"Oh, will I?" said Dolly, defiantly. "Well, I'm not saying a word. But if I see a good chance to get even with them, I'm going to do it—and I won't ask for any help, either! Just you wait!"
"Let's quit scrapping among ourselves, Dolly. Wouldn't they just be tickled to death if they knew we were doing that! Nothing would please them any better."
But even Margery's newly regained patience was to be sorely tried that afternoon, when, after an early lunch, the Camp Fire Girls donned their bathing dresses and went in swimming off the float in front of the Worcester camp.
"Come on, Dolly," she cried. "See that rock out there? I'll race you there and back!"
They went in together, diving so that their heads struck water at just the same moment, while the rest of the girls watched them from the float. On the outward journey they were close together, but they had not more than started back when there was a sudden outburst of laughter from the float where Gladys Cooper and her friends were watching, and the next moment a white streak shot through the water, making a terrific din, and kicking up a tremendous lot of spray.
"Whatever is that?" cried Zara.
"A motor boat," said Mary King. "Look at it go! Why, what are they trying to do?"
The answer to that question was made plain in a moment. For the motor boat, into which three or four of the girls from the next camp had leaped, kept dashing back and forth between the float and the rock. It raised great waves as it passed, and made fast swimming, and for that matter, swimming of any sort, almost impossible. Moreover, it was plain from the laughter of those on board that their only purpose was to annoy the Camp Fire Girls and spoil their sport in the water.
Dolly and Margery, exhausted by their struggle with the waves from the motor boat, struggled to the float as best they could and came up, dripping and furious.
"See that!" cried Dolly. "They can't be doing that for fun. All they want to do is to bother us. You'd think we had tried to do something mean to them the way they keep on nagging us."