It wasn't easy work teaching Esther to swim, for she was so much larger than Betty and had such an absurd fashion of keeping both feet down and splashing the water into her own and her teacher's face. Polly laughed softly to herself as she swam slowly forward to offer her assistance. She was wondering if a single week in camp had really begun to reform her spoiled Betty and if it had, had any change also been wrought in her? She was to find out in a very few minutes.
One Camp Fire law, that there was no escaping, was that the girls were not to spend but fifteen minutes in bathing. Really it hardly seemed like half that time before the four girls were once again on land getting into their bathing gowns which had been left hanging on a willow tree nearby. They were to dress later on in their tent, so they were hardly on shore more than a few moments, but even in that short space of time a noise a few yards away startled them. The four girls turned indignantly. In the entire week of their stay in camp they had not been disturbed by a single intruder. Sunrise Hill, with its tall pines--the emblem of the Camp Fire--its wooded lake for fishing, bathing and canoeing, and its utter seclusion, had seemed, after several weeks of careful search in the neighborhood about Woodford, the ideal place for the girls' summer camp. So far not even a friend, man or woman, had been allowed to visit them, because the camp was to be in running order before they received any outside criticism.
Now a young fellow of perhaps sixteen stood only a short distance off from the lake with an expression of superior amusement on his face. He was a country boy, for he wore no hat and his hair was burnt to a light straw color at the ends, his skin was almost bronze.
"Please go away," Polly demanded haughtily. She had gathered her bathing gown about her as though it were a Roman matron's robe and was feeling that her presence must be impressive although her hair was extremely wet and drops of water were trickling down her face.
However, the intruder paid not the least attention to her request, except to laugh as though her indignation gave him special pleasure. He was carrying a large tin pail on one arm and a basket on the other and of course his behavior was hardly that of a gentleman.
Anger for the moment kept Polly speechless, but a chorus of protests arose from Betty, Mollie and Esther. "We are camping here and we would rather not have visitors, so would you mind going back the way you have come?" Betty requested in her most Princess-like fashion.
"Not until I have seen the sights," the newcomer answered. He did not really look impertinent, only mischievous, and his eyes were as blue as Polly's.
"You don't suppose that I have walked a mile before breakfast and carried these heavy things except to find out what on the face of the earth you crazy girls are doing here, trying to pretend you are scouts or Indian squaws. Of all the foolishness!"
Perhaps even this short acquaintance with Polly O'Neill has suggested that she had, what is for some reason or other called an Irish temper, though temper does not belong wholly to Irish people. Polly herself did not know when this temper would take possession of her nor where it would lead her. At present the young man continued to walk slowly on toward the white tents, whistling to show his complete indifference, while the four girls could see that their friends were now stirring about in camp evidently getting ready to start breakfast.
Without reflecting Polly stooped. There on the ground before her lay a sharp rock, ground and polished by the waters of the lake, and like a shot from a bow she flung this stone whistling through the air at the intruder.