Wyn

“ Wyn had listened at that meeting to the opinions of all the other girls–and to their hopeless and disappointed complaints as well–and then she had taken the whole burden on her own shoulders.
“Don’t you say another word at home about it, girls–any of you,” she said. “Leave it to me. Our idea of living for the summer in the open is a good one. We’ll come back to school in the fall with ginger and health enough to keep us going like dynamos during the next school year.” ”

“ Havel. “But I am quite as afraid of cows―”
“Nor cows, either. I guess you wouldn’t have been fooled for a minute if you had seen them,” said Wyn.
“What do you mean, Wyn?” cried Frank. “I tell you I saw them with my own eyes―”
“Of course you did. So did I,” admitted Wyn. “But we did not see them right. They are not bears, walking on their hind legs; they are just boys walking on the only legs they’ve got!”
“The Busters!” ejaculated Frank.
“Oh, Wyn! do you think so?” asked Mina, hopefully.
“Look ahead,” commanded Wyn. “There are the boys’ canoes. ”

“ You do blarney so.”
“Ah, now, my dear; it isn’t blarneying at all!” laughed Wyn. “It’s just showing you the sensible way. We girls don’t want to be flighty, and have ‘mads on,’ as Frank says, for no real reason. And this poor girl will never trouble you in the world―”
“I wish she wasn’t up at that lake,” declared Bessie.
“Why, Bess! the lake’s plenty big enough,” said Wyn, chuckling. “We won’t have to see much of the Jarleys. Although―”
“I sha’n’t go if she is to be on hand,” asserted Bessie, with vehemence.
“One would think poor Polly Jarley had an infectious disease. ”

“ I might have known Robinson wouldn't manage when I left him?"
"Why not?"
"English!" said Wyn, most expressively. "No one can stand the airs he puts on."
Now, such airs as Mr. Moore possessed--and they were neither few nor far between--were not put on, but were perfectly natural to him.
"Can't you come in and get your tea?" I asked as he handed me the baby and helped his wife down.
"No: I must go over directly and compose matters. Good-bye, little woman: by-bye, baby! Do you know, we think she's beginning to say 'papa?'" said Wyn, proudly; and then he kissed his wife and child and drove away. ”

“ Mrs. Havel was urged along by her niece and Grace. Wyn brought up the rear. Oddly enough, none of the bears came out of the bushes–that she could see.
The girls plunged along the sand, and through the shallow water for several yards. Here the bushes grew right down to the edge of the lake. Suddenly Wyn caught sight of something ahead, and uttered a sharp command:
“Stop! every one of you! Do you hear me, Frank? Stop!”
173“Oh, dear! they can eat us here just as well as anywhere,” groaned Grace.
“Now be quiet!” said Wynifred, in some heat. “We’ve all been foolish enough. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Naturally, in learning to handle the light cedar craft as expertly as they did, the members of the Go-Ahead Club had much experience. While the weather was good the girls plied their paddles up and down the Wintinooski, but seldom was the river as rough as this open lake in which Wyn and Bessie Lavine had been so unexpectedly overturned.
“Oh! am I not the unluckiest girl that–that ever happened?” wailed Bess, when she came up puffing. ”

“ Wyn said. “But I don’t believe they will mind. When we came up for the milk this morning Mrs. Prosser told us they were going on a Sunday school picnic.”
“I’d like to set the old thing to working,” 227 remarked the inquisitive Ferdinand. “What do you know about it, Dave?”
“It starts by throwing in this clutch,” replied the bigger boy, just inside the door. “If the wind keeps on the farmer will probably grind a grist when he comes back. You see, there are several bags of corn and wheat yonder.”
The girls were already finding their way up the dusty ladders, from loft to loft of the tower. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Shelton says they were, there are more than us girls who would like to find them.”
“My goodness me! I didn’t think of that,” observed Wyn Mallory, with a little shiver. “Do you suppose we really are being followed?”
258CHAPTER XXV
THE STRANGE BATEAU
Polly laughed a little. Yet she spoke seriously.
“You needn’t be so worried, Wyn. I know most of the men who do business on the lake. Some of them are mighty fine fellows, and others are just the opposite; but I’m not afraid of the worst of them.” ”

“ The Go-Aheads and Busters recognized Wyn, and began to cheer her and Polly before the Coquette came to the line. Other onlookers caught sight of the two girls, and whether they knew the crew of the Coquette or not, gave them a good “send-off.”
Polly had accepted Wyn’s help quietly, but with a look that Wyn was not likely to forget. It meant much to the Jarleys if the Coquette won the twenty-five dollars. They needed every dollar they could honestly earn. ”

“ 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.”
309“It was good of Dr. Shelton to sell the Bright Eyes to father,” said Bessie Lavine. ”

“ This is Frank Cameron.” She kissed Polly warmly. “How fine you look, Polly! Tell me! will all we girls look as healthy and be as strong as you are, by the autumn? You’re a picture!”
“A pretty shabby one, I fear, Miss Wyn,” protested Polly, yet smiling. “I am in the very oldest clothes I have, for there is much dirty work to be done around here. We have hardly got ready for the summer yet. Father has been so lame.”
“And you must introduce me to your father, Polly,” Wyn said, quickly. “We have something for him to do–if he will be so kind.” ”

“ I shall know if it’s a boat, Wyn, once I reach it.”
“And I hope it is” gasped Wyn. “Not alone for your sake, Polly. Why, if it is the Bright Eyes, the Go-Aheads will own a motor boat their very own selves. Won’t that be fine?”
But Polly was too busy getting the catboat ready to answer. The Coquette was moored just a little way off the landing, and the two girls went out to her in Wyn’s canoe.
There was a lantern in her cuddy and Polly lit it. Then they slipped the buoyed moorings and spread a little canvas. There was quite a breeze, and it was fair for their course to Gannet Island. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Dobbles and his master were quite out of sight, and Wyn had got to the other side of the pond, among a mass of ferns and brambles not likely to yield much out of the common, when he heard a rustling and saw a tall man standing on the little track beyond him, with his back turned. Wyn was a keeper’s son, and as soon as he perceived that the man was a stranger he at once jumped to the conclusion that he was after no good, and that he, Mr Edgar’s only protector, had left him alone at some distance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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?” ”

“ Business is dreadfully dull. I heard my father say so.”
3She was a tall, lanky girl, was Frances Cameron, with a great mass of blue-black hair and flashing black eyes. She was thin, strong, and lacking in those soft curves of budding womanhood which girls of her age usually display. “Straight up and down, my dears,” she often said. “Built upon the most approved clothespin plan, with every bone perfectly–not to say generously–developed.”
“Well,” said Wyn, laughing, “if you girls will give me a chance I will divulge my news.”
“Be still!” commanded Frank. “The oracle speaks.”
“Oh, hurry up, Wyn!” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Where under the sun you girls could have hidden our canoes I don’t see. And your own haven’t been used this morning, that’s sure.”
Wyn and her mates broke into uncontrollable laughter at this.
“Who’s the joke on now?” cried Bess.
“What will you give to find your canoes?” exclaimed Frankie.
“Aw–say–don’t rub it in,” begged Tubby. “We own up to the corn. You beat us. Where are the canoes?”
“Ahem!” said Wynifred, clearing her throat loudly, and standing forth.
“Hear, hear!” cried Mina.
“Oh! you’ve got it all fixed up for us, I see,” muttered Ferd. ”

“ It’s time you were all up. Why! the day will be gone before you know it.”
“Oh–ow–ouch!” yawned Percy, and then jumped quickly through the opening of the tent because Grace Hedges pushed her.
“Why! the sun’s up!” cried the big girl. “Why! and there’s Wyn with milk–and eggs–and pretty red radishes–and peas. Mercy me! Look at all the things in this basket. Whose garden have you been robbing, Wyn?”
“Come on!” commanded the captain of the 91 Go-Ahead Club. “I brought a bag of meal in my canoe. And there is salt, and aluminum bowls, and spoons. We can make a good breakfast of eggs and mush. ”

“ She scarcely spoke to the two Denton girls as the Coquette swept across the lake. Wyn told her just how it all happened and the condition of the two canoes when they lost sight of them.
“I saw one; maybe the other can be found,” Polly said. “I’ll speak to father and, if the moon 160 comes up clear bye and bye, we’ll run out and see if we can recover them.”
But for Bess she had no word, or look, and when the other put out her hand timidly and tried to thank her, as they neared the shore, Polly only said:
“That’s all right. We’re used to helping people who get overturned. It really is nothing.” ”

“ And the Busters must not know a thing about it until they were sure―
“Then Mr. Lavine believes father’s story about the boat?” burst in Polly.
“I believe he does, Polly, dear. I think, Polly, that he would be very, very glad to have Mr. Jarley cleared of all suspicion. He is sorry for your father’s trouble. I think his attitude, toward your father has changed from what it must have been at one time.”
“It ought to be!” exclaimed Polly.
“Of course. But we none of us always do all we ought to do,” observed Wyn mildly. ”

“ Bess was left behind by the captain of the Go-Ahead Club. Her canoe quivering, her paddle actually bending under her work, Wyn dashed on. Bess and the other girl were out of the race–hopelessly. It lay between Wyn and the birchbark canoe.
Polly did not withhold her paddle when she saw her friend dart ahead; it was a perfectly fair race. But the boatman’s girl had done so well at first, considering her handicap and all, that there was little wonder if she could not keep up the gruelling work. She had no reserve force, as Wyn had. ”

“ You see, I am captain of the Go-Ahead Club.”
“The Go-Ahead Club?”
“Yes. We are six girls. We each own canoes. And we are just crazy to spend next summer under canvas.”
“You are going camping?”
“That is our intention,” Wyn said, nodding.
“Oh, then! come up to Lake Honotonka,” cried Polly. “I can show you beautiful places to camp, and we can have lots of fun―”
“That likewise is our intention,” broke in Wyn. “We have just decided to camp for the summer on the shore of the lake. Rather, our parents, guardians, and the cat, have finally agreed to our plans. ”