness.

Wyn darted a glance over her shoulder. There, looming gray and ghostly, was the tall sail they had seen once before. The strange, square-nosed bateau was drifting by, but at some distance. Evidently the catboat was well hidden in the shadow of the island.

Suddenly Polly reached over the edge of the boat and seized Wyn's shoulders. "Don't try to climb in," she whispered. "They'll see or hear the splash."

"All right," breathed back the captain of the Go-Aheads.

"It's Eb Lornigan and some of his friends. Eb is a disgrace to the lake. He's been in jail more than once," whispered Polly.

But Wyn's shoulders began to feel cold. The night air, after all, was not really warm. "I'm going down again," she whispered.

"Did—did you find it?" queried Polly.

"No. But I will," declared the other girl, confidently, and slipped into the water.

She ventured under the bottom of the catboat and, turning suddenly, braced her feet against it, and so flung herself down into the depths.

She descended more swiftly with the momentum thus gained, traveling toward the bottom on a different slant than before. With her hands far before her she defended her head from collision with any sunken object there might be down here. And this time she actually did hit something again.

She turned quickly and grabbed at it with both hands. It seemed like a sharp, smooth pole sticking almost upright in the water. There was a bit of rag, or marine plant of some kind, attached to it.

She struggled to pull herself down by the staff, but she had been below now longer than before. Just what the staff could be she did not imagine until she had again turned and "kicked" her way upward.

"It's the pennant staff of the sunken boat!" she gasped, as she came to the surface and could open her mouth once more.

"Hush! what's the matter with you?" demanded Polly, in a low voice, directly at hand.

"Oh! have they gone?"

"The bateau is out of hearing distance. But you do splash like a porpoise."

"Nonsense! Let me climb up."

Polly gave her some help and in a few moments Wyn lay panting in the tiny cockpit of the boat.

"Did—did you find anything?" queried Polly, anxiously.

Wyn told her what she believed she had found underneath the water, and the position of the staff. "It must be lying bow on to us here," she said.

"Oh! do you suppose it really is the Bright Eyes?"

"It's something," replied Wyn, confidently, pulling one of the blankets around her.

"I'm going down myself," declared Polly, sharply.

"All right. Maybe you can find more of the boat. It's there."

Polly sprang up into the bow of the catboat, poised herself for a moment and then dived overboard. She could outswim and outdive any of the Go-Ahead girls—and why not? She was in, or on, the lake from early spring until late autumn.

Polly was under the surface no longer than Wyn; but when she came up she struck out for the Coquette and scrambled immediately into the boat.

"What is it? Am I right? Is it a boat?" cried the anxious Wynnie.

"Yes! It's there. Oh, Wynifred Mallory! My father is going to be so relieved! It's—it's just heavenly! How can we ever thank you?"

Wyn was crying softly. "I'm so delighted, dear Polly. It—it is sure the Bright Eyes?"

"It is a motor boat. I went right down to the deck, and scrambled around it. There are surely not two motor boats sunk in Lake Honotonka," declared Polly.

"Hush, then!" urged Wyn. "We'll keep still about it. It is my find and I'll telegraph to Mr. Lavine as quick as I can. The Go-Ahead girls are going to own a motor boat! Won't that be fine?"

"Say nothing to any of the others. I'll tell father," said Polly, beginning to haul in on the kedge line. "And he'll know what to do about raising the launch. He'll have to go to the Forge——"

"Then he can send the message to Mr. Lavine for me. Tell him the girls have found the sunken boat, and sign my name to it. That will bring Bessie's father up here in a hurry."

The girls got their anchor and the canoe, and put up the sail again. As the Coquette shot away from the boys' swimming float, the ghostly sail of the strange bateau again crossed the path of moonlight at the other end of the island.

"I'd feel better," muttered Polly, "if those, fellows were not hanging about so close."



CHAPTER XXVI

THE BOYS TO THE RESCUE

Wyn got into her canoe in sight of Green Knoll Camp, and leaving Polly to work the Coquette home alone, paddled to the shore, drew out the canoe and turned it over on the beach with the six other canoes belonging to the camp, and so stole up the hill and prepared for bed again.

Nobody seemed to have missed her, although it was now two hours after midnight. The captain of the girls' club felt a glow of satisfaction at her heart as she composed herself for sleep. She believed she was going to have a great and happy surprise for the girls of the Go-Ahead Club; and in addition the Jarleys would be relieved of the cloud of suspicion that had hung over Mr. Jarley ever since Dr. Shelton's motor boat was lost.

Wyn slept so late that all the other girls were up and had run down for their morning dip ere Mrs. Havel shook her.

"You must have had your bath very early, Wynnie," said that lady. "Here is your bathing suit all wet."

"Yes, ma'am," responded Wyn, sleepily.

"Now, rouse up. The whole camp is astir," said Mrs. Havel, and Wyn was fully dressed when the other girls came back. There were not too many questions asked, so her secret remained safe.

She became considerably disturbed, however, when the hours of the forenoon passed and she neither heard from nor saw anything of the Jarleys.

Once a big bateau went drifting by and disappeared behind Gannet Island, under a lazy sail and with two men at the long sweeps, or oars. When it was lost to view Wyn was troubled by the thought that it might be the same mysterious craft that had followed the catboat the night before. Had it anchored off the boys' camp now?

So, to calm her own mind, she suggested that they all paddle over to Cave-in-the-Wood Camp and take their luncheon with them.

"Goodness me, Wynifred!" exclaimed Bess, the boy-despiser, "can't you keep away from those boys for a single day?"

"I notice we usually have a good time when the boys are around," returned Wyn, cheerfully.

"Oh, they're quite a 'necessary evil,'" drawled Frank. "But I feel myself like Johnny Bloom's aunt when we get rid of the Busters for a time."

"What about Johnny's aunt?" queried Mina.

"Why, do you know that Johnny belongs to the Scouts and one law of the Scouts is that they shall each do something for somebody each day to make the said somebody happy."

"Rather involved in your English, Miss, but we understand you," said Grace.

"So far," agreed Percy Havel. "But where do Johnny Bloom and his aunt come in?"

"Why, any day he can't think of any other kindness to render his friends," chuckled Frankie, "he goes to see his aunt. She is so glad when he goes home again—she detests boys—that Johnny feels all the thrill of having performed a good deed."

"Now, Frank!" laughed Wyn, "you know it isn't as bad as all that."

"Yes, it is," chuckled Frankie. "You don't know Johnny Bloom as well as his neighbors do. He lives on my street."

"Humph! most boys are just as bad," declared Bess. "Just the same, if Wyn says 'Gannet Island' I reckon we'll all have to go."

"And we'll have some fun diving," Grace Hedges declared. "I wish we had a diving float over here."

Mrs. Havel preferred to remain at the camp and the six girls were a very hilarious party as they set forth in their canoes and fresh bathing suits for the island.

By this time every member of the Go-Ahead Club was as brown as a berry, inured to exposure in the sun, and enjoying the outdoor life of woods and lake to the full.

Mina's timidity had worn off, Percy was not so "finicky" in her tastes, Bessie was more careful of other people's feelings, Grace really seemed almost cured of laziness, Frank was by no means so hoydenish as she once was, and as for Wynifred, she was just as hearty and happy as it seemed a girl could be. Their independent, busy life on Green Knoll was doing them all a world of good.

As the little squadron of canoes drew near to the easterly end of the Island the girls were suddenly excited by a great disturbance in the bushes on the hill above them. This end of the island was exceedingly steep and rocky.

"Oh, what's that?" cried Mina, as some object flashed into view for a moment and then disappeared.

"It's one of the goats," squealed Frankie.

Gannet Island was grazed by a good-sized herd of goats, but they remained mostly at this end and kept away from the boys' camp at the other. The girls had seldom seen any of the herd, although they had heard the kids bleating now and then, and the boys had described the old rams and how ugly they were.

Here, right above them, was going on a striking domestic wrangle, for in a moment they saw that two of the rams were having a set-to among the bushes on the side-hill, while several mild-eyed Nannies and their progeny looked on.

The rams would back away a little in the brush and then charge each other. When their hard horns collided, they rang like steel, and several times the antagonists were both overborne by the shock and rolled upon the ground.

"What a place for a fight!" exclaimed Frank. "What do you know about that, girls?"

"It's a shame," quavered Mina. "Somebody ought to separate them."

"Sure! I vote that you go right up and do so, Miss Everett," said Grace, briskly.

However, Frank's criticism of the judgment of the combating goats was correct. It was no place for a fair fight. One of the animals happened to get "up hill" and at the next charge the lower goat was lifted completely off its feet and came tumbling down the steep descent with the speed of an avalanche.

The girls screamed, the other goats bleated—while the conquering Billie took a commanding position on a rock and gazed down upon his falling enemy. The latter could not stop. Twice he tried to scramble to his sharp little hoofs, but could not accomplish the feat. So, then, quite helpless, he fell the entire distance and came finally, with a mighty splash, into the deep water under the bank.

"Oh! the poor creature will be drowned!" cried Wyn, in great distress at this catastrophe, although some of the other girls were inclined to laugh, for the goat did look more than a little comical.

He had been battered a good deal and had received a wound upon one side of his face that did not improve his looks at all. And while he had been so lively and pugnacious up on the hillside, now he splashed about in the lake quite helplessly.

The shore of the island just here was altogether too abrupt to afford the unlucky goat any foot-hold. And the goat is not naturally an aquatic animal.

"Come on!" urged Bessie. "Let's leave him. We can't do any good here."

"Of course we can help him," cried Wyn. "Grab him by the other horn, Frank!"

She had driven her own canoe to the far side of the goat and now seized the beast's horn. He could not fight in the water and Wyn and Frank slowly guided him along the shore until they reached a sloping piece of beach where he could, at least, get a footing. But he lay down, half in and half out of the water, seemingly exhausted.

"He can never climb that bank," declared Mina.

"We'll boost him up, then," said Frank, with confidence. "Having set out to be twin Good Samaritans, we'll finish the job properly; eh, Wyn?"

Her friend agreed, laughing, and both girls sprang ashore. They didn't mind getting a little wet, considering how they were dressed.

The goat bleated forlornly as they seized upon him; he was quite all the two girls could lift, and they actually had to drag him up the steeper part of the hill by his legs.

Their friends below chaffed them a good deal, for it was a ridiculous sight. Soon, however, Wyn and Frank got their awkward burden to the mouth of an easily sloping gully, that led toward the interior of the island. As soon as he could, the animal scrambled upon his feet.

Once firmly set, however, this ungrateful goat's temper changed most surprisingly. Or he may have felt that his dignity had been ruffled by the treatment he had received at the hands of his rescuers.

So he began stamping his little sharp hoofs and lowered his head, shaking the latter threateningly.

"What did I tell you?" called Bess, from below. "Next you two sillies know he'll butt you."

"Oh, come along, Wyn!" gasped Frankie. "Plague the goat, anyway!" as she dodged the enraged animal's first charge.

The goat was headed up the gully, away from the shore, or he might have gone head first into the lake again. As the girls escaped him, Wyn, laughing immoderately, looked back. A big beech tree cropped out of the bank not far away, and under this tree she descried a figure lying.

"Oh, Frank!" she cried.

Her friend turned and saw the figure, too.

"Oh, Wyn!"

Their ejaculations seemed to have attracted Mr. William Goat's attention to the same reclining figure. Outstretched upon the sward, with a large handkerchief over his face as a protection from gnats and other insects, and with his fat fingers interlaced across what Dave Shepard wickedly termed his chum's "bow-window," lay the quite unconscious Tubby Blaisdell.

"Tubby!" shrieked the girls in chorus.

The fat boy sat up as though a spring had been released. The handkerchief was still over his face, and he grunted blindly.

It was a challenge to Mr. Goat. He charged. Amid the screams of the girls the goat hurtled through the air, all four feet gathered beneath him, and landed head-and-horns in the middle of poor Tubby's waistcoat!

It wasn't a very big goat. 'Twas lucky for Master Blaisdell that this was so. Tubby went back with an awful grunt, heels in the air, and the goat turned a complete somersault. But the latter scrambled to his feet a whole lot quicker than did Tubby.

"Run—run, Tubby!" shrieked Frank.

"Look out for him, Ralph!" cried Wyn.

Back the goat came. This time he took Master Blaisdell from the rear and butted him so hard that he actually seemed to lift the fat boy to his feet.

The youth had scratched the handkerchief from his face, and now could see the enemy. Tubby had emitted nothing but a series of excruciating grunts; but now, when he saw the goat making ready for another charge, he met the animal with a yell, leaping into the air with his legs a-straddle, so that the Billie ran between them, and then Tubby footed it up the gully as fast as he could travel.

The goat, headed down hill again, saw his old enemies, the two girls, and made as though to attack them. Wyn and Frank, almost dead with laughter, managed to roll down the bank and so get out of the erratic goat's sight. The other girls had only heard the noise of the conflict, and did not understand; nor could Wyn and Frankie explain when they first scrambled into their canoes.

"Poor Tubby! Poor Tubby!" was all Wyn could say. "Let's paddle around to the boys' camp. He's run for home."

"It was a home run, all right!" gasped Frank.

But three minutes later, when the canoes got into the cove where Polly's father had met with his accident in the Bright Eyes, Wyn suddenly found something more serious than Tubby Blaisdell's experience to worry about. There was the big bateau, its sail furled, almost over the spot where Wyn and Polly were sure the lost motor boat lay!

"Oh, dear me!" cried Bess. "Now we can't have any fun on the raft. Those men will be in our way. What do you suppose they are poking around there in the water with those poles for?"

Wyn began to paddle fast. She shot ahead of the other girls and aimed directly for the bit of beach on which the boys' canoes were drawn.

The noise and laughter up at the camp assured her that Tubby had arrived and that all the Busters were at home. Wyn had made up her mind quickly that, if she must, she would rather take the boys into her confidence about the sunken boat than let those bateau men find it.

"Boys! Dave!" she hailed them from the water.

Young Shepard appeared at once and, seeing Wyn, ran down to the shore.

"Will you help us?" gasped Wyn. "Quick! get the boys! Move your diving float where I tell you; those men will find it first, if you don't."

"Find what?" demanded Dave. "Are you sensible, Wynnie?"

The explanation tumbled out of Wyn Mallory's lips then in rather a jumbled fashion; but Dave understood. He turned and gave the view-halloa for his mates. They all tumbled down the bank save Tubby.

"Get a move on, fellows," commanded the leader of the Busters. "We've got to move that raft. Wyn will tell us where. And later we'll tell you why. But the word is now: Look sharp!"



CHAPTER XXVII

IS IT THE "BRIGHT EYES"?

With a whirl and clash of paddles the little flotilla of canoes shot out to the diving float. The bateau was only a few yards away. The two rough-looking men in her were sounding the lake bottom, with long poles; but as yet they had not got around to the right spot.

Wyn breathlessly told the boys to move the raft to the place to which she paddled. The other girls were excitedly asking questions but neither Wyn nor Dave answered.

The captain of the Go-Aheads thought that if the raft could be held stationary—anchored in some way—directly over the sunken boat, the prize would be safe until Mr. Jarley, or somebody else in authority, came to claim the Bright Eyes. Of course, providing this sunken boat was she.

Polly had seemed so positive, and so eager to get her father started after the motor boat he had lost, that Wyn could not understand why the Jarleys were not already on the spot.

"Hey, there! what are you boys doing?" demanded one of the bateau men, hailing Dave and his friends on the raft.

"Moving our float," replied the captain of the Busters, promptly.

"Well, don't you git in our way," said the man, crossly.

"Hel-lo!" exclaimed the saucy Ferd Roberts. "I've always wondered who owned Lake Honotonka, and now I know."

"You'll know a whole lot more if you don't look out, Young Fresh," growled the other boatman.

"I shouldn't wonder," laughed Ferd. "But I'm not going to school to you, Mister."

"Do be quiet, Ferd," advised Dave. "Now, Wynnie! What do you say to this?"

Meantime the boys had raised the two big stones that served the raft as anchors, and had poled the float near to Wyn's canoe.

"Oh! a little farther, Dave, please," cried the anxious girl.

"Say! I wanter know what you young ones are up to?" repeated the first boatman.

"Can't you see?" returned Dave. "We're shifting our raft."

"What for?"

"Cat's fur! To make kittens' breeches of, 'cause we couldn't get dog fur—now do you know?" snapped Ferd.

"Shut up, Ferd!" commanded Dave, again.

"He'd better shut up," growled the man, "or something'll happen to him—the young shrimp!"

"Oh, dear me, Wyn!" cried Bessie Lavine; "let's go back to camp."

"You'd all better scatter—both gels and boys," said the boatman, threateningly. "We're busy here an' we don't want to be bothered by shrimps."

"I guess we'll stay a while longer, Mister," Dave said, boldly.

"We were here first," cried the irrepressible Ferd.

"You youngsters air in our way. Get out," commanded the Boatman.

He was working the bateau nearer to the raft, using one of the long sweeps for that purpose.

"Heave over the anchors again, fellows," said Dave, quietly. "Then stand by with your paddles to repel boarders. We mustn't let 'em have the raft, or move it."

"Oh, Wyn!" begged Mina Everett, "let's go away."

The girls had all paddled near Wyn Mallory. Now they clustered about her in plain anxiety. The boys had climbed upon the raft and all five were plainly intending to offer resistance to the ugly boatmen.

"Now, girls," begged the captain of the Go-Aheads, firmly, "let us show some courage, at least. The boys are willing to fight our battle——"

"Our battle?" gasped Bessie. "What do you mean?"

In a whisper Wyn explained to the wondering and frightened girls what it was all about.

"Polly and I believe the lost motor boat lies right beneath us here. We must keep those men off, for they are hunting for the sunken boat, too," concluded Wynnie.

"My goodness! how exciting!" cried Grace Hedges.

"And we'll actually win the prize your father offered us, Bess!" gasped Percy Havel.

"I don't see that we have had much to do with it," said Frank. "Wyn made the discovery."

"What is for one is for all," declared Wynnie. "But we won't win Mr. Lavine's prize unless the boat is raised and the silver images are delivered to Dr. Shelton. If those men get hold of the boat——"

Suddenly one of the boatmen—a long-legged fellow with a cast in one eye and lantern jaws sparsely covered with sandy whisker—came forward to the bow of the bateau and poised himself for a leap to the diving float.

"Keep off!" Dave warned him, swinging his paddle over his head. "You jump over here and you'll catch this where Kellup caught the hen—right in the neck! You let us alone and we'll let you alone."

The boatman told him, in no very choice language, what he would do to Dave when he caught him; but the captain of the Busters did not appear to be much shaken.

"Hold, on, Eb!" yelled the other boatman. "I'll run that raft down and spill 'em all off."

"You try it and you'll likely smash your boat," shouted Dave. "I warn you."

Mina Everett began to cry softly, for the suggestion of a pitched battle between the boys and the boatmen frightened her dreadfully. Bess began to grow excited.

"Aren't those men just mean? I wish I had something to hit them with—I do! I believe I'll get out on the raft with my paddle."

"That wouldn't be a bad idea," said Grace. "I think the boys are as nice to us as they can be."

Suddenly, while the attention of all the others was held by the exciting situation on the raft, Frank Cameron cried out:

"Who's this coming? Oh, girls! isn't that Polly? Look, Wyn!"

Wyn almost overturned her canoe in her eagerness to back out of the group and whirl her canoe about that she might see. Down upon the scene was bearing one of the larger power boats from the other end of the lake.

"It's Dr. Shelton's Sunshine Boy!" cried Percy Havel.

"And that is Polly Jolly in the bow," exclaimed Wyn. "Hurrah!"

She drove her paddle into the water and sent her canoe driving for the approaching motor boat.

"Polly! Polly!" she called, long before the boatman's daughter could hear her.

But Polly recognized her just the same, and waved her hand; there was a gentleman pacing the deck, too, who came to lean on the rail and look at the flying canoe. Wyn next saw Mr. Jarley, in his working clothes, put his head out of the cabin that housed the motor.

"It's Dr. Shelton," Wyn thought. "Then he and Mr. Jarley have made it up. I'm so glad!"

But the motor boat was coming fast and Wyn drove her canoe as though she were racing. Swerving the craft quickly, the girl brought it very nicely into a berth beside the motor boat. Polly leaned down and steadied the canoe with the boat hook, and her friend hopped aboard. Then together they hoisted over the rail the almost swamped canoe.

"What's all this? What's all this?" demanded Dr. Shelton. "You girls are regular acrobats. Hullo! This is the young miss who won the canoe race and the swimming match for girls, the other day. Am I right?"

"Yes, sir," said Polly, presenting Wyn proudly. "This is Miss Wynifred Mallory, my very dear friend."

"The girl who thinks she has found our old motor boat—eh?" asked the burly doctor.

"I am sure she has found it, sir," declared Polly. "And what are Eb and his chum, Billy Smith, trying to do there at the raft, Wyn?"

"They suspect something; but the boys have got the float right over the sunken boat and have promised to hold the bateau men off——"

Just then Dr. Shelton turned quickly, picked up a megaphone and bawled through it to the bateau men, one of whom had leaped aboard the boys, raft.

"Hey, you! Get off that raft and keep off it, or I'll put you both in jail at the Forge. Understand me?"

It was evident that the boatmen did understand the doctor, for the trespasser aboard the raft leaped back into the bateau without a blow being struck, although the boys were ready for him. The big sail of the craft was immediately raised and she had borne off to some distance when the Sunshine Boy was allowed to drift in close to the float.

"Now, boys," said Dr. Shelton, genially, "I understand you have found my old Bright Eyes under water here and have been guarding it from all comers. Is that right?"

"No, Doctor," returned Dave. "We fellows have had mighty little to do with it. It's the girls——"

"It's Wyn!" cried Frank, "and nobody else."

"Wyn did it all," agreed Bess.

"But those men, poking around here, might have found it and laid claim to it, sir, if the boys had not come to the rescue," declared the captain of the Go-Aheads, warmly.

"You seem to be a Mutual Admiration Society," laughed the doctor. "However, if the boat is here and that express box intact, as Jarley says, I certainly owe somebody something handsome for finding it."

"Oh, no, sir!" murmured Wyn, quickly, standing by his side. "You owe me nothing. Mr. Lavine has promised our club a present, and Polly and her father are going to be made very happy if it turns out all right. That is reward enough for us."

"Humph! you feel that way about it; do you, Miss Mallory?" queried the doctor. "Just the same, if the Bright Eyes really is sunk here I must show my gratitude to somebody."

"Then do something for Polly," Wyn whispered. "Give her a chance to go to school—to Denton Academy with the rest of us girls. That would be fine! She wouldn't let Mr. Lavine do that for her; but I know she'll accept it from you, when her father has proved himself clear of suspicion."

"Ha! John Jarley is a better man than I am," grunted Dr. Shelton. "I had no business to talk to him the way I did regatta day. I'm free to admit I was wrong, whether we recover the Bright Eyes and the silver images, or not!"

And the question, Is it the Bright Eyes? was the principal subject of discussion among them all. The boys were just as eager as were the girls over the affair.

"If the sunken boat is all right—and the images," said Dave Shepard, "you girls will be lucky enough to sail a motor boat of your own."

"And we'd never own it if you boys hadn't come forward as you did," declared Wyn. "Isn't that so, Bess?"

Bess had to admit the fact, much as she disliked praising boys.

"Oh, we'll let you boys sail in our new boat once in a while," she said.

"Goodness me! I should say yes!" exclaimed Frank, suddenly. "For we've got to have somebody teach us how to run a motor boat; haven't we?"



CHAPTER XXVIII

A FRIEND IN NEED

It was early on the next day that Bessie received a message from her father for the whole club:

"Look for me in a few hours. Shall run up to see what Wyn has done as soon as I can get away. If it is all right, you shall have new boat this season.—Henry Lavine."

A man brought it over from the Forge. The girls were delighted with the news. A guard had been set over the spot where the sunken boat lay and Dr. Shelton and Mr. Jarley were making arrangements to have a derrick barge towed up to Gannet Island, so that the old Bright Eyes could be brought to the surface quickly.

Naturally the Busters were too much interested in these proceedings to come over to Green Knoll Camp; and the girls had had so much excitement and exercise of late that they were inclined to take matters quietly for the time being.

Therefore, there was not a canoe on the lake when a fussy, smoky little motor boat, late in the afternoon, came into the lake from the Wintinooski and puffed out into deep water, evidently bound for either the Island or Green Knoll Camp.

The deep cove, at the head of which the little red and yellow cottage of the Jarleys was set, was like a big bay in the contour of the lake shore. It was out here in this deep water that Wyn Mallory and Bess Lavine had been swamped by the squall. From the docks at the Forge to the point east of Green Knoll, where the girls' camp was situated, was all of eight miles. When this little motor boat had sputtered along until she was about half way between those two points, she suddenly stopped.

The girls had been lazily on the lookout for Mr. Lavine's appearance and earlier in the day had kept the camp spyglass busy. Now Frank suddenly caught it up again and focused it almost at once on the stalled motor boat.

"Oh! what's that?" was her excited demand. "Girls! there's a boat we missed before."

"Where?" drawled Grace, lazily.

"It isn't father; is it?" demanded Bess.

"How do I know? It's a power boat——Goodness, what's that?"

She jumped so that Wyn came to her side quickly. "Let me see, Frank," she begged.

"There's—there's a fire!" gasped Frankie.

The girls came running at her cry. Even Mrs. Havel left her seat and stepped out of the shade of the beech tree to scan the water under her hand.

"I see smoke!" cried Percy.

"Dear me! is the boat really afire?" demanded Mina Everett.

"Of course, it can't be father," declared Bess. "He knows how to take care of a motor boat."

Through the glass Wyn, who now had it, saw the flames leaping from under the hood of the boat, while a dense plume of smoke began to reel away on the breeze that was blowing.

"It is afire!" she gasped "Oh! it is! What can we do?"

"We could never reach it in our canoes before the boat burns to the water's edge," cried Frankie.

They could see two figures on the doomed boat. Through the glass Wyn could see them so plainly that she knew one to be a waterman, while the other was much better dressed. Indeed, she feared that she recognized the figure of this second man.

"Let me have the glass, Wyn," said Bessie, eagerly.

But Wyn, for once, was disobliging. "You can't see anything—much," she said. "Come on, Bess! let's try and paddle out to them."

"And have them swamp our canoes if they tried to climb in," said Miss Lavine. "No, thanks!"

"Come on!" cried Frank, joining in. "We ought to try and help."

"What's the use?" drawled Bessie, walking away. "And you're mean not to let me have the glass, Wyn."

"Oh, come on and take it!" gasped Wyn.

"Don't want it now," snapped Bess, who took offense rather easily at times. "You can keep the old thing."

Wyn sighed with relief. Then she whirled quickly and ran down to the beach, with Frank right at her heels. They were the only two girls who launched their canoes. Wyn had brought the glass with her.

"Now I know Bess won't see him," she exclaimed, almost in a whisper.

"What's that?" demanded Frankie, who overheard. "What do you mean, Wyn?"

"I believe that is Mr. Lavine out there," said the captain of the Go-Aheads. "Oh, Frank! paddle hard!"

And it was Mr. Lavine. He had hired this little gasoline boat, with its owner to run it, at Denton, and had paid the owner an extra five-dollar bill to force the boat to its very highest speed (and that wasn't much) all the way up the Wintinooski. Mr. Lavine was in a hurry; he was in too much of a hurry, as it proved.

Somewhere off Meade's Forge he began to smell the gasoline all too strongly. There was a leak somewhere; but the boat kept on.

Finally even the reckless driver grew frightened and shut off the spark.

"There's a leak, boss," he drawled. "Sure as aigs is aigs!"

Mr. Lavine tore up one of the boards under his feet in the cockpit. A man with half an eye could have seen the scum of gasoline on the bilge in the cockpit.

"Leak!" he exclaimed, wrathfully. "I should say you had been using the boat's bottom for a gasoline tank. Why! we might have been blown up a dozen times."

"I expect the leak's in the feed pipe," confessed the boatman. "But I thought I'd got her fixed las' week."

"You've got us fixed," snapped Mr. Lavine. "'Way out here in the middle of Lake Honotonka, too—and I in a hurry."

"Wal," said the man, "I'll putty up the leak and you see if you kin swab out the boat. I wouldn't dare try and ignite her again with so much gasoline around."

"I—should—say—not!" gasped the gentleman, and removed his coat, rolled up his sleeves and his trousers, and set to work.

They both labored like beavers for half an hour and then the boatman did the very silliest thing one can imagine. He had worked hard and, being a man addicted to tobacco, he felt the need of a smoke.

He pulled out his pipe, filled it, unnoticed by Mr. Lavine, who was still trying to swab out the last of the bilge and gasoline, and scratched a match. He was directly in front of the hood of the boat when he did it. The next moment there was a flash, a roar, and the man was flung the length of the boat, against Mr. Lavine in the stern, and the two almost went overboard.

The foolish smoker lost his mustache, eyebrows, and lashes, and a lot of his front hair. He was scorched quite severely, too; but the peril which menaced them with the front of the boat in flames drove the thought of his burns from the fellow's mind.

"And I can't swim a stroke, boss!" he cried.

"You have nothing on me there," declared Mr. Lavine. "I have never been able to master more than the first few motions in the art of swimming."

But the flames were springing higher and they had nothing with which to throw water on the fire. The man had not even a bailing tin in his moribund old craft. Mr. Lavine had been using a swab and was covered with grease and dirty water.

This became a small thing, however—and that within a very few minutes. The boat was doomed and both knew it.

Mr. Lavine tried to tear up more of the grating under foot so as to make something that would float and upon which they might bear themselves up in the water. But the boards were too thin.

Then he tried to unship the rudder (the singed boatman was no use at all in this emergency) and so make use of that as a float. But the bolts were rusted and the boat had begun to swing around so that the fire blew right into the stern.

They both had to leap overboard.

It was a serious situation indeed. By Mr. Lavine's advice they paddled toward the bow, one on either side of the boat, for the flames were rushing aft.

The bow was a mere shell, however. The flames had already almost consumed it, and soon the fire fairly ate through the bows at the water level. The water rushed in and so sank the boat by the head.

Not that the boat went straight down. The stern rose in the water and the two men, in their desperate strait, gazed at the flames above their heads.

Had it been night the fire would have been like a great torch in the middle of the lake—and it would have brought help from all directions. As it was, the black smoke first thrown off, and then the steam, attracted more than the girls of Green Knoll Camp to the scene.

At the landing Mr. Jarley was splicing some heavy rope which he expected to use the next day when the sunken Bright Eyes would be actually raised. Polly saw the smoke first from the cottage and ran out to tell him.

"One of those motor boats is afire, Father!" she cried. Instantly the boatman set about going to the rescue. It was a fair day, but there was a good breeze blowing. Jarley took the Coquette.

He had no idea to whom he was playing the friend in need when he sailed the catboat down upon the scene of the disaster. It was a chance to help two fellow beings and the boatman cared not who they were.

Of course the sailing craft beat out the two frantically paddling girls from Green Knoll Camp. Yet it was still a long way from the spot when the last of the burning boat seemed to sink completely and the flames were snuffed out by the waters of the lake.



CHAPTER XXIX

THE SUNKEN TREASURE

Wyn and Frank were in despair when they saw the last of the flames wink out and the balloon of smoke sail away upon the breeze. They were too far away to be able to see the men struggling in the water—if they were still there.

"Oh! suppose Mr. Jarley doesn't reach them in time?" cried the captain of the girls' club.

"He must! he must!" groaned Frank, beating the water as hard as she could with her paddle.

"You'll have your canoe over!" exclaimed Wyn. "Look out, Frank!"

"I don't care! I don't care!" repeated the good-hearted Frances. "Oh, dear me! Suppose Mr. Lavine should be drowned? What would Bessie do? And they so much to each other!"

The girls saw the catboat round to suddenly, and Mr. Jarley drop the sail. The Coquette seemed to drive straight across the spot where the burned motor boat had gone down.

They saw the boatman bend over the rail once—and then again. Each time he lifted in—or helped lift in—some object; but whether it was the men he picked up, or some of the floating wreckage, the girls could not see.

They drove their canoes on, however, and Mr. Jarley saw them when he brought the catboat about. So he sailed down to pick them up likewise.

"Did you get them? Did you get them?" shouted Wyn, resting on her paddle.

Frankie was crying—and she was not a "weepy" girl as a general thing. But the peril seemed so terrible that she could not control herself for the moment.

Mr. Jarley—whose figure was all the girls could see in the catboat—leaned over and waved his hand to the girls. Was it meant to be reassuring? They did not know until the Coquette tacked so as to run down very close to them.

"Is that his girl with you, Miss Mallory?" demanded Polly's father.

"No. She did not come. She doesn't know," cried Wyn. "Oh, Mr. Jarley! is he all right?"

At that Mr. Lavine's head and shoulders appeared above the rail.

"We're alive, girls," he called, hoarsely. "This brave fellow caught us just in time. Where's Bess?"

"She doesn't even know it was you in the burning boat," cried Wyn. "But Frank and I started out for you."

"You'd been awfully wet before ever we could have reached you, though, Mr. Lavine," choked Frank, quickly turning from tears to laughter, as was her nature.

Mr. Jarley had dropped the sail again, and beckoned the girls to approach.

"Come aboard," he said, gravely, "and I'll tow your canoes behind us. Shall I take this gentleman to your camp, Miss Mallory?"

But Wyn was thinking to good purpose. She saw that Mr. Jarley, like his daughter, wished to have nothing to do with the Lavines. She knew that now Mr. Lavine would be doubly grateful to the boatman and that the time was ripe for the old friends to come to a better understanding.

"Why, Mr. Jarley," she said, "we haven't a thing at the camp he can put on—or the other man. No, sir. I don't know what we should do with them there."

Jarley's face flushed and he glanced back at the Forge. But it was near sunset already, and the Forge was much farther away than his own landing. The case was obvious.

"Well," he said, "I can take them home. Polly will find something for them to put on while their clothing is being dried. Yes! that may be best."

"And you take us girls right along with you and we'll paddle home from the landing," declared Wyn.

Wyn wanted to see Polly. After all, she believed, it lay with the boatman's daughter to make friends between the Jarleys and the Lavines. The captain of the Go-Ahead Club felt as though her long and exciting vacation under canvas would come to a very happy conclusion if she could see the two men who had once been such close friends, reunited.

Wyn was the first one ashore when the bow of the catboat touched the landing. Polly came running from the cottage, for she had spied their approach.

"Oh, Wynnie!" she cried, "what was it? Did father get them safely?"

"He saved them both—the most wonderful thing, Polly Jolly!" cried Wyn.

"Not so wonderful," corrected Polly, with pride. "My father has saved the lives of people from the lake before."

"But it is wonderful," quoth Wyn, "because one of the men saved is Bessie's father."

"Mr. Lavine!" gasped Polly.

"Yes. Now he owes his life to your father, just as Bess owes hers to you."

"Don't talk so, Wyn," begged Polly. "It's nothing."

"Nothing! It's everything! Don't stand in the way of your father and Bessie's being good friends again."

"Why, Wynnie!" gasped Polly, with a deeper color in her cheek.

"Don't you dare to act 'offish,'" warned Wyn. "The Lavines feel very kindly toward you—you know it. And now I am sure Mr. Lavine will feel more than kindly toward your father. Bring them together, Polly."

"You talk as though I could do anything," responded the boatman's girl.

"You can. You can do everything! Show your father that you feel kindly toward Mr. Lavine. That will break down his coldness quicker than anything," declared the inspired young peacemaker.

Wet and bedraggled, Mr. Lavine and his companion stepped ashore.

"Hi, Polly!" shouted her father. "Take Mr. Lavine up to the house and see if he can wear some of my things while his clothes are drying. I can find something at the shed here, for Bill."

Polly hesitated just a moment. The eager Wyn gave her a little push from behind. The boatman's girl ran forward to greet Mr. Lavine.

"Oh, sir!" she cried, timidly, "I am so sorry you had this accident."

"I don't know yet whether I am sorry, or not," said Mr. Lavine, grasping her hand.

She turned and walked beside him and her other hand sought his arm in a friendly way. John Jarley stood on the landing and followed them with his eyes. The expression upon his face pleased Wyn immensely.

She beckoned Frank away. "Come on! let's hurry back to the camp before it gets dark. Mrs. Havel will be worried about us."

"And leave Mr. Lavine here?" queried Frank.

"He couldn't be in better hands; could he?"

"I don't know that he could, Wyn!" cried her friend, suddenly. "What a smart girl you are!"

But Wyn would not accept that praise without qualifying it. "The accident was providential," she declared, gravely. "And without my assistance I am sure Polly knows how to do the right thing."

Perhaps Polly did. At least she gave much attention to their visitor, and her father could not help but see that Polly and Mr. Lavine were very good friends.

In half an hour Mr. Lavine appeared from the cottage dressed in Mr. Jarley's best suit of clothes. He shook hands with Polly, and then suddenly drew her to him and kissed her on the forehead.

"You are a dear girl, Polly," he declared, with some emotion. "I have to thank you for my little girl's life; and now I am going to thank your father for mine."

He walked straight down to the landing where Mr. Jarley was apparently very busy.

"Bill, here, says he will row you over to that camp if you care to go, Mr. Lavine," said the boatman.

"I don't want to see Bill, John," said the real estate man. "I want to see you. I am going to take advantage of my position as your guest, John. You cannot turn me off, or refuse to talk with me. You always were a gentleman, John, and I am sure you will listen to me now."

Mr. Jarley looked at him a good deal as Polly had looked (at first) at Wyn Mallory.

"Come! don't hold a grudge, John, just because I have been wicked enough to hold one all these years. I was wrong. I freely admit it. Come and sit down here, old man, and let's talk all that old matter over and see where our misunderstanding lay."

"Misunderstanding?"

"Aye," said the other, warmly. "Misunderstanding. For I am convinced now that a brave and generous man like you, John Jarley, would never have knowingly done what—all these years—I have held you to be guilty of!"

He had put his arm through the boatman's. Together they walked aside and sat down upon an upturned skiff. And they were sitting there long after it grew pitch dark upon the landing, with only the glow of Polly's lamp in the kitchen window and that uncertain radiance upon the lake which seems the reflection of the distant stars.

Finally the two men stepped into a skiff and Mr. Jarley rowed it over to Green Knoll Camp. They did not reach the camp until nearly bedtime, and they came so softly to the shore that the girls did not hear the scraping of the boat's keel.

Lavine seized his old friend's hand before leaping ashore.

"Then it's understood, John? You're to get out of this place and come back to Denton? I'm sorry Dr. Shelton is ahead of me in giving Polly something substantial; but you and I are going to begin just where we left off in that Steel Rivet Corporation deal, John.

"About next month I'll have a bigger thing than that in sight, and you shall have the same share in it that you would have had in the old deal. You used to be mighty good in handling your end of the game, John; I want you to take hold of it in just the same way again. Will you agree, old man?"

And Mr. Jarley gave him his hand upon it.

The girls put their visitor to sleep in the cook tent that night and the next morning the whole party went over to Gannet Island to see the work of raising the sunken motor boat carried on. The Busters were as excited as the girls themselves over the affair, and Cave-in-the-Wood Camp was a lively place indeed that day.

Tubby Blaisdell was the only person in the party who wore an aggrieved air. At first he could hardly be made to believe that the girls had not "sicked" the goat upon him two days before when he had stolen away from the other boys for a nap in the woods. Tubby walked lame and could have displayed bruises for several days.

The derrick barge had been towed over to the place where the Bright Eyes was sunk, the evening before. The boys helped put the chains around the hull of the sunken boat, for they were all good divers—save the fat youth, who remained on the invalid list.

Before noon the lost boat was raised to the surface and lashed to the side of the barge. Mr. Jarley very quickly tacked a tarpaulin over the hole in her bottom, and then she was pumped out. Further repairs were made and by night the Bright Eyes was riding safely to her own anchor and Mr. Jarley pried open the rusted lock of the cabin.

Dr. Shelton had come over in the Sunshine Boy and received from Mr. Jarley the box containing the silver images intact. It made Polly Jarley very happy to hear what the quick-tempered doctor said to her father; and it made Wyn Mallory blush to listen to what they all said to her!

"You can't get out of it, girlie!" laughed Frank Cameron. "What they say is quite true. If it hadn't been for you they never would have found the boat, and of course the images would have remained hidden. You're it, Wyn Mallory—no getting away from that!"



CHAPTER XXX

STRIKING CAMP

It was a glorious September morning—and no other month of all the year can display such beauties of sky and landscape, such invigorating air, or all Nature in so delightful a mood.

It was a still morning. The newly-kindled fire on Green Knoll sent a spiral of blue smoke mounting skyward. There was the delicious odor of pancakes and farm-made sausage hovering all about the camp of the Go-Ahead girls. Windmill Farm had supplied these first "goodies" of the autumn and the members of the club enjoyed them to the full.

"But, thanks be! there will be no more dishes to wash for a while," declared Grace Hedges.

"Nor beds to make," agreed her partner, Percy Havel.

"Nor fires to kindle," sighed Bessie Lavine.

"Well!" exclaimed Frank Cameron, "an outing in the woods isn't all it's cracked up to be, I admit. One might just as well accept a situation as servant in a very untidy household. It would be about the same thing. But my! we've had some fun between times."

"And such excitement!" declared Mina Everett. "Think of all that's happened to us since we paddled up from Denton two months and more ago."

"And happened to the boys, too," said Frank, "I understand that Tubby Blaisdell has put on ten additional pounds of flesh since yesterday morning."

"Now, Frank! how could he?" gasped Grace.

"Nobody could be much fatter than Tubby already is," added Bess, laughing.

"You never know till you try," chided Mina. "You have put on some flesh yourself, Miss Lavine."

"Bah! they'll soon work it off of me when we're back in school," groaned Bessie. "That's the worst of a vacation—there's always work at the end of it."

"Lazy!" cried Percy. "I believe I'll love study when I'm back to the 'scholastic grind.'"

"You can have my share," grumbled Bess. "But what about Tubby's additional avoirdupois, Frankie? He's as big as a haystack anyway."

"'All flesh is grass,' the Scriptures say, So Tubby B.'s a load of hay!"

chuckled Frank. "Is that it? And Tubby is all swelled up now—as big as a barrel."

"That's an awful fib, Frank," declared Mina. "He couldn't be."

"Well, Ferd says he looks so. The boys found a bumble bees' nest and Tubby didn't have any paddle to hit them with. So they all went for poor Tubby and they stung him so that his face is twice as big as usual—so Ferd says."

"Something is always happening to that boy," said Bess, laughing. "Hullo! where have you been, Wyn?"

Wyn came up from the shore. "I know where she's been," cried Frank. "She has been down there gloating!"

"Gloating?" repeated Percy.

"Over the boat. Is it all there, Wyn?"

The girls ran to the brow of the bank. There, floating off their beach, was a freshly painted motor boat, its brasswork shining, and everything spick and span about it. A very commodious and handsome craft she was, with "Go-Ahead" painted on either side of her bow and on her stern-board.

"Oh, she's all there! nobody has run off with her in the night," laughed Wyn. "And Mr. Lavine couldn't have found a better boat if he had tried—Mr. Jarley says so."

"It was good of Dr. Shelton to sell the Bright Eyes to father," said Bessie Lavine. "And they made a good job of it at the boatyard at the Forge."

"She's such a fine and roomy boat," declared Frankie. "We couldn't have expected such a big one, otherwise."

"And it's big enough for the Busters and Professor Skillings to sail home with us, too," said Percy. "Mr. Jarley is going to take charge of the boys' canoes, as well as ours, and ship them to us."

"Bully! An all-day cruise on the lake and then down the Wintinooski by moonlight to-night," sighed Wyn. "It will be just scrumptious!"

"Come, then, girls," warned Mrs. Havel. "We must strike camp. Everything must be rolled up and secured, ready for shipment on the bateau when it comes. I saw the sail of the bateau going past the point of Gannet Island early this morning. I expect the boys are all ready before this time."

"Let's wait for them," said the languid Bess. "What's the use of having boy friends if you don't make use of them?"

"Listen to her!" exclaimed Wyn, with scorn. "Depend upon the boys? I—rather—guess—not!"

"Don't be so independent, Miss," returned Miss Lavine. "You'll be glad to have Davie at your beck and call again when we get back home."

Wyn laughed. "It's all right to have them within reach if need should arise——"

"Like a mouse, or a snake," put in Frank Cameron.

"Goodness!" drawled Grace. "After all the bugs, and worms, and caterpillars, and other monsters we have faced—alone and single-handed—here in the woods, I don't believe I'll ever squeal if I put my hand upon a mouse in the pantry."

"Pshaw!" said Frank. "You only think that. It's the frailties of the sex we cannot get over. You all know very well that a boy with a teenty, tinty garter-snake on the end of a stick could chase this whole crowd either into the lake, or into hysterics."

"Shame!" cried Wyn. "That is rank treachery to the 'manhood' of us girls of the Go-Ahead Club."

"You are right, Wyn," agreed Mina. "Why, we none of us have any nerves now—but plenty of nerve, of course."

"Oh!" exclaimed Frank, starting back suddenly. "See that! Is it a spider over your head, Mina?"

Miss Everett uttered an ear-piercing shriek and sprang up, to run madly from the spot. Frank burst into laughter.

"How brave! Such nerve! My, my! we'll none of us ever be afraid again——"

They all pitched upon the joker, and Mrs. Havel had to come to her rescue with the reminder that time was flying.

"If you want to show the boys that you are really fit to camp out alone, get to work!" she commanded.

The next hour was a busy one for the Go-Aheads. But how much more handily they went about the striking of the tents than they had about raising them two months before!

Life in the open had really done wonders for the girls from Denton. They knew how to do things that they had never dreamed of doing at home. Most of them had learned how to swing an axe, although the boys had faithfully paid their forfeit by cutting the firewood for Green Knoll Camp all summer. The girls could use a hammer, too, and tie workman-like knots, and do a host of other things that had never come into their lives before.

"It is well to be sufficient unto one's self," Mrs. Havel told them. "A girl cannot always expect to find a boy at her beck and call. It is nice to be waited on by the male sex—and it is good for boys to learn to attend properly upon their girl friends; it is better, however, to know how to accept favors gracefully from our boy friends, and yet not really need their assistance."

So Green Knoll Camp presented a very orderly appearance when the boys and Professor Skillings appeared ahead of the bateau that was to take all their goods and chattels back to their home town.

"Goodness! aren't you girls smart?" cried Dave Shepard, the first ashore. "Are you all ready?"

"Every bit," declared Wyn.

"Then we can get off in the Go-Ahead at once?"

"Right," declared Frank, laughing. "And as soon as you can teach Wyn and me how to manage the motor boat, we girls sha'n't need you boys at all."

"A fine lot of suffragettes you are going to make," growled Dave.

"No; we'll never be 'suffering-cats,' Davie," returned Frank, laughing. "We don't need to. Let us alone for being able to get the best of you Busters whenever we want to."

"Isn't she right?" cried Ferdinand Roberts, admiringly. "You can't beat 'em!"

"No, you can't," snarled Tubby Blaisdell, very puffy about his face, and with a wry smile. "They even get the goats to help 'em."

"They got your goat, old man," said Dave, chuckling, "that's sure. But you blame them for a crime they did not commit, I believe. Remember how many times you have tried to trick them?"

"Huh!" snorted the fat youth. "Did I ever succeed?"

"I hope," said Mrs. Havel, breaking in upon this "give and take" conversation, "that your parents will not blame me if you all appear—both girls and boys—to have lost your good manners here in the woods. Do simmer down. Remember, you return to civilization to-day."

"Oh, dear! don't remind us—don't, dear Mrs. Havel," cried Frank.

"Just think!" scoffed Ferd. "You girls will have to be all 'dolled up' on Sunday again. Won't you hate it?"

"Rather go around in a tramping skirt and without a hat," admitted Wyn, frankly.

"The tastes of girlhood are much different now from what they were in my day," said the lady, with a sigh. "When I was young we never thought of doing the things you girls do now."

"Isn't that why you didn't do them?" asked Frank, slily. "Perhaps we girls of this generation have better-developed imaginations."

"Oh, sure!" cried Ferd, with sarcasm. "You girls are wonders—just as smart as little Hen Rogers was last term when Miss Haley asked him if he could name any town in Alaska."

"What did he say?" asked Frank, with interest.

"He said, 'Nome'—and she sent him to the foot of the class," chuckled Ferd.

"Oh! aren't you smart?" railed Bessie. "That joke is the twin to the one about the boy who was asked by the professor in physics if he knew what 'nasal organ' meant. And the boy said 'No, sir' and got a 'perfect' mark."

"Come on, folks!" cried Wyn. "Stop telling silly jokes and bear a hand here. All these things have to go into the boat."

Mr. Jarley and Polly joined them just then, Mr. Jarley to collect the canoes and take them to the Forge, while Polly was to go with the two clubs aboard the newly-named Go-Ahead to Denton.

Polly, in a brand-new boating costume, was so pretty that the boys couldn't keep their eyes away from her. She was happy, too, and this fact gave an entirely different expression to her face.

She was to go home with Wyn, and in a few weeks her father would follow and establish a home for them both in Denton. He was going, as Mr. Lavine declared, to start in his old home town just where he had left off more than ten years before. And Polly was to enter the academy with the girls of Green Knoll Camp on the opening day.

The party got under weigh on the Go-Ahead and were some miles down the lake ere it was discovered that Professor Skillings had forgotten both his shoes and his hat, for he had paddled over to the girls' camp barefoot as usual. It was too late to go back then, for the baggage had all been put aboard the bateau.

So the professor went home with a handkerchief tied around his head and a pair of moccasins on his feet—the latter borrowed from Dr. Shelton, at whose dock they stopped for luncheon.

The bluff doctor insisted that the whole party come ashore and lunch with him. He had arranged for Polly's tuition at the Denton Academy, had bought her text-books, and when the party left for home that day he thrust into Polly Jolly's hand a silver chain purse with more money in it than the boatman's daughter had ever possessed before.

Polly Jolly was beginning to live up to the loving name that Wyn Mallory had given to her. She was the very gayest of the gay as the Go-Ahead proceeded down the lake and then down the Wintinooski to Denton.

The last of the journey was taken after they had had a picnic supper, and under the brilliant light of the September moon. The boys and girls sang and told stories, and otherwise enjoyed themselves. But as they drew near home they quieted down.

The summer was behind them. For more than two months they had skylarked, and enjoyed themselves to the full on the lake and in the woods. They "were going back to civilization," as Frankie said, and it made them a bit thoughtful.

"I expect," said Mina Everett, "that we have had just the best time that we will ever have in all our lives."

"Why so?" demanded Bess. "Can't we go camping again?"

"Sure we will!" declared Dave Shepard.

"I see what Mina means—and I guess she is right," Wyn remarked, earnestly. "We may go camping again; but it will never be just like this first time. For the girls, I mean. We had never done such a thing before. And then—if we go next summer—we'll be a whole year older. And a year is a long, long time."

"Long enough to spoil some of you girls, I expect," grumbled Ferdinand.

"Spoil us, Mister? How's that?" snapped Bess, at once taking up the gauntlet.

"You'll be wanting to put up your hair and let down your skirts, and will be wearing all the new-style folderols by next summer," retorted Ferd.

"Oh, won't they, just!" groaned Tubby, in agreement.

"You wait and see, Smartie!" cried Frank Cameron.

"We are not like the girls you are thinking of," declared Grace, with some warmth.

"No, indeed," agreed Percy.

"The Go-Aheads are going to fool you, Ferdie," said Wyn, laughing. "Just you watch us. All girls aren't in a hurry to grow up and ape their mothers and older sisters. We're going in for athletics and the 'simple life' strongly; aren't we, girls?"

Her fellow club members agreed in a hearty chorus. "Besides," added Bess, "we can have all the fun the other kind of girls have as well as our own kind. We can dance, and go to parties, and wear pretty frocks for part of the time."

"What did I tell you?" demanded Ferd, grinning.

"Never mind, Ferd, never mind," said Dave, softly. "We'll be a bit that way ourselves before the winter's over. You know, Ferd, that your folks will insist on your keeping your hair cut and your finger-nails manicured."

"And of course I'll have a blister on my heel from wearing dancing pumps before the season is over," groaned Tubby. "Oh, well! it's not altogether our fault that we grow up so fast. Our folks make us," and he groaned again, for dancing school was one of the fat youth's pet aversions.

"That is what youth is for," advised Mrs. Havel, who overheard all this. "It is a preparation for manhood and womanhood."

"Dear me! Dear me! let's forget it," cried Dave. "This is no time for feeling solemn. Thank goodness, for two solid months we have forgotten all about the 'duty we owe to posterity,' as the professor expresses it. Maybe next year we can forget it again in our camps upon the shores of Lake Honotonka."

"Well expressed, little boy—well expressed," agreed Wynifred, tweaking one of Dave's curls that would not lie down, no matter what he did to them. "My! but we have grown serious. This is no way to end our camping days, girls. Come! another lively song——"

The motor boat drifted in to the boathouse landing to the lilt of a familiar rowing song. Wyn's camping days were over; the outing of the Go-Ahead Club was at an end.

THE END



SOMETHING ABOUT

AMY BELL MARLOWE

AND HER BOOKS FOR GIRLS

In these days, when the printing presses are turning out so many books for girls that are good, bad and indifferent, it is refreshing to come upon the works of such a gifted authoress as Miss Amy Bell Marlowe, who is now under contract to write exclusively for Messrs. Grosset & Dunlap.

In many ways Miss Marlowe's books may be compared with those of Miss Alcott and Mrs. Meade, but all are thoroughly modern and wholly American in scene and action. Her plots, while never improbable, are exceedingly clever, and her girlish characters are as natural as they are interesting.

On the following pages will be found a list of Miss Marlowe's books. Every girl in our land ought to read these fresh and wholesome tales. They are to be found at all booksellers. Each volume is handsomely illustrated and bound in cloth, stamped in colors. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, New York. A free catalogue of Miss Marlowe's books may be had for the asking.



THE OLDEST OF FOUR

"I don't see any way out!"

It was Natalie's mother who said that, after the awful news had been received that Mr. Raymond had been lost in a shipwreck on the Atlantic. Natalie was the oldest of four children, and the family was left with but scant means for support.

"I've got to do something—yes, I've just got to!" Natalie said to herself, and what the brave girl did is well related in "The Oldest of Four; Or, Natalie's Way Out." In this volume we find Natalie with a strong desire to become a writer. At first she contributes to a local paper, but soon she aspires to larger things, and comes in contact with the editor of a popular magazine. This man becomes her warm friend, and not only aids her in a literary way but also helps in a hunt for the missing Mr. Raymond.

Natalie has many ups and downs, and has to face more than one bitter disappointment. But she is a plucky girl through and through.

"One of the brightest girls' stories ever penned," one well-known author has said of this book, and we agree with him. Natalie is a thoroughly lovable character, and one long to be remembered. Published as are all the Amy Bell Marlowe books, by Grosset & Dunlap, New York, and for sale by all booksellers. Ask your dealer to let you look the volume over.



THE GIRLS OF HILLCREST FARM

"We'll go to the old farm, and we'll take boarders! We can fix the old place up, and, maybe, make money!"

The father of the two girls was broken down in health and a physician had recommended that he go to the country, where he could get plenty of fresh air and sunshine. An aunt owned an abandoned farm and she said the family could live on this and use the place as they pleased. It was great sport moving and getting settled, and the boarders offered one surprise after another. There was a mystery about the old farm, and a mystery concerning one of the boarders, and how the girls got to the bottom of affairs is told in detail in the story, which is called, "The Girls of Hillcrest Farm; Or, The Secret of the Rocks."

It was great fun to move to the farm, and once the girls had the scare of their lives. And they attended a great "vendue" too.

"I just had to write that story—I couldn't help it," said Miss Marlowe, when she handed in the manuscript. "I knew just such a farm when I was a little girl, and oh! what fun I had there! And there was a mystery about that place, too!"

Published, like all the Marlowe books, by Grosset & Dunlap, New York, and for sale wherever good books are sold.



A LITTLE MISS NOBODY

"Oh, she's only a little nobody! Don't have anything to do with her!"

How often poor Nancy Nelson heard those words, and how they cut her to the heart. And the saying was true, she was a nobody. She had no folks, and she did not know where she had come from. All she did know was that she was at a boarding school and that a lawyer paid her tuition bills and gave her a mite of spending money.

"I am going to find out who I am, and where I came from," said Nancy to herself, one day, and what she did, and how it all ended, is absorbingly related in "A Little Miss Nobody; Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall." Nancy made a warm friend of a poor office boy who worked for that lawyer, and this boy kept his eyes and ears open and learned many things.

The book tells much about boarding school life, of study and fun mixed, and of a great race on skates. Nancy made some friends as well as enemies, and on more than one occasion proved that she was "true blue" in the best meaning of that term.

Published by Grosset & Dunlap, New York, and for sale by booksellers everywhere. If you desire a catalogue of Amy Bell Marlowe books send to the publishers for it and it will come free.



THE GIRL FROM SUNSET RANCH

Helen was very thoughtful as she rode along the trail from Sunset Ranch to the View. She had lost her father but a month before, and he had passed away with a stain on his name—a stain of many years' standing, as the girl had just found out.

"I am going to New York and I am going to clear his name!" she resolved, and just then she saw a young man dashing along, close to the edge of a cliff. Over he went, and Helen, with no thought of the danger to herself, went to the rescue.

Then the brave Western girl found herself set down at the Grand Central Terminal in New York City. She knew not which way to go or what to do. Her relatives, who thought she was poor and ignorant, had refused to even meet her. She had to fight her way along from the start, and how she did this, and won out, is well related in "The Girl from Sunset Ranch; Or, Alone in a Great City."

This is one of the finest of Amy Bell Marlowe's books, with its true-to-life scenes of the plains and mountains, and of the great metropolis. Helen is a girl all readers will love from the start.

Published by Grosset & Dunlap, New York, and for sale by booksellers everywhere.



WYN'S CAMPING DAYS

"Oh, girls, such news!" cried Wynifred Mallory to her chums, one day. "We can go camping on Lake Honotonka! Isn't it grand!"

It certainly was, and the members of the Go-Ahead Club were delighted. Soon they set off, with their boy friends to keep them company in another camp not far away. Those boys played numerous tricks on the girls, and the girls retaliated, you may be sure. And then Wyn did a strange girl a favor, and learned how some ancient statues of rare value had been lost in the lake, and how the girl's father was accused of stealing them.

"We must do all we can for that girl," said Wyn. But this was not so easy, for the girl campers had many troubles of their own. They had canoe races, and one of them fell overboard and came close to drowning, and then came a big storm, and a nearby tree was struck by lightning.

"I used to love to go camping when a girl, and I love to go yet," said Miss Marlowe, in speaking of this tale, which is called, "Wyn's Camping Days; Or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club." "I think all girls ought to know the pleasures of summer life under canvas."

A book that ought to be in the hands of all girls. Issued by Grosset & Dunlap, New York, and for sale by booksellers everywhere.



THE GIRLS OF CENTRAL HIGH SERIES

By GERTRUDE W. MORRISON

12mo. BOUND IN CLOTH. ILLUSTRATED. UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING

Here is a series full of the spirit of high school life of to-day. The girls are real flesh-and-blood characters, and we follow them with interest in school and out. There are many contested matches on track and field, and on the water, as well as doings in the classroom and on the school stage. There is plenty of fun and excitement, all clean, pure and wholesome.

THE GIRLS OF CENTRAL HIGH Or Rivals for all Honors.

A stirring tale of high school life, full of fun, with a touch of mystery and a strange initiation.

THE GIRLS OF CENTRAL HIGH ON LAKE LUNA Or The Crew That Won.

Telling of water sports and fun galore, and of fine times in camp.

THE GIRLS OF CENTRAL HIGH AT BASKETBALL Or The Great Gymnasium Mystery.

Here we have a number of thrilling contests at basketball and in addition, the solving of a mystery which had bothered the high school authorities for a long while.

THE GIRLS OF CENTRAL HIGH ON THE STAGE Or The Play That Took the Prize.

How the girls went in for theatricals and how one of them wrote a play which afterward was made over for the professional stage and brought in some much-needed money.

THE GIRLS OF CENTRAL HIGH ON TRACK AND FIELD Or The Girl Champions of the School League

This story takes in high school athletics in their most approved and up-to-date fashion. Full of fun and excitement.

THE GIRLS OF CENTRAL HIGH IN CAMP Or The Old Professor's Secret.

The girls went camping on Acorn Island and had a delightful time at boating, swimming and picnic parties.

Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York



THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS SERIES

By LAURA LEE HOPE

Author of "The Bobbsey Twins Series."

12mo. BOUND IN CLOTH. ILLUSTRATED. UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING

The adventures of Ruth and Alice DeVere. Their father, a widower, is an actor who has taken up work for the "movies." Both girls wish to aid him in his work and visit various localities to act in all sorts of pictures.

THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS Or First Appearance in Photo Dramas.

Having lost his voice, the father of the girls goes into the movies and the girls follow. Tells how many "parlor dramas" are filmed.

THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS AT OAK FARM Or Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays.

Full of fun in the country, the haps and mishaps of taking film plays, and giving an account of two unusual discoveries.

THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS SNOWBOUND Or The Proof on the Film.

A tale of winter adventures in the wilderness, showing how the photo-play actors sometimes suffer.

THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS UNDER THE PALMS Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida.

How they went to the land of palms, played many parts in dramas before the camera; were lost, and aided others who were also lost.

THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS AT ROCKY RANCH Or Great Days Among the Cowboys.

All who have ever seen moving pictures of the great West will want to know just how they are made. This volume gives every detail and is full of clean fun and excitement.

THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS AT SEA Or a Pictured Shipwreck that Became Real.

A thrilling account of the girls' experiences on the water.

THE MOVING PICTURE GIRLS IN WAR PLAYS Or The Sham Battles at Oak Farm.

The girls play important parts in big battle scenes and have plenty of hard work along with considerable fun.

Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York



THE OUTDOOR GIRLS SERIES

By LAURA LEE HOPE

Author of the "Bobbsey Twin Books" and "Bunny Brown" Series.

12mo. BOUND IN CLOTH. ILLUSTRATED. UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING.

These tales take in the various adventures participated in by several bright, up-to-date girls who love outdoor life. They are clean and wholesome, free from sensationalism, absorbing from the first chapter to the last.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS OF DEEPDALE Or Camping and Tramping for Fun and Health.

Telling how the girls organized their Camping and Tramping Club, how they went on a tour, and of various adventures which befell them.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT RAINBOW LAKE Or Stirring Cruise of the Motor Boat Gem.

One of the girls becomes the proud possessor of a motor boat and invites her club members to take a trip down the river to Rainbow Lake, a beautiful sheet of water lying between the mountains.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A MOTOR CAR Or The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley.

One of the girls has learned to run a big motor car, and she invites the club to go on a tour to visit some distant relatives. On the way they stop at a deserted mansion and make a surprising discovery.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A WINTER CAMP Or Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats.

In this story, the scene is shifted to a winter season. The girls have some jolly times skating and ice boating, and visit a hunters' camp in the big woods.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN FLORIDA. Or Wintering in the Sunny South.

The parents of one of the girls have bought an orange grove in Florida, and her companions are invited to visit the place. They take a trip into the interior, where several unusual things happen.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT OCEAN VIEW Or The Box that Was Found in the Sand.

The girls have great fun and solve a mystery while on an outing along the New England coast.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS ON PINE ISLAND Or A Cave and What it Contained.

A bright, healthful story, full of good times at a bungalow camp on Pine Island.

Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York



THE BOBBSEY TWINS BOOKS

For Little Men and Women

By LAURA LEE HOPE

Author of "The Bunny Brown" Series, Etc.

12mo. BOUND IN CLOTH. ILLUSTRATED. UNIFORM STYLE OF BINDING.

Copyright publications which cannot be obtained elsewhere. Books that charm the hearts of the little ones, and of which they never tire. Many of the adventures are comical in the extreme, and all the accidents that ordinarily happen to youthful personages happened to these many-sided little mortals. Their haps and mishaps make decidedly entertaining reading.

THE BOBBSEY TWINS

THE BOBBSEY TWINS IN THE COUNTRY

THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT THE SEASHORE

THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SCHOOL

Telling how they go home from the seashore; went to school and were promoted, and of their many trials and tribulations.

THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT SNOW LODGE

Telling of the winter holidays, and of the many fine times and adventures the twins had at a winter lodge in the big woods.

THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON A HOUSEBOAT

Mr. Bobbsey obtains a houseboat, and the whole family go off on a tour.

THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT MEADOW BROOK

The young folks visit the farm again and have plenty of good times and several adventures.

THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT HOME

The twins get into all sorts of trouble—and out again—also bring aid to a poor family.

Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York

THE END