Polly left Bess to her own resources and rushed to the stern. She helped Wyn clamber into the boat. Then she hoisted the sail again, and got way upon the boat. She raised the canvas only a little, for she had risked all the weight she dared upon the mast before.
"Are you all right, Bess?" cried Wyn.
"I--I"m alive. But, oh! I"m so--so sick," gasped Miss Lavine.
"Brace up, Bess! We"re all right now. Polly has saved us."
"Polly?" cried Bess, sitting up, the better to see the boatman"s daughter as the latter sat again at the helm. "Oh, Polly!"
"You"d better both lie down till we get to the camp. I"ll take you right there," said the other girl, briefly.
"We"d have been--been drowned, Wyn!" gasped Bess.
"I guess we would. We are still a long way from sh.o.r.e."
"And Polly saved us? All alone? How wonderful!"
But Polly"s face was stern. 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 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 sh.o.r.e, Polly only said:
"That"s all right. We"re used to helping people who get overturned. It really is nothing."
She would not see Bessie"s hand. The latter felt the repulse and Wyn, who watched them both anxiously, dared not say a word.
CHAPTER XV
TROUBLE "BRUIN"
The other girls and Mrs. Havel were all down on the beach to meet the catboat and her pa.s.sengers. To see Wyn and Bessie returning across the lake in the sailboat, instead of the canoes, forewarned the Go-Aheads that an accident had happened.
But although the girls were wet and bedraggled, the captain of the club made light of the affair.
"Where are your canoes?"
"What"s happened?"
"Who is it with you?"
"What under the sun did you do--go overboard?"
Wyn answered all questions in a single sentence:
"We were capsized and lost the letters and things; but Polly picked us up and brought us home."
Then, amid the excited cries and congratulations, her voice rose again:
"Isn"t she brave? What do you think of my Polly Jolly _now_? Can you blame me for being proud of her?"
"I tell you wh--what she is!" gasped Bessie. "She"s the bravest and smartest girl I ever heard of."
"Good for you, Bess!" shouted Frank Cameron, helping the castaways ash.o.r.e. "You"re coming to your senses."
"And--and I"m sorry," blurted out Bess, "that I ever treated her so----"
Polly shoved off the catboat and proceeded to get under way again.
"Oh, _do_ come ash.o.r.e, Polly!" begged Grace.
"I want to hug you, Miss Jarley!" cried Percy.
"What? All wet as I am now?" returned the boatman"s daughter, laughing--although the laugh was not a pleasant one. "You make too much of this matter. We"re used to oversets on the lake. It is nothing."
"You do not call saving two girls" lives _nothing_, my dear--surely?" proposed Mrs. Havel.
"If I saved them, I am very, very glad of it," returned Polly, gravely.
"Anybody would be glad of _that_, of course, But you are making too much of it----"
"My father will not think so!" exclaimed the almost hysterical Bess.
"When he learns of this he will not be able to do enough for you----"
"Your father can do nothing for me, Bessie Lavine!" cried the boatman"s daughter, with sharpness.
"Oh, Polly!" said Wyn, holding out her arms to her.
"He"ll--he"ll _want_ to," pursued Bess, eagerly. "Oh! he will! He"d do anything for you now----"
"There"s only one thing Henry Lavine can do for me," cried Polly, turning an angry face now toward the sh.o.r.e. "He can stop telling stories about my father. He can be kind to him--be decent to him. I don"t want anything else--and I don"t want that as pay for fishing you out of the lake!"
She had got the sail up again and now the breeze filled it. The _Coquette_ laid over and slipped away from the sh.o.r.e. Her last words had silenced all the girls--even Mrs. Havel herself.
Bess burst into tears. She was quite broken down, and Wyn went off with her to the tent, her arm over her shoulder, and whispering to her comfortingly.
"I don"t care. Polly"s served her right," declared Frank Cameron.
"I do not know that Polly can be blamed," Mrs. Havel observed. "But--but I wish she was more forgiving. It is not for herself that she speaks, however. It is for her father."
"And I"ll wager he"s just as nice a man as ever was," declared Frank.
"I"m going to ask _my_ father if he will not do something for Mr.
Jarley."
"Do so, Frances," advised the chaperon. "I think you will do well."