Gertrude W. Morrison

“ There sat the deserted dog on his tail, howling most dismally as the boats drew up stream and left him behind.
Laura called to Purt in the other boat: “Never mind, Mr. Sweet, I don’t think you’ll be troubled with that dog any more. It’s twenty miles to Lake Dunkirk. He will never follow you that far.”
“I bet the Barnacle haunts Purt in his dreams,” exclaimed Bobby.
“Oh! say not so!” begged Billy Long. “If Purt has the nightmare and draws that ‘family friend,’ the faithful revolver, on the ghost of the dog—Good-night! Like enough he’ll blow us all out of the tent.” ”

“ They were all as busy as bees the next day, packing their bags and flying about from house to house, asking each other: “What you going to take?”
“Goodness me!” cried Laura, at last; “it isn’t what do we want, but how little can we get along with! Discard everything possible, girls—do!”
Bobby Hargrew declared Lil Pendleton had started to pack a Saratoga trunk, and that she had been obliged to point out to Lil that neither of the motorboats was large enough to ship such a piece of baggage.
Their gymnasium suits would be just the thing in camp. And of course they all had bathing suits. ”

“ Having seen the exquisite dragged aboard the Duchess, most of the girls on the other powerboat gave their attention to the dog. Indeed, his fate all the time had attracted more attention from Lizzie Bean, than had the trouble Purt Sweet was in.
“Why! he might have been drowned!” Lily exclaimed in answer to something Bobby said.
“That’s right. And it would be too mean,” spoke up Lonesome Liz, as Billy Long secretly called the sad-faced girl. “He’s a smart dog.”
“Mercy! who cares about that horrid dog?” snapped Lily.
“I do, for one,” said Nellie Agnew. ”

“ Laura said to Lance. “Didn’t you say a part of this stream was a private fishing preserve?”
“So I’ve been told. We won’t go beyond the sign,” said Lance.
He got Laura and Purt properly stationed and then cast, himself. They were having good sport and had landed several beauties, when Billy Long came idly up the stream on the other side.
“Hello!” he grunted. “Everywhere I go, there are girls. Isn’t there a place where a fellow can get away from them and fish? They chatter so much that they drive all the fish into the mud, with their fins over their ears—that’s right!” ”

“ It was the vicious farmer who had set his dog on Short and Long, on Bang-up Creek!
If she had had any doubts about the right and wrong of an attempt to thwart the sheriff before, Laura had none now. Perhaps her course was indefensible; but intuitively she believed that farmer to be a bad man. And she was sure that he was the one who had set the sheriff on this trail.
He had doubtless followed the young man with the gun and seen him join Professor Dimp. The two had paddled for Acorn Island. The farmer had communicated with the sheriff. ”

“ At once that imbecile dog rushed upon him, leaped into his lap, and lapped Purt’s face!
“Get out! You nawsty, nawsty brute you!” wailed the dude, beating the dog off weakly.
The latter considered it all in the game. He had taken a decided liking to the boy from Central High, and nothing would drive him away.
Purt had never really cared for dogs. Most boys are tickled enough to get a dog—even a mongrel like this one. But the dude found himself with a possession for which he had never longed. ”

“ But she did not think it so funny that evening when, as the girls sat about a fire they had made in the open, singing and telling jokes, and Lizzie was washing up the supper dishes, a sudden shrill whoop arose from the cook-tent.
“Gee! what’s that?” demanded the slangy Bobby.
“A mouse!” declared Nellie. “That funny girl must be just as much afraid of them as I am.”
“I hope it’s nothing worse than a mouse,” Lil said, tremblingly.
Laura had sprung up on the instant and run to the cook tent. Liz had dropped a pile of plates, and some of them were broken. ”

“ Purt had cocked an appreciative eye at her, and he murmured: 178
“Quite true—quite true, Miss Laura. She’s as beautiful as Hebe,” and gave the name of the goddess the very best pronunciation, according to Professor Dimp.
“Beautiful as he be?” drawled Chet, in exaggeration of bucolic twang, looking amusedly at the lank and lazy squatter himself who lay snoring on the platform before the hut. “Huh! she’s a sight purtier than he be. Why, he’s as humbly as a hedge-fence—an’ ye can see, Purt, that the girl takes after her mother.”
“It sure is too bad how they rig you, Pretty,” laughed Jess. ”

“ His thin lips actually trembled as he greeted the three girls in characteristic manner. His eyes, however, were as bright as ever—like steel points. He looked this way when the boys had been a trial to him in Latin class and he was about to say something very sharp.
“We are sorry to disturb you, Professor Dimp,” said Laura, bravely. “But we are in a quandary.”
“A quandary, Miss Belding?”
“Yes, sir. Our dog has been following a man who came to our camp last night and frightened us. The dog led us right here to this spot. Have you seen him?”
“Seen the dog?” demanded the old professor. ”

“ He was, in fact, the only escort the girls had when they went up into the town in search of the several articles they needed. The dude was evidently proud of his outing suit and, as Billy suggested, “wanted to give the people of Lumberport a treat.”
So he swaggered along up Main Street with the girls. Not a block from the wharf at which the boats were tied he met with an adventure.
“Whatever impression Purt is making on the good people of this town,” whispered Nellie Agnew to Laura, “he has certainly smitten a four-footed inhabitant with a deep, deep interest.” ”

“ But Professor Dimp had been so sharp with her and the other girls, that Laura half feared to meet him. He was certainly a stern old gentleman, and she remembered now that, from the time the girls of Central High had decided to come here to Acorn Island to camp, Professor Dimp had been quite put out about it.
“Why!” thought Laura, “he was planning to come here himself at that time. He must have already arranged to meet the young man here. And he considers us interlopers. It’s very, very strange!”
Nor did Laura wish to discuss the affair with Jess or Bobby Hargrew. ”

“ In the confusion of getting under way the 52 details of Prettyman Sweet’s outing suit, and his general get-up for camping in the wilds, was scarcely noticed. Once the boats were steering up the lake toward Lumberport, a sudden shriek from Billy Long drew the attention of the girls and Mrs. Morse to the object to which he pointed.
“It’s not! it’s not! my eyes deceive me!” panted Short and Long, who was the third member of the crew of boys aboard the Bonnie Lass, Chet and Lance being the other two. ”

“ Dorothy Lockwood said, eagerly.
“And he wasn’t much but a boy!” murmured Nellie. But Laura said, sharply: “Bobby! that’s not nice. Run after Professor Dimp and give the clipping to him.”
“Gee! you’re so awfully particular,” grumbled the harum-scarum. But she started after the shabby figure of the Latin teacher and caught up with him before Professor Dimp had reached the end of the next block—for Bobby Hargrew had taken the palm in the quarter mile dash at the Girls’ Branch League Field Day and there were few girls at Central High who could compete with her as a sprinter. ”

“ In the midst of the downpour, however, and in a lull between thunder claps, Barnacle, who had been tied to the corner of the hut and had crawled under the floor for protection, suddenly broke out 143 with a terrific salvo of barks. He rushed out into the rain and leaped at the end of his rope, barking and yelping.
“Somebody’s about the camp,” murmured Mrs. Morse. “The dog’s nose—if not his eyes—tells him so.”
“It’s Liz,” ventured Jess, for the maid-of-all-work had not come with them to the cabin.
Laura threw the door open, in spite of the flashing lightning. ”

“ Chet declared. “Spread out and try to push through the woods as straight as possible.”
“We girls, too?” cried Nellie.
“Be a sport, Nell, and come along,” urged Jess Morse. “We’ll be in sight and call of each other all the time.”
Which was true enough, as they soon discovered. Lil said it was her turn to help do the camp work. And of course neither Mrs. Morse nor Liz could go.
“Don’t you think,” Purt asked, seriously, “that one of us ought to remain here and defend—er—the camp?”
“Sure,” said Chet, quickly. “We’ll leave Art, if you say so. He rather admires Lil, too, Purt.” ”

“ It’s all right to camp under canvas; but if a big storm should come up he says we’d be glad of that cabin.”
“Great!” announced Jess Morse.
“The cabin shall be your mother’s particular shelter,” said Laura. “Eh, girls?”
“If she is kind enough to go with us,” said 14 Nellie, “she should have the very best of everything.”
“She can have my share of the wood ants and red spiders,” chuckled Bobby. “But it’s all right, girls. Father Tom says we can have the island to ourselves. And believe me: this bunch of girls of Central High will sure have a good time!” ”

“ Up rose the boys with a great whoop. “Go for it!” yelled Lance. “Sick ’im!” which seems to be the approved way to set a dog on anything living.
Barnacle was barking his foolish head off. He dashed across from the cook-tent to the woods, and then back again. The boys all urged him on. The girls ran together in a frightened group, Lil moaning:
“Oh, he’s here again! that dreadful man is here again!”
“Hush you!” commanded Liz, in disgust. “’Tain’t no man. ’Tain’t even a ha’nt. I seen it. It’s a black and white kitten––”
“Oh, Chet! call him off! call him off!” begged Laura. ”

“ The Latin teacher—the bane of all careless and ill-prepared boys and girls of the Latin class—was a slightly built, stoop-shouldered man who never seemed to own a new coat, and was as forgetful as a person really could be, and be allowed to go about without a keeper. ”

“ That’s a polecat!”
“What?” gasped all the girls, and then Bobby began to shriek with laughter. It was too, too funny—with Jess begging the boys not to let the Barnacle hurt “kitty.”
It was impossible, however, to call the dog off the trail. That camp scavenger, the American skunk, is the mildest mannered little creature in the world—providing he is left strictly alone. Being timid and otherwise defenseless, God has given him a scent-sack which––
“Nobody can tell me that the skunk only brought a cent into the Ark,” declared the exhausted Bobby. “That fellow has a dollar’s worth himself!” ”

“ Jess cried, suddenly.
“Who?” asked her mother.
“Chet said something about a sheriff coming to the boys’ camp over yonder. And he had a pack of bloodhounds with him.”
“But why should an officer of the law come here?” queried Mrs. Morse.
Laura, and Jess, and Bobby looked at each other. Of course, Mother Wit had understood the approach of the barge from the first; but she had said nothing. Now Jess and Bobby burst out with: 188
“Oh! he must be after that young man.”
“What young man?” was the chorus of the other campers.
“The young man who is with Professor Dimp,” said the thoughtless Bobby. ”

“ Lance returned. “But he always carries a case of them around with him. You know, he bought a thousand once with his monogram printed in gold on them, and he never will get rid of them all. He thought it would be a good thing to bring them to camp with him so as to use them for a smudge to chase off the mosquitoes.”
“And they work all right,” grunted Chet. “The smoke chases the mosquitoes, you can believe. But then, the smoke chases us, too. Purt’s brand of cigarettes is made out of long-filler Connecticut cabbage.” ”