Part 15 (1/2)

”Well! I hope there's nothing much to do there to-night, save to eat supper,” Jess said, yawning. ”So much ozone is already making me sleepy.”

”Father Tom promised to have a man there to meet us, who would even have the fire going and the teakettle boiling,” said Bobby. ”You see, he's been up here hunting and fis.h.i.+ng, and these guides all know him.

He can get what he wants from them.”

The boats chugged on up the river and finally, as the evening began to draw in, they sighted the broadening sheet of water which they knew to be Lake Dunkirk. The lake was longer, but much narrower, than Lake Luna, and it was surrounded by an unbroken line of forest.

The sun was setting. Its last beams shone upon the island which lay about two miles above the entrance to Rocky River, and that island looked like an emerald floating on the blue water.

The light was fast fading out of the sky, save where the west was still riotous with colors. The big oaks on Acorn Island grew black as the shadows gathered beneath them.

At the nearer end was the hillock where they were to camp. Here the grove was open and they could see the cabin standing, with two tents beside it. One of the tents had a raised flap, and there was the stovepipe with a curl of smoke coming out of it.

Down at the edge of the sh.o.r.e--a smooth and sheltered bit of beach where the landing was easy--a man was sitting, smoking his pipe. A beautiful canoe, of Indian manufacture, had its bow drawn up beside him.

The boys and girls shouted a welcome as they drove in toward the sh.o.r.e. He rose, knocking the ashes from his pipe, and waved a hand toward the camp above. He was a tall man, almost as black as a negro, with long, black hair, and was barefooted.

”All right!” he grunted, gutturally. Then he pushed off, stepped into his canoe, and paddled away without another word.

The boats were beached and the young people began to disembark. Before the guide in the canoe got half way to the northern sh.o.r.e of the lake, he was lost to their sight, the darkness came down so suddenly.

CHAPTER X

GETTING USED TO IT

The boys were in haste to get to their own camping site, which was across from the island on the southern sh.o.r.e of Lake Dunkirk. So they hurried the baggage belonging to Mrs. Morse and the girls to the cabin, and then prepared to embark again with their own boats.

Chet saw to it that everything appeared to be in good shape about the camp on the island knoll, and he drew up the three canoes belonging to the girls, himself.

”Now, if you girls get into trouble to-night, toot this thing,” and Chet produced an automobile horn which he had brought along for the purpose. ”If you need us by day, Laura knows how to wig-wag with those flags. I taught her.”

”For pity's sake, Chet!” exclaimed Jess, with some asperity. ”Do you suppose we are going to need you boys every hour, or so?”

”I hope not!” added Lil Pendleton. ”Surely we ought to be able to get along in camp just as well as you boys.”

”Hear! hear!” cried Bobby. ”How are you going to summon us if you need help, my dear little boys? Sha'n't we give you each a penny whistle so you can call us?”

Chet only laughed. Lance said: ”We've been camping before; most of you girls haven't. Of course you will get into trouble forty times to our once.”

”Well! I like that,” sniffed Jess, who did not like it at all. ”If girls aren't just as well able to take care of themselves, as boys, I'd like to know why.”

”Jess is getting to be a regular suffragette,” chuckled Dora Lockwood.

”Reminds me of the little girl whose mother was chasing the hens out of the garden,” said Laura, with her low laugh. ”The hen-chaser declared that 'You can't teach a hen anything, to save your life,'

when the little girl spoke up for her s.e.x, and said: 'Well! I think they know quite as much as the roosters!'”

”And that's all right,” teased Lance, as the boys got under way. ”I bet this bunch of hens on Acorn Island will holler for us roosters before we set the distress signal for _them_.”

”Get out, you horrid thing!” cried Bobby. ”Calling us hens. We're only pullets, at best.”