Polly did not remain with them more than an hour. She was sure the girls would get all the fish they would want right at this spot, and so, excusing herself, she rowed back to the landing.
"It"s a shame!" exclaimed Frank, the minute she was out of hearing. "I don"t see what possesses Bess to be so mean."
"I am sorry," rejoined Wyn. "Polly will not come to the camp again--I can see that."
"A shame!" cried Percy. "And she seems such a nice girl."
"Bessie ought to be strapped!" declared Frank.
"I am sure Polly seems just as good as we are," Grace remarked. "I don"t see why Bess has to make herself so objectionable."
"She should be punished for it," declared Percy.
"Turn the tables on her," suggested Frank. "If she will not have anything to do with Polly, let"s give _her_ the cold shoulder."
"No," said Wyn, firmly. "That would be adding fuel to the flames--and would be unfair to Bess."
"Well, Bess is unfair to your Polly Jolly," said Frankie.
"Two wrongs never yet made a right," said the captain of the Go-Ahead Club.
"Well!"
"Bessie is a member of our club. She has greater rights at Green Knoll Camp than Polly. It is true Polly will not come again, unless Bessie is more friendly. The thing, then is to convince Bess that she is wrong."
"Well!" exclaimed Frank again. "I"d like to see you do it."
"I hope you will see me," returned Wyn, placidly. "Or, at least, I hope you will see Bessie"s mind changed, whether by my efforts, or not. Oh, dear! it"s so much easier to get along pleasantly in this world if folks only thought so. Query: Why is a grouch?"
Percy suddenly uttered a yell and almost plunged out of her canoe. She had whipped in her line and there was a small eel on the hook.
It is really wonderful what an excited eel can do in a canoe with a girl as his partner in crime! Mr. Eel tangled up Percy"s line in the first place until it seemed as though somebody must have been playing cat"s cradle with it.
Percy shrieked and finally bethought her to throw the whole thing overboard--tangled line, rod, and Mr. Eel. In his native element, the slippery chap in some mysterious way got off the hook; but the linen line was a mess, and that stopped the fishing for that morning.
They had a nice string, however, and when the odor of the frying fish on the outdoor fire began to spread about Green Knoll Camp, Frank declared:
"The angels flying overhead must stop to sniff--that smell is so heavenly!"
"Nonsense, child!" returned Grace. "That thing you see "way up there isn"t an angel. It"s a fish-hawk."
There were letters to take to the Forge that afternoon, and the girls all expected mail, too. But after the fishing bout, and the heavy dinner they ate, not many of the Go-Aheads cared to paddle to town.
"The duty devolves on your captain," announced Wyn, good-naturedly. "Of course, if anybody else wants to go along----"
"Don"t all speak at once," yawned Frank, and rolled over in the shade of the beech.
"It"s a shame! I"ll go with you," said Bessie Lavine, getting up with alacrity.
"All right, Bess," said Wyn, cheerfully. "I am glad to have you go."
The other girls had been a little distant to Bess since their return from the fishing trip; but not Wyn. She had given no sign that she was annoyed by Bessie"s demeanor towards Polly Jarley.
Nor did she "preach" while she and Bess paddled to the Forge. That was not Wynifred Mallory"s way. She knew that, in this case, taking Bess to task for her treatment of Polly would do only harm.
Bess had probably offered to come with Wyn for the special purpose of finding opportunity to argue the case with the captain of the club. But Wyn gave her no opening.
The girls got to the Forge, did their errands, and started back in the canoes. Not until they got well out into the lake did they notice that there were angry clouds in the northwest. And very soon the sun became overcast, while the wind whipped down upon them sharply.
"Oh, dear, me!" cried Bess. "Had we better turn back, Wyn?"
"We"re about as far from the Forge as we are from Green Knoll Camp,"
declared the other girl.
"Then let"s run ash.o.r.e----"
But they had struck right out into the lake from the landing, and it was a long way to land--even to the nearest point. While they were discussing the advisability of changing their course, there came a lull in the wind.
"Maybe we"ll get home all right!" cried Bess, and the two bent to their paddles again, driving the canoes toward distant Green Knoll.
And almost at once--her words had scarcely pa.s.sed--the wind whipped down upon them from a different direction. The surface of the lake was agitated angrily, and in a minute the two girls were in the midst of a whirlpool of jumping waves.
In ordinary water the canoes were safe enough. But when Bess tried to paddle, a wave caught the blade and whirled the canoe around. She was up-set before she could scream.
And in striving to drive her own craft to her friend"s a.s.sistance, Wyn Mallory was caught likewise in a flaw, and she, too, plunged into the lake, while both canoes floated bottom upward.
CHAPTER XIII
A SERIOUS ADVENTURE
Wyn Mallory was a pretty cool-headed girl; nor was this the first time she had been in an accident of this nature.
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.
"N-o-no more than _I_, Bess," stammered Wyn.
"Get your canoe, Wyn!" cried Bess.
"Oh, yes; but we can"t turn them over in this sea. Oh! isn"t that horrid!" as another miniature wave slapped the captain of the club in the face and rolled her companion completely over.
Bess lost her grip on her canoe. The latter floated beyond her reach while Wyn was striving to get her friend to the surface again.
"Why! we"re going to be drowned!" shrieked Bess, suddenly horror-stricken.