“That’s better,” remarked Phil. “I’ll tip Sis off, and I guess they’ll do it.”
Behold then, a little later, the eight young persons, lively and gay, in the wheezy and uncertain launch, voyaging over the lake toward a distant dell of which they knew, on the mainland, where they proposed to picnic for the day.
They ate the lunch which the girls had put up in dainty fashion, sitting on a broad, flat rock near the edge of the lake, with the wind rustling in the trees overhead, and the birds flitting here and there.
“Isn’t it glorious here?” mused Sid.
“Gorgeous!” declared Madge. “It’s just a perfect day.”
“‘O, perfect day!’” began Phil.
“Cut out the poetry,” interrupted Tom. “There’s a little snake crawling toward you, old man.”
“Oh!” screamed four shrill voices, and there was a hasty scramble, until the snake was discovered to be only a tiny lizard, which the girls declared to be “just as bad.”
Then came saunterings two-by-two off in woodland glades until it was time to think regretfully of returning to the island, for the shadows were lengthening.