THE BOAT IS FOUND
And that supper! It was something to be membered by the crowd from town. Such thick, luscious yellow cream that Mother Sitz lifted from the pans of milk in the cement block "milk-house" most of the town-bred folk had never seen before. The biscuits and "short-cake" came out of the oven with just the right brown to them. The big berries were heaped upon the wedges of buttered short-cake, and then cream poured over the berries, with plenty of sugar.
"Yum! Yum!" mumbled Lance Darby, with a huge mouthful obstructing his parts of speech. "Isn't this the Jim-dandiest lay-out you ever saw, Chet?"
"I never sat down to a better one," admitted his chum. "But please don't talk to me. Purt is getting more of the berries than I am—and he isn't talking at all. Just pass the sugar, Lance, and then shut up for a while."
But there was enough serious talk during the supper to arrange a return treat for Eve and Otto Sitz. The farmer boy and his sister had seldom been on Lake Luna and Laura and her brother suggested a trip by boat and canoe to Cavern Island for the following Saturday.
"And no picnic luncheon at the park. That's too common," declared Jess Morse, eagerly. "Let's do something different."
"Trot out your 'different' suggestion, Josephine," said her chum.
"Let's go to the caves. Let's picnic there."
"Oh!" cried one of the Lockwood twins. "That's where we saw the 'lone pirate.'"
"The lone what?" rejoined Nellie Agnew. "What do you mean by that?"
The other twin explained how and when they had seen the bushy-headed, wild-looking man at the foot of Boulder Head.
"There's where the caverns open onto the shore, exactly," remarked Chet Belding. "Are you afraid of meeting the pirate, girls?"
"We'll capture him and make him walk the plank!" declared Bobby Hargrew. "Hurrah for the pirate!"
So the trip to Cavern Island for the next Saturday was arranged, Eve and Otto promising to join the party at Centerport. And the run home by automobile in the moonlight was enlivened by plans for the coming good time on the Lake.
Lance ran the sight-seeing automobile carefully and delivered it to Mr. Purcell, the owner, in good season. The man who should have driven it, but who was taken ill, had been removed to the hospital from the inn in the woods.
"I understand one of those girls played the heroine and stopped the car," said the automobile owner.
"Yes, sir," replied Lance. "That was one of the Lockwood twins."
"Which one was it? I'd like to thank her, at least," said Mr. Purcell.
"Couldn't tell you," laughed Lance.
"Why couldn't you? Sworn to secrecy, young man?" demanded Mr. Purcell.
"No, sir. But the twins themselves seem to be. Nobody knows them apart, and they won't tell on each other. One of them is the heroine, but which one nobody knows," and Lance Darby went off laughing.
Meanwhile the twins themselves walked briskly home from the schoolhouse where the party of young folk had separated. On the way they met a girl a little older than themselves, hurrying in the opposite direction.
"Here's Billy Long's sister, Alice," whispered Dora to Dorothy.
"Oh, dear me!" replied Dorothy. "I suppose she has had to work late at the paper box factory. And how she must feel——"
Her twin seized the factory girl's arm as she was hurrying past with just a little nod to the Lockwood twins.
"Alice Long!" ejaculated Dora. "You're crying. What's the matter?"
"Oh, girls! you know about Billy, don't you?" cried Short and Long's sister.
"They haven't caught him?" cried Dorothy.
"No, no! I almost wish they would," sobbed Alice Long. "We don't know where he is. I've just been down to Mr. Norman's to see if the boat has been found."
"And it hasn't?" demanded one of the twins.
"No. It was an old boat that Mr. Norman thought he was going fishing in, same as usual. Billy often brings home a mess of fish, or sells them. You know, he has always been a helpful boy."
"We want to tell you, Alice dear," said Dorothy with a glance at her sister, "that we don't believe a word of what they say about Billy."
"Thank you, Miss," said Alice, eagerly. "I was sure his schoolmates would stand by him. But he was very foolish to run away—if he has run away."
"Otherwise, what has happened to him?"
"That is what is worrying father and me. The boat was old. Something might have happened. He might be drowned," sobbed the sister.
"Oh, no, Alice! Billy was a good swimmer."
"I know that. But often good swimmers are taken with cramps. And if the boat overturned, or sank, out in the middle of Lake Luna——"
"That's too dreadful a thing to think of!" cried Dora. "I believe he ran away because he was afraid of being arrested. Everybody was talking about his having a hand in that robbery."
"Well, he never did it. I could testify that he wasn't out of his bed Tuesday night when the robbery took place. I told the policemen so. But, of course, Billy could have gone out of the window and down the shed roof—and got back again, too—without our knowing it. He has more than once, I suppose," admitted the troubled sister.
"You see, on Wednesday Stresch & Potter sent their store detective to see Billy, and he bulldozed him and threatened him. I expect the boy was badly frightened, although the man was only a cheap bully. So we don't know what to think—whether Billy has deliberately run away, or that some accident happened to him on the lake."
"Chet and Lance Darby were looking for him Saturday over at Cavern Island," said a twin. "But they met with an accident. We're all going over to the island again this coming Saturday, and we'll search the east end for him."
"How would he live over there?" gasped his sister.
"Oh, there are berries this time of year. And of course, he could fish," said Dora eagerly.
"There's a man hiding there, anyway," added Dorothy, but then remembered that the information might add to Alice's fright, so said no more.
"We'll do everything we can to find Short and Long," Dora assured the boy's sister. "And we are telling everybody that we don't believe Billy would do such a thing as they say. As though there wasn't any other boy in Centerport who could have crawled through that window at Stresch & Potter's."
The twins parted from Alice Long, and ran home. They slipped to bed without encountering Aunt Dora and counted that day well spent because the old lady had not yet caught them so that she could identify Dora.
But on Tuesday Aunt Dora appeared at Central High and met Miss Grace G. Carrington—otherwise "Gee Gee."
"I wish to hear my nieces recite," she said, with sharply twinkling eyes behind her glasses.
"It doesn't matter what class—any class will do."
Miss Carrington politely asked the prim old lady to sit beside her on the platform, and Aunt Dora listened to the recitation then in progress. Both Dora and Dorothy took part; but for the life of her the near-sighted lady could not tell when Dora spoke, and when Dorothy answered!
"I suppose you know them apart?" she ventured, to Miss Carrington.
"Oh, no; but I believe they usually answer to their names. They stand about alike in their classes and we have put them on their honor not to answer for each other. They are good girls and give me little trouble," added Gee Gee, which was a concession from her.
"So if you called one of them to the desk you could not be sure that the one you called really came?" asked Aunt Dora.
"Not as far as physical appearances go," said Gee Gee, shaking her head.
So Aunt Dora was thwarted again and went back to the cottage to invent some other method of tripping the twins. It had become a game, now, that both sides were determined to win; and Mr. Lockwood and Mrs. Betsey stood by and watched the play with amusement.
A veritable fleet of canoes, pair-oared and four-oared boats gathered at Central High boat house, just before noon the next Saturday. It was a bright and calm day and the lake looked most inviting.
The girls were in fine fettle, particularly. The subscription paper to raise the sum necessary for the purchase of a new eight-oared shell had gone about town briskly that week and Laura reported that already more than half of the sum necessary had been promised. She had written to the builders of such shells and they had replied that there was one in stock that they would be glad to send the girls of Central High, on approval, if the physical instructor agreed.
"And Mrs. Case is writing to them to-day," concluded Laura. "They will send on the new boat and we can pay for it after the money is all in. And, oh, girls! We'll win that race from the Keyport and other crews, if such a thing is possible. After to-day the crew will be in training. We must try out the boat, and work in her just as soon as she arrives, and every other afternoon thereafter. So, you members of the crew make your preparations accordingly."
"And for goodness sake, Bobby," urged Nellie Agnew, to the little "cox" of the crew, "don't you go to cutting capers in school so that Gee Gee can condition you. She's just waiting for a chance to fix it so you cannot steer for us."
"Aw, pshaw!" said Clara Hargrew. "I don't do anything."
"No; but Gee Gee does something to you," declared Jess Morse, laughing.
"See that you don't give her a chance to stop your after-hour athletics again, Bobby," begged Laura.
"All right; I'll be good," said Bobby, grinning.
"But after school—well, when long vacation comes this time I think I'll have to set the old school house afire to celebrate!"
"No. You had trouble over fires before," advised Dorothy Lockwood.
"That's so," agreed Dora.
"Don't mention fire again!" exclaimed Jess. "That's why we lost the race before—because you could not steer for us, Bobby."
Laura and Lance Darby took Eve and Otto Sitz with them in Lance's nice boat. There were two pairs of sculls and Otto managed to row very well in the bow. Of course Chet took Jess in his boat, and the remainder paired off as fancy beckoned. But the twins paddled their cedar canoe.
And few of the fleet of small craft were propelled to the island in better shape than Dora's and Dorothy's canoe. The others cheered the pretty girls as they forced their craft through the rippling water. The management of a canoe—especially a double canoe—is not so easy as it appears. But the Lockwood twins had taken to that form of aquatic sports very kindly, and there really were few canoe crews in Centerport who handled their craft as well.
The fleet of boats crossed the lake in a short time and, headed by the twins' canoe, reached the eastern end of the island. They swept into the cove where the girls had seen, the previous Saturday, the rough-looking, bewhiskered man upon the shore. Right here under the Boulder Head was the mouth of the cavern from which the island obtained its name.
As the twins swept their canoe on with easy strokes, Dora suddenly uttered a cry of excitement.
"See there, Dory!" she said.
"See where?" demanded her sister, craning her neck to see over Dora's shoulder.
"There! Down in the water! The sunken boat!"
The water in the cove was very clear, but it had considerable depth. The canoe was brought sharply up by the two girls and both peered down.
Below them could plainly be seen a sunken rowboat. It did not appear to be damaged in any way, but had simply filled and sunk.
"What have you found, girls?" demanded Lance Darby, whose boat was nearest to the twins' canoe at the moment. "Is there some deep sea monster down there?"
"Come and look, Lance," cried Dora.
The moment the young Darby saw the submerged craft he exclaimed:
"Here it is, by gracious!"
"Here is what?" demanded Laura.
"The boat. Hey, Chet! we've found it!" he called to his chum, who quickly turned his own boat's prow in their direction.
"What you found?" demanded Laura's brother, coming nearer.
"Here's Mr. Norman's boat that he lent Short and Long," declared Lance, eagerly. "It was just as you said, Chet. Billy came over here to the island."
"Oh, my!" cried Jess. "And if that is so, perhaps he is still here."
"We must find him," said one of the twins, earnestly. "His sister Alice is just about worried to death about him; and the longer he remains in hiding, the worse it will be for him, anyway."