When the boys were unloading the paraphernalia from the Gem Mollie noticed with surprise that they had brought along their bicycles.
“What are they for?” she asked, and the boys eyed her pityingly.
“How did you suppose we were going to get back to Deepdale?” Frank asked. “We can’t take the Gem, and it’s a little too far to walk—when you’re in a hurry anyway.”
“Well,” was Mollie’s biting comment, “the only wonder is you didn’t bring along automobiles. They’d have been much quicker.”
“We thought of that,” agreed Will, solemnly. “But unfortunately the Gem protested.”
But it was when Will produced his air mattresses that the girls were most deeply interested. When he first unrolled them they looked like nothing so much as dejected strips of canvas, about six feet long by two and a half feet wide.
But when he began to blow one of them up—oh, what a change there was! Before their enchanted eyes the dejected strip of canvas grew and assumed shape, blooming out majestically into a bed that, for comfort, would have delighted a king.
Betty, lolling luxuriously upon it, declared she felt as though she were floating on clouds.
“Get up and give me a feel,” commanded Mollie, and the Little Captain reluctantly obeyed.
“But what’s this funny thing lacing down the front?” asked Amy, pointing to a loose fold of the canvas. “Are you supposed to get inside that?”