"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 ash.o.r.e.
"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_ a.s.sistance 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 sh.o.r.e that the girls did not hear the sc.r.a.ping of the boat"s keel.
Lavine seized his old friend"s hand before leaping ash.o.r.e.
"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 x.x.x
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."