Gladys and Sahwah were coming home from the village in the launch one afternoon, where they had been to get the milk. It looked like rain and they were hastening to get back to camp. Great was their vexation, therefore, when the engine wheezed a few times and then stopped dead still. Investigation revealed that the gasoline had given out. "Why didn't I think to fill her up before we left?" said Sahwah impatiently. "Here we are, out in the middle of the lake with never an oar or a paddle, and not a bit of breeze blowing. Why, we aren't even drifting!" To all appearances it looked as if they were becalmed there for the rest of the afternoon, until they would be missed from camp, and Gladys said so, resignedly.
"I should say I won't stay here all afternoon," said Sahwah. "I'll swim ashore first. The girls are waiting for this milk. I wonder if anybody would see us if we ran up a distress signal?"
"What could we use for one?" asked Gladys.
Sahwah looked around for a moment and then calmly took off her middy and waved it around her head by one sleeve. They were hidden from camp by a bend in the shore line, but they hoped to attract the attention of some of the other campers along the lake. Besides waving the middy, both girls called and yodled until they were hoarse. At last they had the satisfaction of seeing a launch coming across the lake toward them, with a flag waving in answer to their signal. Sahwah hastily put on her middy again. There were two boys of about sixteen in the launch and they stopped alongside of the Sunbeam and inquired the trouble.
"We have run out of gasoline," said Sahwah.
"Would you like us to tow you in so you can get a fill-up?" asked the boy who was running the launch. "We're from the Mountain Lake Camp over yonder, and have plenty of gasoline to spare." The girls agreed and the boys threw them a tow line and off they went toward the shore. Upon landing they found themselves in a large summer camp for boys. Boys of every age and size from six years up to eighteen were swarming around the dock, waiting to see who the distressed sailors were, and the girls became the center of interest. The two boys who had brought them in, and who had introduced themselves as "the Roberts brothers, Ed and Ned," called one of the senior Counsellors and told him the trouble, and he willingly agreed to sell Sahwah and Gladys a quantity of gasoline. Great interest was aroused when the girls said they were from Camp Winnebago, for the fame of some of their doings had gone about the village, and their singing on the lake at night had been heard by more people than they knew.
"Didn't one of your girls tow in another one with both her arms broken?" asked one of the boys standing near. Sahwah and Gladys laughed outright at this version of the story. When Gladys announced that Sahwah was the heroine in question and she the nearly drowned maiden a ripple went went through the camp.
"I don't see how you ever did it," said another of the boys, "you're so little!" Sahwah was sorely tempted to do one of her famous dives right then and there, only she knew that such an exhibition would be entirely out of place, and so restrained herself. It began to rain while they were waiting for the gasoline and the Counsellor insisted upon their remaining until it stopped, and took them up into one of the bungalows in which the boys lived.
Before they left he showed them all over the camp. The boys lived in little wooden lodges called Senior and Junior Lodges, the younger ones on one side of the camp and the older ones on the other. They were divided into three classes according to their swimming ability, namely, minnows, perch and salmon, and the different groups had different swimming hours.
"Do you have different grades in swimming, too?" asked Ned
Roberts.