The call came from the rocks at the end of the water tongue. Presently three sprites appeared. They might have been humans, but to the boys they looked like nothing more or less than water sprites. All three happened to be gowned in white, Bess, Cora and Belle, and as they gamboled over the rocks, making their way to the water"s edge, the boys were compelled to draw in long breaths of admiration.
""Low there!" greeted Ed. "Wait till I become Ulysses. Hey there!
Circe! Not so fast else thy feet will have to follow thy heads!"
"Ulysses!" mocked Walter. "More like Jupiter! Just watch him make the water roll off of his head. He is going to dive!"
Scarcely had Walter uttered the words than Ed plunged over the end of the water tongue, and could not stop until he had actually splashed into the shallow water. The tongue ran to a fine point, and the point was not discernible from the viewpoint available to Ed.
"Whew!" he spluttered. "Circe had me that time! Now, what do you think of that for a new pair of shoes!"
By this time the girls had reached the water"s edge.
"Better stick to plain Chelton and the motor girls," said Cora with a hearty laugh, in which the other girls joined. "You will find that the myths are dangerous brands of canned goods--won"t keep a minute after they are opened up for review!"
Ed was running the water out of his shoes. They were thoroughly soaked, and the salt effect was too well known to be speculated upon.
Jack stood on his head in the deep sand--he was exulting over Ed"s "downfall."
"Wait! Wait!" prophesied the unfortunate one. "You are not back home yet."
"Oh, there"s the bungalow!" suddenly called out Bess, who was some paces in advance. "How I wish we girls could camp!"
"Aren"t you?" asked Walter. "What do you call that place where the notes grow on the gas jets?"
"Why, that"s a regular up-to-date cottage, including----"
"Mother and chaperone," added Belle. "I cannot see why the most needful adjunct does not arrive in the person of Nettie, our star maid. I had to dry dishes this morning," and she looked gloomily at her white hands.
"That"s what is called camping," advised Jack. "I am going to do the supper dishes, Ed will do the dinner dishes, his hands are nice and soft for grease, and Walter will "tend to the tea--things. Don"t forget, Wallie, the tea things for yours!"
"It usually rains at night," Walter remarked. "I don"t mind putting the things in a dishpan outside."
"And have them dried in the sunny dew! Oh, back to nature! You wonderful back-to-nature faker!" cried Ed.
"Nature must have an awful "back-ache,"" finished Jack. "I would hate to have her job these days."
"Here we are!" announced Ed, as they reached the cabin on the beach.
"Isn"t this the real thing?"
"Oh, what a fine bungalow!" exclaimed Cora.
"Isn"t it splendid!" added Belle.
"My, but it is----"
"Sweet and low!" Jack interrupted Bess. "I like that tune for a bungalow!"
They were following Jack, who had the big, old-fashioned key, for the lock had been constructed to add to the novelty of the hut.
It took some time to open the low door, but it did finally yield to the pressure of the three strong young men.
"Enter!" called Jack, bowing low to the girls, "Pray enter, pretty maidens. Are there any more at home like you?"
"There are a few, and pretty, too," responded Cora, taking up the strain of the familiar song.
Then such antics! And such discoveries! What is more resourceful than a strange house filled with strange things, strange corners and strange--spider webs!
"Don"t open the trunk!" shrieked Belle. "There may be a----"
"Note in it!" finished Walter. "Now, nixy on notes. I want the goods or nothing, in our house."
Boxes were being pulled from their salty corners, hammocks were dragged out, lanterns were being "swung," and altogether it seemed merely a question of who could upset the place most thoroughly.
"Halt! Avaunt! Ship ahoy!" yelled Jack. "If you breaks the stuff you pays fer it. This stock is inventoried."
But the girls ran from one thing to another, regardless of dust or dampness.
"Oh, just look at the funny kettle!" exclaimed Belle. "I"m sure that is for an outdoor fire."
"Certainly it is," replied Ed, just as if he knew what he was talking about. "That also has to rest on Nature"s back."
Something rumbled close to the cottage, then a shriek from outside startled them.
"What"s that!" cried Cora.
Ed pushed open the door.
"An auto in the ocean!" he yelled, dashing out of the bungalow, while the others followed as quickly as they could make after him.
Ed threw off his coat as he ran. A few paces down the beach, in the very face of the rollers, was a small runabout, the terrified occupants of which were vainly struggling to get out, into a dangerous depth of water.
"Quick, boys!" shouted Ed. "The engine is still running! Maybe we can back it up!"
CHAPTER XXII
A STRUGGLE WITH THE WAVES
When Ed, Jack and Walter ran down the sandy beach, directly into the water, and then attempted to rescue from the waves a lady and her daughter, who were in the ocean-going auto, the girls were not afraid to follow them--to the extent of walking into the water knee deep.
The helpless woman was a cripple, and when she, with an exhausting effort, managed to turn to one side and fall over the rim of the runabout seat into the water, she dropped like a stone into the surf.
The daughter jumped, but in her frantic efforts to reach her mother, she crawled under the car, and was in very great danger of being lost herself.
Suddenly the helpless form of the crippled woman rose to the surface.
Jack threw his arms about the invalid, and, after shouting for Walter to help him, as the force of the rollers threatened to take him off his feet, the two young men managed to make their way safely to the sand with the unconscious form.