The Project Gutenberg eBook, Betty Lee, Senior, by Harriet Pyne Grove

Transcriber's Note: The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

BETTY LEE, SENIOR
By
HARRIET PYNE GROVE

THE WORLD SYNDICATE PUBLISHING CO.
Cleveland, Ohio—New York City

Copyright, 1931
THE WORLD SYNDICATE PUBLISHING CO.
Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

BETTY LEE, SENIOR

FOREWORD

While settings and activities for this Betty Lee High School Series have been freely taken from a real city high school, the characters are entirely fictitious. It is hoped, however, that they may to some degree present the life and ambitions of the very attractive girls whom it has been the author’s pleasure to meet there.

CHAPTER I
VACATION DAYS

Betty Lee’s vacation before her senior year cannot be passed over with only casual mention, for it was the “best yet” as declared by Betty and her two closest chums, Kathryn Allen and Carolyn Gwynne. After the last exciting activities of June days as juniors and the pleasing freedom from examinations won by good scholarship, the three girls found themselves, with others of their class, equipped with cards that certified completion of the junior work. Before them stretched long weeks when, Betty said, they “didn’t have to know anything,” and that state of mind obviously gave them all great pleasure.

Up in the girls’ gym, almost vacant now, they took a last swing and jump, as they happened to have reason to pass through; and Betty and Carolyn performed a few funny steps to express their happy state of mind before they finally left halls to which they would be just as glad to return in the fall.

However, Betty was expecting to swim in “something beside pools and rivers.” She gave a little skip as they ran down the walk toward the Gwynne car, which this time was waiting for them. “I can’t believe it, Carolyn! ‘Are I’ really going with you to the seashore? I never saw the ocean but once, when I went East with Father, you know. I said appropriately, ‘Roll on thou deep and dark blue ocean roll,’ but it wasn’t dark blue a bit. It happened to be a perfectly horrid gray morning. It was wonderful, all the same.”

“Oh, but you ought to see it sometimes, Betty! I hope we’ll have good weather, no cold ‘nor’easters’ or anything. But I’m as excited as can be myself. Think of it, Betty—a perfectly new cottage in a different place this time. Daddy had such a good chance to sell the old one and we may buy this if we like it. But we’re renting it for the summer.”

“It doesn’t seem right that we should just visit you,” said Kathryn.

“Listen! We’ve had that out before, Gypsy Allen. I’m to have my own room and I can have whomever I want—all summer. I expect to keep it full! That’s my reward for being a good girl and getting my lessons, in spite of, well, you know how hard it is to get ’em.”

“We do!” said Kathryn and Betty, “una cum voce.”

“So,” continued Carolyn, “why shouldn’t I have the girls I like best as long as I can induce—them—to—stay?” Carolyn uttered formally the last part of her sentence, with her head in the air and a high and mighty look.

The girls giggled as they settled themselves in the car. “Drive around to Kathryn’s and Betty’s first, please,” said Carolyn to the Gwynne chauffeur, “then home.”

Betty had not had a chance to call up home since Carolyn had invited her and Kathryn “to come out and celebrate.” Both she and Kathryn wanted to get rid of certificates and books, not to mention certain other articles that seemed to persist in staying in lockers. Carelessness or forgetting had nothing to do with that, of course.

“Do you like clams and chowders and things, Betty Lee?” asked Carolyn, after the last stop and delivery of goods, with pleasant permissions to stay at Carolyn’s.

“I liked everything we tried at New York,” replied Betty, “and I know that I’ll just adore all the sea food.”

“You’re going to get it,” Carolyn leaned back against the cushions and stretched forward her stylishly shod toes. “We have beach parties and everything.”

That sounded delightful. Betty had never heard of a beach party. Yet, she supposed she must have read of them in stories. But this was different. She was going to be in one. “And I haven’t told you one delicious secret!”

“Oh, tell us, Carolyn!” Kathryn spoke beseechingly.

Carolyn laughed and looked mysterious. “I haven’t decided whether to keep it a secret and surprise you, or to tell you now.”

“Tell us now,” urged beaming Kathryn.

“Maybe it would be more of a thrill if she surprised us,” Betty suggested, smilingly regarding Carolyn and wondering what the surprise or secret might be.

“Well,” Carolyn drawled, “I’ll have to make up my mind about it. The trouble is, you might find out about it some other way, and then I’d miss the fun of seeing you surprised.”

“That gives us our cue for going right up in the air over whatever it is, Betty—to please Carolyn!” But Kathryn was regarding Carolyn affectionately as she said this.

“Suppose you give us a hint of what it is and let us guess,” said Betty.

Carolyn shook her head negatively. “Spoil it all. Maybe I’ll announce it later. We are going to have our lunch inside, find the coolest spot in the house to talk over our plans and decide what to take and so on, as you wanted to do, Betty, and then have our dinner a la picnic under the trees by the fountain, nothing but cool lemonade and ice cream!”

It was a hot day, but Betty knew there would be more on the menu than lemonade and ice cream, which would probably be included in their lunch. Oh, it was always so nice at Carolyn’s!

In Carolyn’s own room after lunch the girls took off frocks and shoes and lay on the bed to plan for their month together at the seashore. Not that it was the only topic of conversation, for school affairs were too recently over for dismissal. Lucia Coletti’s departure for Italy with her father and mother was one interesting subject.

“Yes,” said Betty, “they were awfully rushed at the last, you know, but Lucia called me up, just before they were driving to the station, to say another goodbye. I would have gone to the station with her, only under the circumstances it didn’t seem appropriate. You know how it is, and Lucia and I had had our final visit before.”

“Don’t you go and think more of Lucia than you do of us,” reminded Kathryn with, a grin.

“Couldn’t,” laughed Betty, “but Lucia is a fine girl just the same; and she had to have some friends, didn’t she?”

“Yes, more than she wanted of some sorts,” wisely said Carolyn.

“They naturally would have a good deal of attention,” said Betty. “I was the first girl Lucia knew. But Lucia will not forget any of us. The countess is prettier than ever and they are all so perfectly happy to be together again. The count rather wanted to go back before, but Lucia persuaded them to wait till she could finish her work. It was a good thing she didn’t have to stay for the examinations.”

“Do you have any idea, Betty, that she will come back for her senior year?”

“Not in the least,” said Betty, to whom the recent romantic situation at the Murchison home had appealed greatly. “Lucia would like to finish the course here, and I think Countess Coletti would like to have her do it. But Lucia was too excited about going back home to think much about returning. She promised to write and I gave her all the addresses, and dates, I would have this summer.”

Neither Kathryn nor Carolyn would ever ask Betty questions that would pry into Lucia’s secrets, though Betty knew that there had been a great deal of comment over the count’s long absence in travel and the fact that the countess had remained in America with Lucia for so long. Betty herself would never betray Lucia’s worried confidences, and now it was so easy to speak of the happy reunion that she had herself seen and to pass over anything else she might know. Betty had learned by this time not to tell everything she knew to everybody.

But she frankly went on to say that she, too, had a piece of news which she could tell now. “It’s a real happy one, girls. Mr. Murchison has gone East with them and they will go to some place in Connecticut for his wedding! He is marrying somebody that he has known for a long time and they are all going abroad together. That is why Father has to be very busy this summer and has a lot on his hands.”

“My, what a disappointment to several people here!” exclaimed Kathryn. “Oh, I oughtn’t to say that, I suppose.”

“I gathered, from what Lucia said, that her mother is real pleased with her brother’s choice and knows the lady. And it is fixed all right for Rose Sevilla and her mother to stay just as they are at Murchison’s. Rose is awfully busy with new draperies and things that the countess ordered for her brother; and her mother actually looks younger and talks about when Ramon comes back.”

“Is there any news of him at all?”

“Not a bit, but they have a little hope now. It just makes me sick that I didn’t find out about them in time to send him word before he left Detroit! But he’ll turn up some time, I hope—unless the ‘villain’ finds him and does something terrible. They didn’t tell the mother about the villain’s having tried to find out from Father.”

Under the trees, not far from the fountain, in the midst of all the attractions of the lovely Gwynne estate, the three girls at a little table had their dinner alone, “a la picnic,” as Carolyn had said, and cool salad, an ice, lemonade and fruit did compose a good and refreshing part of it.

The girls dawdled over their meal and wondered why they felt so “lazy.” “It’s the weather, girls,” said Carolyn. “I’m glad we’re through school—though I believe I’ve said that several times. But don’t expect me to be original!”

“It’s not only the weather, Carolyn. We’re just sort of let down about everything. I imagine that the sea air will revive us, won’t it?”

“Yes, Gypsy, if we need reviving by that time.”

Conversation ran on by fits and starts. Daylight began to fade and little fireflies flashed their lanterns here and there in the shrubbery or the lower branches of the trees. It was decided that nothing was “so rare as a day in June” if this one had been rather too warm, and finally Kathryn inquired if Carolyn had made up her mind in regard to the great surprise.

“Sure enough, girls!” cried Carolyn. “I believe I have made up my mind! I’ll tell you!”

Betty assumed a thrilled expression, clasped her hands together tragically and leaned forward in pretended suspense, not so deeply pretended, either, for she knew that any surprise so regarded by Carolyn Gwynne would be “nice.”

“Don’t be silly,” laughed Carolyn, while Kathryn clutched her black hair with one hand and held the other to her heart.

“It’s about some very splendid people who are going to be in a cottage—oh, not so very far away. The cottages are scattered up there, you know.”

Kathryn put both hands to her head now. “Let me think, Carolyn! Who said she was going to the coast?”

“Never mind thinking, Gypsy. It might be dangerous. You know how unaccustomed exercise——”

Carolyn was obliged to break off as laughing Kathryn leaned over to threaten violence.

But at last the news was told. “The Waites have taken a cottage there and Marcella is going up about the time we do, I think.”

“How fine!” cried Kathryn. “Betty—‘the Pirate of Penzance!’”

But Betty was already thinking of that romantic youth, Marcia Waite’s brother. “Will the Pirate be on hand?” she asked, after her first pleased exclamation at the news.

“Very likely,” impressively said Carolyn.

“He will not mean much in our young lives, Kathryn,” continued Betty, “if he was awfully nice to us at Marcella’s party and other places. He is all grown up and at just the age when they have terrible cases in college.”

“Who knows?” sang Carolyn, “but he seemed to like you, Betty. However, I’d advise you to stick to our friend Chet. There aren’t any boys nicer than the Dorrance boys.”

Betty assented to that but added that when Chet went into the university the next year there would probably be an end of good times with him. “It will be a case of saying farewell, and Chet will be the one to do it, you see. But it will be simply grand to have Marcella there, somebody we know; and she will be having company, too, I suppose. Honestly, Carolyn, I can scarcely wait to go!”

“That wasn’t intended as a pun, I suppose, since there’s no point in it. But the Waites will be waiting, all right. They go some time next week, perhaps a day or two before, according to what Marcella said. She said she would telephone.”

“Then there is one thing more; but I’m not going to tell this.”

“Another secret! Carolyn?”

“Another secret!”

CHAPTER II
A GOLDFISH IN THE OCEAN

Betty Lee, who was sometimes jokingly called father’s little goldfish, had acquired that title by reason of her ability to swim and her golden head, though that was usually covered tightly by a rubber cap. As her taking part in most of the swimming contests among the girls of Lyon High necessitated good bathing suits, Betty was already prepared in that respect for her visit at the seashore.

Secrets were all very well. Betty had interest in everything. But her greatest interest was in the new experience ahead of her, the new country and the delights of the ocean. Her father warned her of new conditions, but she would quickly learn. Though there were no river current, there would be the undertow. Betty promised to use her common sense and swim within the boundaries allowed at the resort to which she was bound.

With the highest anticipations, then, Betty accompanied the Gwynnes and Kathryn Allen on the fascinating trip East and to New England. Dick Lee was at a boys camp. His twin, Doris, would soon be at a corresponding girls’ camp, for it “had to be fair,” at the risk, said Mr. Lee, of depleting the treasury. Mother and Amy Lou would remain in the city with Father, but would take an outing with him later, when a business trip would take him East again. Then Betty, returning from the visit with Carolyn, would meet other girl friends at a “wonderful” Girl Reserve camp. Truly the summer could offer no more! Betty’s former chum at the little town of Buxton, Janet Light, with whom Betty still corresponded fitfully, as her full life permitted, wrote Betty that she was a “lucky girl,” and Betty thought so too.

It was all the better that it was a motor trip, with the opportunity to stop in all sorts of fascinating places, little and big, where there were thrilling associations of history; and these were as much for Carolyn’s benefit as for Kathryn and Betty. There were no embarrassing and hampering ideas of obligation, for Mr. and Mrs. Gwynne had assured the Lees that their itinerary would be carried out with or without their guests. There were only the three Gwynnes, with Kathryn Allen and Betty Lee; for Carolyn’s older sister and others of the household had other plans of travel.

At the quiet places where they stopped, Betty and Kathryn were permitted to pay modest hotel bills, but that was all; and many a happy time they had lunching it on the way, with a big supply of good things, rather than stop. Mr. Gwynne, with Mrs. Gwynne to rest him at times, did the driving; for their chauffeur had left their service, very conveniently, Carolyn said, and they would not engage another until their return home. Mr. Gwynne’s type of humor made Betty think of her own father. The families were well acquainted by this time. Mr. and Mrs. Lee would take the trip to New England from New York, after business was completed, and with an excited little Amy Lou, who was, however, very dignified about it at present. Was she not going into the third grade?

Then the Lees would attach Kathryn and Betty, and possibly, as Betty hoped, Carolyn, for the return and delivery at camp. But Carolyn said that she could not go so soon. There was the pleasant pressure on the girls to stay longer, but that could be decided later on. Never was Betty to forget her first motor trip East. Apparently everybody else was going, too, or it seemed so after they had reached certain routes of traffic and travel. The Gwynnes met some old friends at different hotels, till at times there would be quite a little cavalcade of acquaintances, travelling together for a while, and there were a number of boys and girls in some of the parties.

Once they traveled for two days in company with a family whom Carolyn said they had known “summers.” Passengers in the cars were changed and the young people were together in the car newly attached to the Gwynnes. This was driven by Arthur Penrose, eldest son of the new friends, probably nineteen or so, Carolyn said, a brown-eyed, brown-haired youth, polite but friendly, though he said less, engaged in driving, than a younger brother, Archie, who did all the arranging in seats. Betty could not be sure at first which was “Art” and which was “Arch,” but at last she straightened it out. Their sister “Gwen” was about Betty’s age, she thought, a pretty vivacious girl, who was delighted to see Carolyn and reminded her at first about “old times” till she saw that it would be better to include the new acquaintances, doing her best to make up for temporary forgetfulness.

Betty liked Gwen at once. That was the nice thing about this traveling and you could be sure that any one the Gwynnes liked were worth knowing. They were in Connecticut at the time of this meeting and at once planned a picnic dinner, stopping here and there to purchase a heterogeneous collection, left entirely to the young people to manage. “Have your picnic,” Mr. Gwynne said, “but don’t expect us to do any cavorting around over it.” Mr. and Mrs. Penrose and a sister of Mrs. Penrose occupied the room left by the three girls in the Gwynne car, though there was some shifting; for the men must talk over affairs and the ladies must be together.

What Betty did not know at all this time was that the Penroses had come into her life to stay there. But those things happen in the most casual meetings.

The Penrose car was a seven-passenger car and at first Arthur drove by himself while Archie and Gwen did the honors behind. Then Art complained whimsically that he was being left out; and in some way Betty found herself elected to sit in front with the driver, a move which pleased her, with its view of the “Blue Hills,” where they were now, and less necessity of talking; for they could listen to the rest or talk as they liked.

But Arthur’s “nice” face was turned to her often, as he called attention to some scene or made some other comment. Betty told him how it had happened that she took the trip, where they were going, what a thrill she had over it and how she enjoyed seeing everything.

“I suppose I notice the scenery more particularly since I want to be an artist,” said Arthur Penrose. “They tell me that ‘Art’ is the proper name for me, though Archie makes fun and says he’ll have to support his artistic brother in the years to come.”

Arthur’s face was full of amusement as he said this. “But I am already doing a little in commercial art lines, so perhaps it is not so bad.”

“How wonderful!” cried Betty, interested. “I wish I knew more about it. I draw a little. We have an art course in school, you know, but I like music best—just play the violin some. Then I like athletics, not so much the competitive games, you know, but swimming and skating and riding, that is I’m going to have lessons in that next year. I can ride in the country, though. Are you in college?”

“Yes, but it may be a waste of time for me to finish. We have to decide that. I am taking art on the side, but I want to go to a regular art school, and next summer, if I can raise the cash, I’m going to walk or swim to Europe and see what the big guys have done.”

Betty laughed at that statement and told “Art” that her father was always asking her when she was going to swim to Europe. This brought on more confidences, till Betty felt that she was quite well acquainted. Art Penrose was as nice as Chet, and presently she found that he knew the “Dorrance boys” and was glad to hear news from them.

The picnic dinner was more fun. They found a place with a cool spring, and made the older members of the party comfortable with seats and rugs from the cars. The boys were used to this sort of thing and as our girls were accustomed to all sorts of hikes and picnics, it was a small matter and “loads of fun” to make coffee, “hot dog” sandwiches, and have heaping plates of good things in a short but happy time, short, Art said, because it was not possible to handle their elders. They would think of such things as routes and time and how far they had to go.

Art came with his full plate to sit on a log near Betty and to talk more about his beloved art to sympathetic ears; and when they rose to go, he lifted a firm finger before her face to say, “You are going to see more of me, Betty Lee. I have to hear you play on your violin, for one thing.”

“And I must see some of your pictures,” pleasantly Betty responded. “It is awfully interesting to hear about it—very, I mean. I’m really trying to improve my English!”

“Don’t worry about your English. Has Gwen told you yet that the Penroses might possibly move to your little city?”

“‘Little city,’ indeed!” said Betty, though her smile accompanied this mild rebuke. “And we have a fine art school,” she added, hopefully.

But Arthur Penrose shook his head. “I’m going to Boston—New York—Philadelphia—Chicago—who knows? But at that I may visit my family occasionally!”

It was later that Gwendolyn said something of the same sort to Betty and Kathryn. “And I do hope that I see you girls again. I’m going to write to Carolyn once in a while now and if we should decide to move there, we’ll see to it that we live where I can attend the same high school. I certainly like what you tell about it!”

So they parted, with last smiles and salutes and promises to see each other again. “The nice thing about life, girls,” said Betty Lee, “is that you never know what is going to turn up. It’s like a big mystery story, with little clues that you miss when you’re reading it; and if you decide one way, it’s one thing and if you decide another way—about something important, I mean—it’s another way.”

“Listen to our philosopher, Carolyn,” said Kathryn.

“There are girls that don’t think life’s interesting at all,” remarked Carolyn. “But Betty would find something, even if she lived back in the Buxton she talks about.”

“It isn’t the size of the place, Carolyn,” began Betty, with an air of wisdom that she knew was comical. “It’s what you’ve got in your little insides, I guess. But I am ‘lucky,’ as Janet wrote me, to have so much happening.”

The objective of this trip was a quiet little village on the coast of Maine, with its rocks and inlets and rivers and lakes. It was such a place as city people love to find, for while it was being developed as a resort, it was small, and the outlying homes of the summer residents were scattered.

From the main highway they drove upon a road which was being repaired, or made into a respectable road for automobiles. Driving was difficult now in places, but at last they came upon a smooth road between woods full of new kinds of trees and growths that made Betty exclaim with pleasure, as she had before, passing through this to her new country. She had kept account of all states through which she had passed and concluded that she was becoming quite a traveled girl. But a wood peewee called from the depths of the forest and a flock of quail whirred as they hastened from the bushes by the roadside. Molly Cottontail ran to cover, and Betty concluded that it was still America and home!

But why call this a cottage! After more driving they came into the village and beyond it to a bit of a grove, where stood a large house, new but of a “dear old-fashioned” colonial type; and Mr. Gwynne stopped the car to let his passengers have a view of it. “Still like it, dear?” he asked his wife.

“Yes. The setting is exactly what I like, no hard hill to climb, just this gentle rise and the house among the trees, all white and green.”

So far as Betty was concerned, she could have welcomed the place forever, and although at this moment she could not see the ocean, she could hear its waves beating upon the shore not too far away! Its fresh breezes gently moved the trees and through them in the other direction a red sun was sinking toward the irregular contour of the land. Betty needed no camera to remember this, but Carolyn planned at once for pictures of the house and grounds.

“Tomorrow, girls, we’ll get out and take a lot of pictures of the house and grounds and get down to the beach, too, in our bathing suits.”

“Please take a picture of me, Carolyn, right in the ocean, to send to my father!”

“Daddy’s little goldfish among the sharks?” teased Carolyn.

“Ow! You don’t have those, I hope.”

“I never heard of any around here,” laughed Carolyn, “and we’ve been near this place before, you know. You stay within bounds and you’ll be all right.”

Supper, a real New England supper served by a cook and a maid already there to take care of them, came next, then a stroll around the grounds, whose limits were uncertain as they strayed off into a little grove chiefly of spruces and pines. Hasty letters home were written by Kathryn and Betty and a little later three young heads, on as many different pillows in Carolyn’s big room, drowsed off to the distant booming of the surf.

In the morning, Betty blinked her eyes and wondered where she was. She must hurry to get up, for the alarm had gone off and she would be late for school! For a moment all the old feelings of wanting to stay in bed and having to get up to get ready for school came over her. Then she laughed and sat up, looking across at the two other cots, where Carolyn, by whose bed the alarm was still ringing intermittently, was rubbing her eyes and reaching down to the floor to shut it off. Kathryn sat up suddenly in bed and asked, “Where’s the fire?”

But three bathing suits had been laid out ready to be put on. They had planned a cold dip before breakfast and fearing that they would not be wakened in time by more or less weary parents or maid and cook who had been instructed not to have breakfast too early, Carolyn had set the alarm. The sun was streaming into their East room, chosen by Carolyn, who wanted to “hear the sea.”

Wrapped in their warmest coats over their bathing suits, the girls made their way, by a side exit of which Carolyn knew, down a little hill, down a few steps, then to the beach not far from the accredited bathing place where Carolyn said they should do their swimming. A few other people were on the beach for the same purpose.

It was an icy dip this morning and Betty privately thought that she would prefer the tropics; but at that it was the great old Atlantic Ocean and she missed none of the thrill that she had expected. A short swim in the unaccustomed element, salty and “different,” and Betty was ready for the quick return to the Gwynne cottage, where a shower bath and a vigorous rub put her in a glow. Three merry faces met Mr. and Mrs. Gwynne at the breakfast table.

“Did you have your early dip, girls?” inquired Mr. Gwynne.

“Don’t we look like it, Daddy?” asked Carolyn.

“Something has made you all very rosy, I should say, and our little Gypsy sparkles like a—well, whatever does sparkle.”

“Betty has had her swim in the Atlantic Ocean at last,” laughed Carolyn. “She found it a little bit chilly, but I think she’s going to try it again later in the day.”

“Of course. Oh, Mr. Gwynne, it is perfectly lovely here! I’m so delighted that you brought me!”

“So are we. I’m sure that you will help our enthusiasms, Betty Lee.”

CHAPTER III
A MERRY WHIRL OF GOOD TIMES

It was as Betty had said. One never knew what interesting happening would come next, though some were planned. New adventures in daily pleasures and one almost tragic event were here for Betty Lee in the few weeks that lay before her in Maine. But she never could get satisfactory photographs of the old sea that stirred her so. Clouds and surf never did come out as they really looked. She concluded that Arthur Penrose or some real artist, who could give the coloring to sky and sea and paint the clouds as they looked, ought to be there to do justice to water and sky. But Betty did not talk much about her feeling of the sea, aside from the joking about the consummation of her desire to swim in it.

The Waites were the first friends to look them up. Marcella came over the next day from a cottage at no great distance, for the Waites had come on by train and arrived before the Gwynne party. She invited them at once to a beach party, “by moonlight,” said she. “We’ll not swim this time, but have a great picnic, with everybody there.” Marcella looked meaningly at Carolyn as she said this.

“Larry’s visiting some of his college friends and will be home in time for the beach party, I think. He may bring his chum with him. We don’t know. If I weren’t so busy, I’d tell you more about everybody. Several girls from our sorority are driving over this afternoon and Peggy Pollard is going to stay.

“Peggy!” exclaimed Carolyn. “Why I invited her with us and she couldn’t come!”

“It’s all changed,” explained Marcella. “After you left, her mother made different arrangements, to go West with one of her sons and his family, I think; and she told Peggy that if she still wanted to come East, she could. Peggy was in a great quandary, but crazy to come. I found it out through one of the girls; and so Peggy’s dear little red head will repose on either your pillow or mine, Carolyn, as you like. Peggy is up the coast a little, with the girls I mentioned, though she came with us.”

“You didn’t mention their names, Marcella, but I can guess or be surprised. If you don’t mind, Marcella, we’ll have Peggy here. Another cot in my room, or two of us in a different room, will fix it.”

“Oh, let’s all be together, Carolyn! It’s such fun!”

“Just as you say, Kathryn.”

The beach party, then, was to be full of surprises. The three girls exhausted the possible list of guests in their surmises and then concluded that it was a waste of time. Unpacking, investigating their surroundings, another swim and a walk up the shore for some distance pretty well filled the day until it was best to “rest up” for the beach party, which began at eight o’clock. “It may be a little ‘spuzzy,’ girls,” suggested Carolyn, “though Marcella did not say so. But if it is to be a sorority affair and perhaps Larry and his chum coming, not to mention others that evidently Marcella means to spring upon us, there will probably be some dressing up.”

“You don’t mean party dresses, do you?” asked Betty, “thin things? I thought at beach parties you wore sweaters or jackets and easy things to rough it in.”

“Sport things, Betty, this time. Yours are all right, and take your white sweater if you wish.”

“I ‘wager’ you know whom Marcella is going to spring upon ‘us’,” remarked Kathryn.

“I know—some,” Carolyn acknowledged. “That is the other secret.”

With great care did the three girls dress for the beach party. There was a “gorgeous” moon and a mild air. Betty scarcely knew herself, she thought, as she looked from the elevation and the shadows of the group of trees about the Gwynne house toward where a line of rollers restlessly met the beach and the light of a full moon fell across the waters. And oh, who would be at the party?

Active figures were darting about on the sands by the time Betty, Carolyn and Kathryn arrived and hurried toward where they saw Marcella by the light of a fire already started on the beach. And who was that, hatless, merry, throwing a big piece of wreckage upon the fire?

“Ted Dorrance!” exclaimed Kathryn. “That’s the other surprise, Carolyn!”

“M’m,” lightly replied Carolyn. “And now don’t faint or anything, Betty. Chet’s here, too.”

Betty did not much like this suggestion and replied that she was not likely to faint at seeing Chet Dorrance anywhere, especially as it was only the other day that she had seen him receive his high school diploma. Betty, usually very sweet about all her friends, felt really annoyed for about two minutes. But Chet’s own hearty and unsentimental greeting assured her.

“Didn’t Carolyn tell you that Ted and I were coming to visit Larry and Marcella?” asked Chet. “Of course it was all fixed up at the last minute. We’ve got Mother settled down at Cape Cod and drove up here with Larry and his room-mate, you know, and a couple of cousins of his room-mate. Come over and meet them, or it would be more proper to bring them to you, wouldn’t it? But they’re with those girls. We didn’t know anything about the other fellows’ coming till Larry telegraphed us about meeting us and all coming on together in Judd Penrose’s car. We’ve taken a cottage of our own now, since Marcella’s house is full up with girls. You ought to see where we are going to ‘bach’ it, though I see where we don’t do any cooking to speak of!”

“‘Penrose,’” said Betty. “We met some boys by that name on the way up here. I wonder——”

But she did not wonder long. There, with an armful of driftwood, was Archie Penrose, whose face, like Ted’s before, was lit up by the fire as he stooped. A crowd of girls and boys were around the fire and Betty, greeting those she knew and introduced to those she had not met, was soon in the midst of the friends and fun.

“You didn’t expect me to carry out my threat so soon, did you?” grinned Arthur Penrose. “Neither did I; but we’re well met. Will you go sketching with me tomorrow?”

“I’d love to, but Carolyn is my hostess and you’ll have to find out what she’s going to do.”

“From all the plans, I take it that we’ll have a picnic of some sort all the time we’re here, every day.”

Like the Dorrance boys, the two Penroses had settled their parents and Gwen in a summer resort further South. Then came a telegram from their cousin, Judd Penrose, and an invitation for Gwen from Marcella in another urgent telegram, a night letter. Gwen had come by train. The boys waited to be picked up by Judd and Larry with the Dorrances.

Gwen Penrose almost fell into Betty’s arms, such was her enthusiasm at seeing her. “Isn’t this marvellous?” she asked, “and to think that we hadn’t the slightest idea of it when we met before! I did not even remember the name of Judd’s room-mate! I was crazy to come with Marcella when she went to see Carolyn and you and Kathryn; but she wouldn’t let me. She wanted the surprise to be complete, she said.”

“Well, it certainly was—is!” answered Betty. “And now Art can make me a sketch of this lovely place—if he will.”

“Oh, he will all right,” Gwen assured her. “He thinks you’re just about the sweetest thing he’s seen for a long while.”

Betty laughed. “We like scenery—that’s all.”

Lawrence Waite, who was with another small group of girls, Betty did not meet at first; but presently he came quickly over to where she stood talking with one and another, and cordially took her hand. “Hello there, Titania. I saw you by the light of the moon. Any other fairies abroad?”

“It is a night for them, isn’t it?” brightly replied Betty. “But they might be afraid of pirates on this coast, mightn’t they?”

“Not of the Pirate of Penzance,” Larry assured her. “Long ago, in a gloomy cave, by the light of one flickering candle, the queen of the fairies was not afraid of him, was she?”

“Not a bit,” laughed Betty. “She thought he was real nice.”

“Is that all?” began the smiling former “Pirate of Penzance,” but Judd Penrose joined them at this moment and was introduced.

The sorority girls who were visiting Marcella were for the most part older. Marcella, too, had received her high school diploma and was a little inclined to attend an Eastern school instead of continuing in the “home town” university. Two of her visitors were girls from this school. Other girls and boys were from this summer colony. Peggy Pollard was the only girl of Marcia’s high school sorority from Betty’s class, and how she was welcomed by her classmates! “That is all that is necessary to make this summer a success, Peggy—your being here,” warmly said Kathryn Allen.

Visiting, strolling on the beach with one and another, toasting marshmallows, hearing all “the latest” about everybody, preparing and eating the excellent lunch provided—and all on the rocky coast of Maine, made Betty Lee’s cup of happiness full. Chet did not try to monopolize her. Everybody was “jolly” with everybody else and great plans were made for coming days. “Carpe diem,” folks, said Judson Penrose, “or in other words, ‘Gather ye roses while ye may’"—and his eyes were upon “dear old Marcella,” as he said this and suggested a chowder party for the next day and a trip by car to a lake further inland on the following day. Betty whispered to Kathryn that she would have to pinch herself to make sure that it wasn’t a dream.

Like Betty, though in college, Larry Waite would be a senior next year, a senior at Yale. And he had not forgotten that crazy Hallowe’en! Betty’s little experience with candle and mirror still remained unmentioned to the other girls. She sometimes wondered if Larry had ever spoken of it. Otherwise, it was an amusing secret between them—and, of course, a bit romantic, though nothing would ever come of it. Of course not.

Chowder was duly served on the beach at the next beach party. The trip to the beautiful little lake was a second exciting excursion. Not even the mornings were exempt from gala events especially when long trips were planned. Inland they went by car and for water trips the boys secured a motor boat of moderate size which would accommodate all of Marcella’s and Carolyn’s visitors and the boys of their bachelor cottage. It was supposed to be “Welcome Inn,” which sign adorned the doorway; but Ted said that a better name would be “Never At Home” or, if one must make a pun, “S’m’ Other Time Inn.”

But in a few days the girls from the other resort had departed, leaving two recent seniors with their classmate, Marcella, and the two younger girls, Peggy Pollard and Gwendolyn Penrose, who finally spent part of their time at Marcella’s and the rest at Carolyn’s.

Betty enjoyed all the trips, but she still liked the water best, in it to swim, or on it to explore the coast, with its bays and inlets or to go out upon the bounding billows that Chet teased Betty about, as far as it was wise for the boys to take the motor boat.

And this was how it happened that Betty was drawn into one tragic occurrence which might have entirely spoiled the summer’s pleasure for her and brought distress upon some of her friends.

CHAPTER IV
THE STORM

It was curious. Betty often thought and commented upon it afterwards at home. Sometimes it seems as if in such curious, almost intentional ways, lives cross each other. Yet Betty wondered how she happened to come into the design in this instance. Her father told her that she was just one instrument of Providence, used because she could be of service and was “good in the humanities.”

And who would have thought that here, away off from home on the coast of Maine?—but one must take events in order.

It was in the second week of good times. One night there was a sudden and terrific storm, or so it seemed to Betty. The sea boomed and lashed the shore. Lightning flashed and thunder resounded or crashed with the bolts close at hand. Such small shipping as the village boasted had come hurrying to the protection of the small bay and breakwater.

The girls, rather frightened at first, bravely tried not to show it, though they were wondering whether the boys had gotten in safely from a fishing trip. “Don’t worry,” said Mr. Gwynne. “The sky was lowering about dusk. If they were too far up the coast they would put in somewhere and land.”

But the girls were uneasy and Betty was very much interested in her first big storm by the sea. “I wish we could go down to the dock to see things,” she said.

“Well, why not?” asked Carolyn. “As soon as it stops pouring, we’ll put on our ponchos and galoshes and go down. It’s not thundering much now. The storm’s gone out to sea!”

Mrs. Gwynne had no objection. A little later, protected from the still falling rain and equipped with flashlights, the girls ran or slipped on rocks and sand to the shore, warned against going too close. “No big wave is going to carry us off, Mother,” Carolyn assured Mrs. Gwynne. “We’ll look at it from a safe distance I promise you.”

At first they went by the usual “back way,” but found that at one point they could not safely pass. Waves dashed in against rocks that even at high tide they had found at some distance from the line of water. Accordingly they returned, by the ascent and steps, to the Gwynne grounds, from which a longer way led to the village and small docks.

Other people were out. Lanterns, rubber-coated men and women, with umbrellas, rubbers or galoshes, splashing through puddles, were in evidence. “Hello there!” cried a familiar voice. It was Chet Dorrance whose big flashlight had discovered the girls. There were the boys!

“Oh, we were worrying a little about you boys,” said Betty, as Chet took her arm and fell into step, guiding her around an immense puddle. “We tried to telephone Marcella and ‘Welcome Inn,’ too, but the fuse had burned out or something.”

“The storm has knocked everything out,” returned Chet. “We got home all right. I pity any boat that got caught tonight. We found good luck, not so far away, and when we saw that there was going to be a storm, we came back. Perhaps we wouldn’t have come if we hadn’t already had more fish than we could use. How about Gwynne Haven. Want any fish, or shall we have a big fish fry tomorrow?”

This last was in a louder tone to Carolyn, who with Kathryn was behind, accompanied by several more of the boys.

“Oh, the fish fry by all means,” called Carolyn.

“How can we have a fish fry after this?” asked Betty.

“Very likely tomorrow will be as bright as can be, Betty,” said Chet. “Gee whilikers, look at the dock!”

By this time they had reached the dock, where more than one boat owner had come down to see how his shipping fared. The boys found their boat intact and uninjured, and when Carolyn found that they had intended to come later on to “Gwynne Haven,” the new name for the new cottage, she told them to “come right along.”

“We’ll stop for Marcella and the rest,” continued Carolyn, “and have a fudge party. Then we can plan the fish fry.”

Not all the boats had fared as well as the launch used by the boys of “Welcome Inn.” Betty felt troubled over several rather distracted women whose “men-folks” had not come in. She overheard some woman assure them that they were “probably safe ashore somewhere,” but Betty knew that this was said only to cheer them a little. Oh, dear, the sea and fishing and boating were not all fun!

The fudge party was a success. Wet ponchos and coats and overshoes were hung around to dry while the savory odor of cooking fudge made pleasant anticipations. Arthur Penrose drew a funny sketch of Ted almost falling out of the boat in the effort to land a big fish. Then, on a piece of cardboard which Carolyn furnished, he made a poster of the fish fry. Art’s imagination ran riot and Betty watched his bold strokes and the funny figures that resulted, with as much hilarity as the rest. “Oh, you ought to do comic strip, Art,” she exclaimed. “You’d make a fortune.”

“Sh-hh!” returned Arthur, in a loud whisper. “It’s a secret. That is my present ambition. All I need is the idea!”

“That is good” was Larry Waite’s verdict, when he and Judson Penrose surveyed the result, with Marcella and another Kappa Upsilon. “Unless some of you girls want it, we’ll tack that up in ‘Nobody T-Home’ tomorrow.”

“But don’t throw it away when we go home,” said Marcella. “We need that as a souvenir of the summer. Arthur, may I sit for my portrait?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Arthur, with affected timidity, “but I’m very expensive, you know.”

“What is that to me,” scornfully Marcella replied. “I could raise a thousand as easily as a—hundred.”

“Yes,” laughed her brother. “Marcella said this morning that she had just five cents left of her allowance.”

“Now, Larry! You know it is not polite to tell family secrets, especially about money.”

“Well, who mentioned money first, I ask the assembled company?”

Betty, laughing, caught Larry’s eye, and he stretched a hand to lift her from her seat by Arthur. “Come, Titania; you have wasted enough time in encouragement of art, with or without a capital letter. Let’s turn on the victrola. No radio tonight, I reckon. It was sputtering to beat the band at our shack awhile ago.”

“A lot of interference from ships and shore,” said Ted Dorrance, “beside the weather—naught but static this eve.”

Hot fudge was good and the evening was merry, yet all of the young company were more or less conscious of the sea and its restless menace.

Yet when morning came, it was as Chet had said, bright and sunny, with a blue sky. The waves were still high and the stretch of water to the skyline a glorious sight. Betty selected a high rock, back of the beach proper, some distance from the Gwynne cottage, where she could sit and watch the incoming rollers with their white crests. The girls had gone down early in the hope of finding new shells brought in by the storm. Betty had a little market bag full of pretty ones. “I have to watch this a long time, Kathryn,” said she soberly to her friend, who had followed her. “Do you suppose it could fade out of a body’s mind, just like a film that you had taken full of pictures and then didn’t have developed?”

“Well, you are original, Betty! Who else would think of that? I’d like to remember it, too. I feel as if something is going to happen, Betty. Why, do suppose?”

“Something is going to happen, the fish fry this afternoon.”

“I know.”

“Are you like that sometimes, Gypsy?”

“Yes. It must by my ‘gypsy blood!’”

“As you haven’t any, it must be something else. How about nerves from staying up till all hours last night?”

“Perhaps. But the whole village was up and we stayed in bed as late as we could and not miss getting shells.”

This conversation was interrupted by the arrival of more of their friends. Ted had his big camera and took Betty and Kathryn on their rock as well as snap-shots of shore and surf and groups of people here and there.

The fish fry in the afternoon was a source of more fun. All of them were more or less accustomed to picnics and cooking in the open. Larry and Ted had for fun brought immense cooks’ aprons and announced that they were chefs and “chief cooks and bottle washers.” Some spills occurred and a few fish were rather overdone; but that was better than not to be done enough. Pickles and rolls were “easier” than making sandwiches; and for dessert they had new England doughnuts and various sorts of fruit, according to the taste of those who chose the contributions. Lemonade, brought in “joy hats,” and bottles of pop regaled them when thirsty.

Not a plan was made for the next day. Every body was too lazy. “Something will turn up, girls,” said Larry Waite. “If nothing else we can always take a ride in the launch. It’s a little too rough today, though.”

The local movie was well attended that night. Ted, to Betty’s pleased surprise, invited her to accompany him. Carolyn went with Archie Penrose, Kathryn with Arthur, Gwen with Chet Dorrance and Peggy Pollard with Judd Penrose. Marcella and the other Kappa Upsilons had “other arrangements” at a party outside of this resort.

The “theatre party,” as Ted called, it, attended the “first show,” and after more or less attractive refreshments at the local ice-cream shop, the girls were duly taken home by boys that said they must have their “beauty sleep” and left with nothing beyond a visit on the front porch.

Gwen Penrose and Peggy Pollard were staying at Carolyn’s now and Gwen giggled a little when they went to their rooms, rather relieved, after all, that the boys had not come in for another party. One did have to have a little rest sometimes. “The boys have something on hand tonight,” said Gwen. “I got an inkling from Archie, though he wouldn’t tell me what they’re going to do—some boy stuff. My, doesn’t being outdoors so much make you sleepy?”

“Yes,” Betty happened to be the one to reply, she would be “as hoarse as a gull if she didn’t make so much noise tonight. It’s going to put me to sleep and that soon!”

But Betty reckoned without considering how many things are absolutely necessary to talk over. As there was another room connecting with Carolyn’s, Gwen and Peggy had been put there; but the girls went back and forth and Gwen in gay pajamas sat on Betty’s bed to talk for an hour, till Peggy called her and told her she would be “as hoarse as a gull if she didn’t either come to bed or get her robe around her.”

At that Betty made room for Gwen under her soft covers and never knew when Gwen, whispering to deaf ears, finally, went to her own bed in the next room.

CHAPTER V
A SURPRISING RESCUE

Whatever it was that the boys had in mind or carried out that night, it must have kept them up till late or early hours, in spite of their joking about “beauty sleep.” Although the girls were on the beach more or less the next morning, not a sign did they see of any one from “Welcome Inn” or “Nobody At Home.” Everybody must have been at home. But all that any of the girls ever knew about performances was what Gwen told them, as Archie informed her it was “some sort of an initiation.”

Betty Lee wondered how it was possible for the sea to be so calm on only the second day after a storm like the one she had witnessed. There was the swell, to be sure, and the rollers came in as usual. The surf was just as beautiful and she experienced the delights of cutting the waves as she and Carolyn swam out as far as they dared. But the rocks lashed by the storm were now dry. No heaving, tossing maelstrom met the eye. Gently the boats at the little docks rocked up and down, lapped by such waves as reached them.

It was after lunch when Larry Waite, in his “adorable” yachting outfit and looking like a captain, Gwen said, stood at the Gwynne door, cap in hand. “Oh, come in, Larry,” welcomed Carolyn, jumping up from a low rocker and dropping the bit of embroidery that she was doing.

Larry entered and looked around with some amusement. “What!” said he teasingly, “is this the sewing circle? Can’t you find anything else to do on Maine shores?”

“Oh, we’ve been out all morning and ate so much lunch that we’re past going for awhile. Besides, Gwen is showing us a new stitch.” This was Peggy Pollard, who offered the explanation.

“Your excuses are accepted,” laughed Larry, “and I’ll not mention what we have been doing all morning.”

“Snoozing!” cried Gwen. “I know!”

“And didn’t we need it!” replied Larry. “But that is all by the way, girls. I’ve come to deliver an invitation from the crowd. Ted and Art are routing out some provisions from the groceries and such. How about a trip in the old boat and dinner some place?”

“Oh—grand!” cried Gwen.

“You’ve saved our lives,” said Carolyn, with exaggerated gratitude, resigning her circle of embroidery with an air of “nothing more to do with you!” “When do we start?”

“Meet me by yonder swelling wave in half an hour,” grinned Larry, looking at Betty, who had said nothing but looked her approval of the plan. “In other words, I’m going down now to see that the tug’s in shape and if you will be down at the dock in half an hour or so, it will give us time to do anything necessary and stow away the hardtack. Besides, don’t you girls always have things to do like powdering your noses or being sure that the vanity what you call it is along?”

“You are only forgiven because of the nice invitation, Larry,” said Kathryn. “You forget that we are laying on a fashionable coat of tan these days.”

“Sure enough.” Larry was on the porch by this time, fleeing in pretended fear from threatening looks. “I’m glad you want to go, girls, and if you want to bring any fishing tackle of your own, we may fish a little before we get back. The sea is fine and we may go as far as a little island I know.”

There was great scurrying around for a little while, also much wagging of tongues. Costumes were quickly changed, for with Larry looking as he did, they must dress the part. Besides, the boat was pretty fit, and Betty asked Gwen again if you “could call it a yacht.”

“It’s as big as some that have the name,” replied Gwen, “and it’s big enough to go to sea in, though I’d hate to be caught in it if there were a storm like the one we just had.”

“Oh, sailors weather them, in littler boats than that,” Kathryn declared.

Soon, on board, the boat guided by Larry Waite’s experienced hand, Betty Lee, Carolyn Gwynne, Kathryn Allen, Peggy Pollard and Gwendolyn Penrose were the guests of Larry, Ted and Chet Dorrance, Arthur and Archie Penrose. Judd Penrose had motored up to join Marcella and her friends, but as Ted told Betty privately, he and Larry “escaped.” “You see, Betty, there’s a girl that I’d a little rather—well I don’t mean that she exactly likes me, but anyhow I didn’t want to go and Larry felt the same way. With a lot of nice girls right here, what’s the use?”

This amused Betty, who knew that some girls did more or less pursue Ted. “Thanks for the compliment to us, Ted,” she answered. “I’m glad you and Larry didn’t go. A picnic is just what I’m wanting, too.”

Facing the ocean, just as if she were going to land in Spain or France or some other delightful country, Betty felt that the world was a large place this afternoon. Larry took them out from bays and rocks to where the going was safe. Strange birds dived into waves ahead of them after their prey, or floated upon the water, rising and falling with the movement of the sea, to fly as the boat approached them. And just as young appetites began to be ready for the good picnic supper, there in sight was the island of which Larry had spoken. The course had been changed after they were well away from the shore, toward the north first, then toward the coast again, as Larry executed a curve, as it were, to approach this island from the proper angle. Carefully he took the boat into the bay scarcely worthy of the name, so shallow was it. But there was a rickety floating dock attached to the shore and a rocky way cut, by which they all were soon ascending to the top of a low cliff. Other rocks beyond were higher and a little woods invited them to picnic. There was a spring of clear water, which was probably what made the island a resort for picnics.

The first thing was to appease hunger. Carolyn had gathered up some fresh doughnuts made that morning by their New England cook and had taken bodily a fresh veal loaf, but with her mother’s permission. This bit of homemade cookery added pleasantly to what the boys had purchased at the village stores. They would be able to satisfy hunger at least!

For possibly half an hour or more they regaled themselves and talked, then discussed whether they should do any fishing, for this was supposed to be a good place, or whether they should merely roam over the island a little and then take to the boat again. While this more or less important decision was being made, they were suddenly quite surprised by the arrival of a stranger, who came over a little rise of the rocky land beyond the trees and approached them. He was a somewhat haggard-looking man, whose clothing was tumbled and mussed. He wore an old sweater and his old felt hat was pulled down almost over his dark eyes.

He sharply looked over the little company before him, then came more rapidly toward them. “It is fortunate for me that you came here for your picnic,” said he. “I thought I heard voices! I was wrecked here in the storm and I wonder if I can get you to take me over to the mainland.”

“Of course we can,” said Larry pleasantly. He had risen and was taking in the stranger as keenly as that man was regarding the group.

“Were you hurt? And did you lose your boat and companions?”

“There’s nobody here but me,” the man replied, rather too hastily, Larry thought. “I’m not hurt very much, but I ought to get to a doctor as soon as I can.”

“All right,” said Larry. “We want to run over the island a little, to show it to the girls, and then we’ll be ready to go. You must be hungry, if you’ve been here with nothing to eat since the storm. Girls, isn’t there something we can fix for him right away?”

But the man was waving his hands rather distractedly. “Oh, why must you wait? There’s nothing but rocks here! Let’s go at once! Besides, if I can get some one to come back and fix my boat for me I may save it before the waves beat it to pieces!”

“Maybe we can fix it for you,” suggested Ted, springing to his feet, but winking at Archie, as he turned. Afterwards he said that he had his suspicions of all’s not being as it seemed.

“No, no, no,” excitedly said the man, with a gesture as if he would keep Ted back. “Take me away at once!” he cried, and as if to prove his need he sank to the ground, startling the girls, who jumped up at once.

“Oh, the poor fellow!” exclaimed Carolyn.

“Ted, we’d better take him right away! He’s all used up, shipwrecked and everything!”

“So he is,” said Ted, starting toward the man. “Pour me a cup of that coffee, Carolyn. We’ll get something hot inside of him. Larry, I’d suggest that we get him down into the boat right away. Pack up the stuff, kids.”

Larry was bending over the man, lifting him to a sitting position, for he had not fainted. His hat had fallen off and he reached for it himself, pulling it down over his forehead again. Betty Lee was staring at him. Where had she seen that man before and heard that voice?

The coffee was gratefully swallowed and he accepted a doughnut with it, though Carolyn was not sure that a doughnut was the best thing for a starving man. “I can wait to eat more until you all come,” suggested the man. “I am feeling pretty good now. If I can just get to the mainland. I’ll tell you just where to land me.”

“Never mind now,” said Larry. “We’ll take you where you want to go.” Larry was not to carry out that statement, but he did not know it as she made it.

There was a little group of the boys around the man now and Ted, speaking to Archie, who had said something Betty did not hear, said, “All right, Archie—you help Larry take him to the boat and I’ll help here. We’ll be away in a jiffy.”

Larry and Archie kindly helped the man over the rocks and down to the boat, while Ted turned to the other boys and girls speaking now in a low tone. “I’m suspicious of that chap,” said Ted. “I think Larry is, too. Don’t hurry too much and go down one at a time carrying something, girls. Come on, Chet. You and I will go over the island a bit and see what this wreck is.”

Arthur, who had been making a funny sketch of the picnic party when the man appeared, now put his paper in his pocket and told the girls that it seemed to be “up to him to pack the stuff.”

“Not a bit of it,” said Carolyn. “Didn’t you hear Ted tell us not to hurry. Go on with the boys.”

“I’ll see where they’re going,” returned Arthur, “and come back to protect you!”

The girls laughed at this, and Carolyn began to separate some of the most attractive remains to be packed together, ready for a good lunch for the “shipwrecked sailor.” She was the first one to go down to the boat, carrying this. Gwen followed her shortly, then Peggy. Kathryn and Betty were beginning to gather up the rest of the equipment, except the heavier articles, which they had been “ordered” to leave for the boys, when there came a hail and Chet came leaping over the rocks in the background, crossing from the rise of ground as the stranger had done before him. “Where’s the rest of that coffee?” he demanded. “We’ve found the boat all right, out of commission and there’s a fellow in it—bound and gagged he was—that old scoundrel!”

“Oh, Chet!” cried Betty. “Why, Carolyn took the thermos bottle and the coffee to the boat, for the man if he should want anything more.”

“What that fellow needs is a rope and a limb!” growled Chet, not waiting to be polite, but scrambling down the rocks to where the boat stood waiting. Betty and Kathryn left their baskets to run in the direction of the rocks. They had hoped to see something of this pretty island as it was. Through and over the rocks they speedily went and there stretched before them an irregular path, winding among more trees and disappearing in the direction of another shore where the wash of the surf could be heard.

They started down the path, but were surprised to see Ted and Arthur, slowly approaching and half carrying some one between them. “You’ll be all right, old fellow, as soon as you get limbered up a little,” Ted was saying.

“Shall we set you down for a moment or can you keep going?”

Something indistinct was replied. It does not help communication to have been gagged for some little time. And Ted was laughing at the reply! Betty and Kathryn were horrified; but all in a moment they saw who it was that was being carried as more than once he had been helped from the football field at Lyon High. It was the Don! Obviously Chet had not waited to see who it was.

Ted grinned when he saw Betty. “He says it’s a little worse than athletics, Betty, but he can make it.” Then Ted’s expression changed.

“Please hurry up Chet with that coffee and then tell him to see to it that the boys tie up that old villain!”

In a flash Betty sensed the situation. It was the “villain!” She had only seen him once, and then not any too well—but she should have known the voice, though not quite so suave as when he had called upon her father to inquire for Ramon.

“Ramon Sevilla!” she gasped. But it was no time to learn how all this had happened. She turned back with Kathryn, but Chet in a great hurry passed them and was giving Ramon a drink of the coffee.

Affairs moved rapidly after this. Betty and Kathryn gathered up the rest of the picnic supplies and hurried to the boat. There Larry and Archie had secured the “villain,” who was angry and dangerous, they said. “Oh, you’d go off and leave somebody to die, would you?” belligerently queried Chet.

“I would have come back with my friends for him,” growled the angry man.

“And what would you have done with him then? Yes, you’ll tell that to the judge!”

But they fed the villain as well as Ramon, the “Don” of football fame, over whom they all rejoiced. Ramon was in no condition to tell his story and interested as they all were, they waited and asked no questions. The boys made him comfortable in the little cabin, fed him and left him to sleep. They told the girls how they had found the boat, really disabled as the man had said, and as they investigated they heard a low moan. Ramon could not call to them for the man had gagged him, presumably when he knew that the picnickers had landed there. There had evidently been a struggle against the gagging process, though Ramon had been securely tied before, he had given them to understand. Half conscious now, he had still recognized Ted and when freed had gradually come to himself. “You can’t get a good football player down!” declared Chet, referring to the characteristic nerve with which Ramon insisted on trying to walk up the path and over the rocks to the boat. “I didn’t recognize him, though—and the other boys untied him.”

The trip home was quiet but beautiful. The boys were more or less disturbed over their captive, and the girls kept far away from him. What a pity it was, thought Betty, that people should be so bad in such a beautiful world. The sunset colors were just as glorious as ever and the sky was mirrored upon the water. “Where every prospect pleases and only man is vile,” she quoted to Larry, at the wheel, to his amusement. To him she related all the story of Ramon as far as she knew it. “How glad he will be to know about his mother and sister,” said she, “and that they are safe! And it will be wonderful for them. I believe I’ll send a telegram in the morning—or would you?”

“I’ll send one if you like, Betty—for you. But perhaps we’d better find out what Ramon wants first. He might like to be the one to open communication.”

“Yes. You are right, Larry.”

“Stay right by me, Betty Lee,” said Larry at this juncture, for Betty, drawn by his beckoning hand had joined him. “Don’t you want to learn how to steer a boat, much as you like the sea?”

“Yes, I do. Will you show me, Larry? You like the water, too, don’t you? I didn’t know it till this summer.”

“I’m very fond of any kind of water and most of all the sea, though I’m no goldfish,” and Larry laughed, looking at the waving golden locks now blown by the ocean breeze.

“How did you ever hear that!” cried Betty. “I wish the girls wouldn’t tell everything!”

“Don’t worry. I’ll not think of you as a goldfish, though that’s funny, Betty. But I think of you as Titania—on All Hallowe’en, you know.” Larry looked at Betty meaningly, and Betty smiled, but dropped her eyes before Larry’s. Fortunately Gwen and Carolyn came up just then to comment on Betty’s having the wheel. “Don’t upset us, Betty,” said Gwen.

“I won’t; Larry is watching me, and it’s only for a minute.”

The boys took Ramon to their own shack, while the villain was lodged in the village jail, after Ramon had been consulted in regard to the charges to be brought against him. There were plenty, Ramon said, theft, practical kidnapping and the cruel treatment that might have resulted in death. But Ramon was too exhausted to talk much. The man gave his name as Peter Melinoff, very different from that he had given Betty’s father, and the boys said it was a joke, for he was “no more Russian than a rabbit.” “It’s just one of his aliases,” suggested Archie Penrose.

But the great disappointment to all, and a tragic one to Ramon, apparently was that on the third night from the one on which the two had been brought to the village, the man who had done so much to injure Ramon broke jail and fled. It was very likely that he had gotten word in some way to his friends, Ramon said. And worst of all, Ramon would not allow word to be sent as yet to his mother and sister. He had told them to wait at first. Then, after the jailbird had flown, he said that he would not send word at all.

“The reason is this,” said Ramon. “He has finally gotten hold of even the jewels that I have kept so long, for my mother and sister if I ever found them. He was trying to get me to sign a paper finally putting it out of our power to get the property that he has and that is ours. I must follow him, and it is none too safe, as recent events indicate. I will not permit him to rob us; and now I have some grounds on which to hold him.”

“But please don’t do it all by yourself,” said Betty, who was having this final conversation with Ramon.

“Betty, if I get what belongs to us, it is all right. If I do not, how could I pay for a detective? I will do this, though. If I succeed in getting the jewels again, I will see that they get to your father for my mother. Now that I have all of you back of me I will not be afraid of being arrested for having ‘stolen jewels,’ as that fellow always threatened. Then, if the jewels come, there will be a letter for my mother and Ramona Rose. But it would be cruel to stir them up about me now. Don’t you see?”

Betty did see. The story was not complete yet, but Ramon had told them all about how he had had an offer of a good salary in Canada by people who proved to be carriers of liquor into the United States, merely Detroit rum-runners after all. There were some “big people” in it, Ramon said, and he was having difficulty in getting safely out of the toils when this man appeared, having relations with the ring of rum-runners, and took charge of Ramon. That was how in one of the trucks he had been brought to the coast where he had at first thought that escape might be easy. He had made no objection to the proposed trip for that reason and was inveigled into the boat, where he found “Peter Melinoff” and had to endure his unholy joy and a species of torture while the man made the effort to have Ramon sign the paper. He had held out until the storm, which for a time ended his troubles, though, he was still tied and expected to go down in the sea. But at the end of the storm they were cast on the island and the man who was with “Peter” either fell overboard and was drowned or was assisted to that fate by Peter. There seemed nothing too desperate for him to do.

“Well, Ramon, remember,” said Betty at the last of their interview, “that any mother and sister I know would rather have you safe than any amount of property or jewels or anything.”

“Yes,” thoughtfully said Ramon. “My mother and sister are like that. But I am no weakling and I know more than when I was brought to this country. I’ll promise you just one thing, for their sakes—not to take such risks again. I have a little money sewed in my clothing. They did not find that. In fact, for some time I have been in the habit of always having something hidden for an emergency. If you knew, Betty—well, if I never get back you may tell my mother and sister that I constantly thought of them. In six months I expect to see you all.”

There was only one consolation to the girls who had taken such an interest: the authorities would now get after the ring. Ramon would not be alone in his search, after all; but the day after the man called Peter Melinoff had broken out of jail, Ramon was gone.

CHAPTER VI
VACATION’S LAST FLING

“Gid-ap!” cried Betty, waving a willow switch, but not touching her old horse with it. Four or five girls were urging their gentle steeds along the pretty country road near the camp to which Betty Lee and Kathryn had come for their last fling before school.

“This is like old days at the farm,” remarked Betty, rather jerkily, as her horse picked up his pace and stride and jolted her. One of the girls that Betty had recently met at camp passed now with a clatter of horse’s hoofs and a flapping of girl elbows.

“She can’t ride any better than we can,” cried Kathryn, grinning. “It’s us for riding lessons this fall, isn’t it Betty?”

Betty only nodded. This was great fun, riding up hill and down dale in the country-side near the camp to which Betty had duly come, although all that they had planned had not been carried out. Mr. Lee had not brought Mrs. Lee and Amy Lou to New England, since business in New York held him there. But the Penroses, driving up to the Maine village to investigate all its delights, of which they were hearing in letters from Gwen and cards from their sons, left at the psychological moment, Gwen said, to take Kathryn and Betty with them.

It was a little hard to leave Carolyn behind. She had given up all idea of camp and Betty really did not see how any one could leave the ocean unless she had to. But the restless boys had been making ready to leave on some other trip, by boat, if Larry Waite had his way. There would be some scattering.

Betty and Kathryn were taken by car to Boston, where they embarked for New York, going on a “delirious” jaunt by a coast steamer to New York. There they joined the Lees, Amy Lou doing the honors of the city with great dignity and telling the girls where to see different things of importance. Betty would not spoil Amy Lou’s enthusiasm by reminding her that she had been there before. That was one pleasant custom in the Lee family, to give each member a fair chance with enthusiasms or accomplishments. To take the wind out of anybody’s sails—well, that was too deadly!

But Betty and Kathryn had a gay time for a a week. They ate lobster in one delightful place and had French dainties in another. And both agreed that no summer which they ever should have could come up to this one. Here they were now in this wonderful camp; and Betty declared that having seen her father and mother and Amy Lou had been quite enough to stave off any homesickness. She never would want to go home now. Imagine! School!

This was more like school in numbers, this Indiana camp of Girl Reserves. The group in the Maine village had been more or less an exclusive, or small one. Here were about sixty girls, only a few of whom Betty knew, though there were some from other high schools in her home city. And were they friendly—and noisy, at certain times? So Betty queried in her home letter written the day after arrival. But it was only the camp freedom, supervised, to be sure, that found expression here as in all camps.

Betty and Kathryn, rather expecting this to be something of an anti-climax after Maine, were pleasantly disappointed. Why, it was “gorgeous!” And it may be that the extravagant expressions of youth were justified. It was “like being away to school—and without lessons!” Betty’s only other camp experience had been a week-end attendance upon a Fall Retreat. That she had “loved” and it had made her happy in her interest in Lyon “T,” but it did not last long enough. By arrangement she was here for three weeks and would see some changes in the personnel of the girls. Many of them came for only a week; some, for two weeks.

The camp had been a gift to the Y. W. C. A., and consisted of the buildings and grounds of a country resort, close to a tiny country town. The main building, originally a country hotel or club house, was a three-story structure and had been adapted to its present use, very much like a girls’ dormitory. Wide porches, a large room with a fireplace for the open fires they sometimes had in cool evenings, an immense dining room, a big “back porch” which was practically a large room and now glassed in and screened, to be thrown open often—all these were prominent features.

There were several small cottages and because the next group of Girl Reserves was a large one, Kathryn and Betty had been placed in one of these, as they were to stay over into the next period. The girls were at first a trifle disappointed, but when they found that a phoebe was nesting on the ledge above their very door, undisturbed with their passing in and out, they were quite delighted.