Wyn's Camping Days: or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club

“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.