"Just you wait," cried Dave. "I caught sight of something just now--there she is!"
The _Happy Day_ rounded a wooded point of the island. Near the sh.o.r.e floated Polly Jarley"s skiff and Polly was just getting up her anchor.
"She"s been fishing all day!" exclaimed Wyn.
"And I"ll wager she"s got a fine mess of perch," said Dave. "Hi, Miss Jarley!" he shouted. "Hold on a minute."
Polly had heard the chugging of the motor boat. Now she stood up suddenly and waved both hands in some excitement.
"What does she want?" demanded Bess.
"Get out! farther out!" the boatman"s daughter shouted, her clear voice echoing from the wooded heights of the island. "Danger here!"
"What"s the matter with her?" demanded Bess again. "Is there a submarine mine sunk here?"
But Dave veered off, taking a wider course from the sh.o.r.e.
"What is the matter, Polly?" shouted Wyn, standing up and making a megaphone of her hands.
"Snags!" replied the other girl. "Here"s where father ran Dr. Shelton"s boat on a root. The shallow water here is full of them. Look out"
"Say!" cried Frank Dumont "We don"t want to sink the old _Happy Day_."
"So _this_ is where the accident happened; is it?" observed Wyn, looking around at the sh.o.r.es of the little cove and the contour of the island"s outline.
"Humph!" snapped Bessie Lavine, sitting down quickly. "I don"t believe there was any accident at all. It was all a story."
CHAPTER XII
AN OVERTURN
Dave Shepard had stopped the motor boat land now he hailed the pretty girl in the skiff.
"I say, Miss Jarley! did you have any luck?"
"I"ve got a good string of white perch. They love to feed among these stumps," returned Polly.
"Oh, Polly Jolly! sell us some; will you?" cried Wyn, eagerly. "We"re so hungry."
"Do, do!" chorused several of the other girls and boys aboard the _Happy Day_.
Polly, smiling, held up a long withe on which wriggled at least two dozen silvery fish. "Aren"t they beauties?" she demanded. "Wait! I"ll row out."
She had already raised her anchor. Now she sat down, seized the short oars, and plunged them into the water. How she could row! Even Bessie Lavine murmured some enthusiastic praise of the boatman"s daughter.
Her skiff shot alongside the motor boat. She caught the gunwale, and then held up the string of fish again.
"How much, Miss Jarley?" asked Dave.
"Half a dollar. Is that too much?"
"It looks too little; but I suppose you know what you can get for them at the Forge," he said.
"And this saves me rowing down there," returned the brown girl, smiling and blushing under the scrutiny of so many eyes.
Wyn leaned over the rail, took the fish, and kissed Polly on her brown cheek.
"Dreadfully glad to see you, dear," she declared. "Won"t you come over to the camp to-morrow and show us girls where--and how--to fish, too?
We"re crazy for a fishing trip."
"Why--if you want me?" said Polly, her fine eyes slowly taking in the group of girls aboard the motor boat.
All looked at her in a friendly way save Bessie, and she had her back to the girl.
"I"ll come," said Polly, blushing again; and then she pocketed, the piece of money Dave gave her, and pushed off a bit.
"Is this really where your father came so near losing his life, Polly?"
asked Wyn, seriously.
"Yes, Miss Wyn. Right yonder. It was so thick he could not see the sh.o.r.e. A limb of that tree yonder--you can see where it was broken off; see the scar?"
There was a long yellow mark high up on the tree trunk overhanging the pool where Polly had been fishing.
"That limb brushed father out of the boat just as she struck. The snag must have torn a big hole in the bottom of the _Bright Eyes_.
Lightened by his going overboard, she shot away--somewhere--toward the middle of the lake, perhaps. He knows that he gave the wheel a twirl just as he went overboard and that must have driven the nose of the boat around.
"She shot away into the fog. He never saw or heard of her again. We paddled about for a week afterward--the bateau men and I--and we couldn"t find it. Poor father was abed, you see, for a long time and could not help."
"All a story, _I_ believe," whispered Bess, to Mina.
"Oh, don"t!" begged the tender-hearted girl.
Perhaps Polly heard this aside. She plunged her oars into the water again and the skiff shot away. She only nodded when they sang out "Good-bye" to her.
The _Happy Day_ carried the party quickly back to the cove under the hill on which Cave-in-the-Wood Camp had been established. The girls and boys landed and were met by Professor Skillings--who could be a very gallant man indeed, where ladies were concerned. He helped Mrs. Havel out of the motor boat, which Dave had brought alongside of a steep bank, where the water was deep, and which made a good landing place.
"My dear Mrs. Havel! I am charmed to see you again," said the professor.
"You are comfortably situated over there on the sh.o.r.e, I hope?"
"My girls are as successful in making me comfortable as are your boys in looking after you, I believe, Professor Skillings," returned the lady, laughing.
"More so--I have no doubt! More so," admitted the professor.
"Treason! treason!" shouted Dave Shepard.