Harry’s Island

[“Chub, who had been sent to the larder, interrupted them”]

Harry’s Island

By

Ralph Henry Barbour

Author of “The Crimson Sweater,” “For the Honor of the School,”
“The Half-Back,” “Tom, Dick, and Harriet,” etc.

With Illustrations

By C. M. Relyea

New York
The Century Co.
1908

Copyright, 1907, 1908, by
The Century Co.

Published September, 1908

THE DE VINNE PRESS

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

HARRY’S ISLAND

[CHAPTER I]
ON HOOD’S HILL

[Three boys lay at their ease in the shade of the white birches] which crown the top of Hood’s Hill, that modest elevation on Fox Island at the upper end of Outer Beach which, with the exception of Mount Emery, is the highest point on the island. From this proud vantage, some twelve feet above the surface of the river, the view was unobstructed for two miles up and down the Hudson. At the foot of the little slope, where coarse grass sprouted from the loose sand, Outer Beach began, shelving abruptly to the lapping waves and shimmering with heat waves; for in the neighborhood of Ferry Hill and Coleville, toward the end of the month of June, the sun can be very ardent when it tries; and to-day it was evidently resolved to be as fervent as it could, for, although it still lacked a few minutes of eleven, the heat was intense even out here on the island.

In front of the three boys and across the river, which dazzled the eyes like a great sheet of metal, Coleville glimmered amid its broad-spreading elms and the buildings of Hammond Academy were visible. Back of them, on the opposite shore and a little farther down-stream, a modest boat-house and landing lay at the margin of the river, and from these a path wound upward until it disappeared into the dim green depths of the grove which spread down the side of the hill. Where the trees ended the red, ivy-draped buildings of Ferry Hill School appeared, crowning the summit of the slope. There was School Hall with its tower, the dormitory, angular and uncompromising, the gymnasium, the little brick Cottage, and the white barns. And, looking carefully, one could see, beyond the dormitory, fence-like erections of gleaming new boards marking the excavations for Kearney Hall, the new dormitory building which was to be rushed to completion for the next school year.

It would have been apparent even to a stranger that to-day was a gala day, for along the shores for a quarter of a mile up-stream and down, little groups of people were daring sunstroke, while below the Ferry Hill landing rowboats, canoes, sailing craft, and motor-boats rocked lazily on the sun-smitten surface of the water. Every craft flew either the brown-and-white of Ferry Hill or the vivid cherry-and-black of Hammond. The show boat of the fleet was a gleaming, sixty-foot gasolene yacht, resplendent in white paint and glistening brass, which lay just off the lower end of the island, and which had supplied an interesting subject for conversation to the three boys under the birches.

The yacht was the Idler of New York, and on board were the Welches, whose son, “Sid,” was a student at Ferry Hill, and who had journeyed up the river for to-day’s festivities, and were to remain over for the school graduation. Sid had been in a state of excitement and mental intoxication ever since the yacht had dropped anchor yesterday evening and a flippant little mahogany tender had chugged him away from the landing to a dinner on board. At this moment, had you known Sid by sight, you could readily have discerned him under the striped awning, the proudest person aboard. With him were several of his school-mates, Chase, Cullum, Fernald and Kirby being visible just now. If there was any fly in the ointment of Sid’s contentment it was due to the fact that the three boys sprawled under the trees here on Fox Island were not aboard the Idler instead. He had begged them to come almost with tears in his eyes, but in the end had been forced to content himself with a promise to become his guests in the evening. Sid’s devotion was about equally divided among the trio, with the odds, if there were any, slightly in favor of the big, broad-shouldered, light-haired youth who lies with closed eyes beatifically munching a birch twig, and whose name is Dick Somes.

But there are two light-haired youths present, and lest you get them confused I will explain that the other, the boy who is sprawled face downward, chin in hands, he of the well-developed shoulders and chest and hips, sandy hair and nice blue eyes, is Roy Porter. Roy is Dick’s senior by one year, although that fact would never be suspected.

The third member of the trio is Tom Eaton, but as he is never called Tom save in banter perhaps it would be well to introduce him as Chub. Chub, like Roy, is seventeen years old. He is more heavily built than Roy, has hair that just escapes being red, eyes that nearly match the hair, and an ever-present air and expression of good-humor and self-confidence. Strangely enough, each of the three has captained one or more of the Ferry Hill athletic teams during the school year just closing, and each has won victory. Roy has been captain of the foot-ball eleven and the hockey team as well; Dick has organized a track team and led it to a well-deserved triumph, and Chub, as captain of the base-ball nine, has plucked victory from defeat so recently—to be exact, only yesterday afternoon—that the feat is still the chief topic of conversation about the school. Roy and Chub are first seniors, and will graduate in less than a week. Dick is a second senior and so is due to return again to Ferry Hill in the autumn. Already he is pointed to as the probable leader to succeed Roy.

Chub rolled over and sat up Turk-fashion, yawning loudly.

“What time is it, anyway?” he asked with a suggestion of grievance.

[“Three boys lay at their ease in the shade of the white birches”]

“Four minutes past,” answered Roy, glancing at his watch and then following his chum’s example and sitting up.

“Wonder why it is,” Chub complained, “they can never get a boat-race started on time.”

“Or a hockey game,” added Dick with a chuckle. Roy tossed a twig at him and Dick caught it and transferred it to his mouth.

“Well, I wish they’d hurry,” said Chub. “I’m roasting. Say, wouldn’t you think those folks over there on the bank would die with the heat?”

“It’ll be a wonder if Harry doesn’t die,” said Roy.

“Why?” Dick asked.

“Because she had an examination this morning, and she’s going to try and get through by a quarter of eleven, and then race back here all the way from the Cove in time to see the finish of the race. And that Silver Cove road is just about the hottest place on earth!”

“She’s silly to try to do that,” said Dick anxiously. “You ought to have told her so, Roy.”

“I did. I told her worse than that, but she just laughed at me.”

“You and I are losing our authority now that we’re going to leave so soon,” said Chub, sadly. “Dick’s the only one she will listen to, nowadays.” Dick smiled.

“You fellows ought to know by this time,” he said, “that it isn’t any use trying to dictate to Harry. If you want her to do anything very much you’d much better ask it as a favor.”

“Your wisdom is something uncanny,” replied Chub. “You’d better soak your head or you’ll have a sunstroke or something. You needn’t worry about Harry, though; you can’t hurt her.”

The others received this in silence. Roy looked up the river toward the starting-point of the race almost two miles distant. But the glare made it impossible to discern even the little gathering of boats, and he turned away blinking.

“Just think,” said Chub presently, “in another week we three fellows will be scattered to the four winds of heaven.”

“Now whose head needs soaking?” asked Dick. “‘Four winds of heaven!’ My, but you are poetical!”

“I don’t just see how we’re going to manage that,” Roy laughed. “How can three fellows be distributed over four winds?”

“Oh, you run away and play,” answered Chub, good-naturedly. “You know what I mean.”

“It isn’t so bad for you fellows,” said Dick mournfully. “You’ll see each other again at college in the fall; but I’ll be here all alone.”

“All alone, with half a hundred other chaps,” Chub amended smilingly.

“That’s not the same thing,” said Dick. “Just when you go and get kind of chummy with some one, why then something comes along and busts it all up.”

“Vague but beautiful,” murmured Chub. “Why don’t you come to college too, Dick?”

“Me? Thunder, I’d never pass the exams!”

“Oh, I don’t know. They’re not so fierce; Roy expects to get by.”

“I’m not so sure that I do expect it,” answered Roy, seriously. “The nearer the time comes to take them the more scared I get.”

“That’s just your natural modesty,” said Chub. “You’ll get through with flying colors, while I—well, I’ll probably be like the chap whose mother was crowing about him. Some one asked her if her son passed the examinations for college. ‘Oh, yes, indeed,’ she answered, ‘Willie did beautifully. He entered with four conditions, one more than any one else had!’”

“I might be able to get in that way,” laughed Dick. “But, say, you chaps, I wish we weren’t going to split up so soon.”

“So do I,” answered Roy. “I’m real sorry at leaving Ferry Hill. I’ve had some bully times here during the last two years.”

“Well, I’ve only been here six months or so,” said Dick; “but I’ve had the time of my life. And of course I’ve got you fellows to thank for that, you and Harry together. I wish—I wish I was going to see you this summer for a while.”

“Well, why not?” asked Chub, eagerly.

“Dad wants me to go over to London and stay with him,” answered Dick. “I hate London. Folks are so stupid there, and can’t talk decent English. Last time I was there I couldn’t make anybody understand what I wanted.”

“Well, you’ve dropped some of your more picturesque expressions since you came up here,” laughed Roy. “Maybe this time you can make yourself understood.”

“What I’d like to do,” Dick continued, “is to stay right here and—”

“Where?” asked Chub, innocently. “On Fox Island?”

“Well, somewhere around these diggings,” answered Dick.

“A chap might do worse than spend a time on this old island,” said Roy, as he leaned back against the trunk of a birch-tree and smiled contentedly. “It’s a dandy camping place.”

“That’s it!” cried Dick.

“What’s it, you old chump?” asked Chub.

“Let’s do that! Let’s camp out here this summer! I’ll beg off from going across, and we’ll have a swell time. What do you say?”

Chub grinned.

“Say, are you in earnest?” he asked.

“Dead earnest!”

“Well, then, let me recommend the water cure again. If you’ll just hold your overheated brow under the surface for a minute—”

“Look here, though, you fellows,” said Roy, suddenly, “why couldn’t we do it? Not for all summer, of course, but, say, for a month or six weeks. Where are you going, Chub?”

“Me? Same old place, I suppose: Delaware Water Gap. Gee! If the folks would only let me, I’d do it as quick as a flash.”

“Well, write and ask them,” said Roy. “I’ll do it if you fellows will.”

“Do you mean it?” cried Dick, eagerly.

Roy nodded, smilingly.

“Then it’s settled!”

“Not for me it isn’t,” objected Chub, ruefully. “You don’t know my dad. If he gets an idea into his head you can’t get it out with a crowbar!”

“Well, you ask him, anyway,” said Roy.

“That’s right,” Dick added with enthusiasm. “And I’ll write across to my dad, to-night. How about you, Roy?”

“Me? Oh, I’ll get permission all right. But, of course, we’ll have to wait until we’ve taken our exams, Dick.”

“That’s so. How long will that be?”

“About ten days from now.”

“Well, that will be all right,” said Dick, cheerfully. “I’ll have everything all fixed up by the time you fellows get back, and—”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort!” exclaimed Chub, emphatically. “Why, that’s half the fun. You’ll just wait for us, Dickums. We’ll borrow one of the school tents and some cooking things—”

“And blankets.”

“And a boat,” added Dick, “and we can fish and—and have a high old time.”

“You bet,” said Chub. “It will beat that old summer hotel all hollow. Me for the simple life!”

“And I tell you what I’ll do,” exclaimed Dick. “I’ll get a little old gasolene launch, and we can make trips up the river—”

“Who’s going to run it?” asked Chub suspiciously.

“I am. It isn’t hard. I can learn in a day or two.”

“Oh, very well, but it’s me for the interior of our island home while you’re learning, Dickums!”

Dick laughed. “That’s all right,” he answered. “You’ll be glad enough to go in it when the time comes.”

“Well, maybe,” Chub agreed. “If it isn’t much worse than the ice-boat I guess I can live through it. How fast—”

“There’s the gun!” cried Roy as a distant boom floated down to them.

“That’s right,” said Dick. “We’d better pile into the canoe and find a place at the finish. Come on!”

[CHAPTER II]
THE RACE WITH HAMMOND

They scrambled to their feet, slid down the little slope, and crossed the shelving beach to where Chub’s canoe, its crimson sides and gold monogram on the bow a torment to the eyes in such sunlight, was nosing the sand. Chub and Roy took the paddles, while Dick, who had never been able to master the art of canoeing, settled himself in the middle of the craft, his knees level with his chin, and looked like an alert toad. The stern paddle grated through the white sand as the canoe was shoved off, and then after a stroke or two that sent the bow toward the stream, the craft slid gently down the river. They kept to the shaded shallows near the shore of the island until Victory Cove was passed, and then headed out into the sunlight glare and drifted down toward where the flotilla lay about the finish line. It was no difficult matter to find a good berth since the canoe was slender enough to worm its way in between the anchored boats. On the edge of the path left for the crews they found a sail-boat lying a few yards above the finish, and up to this they paddled until they could lay hold of it.

“We’re under the enemy’s flag here,” observed Dick pointing to the cherry-and-black banner flying from the mast.

“We’ll fix that,” Roy answered. “Where’s the flag?”

Dick happened to be sitting on it and the cautious way in which he disentangled it from his feet made the others laugh. Chub fastened it to the bow and received a salvo of applause from the occupants of a near-by punt. The punt was only some ten feet long, but it held eight Ferry Hill boys by actual count. Mr. Buckman, one of the instructors, hailed them from the bow of the judges’ boat, a few yards distant, and warned them that they were on the course, but they pretended not to hear him.

“Just as though a couple of feet were going to make any difference!” growled Chub, disgustedly. “Buckman is stuck on himself to-day.”

“A nice judge he will make,” laughed Dick under his breath. “He will be so excited that he won’t have the least idea which boat crosses the line first!”

“I wonder which will,” murmured Roy.

“Ours will,” replied Chub, stoutly. “I’ll bet you we’ve got ’em beaten already.”

“I hope so,” Roy answered, “but—”

“Whitcomb told me yesterday that he expected to win,” said Dick, “and I guess he wouldn’t say that unless he was pretty certain.”

“Well, if we win the boat-race it’ll make a clean sweep for the year,” said Roy: “foot-ball, hockey, track, base-ball, and rowing. We’ve never done that before, and I’m afraid it’s too much to hope for. You can bet that Hammond will do all she knows how to win one event out of the five.”

“Yes, but we’ve got the crew,” Chub replied, untroubled. “Hammond will have to take it out in trying. You’ll see. They ought to be here pretty quick. Can you see anything, Roy?”

“N-no; at least, I don’t think so. Yes, I can, though. There they are, but the sun’s so strong—”

“Hammond’s in the lead!” cried a voice from the sail-boat, where, clustered at the bow, a group of Hammond supporters were looking intently up the river. The one who had spoken, a youth in white flannels who held a pair of field-glasses to his eyes, was visibly excited.

“Pshaw!” muttered Dick, disgustedly.

“Don’t you believe it,” said Chub. “He can’t tell at this distance.”

“He’s got glasses,” said Roy.

“I don’t care if he’s got a twelve-inch telescope! He doesn’t know which side Hammond has got, and it isn’t likely he can tell red oars from brown at this distance. You wait until they get under the cliff up there, out of the sunlight, and then you can see for yourself.”

By this time the excitement was beginning to tell on the spectators along the shore and at the finish. Cheers for Ferry Hill and for Hammond floated across the water, and flags began to wave. Then, a mile up the stream, the two four-oared crews suddenly shot their slender craft into the shadowed water and so became plainly visible to hundreds of anxious eyes. The boat having the inner course was leading by fully a length, it seemed, but whether that fortunate boat was Hammond’s or Ferry Hill’s it was still impossible to tell since the courses had been drawn just before the start and the result was not known down here at the finish. Behind the two crews came the referee’s launch, a white speck on the water.

Now it was possible to see the rise and fall of the oars, and—a groan of disappointment arose from the Ferry Hill supporters. The leading boat was Hammond’s; the tips of the oars showed brilliantly red as they were lifted dripping from the water. Cheers for Hammond broke forth anew, and the cherry-and-black flags waved bravely in the hot sunlight.

“Pshaw!” muttered Dick again. But Chub was still undismayed.

“That’s all right,” he cried, excitedly. “You wait until they reach the three quarters and then see what will happen. Ed’s letting them wear themselves out. He will catch them before the finish, all right.”

But the three quarters flag was swept astern and still the Hammond crew held the lead; and, moreover, it was plain to all that Ferry Hill’s four was rowing raggedly: Warren at three was splashing badly, and there was a perceptible let-up to the boat between strokes. Even Chub looked worried.

“What’s the matter with Billy Warren?” he muttered. “Must think he’s a blooming geyser! Oh, thunder, Hammond’s just walking away from us! Doesn’t Ed see it? Why doesn’t he hit it up?”

“Because he can’t,” answered Roy quietly. “Our fellows are rowed out; that’s what’s the matter.”

“That’s right,” said Dick, sorrowfully; “we’re beaten good and hard. Well—”

Such of the launches as had whistles began to make themselves heard, and the cheering, triumphant on one side and defiant on the other, was continuous. The rival crews were scarce a quarter of a mile distant now, coming straight down the middle of the narrow course, with Hammond leading by a full two lengths. In the sterns the coxswains bobbed back and forth as the eight oars dipped into the water and came out dripping yards astern, seemed to hang motionless for an instant, and then dropped again under the sunflecked surface. Suddenly there was a low cry from Roy.

“They’ve hit it up!” shouted Chub. “They’re gaining! Come on, Ferry Hill! You can do it! Row, you beggars, row!”

The rear shell was cutting down the stretch of clear water that had separated the two boats, her four oarsmen working despairingly as the finish line drew nearer and nearer. In and out went the long oars, back and forward bent the white-shirted bodies, and the narrow craft responded. In the stern little Perry, the tiller lines clutched desperately in his hands, cried encouragement, entreaty, threats. The bow of the Ferry Hill shell lapped the stern of the Hammond boat by a scant foot. But the effort was costing the crew dearly. Warren was swaying limply above his oar as the battling craft swept into the lane of boats, and in the bow Walker was clipping each stroke woefully. For a moment the two boats clung together, Hammond’s rudder hidden by Ferry Hill’s bow. Then, while whistles shrilled and hoarse voices shouted, a glimmer of open water showed between shell and shell, just a few scant inches, there was a puff of gray smoke over the bow of the judges’ boat and a sharp report and the race was over. For an instant more the brown-tipped oars sank and rose in the wake of the rival shell, and then—

“Let her run!” piped Perry, weakly.

And with the last stroke Warren toppled in his seat.

Chub gave vent to a deep sigh, a sigh that expressed at once disappointment and relief.

“Well, I’m glad it’s over,” he said. “It was a hard race to lose, though, fellows.” Roy nodded, and Dick said:

“I guess Hammond found it a hard race to win. Look at them.”

The Hammond shell was floating broadside to the current a few rods down the stream, and in it only the coxswain and Number Two were taking any interest in affairs. The other occupants were frankly fighting for breath and strength as they leaned forward over their oars. In the Ferry Hill boat Warren and Whitcomb were the worse sufferers, although Walker’s white, drawn face showed that he, too, had felt the pace. He and Fernald were paddling the shell toward the referee’s launch, which was churning the water at a little distance. Perry called out something to Mr. Cobb, a Ferry Hill instructor, who was on the launch, and a slight commotion ensued. Then the shell drew alongside, was seized and held and Warren’s inert form was lifted to the deck.

“By Jove!” cried Roy. “Warren’s done up, fellows!”

The engine-room bell tinkled, and the launch moved cautiously toward the Ferry Hill landing, drawing the shell with it. There was a weak cheer for Ferry Hill from the Hammond crew, and the four remaining occupants of the rival shell returned the compliment. And then, with much good-natured raillery, the flotilla broke up, the Hammond boats sending back cheers as they made for the farther shore. The crimson canoe shot across to the landing and the three disembarked.

“You fellows lift her out, will you?” asked Chub. “I want to see how Warren is.”

He pushed his way through the crowd about the launch until he found himself looking into the white, troubled face of the crew captain.

“Ed, it was a good race,” he said cheerfully and earnestly as he seized Whitcomb’s hand. “We’re proud of you. Did anything go wrong?”

“Billy,” answered the other wearily. “He had a touch of sun at the half mile and had to stop rowing. We had three lengths on them before that.” Chub whistled.

“Say, that was tough luck!” he exclaimed. “What did you do?”

“Soaked Billy with water and pulled three oars for about a quarter of a mile. Then he came around and helped out some, but he wasn’t good for much, poor duffer. He’s down and out now, and Cobb says he’ll have to go to bed. They’ve sent for the doctor.”

“Is he dangerous?”

“No, I guess not. Just a touch of sunstroke. It was frightfully hot up there at the start, and Hammond kept us waiting there in the broiling sun about twenty minutes: something was wrong with one of her slides. Well, I’m going up. I’m pretty well played out. Coming?”

“In a minute. I’ll see you in the dormitory. I’m sorry, Ed.”

Whitcomb nodded and joined the throng which was filing up the path. Chub returned to Roy and Dick with his news. When the canoe was on its rack in the boat-house, the three followed the others up the winding path under the close-hanging branches of the beeches and oaks, through the gate in the hedge which marked the school’s inner bounds and around the corner of Burgess Hall.

“What time is it?” asked Chub as they paused with one consent on the dormitory steps.

“Eighteen minutes of twelve,” answered Dick, glancing at a very handsome gold watch. “Gee, but I’m warm! And hungry!”

“Echo,” said Chub, fanning his flushed face with his cap. “Let’s sit down here and cool off. What shall we do this afternoon?”

“I was thinking of taking my books somewhere where it’s cool and doing a line or two of study,” answered Roy. “Better come along, Chub.”

“What, study on a day like this? In all this heat? And have a sunstroke like Billy Warren? Roy, I’m surprised at you, I really am!”

“That’s all right; but just remember that we’ve got exams in physics and chemistry on Monday. What do you know about that?”

“I don’t know nothing about nothing,” answered Chub, cheerfully; “and I’m proud of it. But I tell you what we’ll do, fellows: we’ll go fishing.”

“Oh, fishing!” scoffed Roy. “The last time we went, we didn’t get a thing but a ducking.”

“Then let’s go ducking, and maybe we’ll get a fish,” laughed Chub. “Come along, Dick?” Dick shook his head soberly.

“I’d better not,” he said. “I’m no star like you chaps, and I can’t learn a thing in five minutes. I’ve got a terror of an exam coming; English, you know. It’ll take me from now until Monday morning to get ready for it, and even then I bet I’ll flunk.”

“Well, what do you care?” laughed Chub. “You’re not graduating.”

“Thank goodness!” said Dick, so devoutly, that the others went into peals of laughter.

“What you want to do,” said Dick, when they had sobered down, “is to get those letters written to your dads so they’ll go to the Cove in time for to-night’s mail. If you don’t they won’t get off until Monday.”

“That’s so,” Chub agreed. “But, say, fellows, there isn’t any use in my asking; the folks won’t let me stay up here. Dad will tell me I’m crazy.”

“Don’t you care,” answered Roy. “The truth won’t hurt you.”

“There’s no harm in asking,” urged Dick.

“All right, I’ll do it now. Come on in and help me.”

“Wait a minute,” said Roy. “Isn’t that Harry coming around the gym?”

“Yes,” answered Dick. “And she missed the race. Let’s walk over and meet her.”

They ran down the steps and followed the curving graveled path which led toward the gymnasium. Approaching them was a girl of fifteen years, a rather slender young lady with a face which, in spite of its irregular features, was undeniably attractive. The tilt of the short nose lent an air of saucy good-humor, the bright blue eyes were frank and pleasing, and the very red hair suggested a temper. And she had a temper, too, did Miss Harriet Emery, a temper which, to quote Roy, was as sharp as her eyes and as short as her nose. That same nose wasn’t by any means free from freckles, wherein it resembled the rest of the face; but already the sun had found its way under the brim of the plain sailor hat, and a healthy coat of tan was hiding the freckles.

[“‘Did we win the race?’”]

Harry—for she hated to be called Harriet—was the daughter of the principal, Doctor Emery. As she was an only child she had been perhaps a little bit spoiled; or, at least, that is what her Aunt Harriet Beverly often intimated; and as she had been born and brought up in a boys’ school she was not unnaturally somewhat of a tomboy, to the extent of being fonder of boys’ games than girls’, and of being no mean hand with oar or paddle, bat or racket. But still she was very much of a girl at heart, was Harry, although she wouldn’t have thanked you for saying so.

At the present moment, in spite of the cool white waist and skirt which she wore, she looked far from comfortable. Her low tan shoes were covered with the dust—for Silver Cove was a full mile distant, and there had been no rain for over a fortnight—her face was very red and her hair, usually decently well-behaved, had lost most of its waviness, and was straggling around her flushed face and around her neck in straight, damp strands. She had been hurrying as she had crossed the athletic field, and had turned the corner of the gymnasium, but at sight of the three boys coming to meet her her pace slackened and an expression of disappointment came into her face.

“Oh, I’m too late!” she cried. [“Did we win the race?”]

“No,” answered Roy. “Billy Warren had a sunstroke after he’d rowed half a mile, and Hammond won by just a length.”

Harry sank on to a seat under a tree, her face eloquent of sorrow, while the three boys told her the particulars. Finally her face cleared.

“I ran almost half the way,” she said, “and I was never so hot in my life. But,” she added, philosophically, “I’m glad now I was too late. I’m glad I didn’t see Hammond win!”

[CHAPTER III]
GRADUATION AND GOOD NEWS

By Monday afternoon Dick’s fears regarding the result of the English examination proved groundless, perhaps because he had heroically resisted Chub’s invitation to go fishing Saturday afternoon and had spent most of that period with his head close above his books and his lips moving continuously. There was only one more day of work, and Dick was heartily glad of it. He didn’t like studying, and frankly said so. His mother had died when he was fourteen, and his schooling, decidedly intermittent at best, ceased abruptly while he and his father dwelt in hotels at home and abroad as the latter’s business demanded. Dick’s recent years had been spent in the West, and when, in January last, his father had suggested another trip abroad, Dick had rebelled, professing a preference for school. That he now owed allegiance to Ferry Hill rather than to Hammond was due to a chance meeting on the ice with Harry, who had so cleverly proclaimed the merits of Ferry Hill that Dick, already domiciled at the rival academy awaiting the beginning of the new term, had coolly repacked his trunk and transferred it and himself across the river. For awhile the others had called him “the Brand from the Burning,” but the name was much too long for everyday use, and now he was just Dick—save when Chub or Roy elaborated and called him Dickums—one of the most popular fellows at Ferry Hill School, and the most promising candidate in sight for the school leadership in the autumn.

At three o’clock on Tuesday the last examination was over, and at a few minutes past that hour Dick, Roy, Chub, and Harry, the three former in a blissful state of relief, feeling as boys do feel when the last book has been flung aside for the summer, sat in the shade of the Cottage porch.

“If Cobb gives me a C in German,” said Chub hopefully, “I’m all right.”

“Well, I guess I got through,” said Dick proudly, “but it was hard work.”

“Shucks!” scoffed Chub. “Just you wait until next year!”

“Now don’t scare him to death,” Roy protested. “If you don’t look out he won’t show up in the fall at all. How are you getting on, Harry?”

“Me? Oh, I’m all right, I guess. My last exam’s to-morrow; botany. Now you needn’t laugh,” she added indignantly. “Botany’s awfully hard.”

“What’s the sense of it?” asked Chub. “What good is it going to do you to know whether a leaf’s lanceolate or—or composite?”

“Don’t display your ignorance, Chub,” laughed Roy.

“What good are lots of things they teach us?” Harry demanded. “Like—like music and drawing?”

“Come now, Harry, music’s all right,” Roy protested. “As for drawing—”

“It’s perfect nonsense! Why, I couldn’t draw one of those wooden cubes and make it look square if I was to try a whole year!”

“But you ought to like music, Harry,” said Chub. “You know you have a charming voice, a natural—er—contralto, isn’t it?”

Harry made a face at him.

“I can sing just as well as you can, Smarty, anyhow!”

“I hope so,” said Dick. “Chub sings like a coyote in distress!”

“There speaks envy,” murmured Chub sadly. “I have a very melodious voice, and the beauty of it is that I can sing bass or tenor or—what’s the other thing I sing, Roy?”

“Discord,” answered his chum unkindly.

“That is not so,” responded Chub indignantly. “To show you what a fine voice I have I will now sing for you that charming little ditty entitled—”

“Not much you won’t!” declared Dick threateningly. “If you try to sing we’ll thrash you. Look here, how about that letter? Have you heard from your folks yet?”

“No, do you think I correspond by wireless?” answered Chub. “I can’t possibly hear before Thursday morning. It doesn’t matter, anyhow, I keep telling you. Dad won’t hear of such a thing.”

“How would it do if we all wrote to him?” asked Dick, anxiously. Chub smiled grimly.

“You’d better not if you don’t want to get a scorcher of a letter in reply. My dad’s a good sort, all right, but he doesn’t let any one else run his business for him. I have inherited that quality of—er—firmness.” Roy and Dick howled impolitely.

“What are you all talking about?” asked Harry anxiously. “You’ve gone and got a secret, and I don’t think it’s very nice of you!”

“Why, it isn’t really a secret,” answered Roy, hurriedly. “If there hadn’t been so much going on we’d have told you about it. We three are trying to get our folks to let us camp out for a month or so on Fox Island after school closes; that is, if your father will let us, and I guess he will.”

“Then you won’t go home yet?” cried Harry, delightedly.

“Not if we get permission. It all depends on Chub—”

“On Chub’s father you mean,” growled that youth.

“Because I’m pretty sure of my folks,” continued Roy; “and Dick says his father won’t mind if he stays a month longer.”

“That will be fine,” said Harry; but a moment later her face fell prodigiously. “Only it won’t do me any good,” she added, sorrowfully, “because I’ll be visiting Aunt Harriet most of the time.”

“That’s too bad,” said Roy. “Can’t you fix it to go later?”

Harry shook her head. “No, she goes to the seashore in August, you see. I think it’s just too mean for anything; and I know you will just have lovely times. I—I hope papa won’t let you do it!”

“Well!” ejaculated Chub. “Of all dogs in the manger that I ever met, Harry, you take the prize!”

“Well, I just do,” muttered Harry, rebelliously; “and I’m going to tell him not to!”

Chub and Dick viewed her anxiously, but Roy only smiled.

“We’re not afraid of that, Harry,” he said.

She looked at him a moment frowningly, then sighed and smiled as she said plaintively:

“Well, I don’t care, Roy Porter, I think it’s awfully mean! Maybe I won’t ever see you and Chub again, and just when I might be with you I have to go away. And I don’t have any fun at Aunt Harriet’s, anyway; it’s too stupid for anything!”

“Well, I wouldn’t worry yet,” said Roy, “because, maybe it will all fall through. You heard what Chub said about getting permission, and, of course, if he can’t stay we won’t; it wouldn’t be any fun for just two fellows.”

“I guess you could find some one else,” said Chub.

“I guess we’re not going to try,” said Dick.

“Of course not,” Roy agreed. “If you can’t make it we’ll call it off; but we will hope for the best, eh?”

“It won’t do you any good,” muttered Chub. “It’s me for that old Water Gap place.”

“And me for Aunt Harriet Beverly’s,” sighed Harry. And then, struck by a radiant idea, she added breathlessly: “Maybe I could run away and come back here and live with you on the island!”

The boys laughed.

“When do you have to go to Aunty’s?” asked Chub.

“I don’t know exactly,” Harry replied. “She hasn’t said anything about it yet, but usually I go the first of July and stay two or three weeks; once I had to stay a month—papa and mama went to the mountains.”

“Well, we couldn’t go into camp until about the first,” said Chub; “and then, if you only stayed two weeks with Aunty, you could be here a whole fortnight before we left.”

Harry brightened perceptibly. “That’s so,” she cried. “I’ll ask mama if I’ll have to stay more than two weeks. Wouldn’t that be lovely? We could have the dandiest times, couldn’t we?”

“I don’t believe your mother would let you stay on the island at night, though,” said Roy.

“Well, but I could go over real early in the morning and have breakfast with you, and stay all day. I could do the cooking for you! I can cook real well. I can make doughnuts and vanilla cookies and cheese-straws and—”

“Can you fry eggs?” asked Chub anxiously.

“Of course, stupid! Any one can do that!”

“All right, Harry, consider yourself engaged. There’s nothing like a few eggs to begin a hard day’s work on.”

“I want mine scrambled,” said Dick. “Can you do that, Harry?”

“Yes; you just put some milk with the eggs and stir them all up nice and messy with a silver knife,” replied Harry.

“You’ll have to bring your own knife,” laughed Roy. “We’ll use tin ones, I guess. As for me, though, I have to have my eggs in an omelet, Harry. How are you at omelets?”

Harry looked troubled, failing to see the smile which quivered around the corners of Roy’s mouth.

“I—I’m afraid I can’t make an omelet, Roy,” she said dejectedly. “You see, they always get burned on the bottom; and then I never can flop them over. You know they have to be flopped over?” Roy nodded sympathetically.

“I always flop them before I cook them,” said Chub sententiously.

“How can you?” asked Harry, indignantly. “I never heard of anything so—so—”

“Why, you—er—you seize the egg between the thumb and first finger,” answered Chub, frowning intensely as though striving to recollect the process. “Then you slowly exert sufficient pressure to choke it to death. When nicely choked—”

Just here Dick pushed him off the steps.

“Isn’t he the silliest thing?” asked Harry. And then, returning to the subject of omelets: “But I could get mama to show me how, Roy.”

“What I want to know is,” said Chub as he crawled back up the steps, “is where all the eggs are coming from. I can eat three myself when I’m in camp, and you know what an appetite Dickums has!”

“We’ll hire a hen,” suggested Roy.

“We have lots of eggs,” said Harry. “I’ll bring some over every morning.”

“And a few doughnuts,” begged Chub. “That’s the ideal breakfast: three or four fried eggs, and half a dozen doughnuts, and a cup of coffee. Um-m! Gee, fellows, I wish my dad would say yes!”

“Maybe he will. Let’s throw our thought on him,” said Roy.

“You’d better not let him catch you at it,” said Chub with a grin. “Say, there goes Billy Warren. Let’s call him over and get him to show us his sunstroke.”

“Thomas Eaton, you’re too foolish for anything, to-day!” declared Harry, severely. “And it’s mean of you to make fun of Billy. He feels terribly bad about losing the race.”

“I’m not making fun of him,” denied Chub, indignantly. “The idea! Only if I had a sunstroke I’d be proud to show it around! I’d be pleased purple if fellows would ask me—”

“I’ll bet a dollar that’s what’s the matter with you,” laughed Dick. “It’s affected your brain.”

“Pretty smart sun if it found Chub’s brain,” added Roy.

“Enjoy yourselves,” said Chub, cheerfully. “Get into the game, Harry; find your little hammer! Here, there’s a monotony about this conversation that wearies me. I’m going out in the canoe. Anybody want to come along?”

“Me!” cried Harry, jumping up.

“You’d better not,” counseled Roy. “He will make you do all the work, Harry.”

“Pay no attention to him,” said Chub to Harry, confidentially. “I hate to say it about a friend, Harry, but he’s never been the same since he made that two-bagger the other day. It’s affected his brain. Let us leave them to their own foolish devices.”

He and Harry went off together along the path toward the Grove, and Roy and Dick watched them in smiling silence until they had disappeared through the hedge gate. Then,

“I wonder if his father will turn him down,” said Dick.

“I’m afraid so,” answered Roy as he arose, “but we will know all about it by Thursday. There’s time for a couple of sets of tennis before supper. Want to play? I’ll give you fifteen.”

Dick agreed, and they walked over to the dormitory to get their rackets.

Wednesday and Thursday were given over to the ceremonies of graduation. Wednesday was Class-Day, and Thursday Graduate’s Day. The school had taken on festal attire. John the gardener and general factotum had been busy for a week past raking the walks, clipping the hedges and trimming the borders until when the first influx of guests began on Wednesday morning the grounds were looking their best. The gymnasium was draped inside with flags and bunting and decorated outside with Japanese lanterns. School Hall became suddenly a bower of palms and other things in pots or tubs which looked like palms but were really something quite different with far more unpronounceable names. On Wednesday morning there was the Tennis Tournament, won by Chase of the Second Middle Class. In the afternoon the corner-stone of the new dormitory was laid with appropriate ceremonies, and there was a spread under the trees. In the evening the Silver Cove Band, much augmented for the occasion, gave a concert in front of the gymnasium.

The graduation exercises took place the next morning in School Hall before a flatteringly attentive and applausive audience. There was an oration by Augustus Prince Pryor on “Opportunity and the Man”; there was an essay by Edgar Whitcomb entitled “The Exploration of the Northwest”; there was a declamation by William Truscott Warren called “Napoleon the Man”; there was a thesis by Howard C. Glidden on “Science and Progress”; there was a narration by Thomas H. Eaton entitled “The Pilgrims,” and an oration on “Destiny” by Roy Porter. Then came the awarding of diplomas to the graduates, in number a round dozen, and the audience dispersed in search of dinner. Both Roy and Chub had graduated with honors, and if, on that one day, they held their heads a little bit higher than usual and looked a little bit more dignified, why, surely, they may be excused. Dick pretended to be much impressed, and always saluted whenever he met them. This went on until just before supper, when Chub’s patience became exhausted and he forgot his dignity and chased Dick twice around School Hall, finally capturing his quarry in a corner and administering punishment. [In the evening there was a grand ball] in the gymnasium to which came many Silver Cove folks and at which Harry, in a pink muslin party dress, danced to her heart’s content. And the next day came the exodus.

But Thursday morning’s mail had brought Chub his letter and the tenor of it had pleased him even more than it had surprised him; and that is saying much; for Mr. Eaton had written that the plan suggested met with his unqualified approval, and intimated broadly that it must have originated with some one other than Chub because of its reasonableness.

“Sounds like a knock,” said Roy as he read the letter.

“Oh, he always has his hammer handy,” laughed Chub. “But I don’t care; he’s given permission, and that’s what I wanted. Say, won’t it be great? Let’s find Dick and tell him.”

So they did, and Dick was overjoyed. Roy had already heard from home, and his mother had agreed, although less enthusiastically than Chub’s father, to his remaining at Ferry Hill for the month of camp life. As for Dick, well, Dick merely took permission for granted, for it would be all of two weeks before a reply could reach him from London. When the letter finally did come it was all that he had wished. In substance it told him to please himself, adding that it was quite within the possibilities that the writer would return home for a short visit about the middle of the summer, in which case it wouldn’t really be worth Dick’s while to cross to England now.

So when, Friday morning, bright and early, Chub and Roy piled into the carriage with their suit cases, Dick said good-by and watched them disappear in the direction of Silver Cove and the railroad station with perfect equanimity; for four or five days at the most would see them both back again. Naturally enough, though, Dick found existence strangely quiet at first. By Friday evening the last boy had departed homeward, and an uncanny stillness held the campus.

At Mrs. Emery’s invitation Dick moved his belongings over to the guest-room at the Cottage, for the dormitories were to be given over on the morrow to the regular summer cleaning, and then subsequently closed until fall. Harry, too, was somewhat depressed, and she and Dick made the most of each other’s society. There were walks and little trips on the river and a good deal of tennis, a game which Dick was rapidly learning. Harry was an excellent player, and by the time Roy and Chub returned Dick, under her tuition, had vastly improved his game.

[“In the evening there was a grand ball”]

Living at the Cottage was very pleasant. Now that school was over with Doctor Emery doffed his immaculate black clothes and appeared in faded negligée shirts and patched knickerbockers. At the table he was quite often the more flippant and irresponsible of the four, and Mrs. Emery frequently remonstrated laughingly, telling him that Dick would report his actions, and that when autumn came he would find his authority departed. Whereupon the Doctor swore Dick to secrecy, and Harry naïvely remarked that she never could see why any one was afraid of her father, anyhow. One day there was a notable event on the tennis-court when Harry played against her father and Dick, and won two sets out of three. When nothing better offered Dick and Harry got into a boat or a canoe and went over to Fox Island and picked out the site for the camp. By the time that Roy and Chub got back they had speculatively pitched that camp on almost every foot of the island.

But the most exciting event that occurred was the receipt of an apologetic letter from Harry’s Aunt Harriet Beverly. It seemed that Aunt Harriet had decided almost at a moment’s notice to go abroad with a party of friends, and they were to sail on the tenth of July. Under the circumstances, she explained, it would be necessary for Harry to postpone her visit until late in the summer. She hoped that the dear child would not be very greatly disappointed. The dear child waved the letter over her head and howled with glee.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” she cried. “Isn’t it perfectly dandy? Now I can go to camp with you. It’s just like things that happen in books. Mama, I may, mayn’t I?”

“Goodness, child!” exclaimed her mother. “You may what? What’s all this noise about?”

“Camp out with Roy and Chub and Dick on the island! I may, mayn’t I? You know you said—”

“Well, I’m surely not going to let you sleep on the island, my dear, if that’s what you mean. You’d catch your death of cold.”

“Not to speak of the likelihood of being devoured alive by bears,” added the Doctor as he joined them on the porch.

“Bears!” scoffed Harry. “I don’t suppose there’s even a rabbit on the island! And, mama dear, folks never catch cold in camps.”

“Well, I think it will do, Harry, if you go over and visit the boys in the daytime. Besides, maybe they had rather be alone, my dear.”

“But they wouldn’t! Would you, Dick?”

“No,” answered Dick promptly. “We’d like Harry to join us if you will let her, Mrs. Emery.”

“And I’m going to cook for them—sometimes!” exclaimed Harry, eagerly, “and you’re going to teach me how to make an omelet, mama, because Roy has to have omelet for his breakfast. And I’m going to mend their clothing for them, too. I—I don’t believe they could do without me.” And Harry gazed anxiously from Dick to her mother. Dick asserted stoutly that it would be simply impossible and Mrs. Emery consented to Harry’s joining the campers by day. After that it was all arranged very quickly by Harry. One of the boys was to row over every morning to the landing, very, very early, and get her, since she was not allowed to go in a boat by herself, and she was to take over doughnuts and cookies, and—and a great many things!

The Doctor had readily consented to the use of one of the school tents and such things as they needed, so when, late one afternoon, Roy and Chub arrived triumphant from the ordeal of preliminary examinations at college, everything was in readiness for the occupation of the island.

[CHAPTER IV]
CAMP TOROHADIK

Fox Island lies on the Ferry Hill side of the river some two hundred yards from shore and about a quarter of a mile above the school landing. It is fairly high, contains very nearly two acres, and is beautifully wooded. It is about one third as wide as it is long, and the shores, the inner shore especially, are full of tiny coves and promontories. There are two excellent beaches of white sand and nice round pebbles. Inner Beach, because of its more gradual slope, being the favorite bathing place. At the up-stream end of the beach a great granite boulder, worn round and smooth by water and weather, juts into the river, and forms an excellent place on which to lie in the sun and dry off without the aid of towels.

Back of the Inner Beach the trees and underbrush begin, climbing the side of Mount Emery, the tiniest heap of rocks and earth ever dignified with the name of mountain, and hurrying down the other side to riot across the island to where Outer Beach stretches from The Grapes to School Point. At the lower end of the island the underbrush has been cleared away and a grove of birches and maples makes a capital camp site. It was here that the boys decided to pitch their tent. They embarked bright and early the morning after the return of Roy and Chub, the tent and accompanying paraphernalia stowed away in a rowboat which was trailed behind Chub’s crimson canoe. Harry was not with them. Fired with enthusiasm, she was up at the Cottage making a batch of doughnuts. Harry and the doughnuts and a cold luncheon were to be brought over to the camp later on.

It was a bright morning with a crisp, cool breeze out of the northeast. The sun was still low over the hill behind them as they paddled slowly up the stream toward the island. The trees along the shore threw green shadows far out on to the bosom of the sparkling river. It was rather hard paddling with that clumsy rowboat tagging along astern, and presently Roy turned to Dick, who, as usual, was enacting the rôle of freight in the middle of the craft.

“Thought you were going to have a gasolene launch,” he said, jeeringly.

“I am. It would be just the thing this morning, wouldn’t it? We could have put all this truck right into it and been at the island in a minute.”

“Huh!” puffed Chub, skeptically.

“I’ve written to a fellow who makes them,” Dick continued, “and he’s got just the thing we want all ready to put the engine in.”

“Get him to leave the engine out,” suggested Chub, “then we won’t have so much trouble with the thing.”

[MAP OF FOX ISLAND]
DRAWN BY ROY PORTER
CARTOGRAPHER-IN-EXTRAORDINARY
JULY, 1906

“It’s a sixteen-footer,” continued Dick unheeding, “and has a two-horse-power motor, and only costs a hundred and sixty dollars.”

“Phew!” breathed Roy. “That’s a whole lot, isn’t it?”

“Not for a launch like that,” protested Dick.

“No,” said Chub, judicially, “not for a launch. It would be a good deal for a piece of pie or a hard-boiled egg, but—”

“Oh, you shut up,” interrupted Dick good-naturedly.

“No sooner said than stung,” murmured Chub, flicking a shower of water with his paddle on to Dick’s back and bringing a howl from that youth.

“Are you going to get it?” asked Roy.

“He did get it,” Chub laughed.

“Yes, I think so. I thought I’d wait and talk it over with you fellows. Maybe we ought to have a larger boat; sixteen feet isn’t very long—”

“It’ll be all we want to row,” said Chub.

“We won’t have to row it,” answered Dick warmly. “It’s a Saxon launch, and they’re as good as any made.”

“How fast will it go?” Chub inquired, interestedly. “I mean when it does go?”

“It’s capable of eight miles an hour.”

“Humph! I’m capable of lots of things I don’t do.”

“Yes, and you try to do lots of things you aren’t capable of,” responded Dick, “and judging motor-boats is one of them.”

“Whereupon,” murmured Chub, “our hero bent manfully at his oar.”

“How long will it take to get it?” pursued Roy.

“About six days the man said,” answered Dick. “If you fellows think it’s all right I’ll send for it to-day.”

“I don’t see why it shouldn’t be all right. Do you, Chub?”

“Well, it’s nice to be able to go fast, you know, and I suppose that a boat with eighteen feet can go faster than one with only sixteen. If you could afford it, Dick, it would be nice to get a centipede boat that could do about a mile a minute.”

“Oh, cut it out,” laughed Roy, “and head her in toward the point, Chub. Funny how much easier she paddles now.”

“We’re out of the current, probably,” answered Chub. “Shall we paddle around the point to the cove or—”

But at that instant Roy set up a howl of laughter, pointing speechlessly down the stream. Dick and Chub turned. Four or five hundred yards away, drifting gaily away from them, was the rowboat containing the tent. Chub looked hurriedly behind him.

“The rope slipped,” he muttered.

“Didn’t you tie it?” asked Dick.

“No, I sat on it. Turn her back, Roy; we’ll have to get the old thing.”

“You’re a nice one,” laughed Roy. “Why didn’t you hold the rope in your teeth?”

“Oh, he’d have to keep his mouth shut,” Dick scoffed, “and you know plaguey well he couldn’t do that.”

“Say, suppose you take a paddle and do some of the work,” suggested Chub, fretfully. “I’d like to know what we’re hauling you around for, anyway, you—you lump of dead weight! Let’s throw him overboard and lighten the ship, Roy.”

“Save your breath for paddling,” Dick advised cheerfully. “It’s a quarter of a mile to the boat and a quarter mile back. Don’t worry about me; I’m very comfortable,” and Dick proceeded to find an easier position, rocking the canoe perilously in the process.

“Sit still, you idiot,” said Chub, “or I’ll duck you again. Do you want to have us in the water?”

“Now, if I had my motor-boat—” Dick commenced.

“Oh, blow you and your old motor-boat,” spluttered Chub. “You’ve got to learn to paddle, that’s what you’ve got to do!”

The runaway boat was soon captured, but it was some time before they had reached the island again, and during the return trip both Chub and Roy saved their breath for their work. They were both pretty well tuckered by the time they had regained the end of Inner Beach. Just when the canoe was floating into shallow water, Dick, who for several minutes past had been smiling inscrutably at Roy’s back, observed casually:

“Of course what we ought to have done—but it’s too late now.”

“What are you mumbling about?” asked Chub crossly.

“Nothing; that is, I was going to say that if you had put me in the rowboat I could have taken the oars and it wouldn’t have been so hard on you fellows.”

Chub paused with paddle suspended and viewed Dick disgustedly. Then,

“Well, why didn’t you think of it before, you lazy loafer?” he demanded.

“Oh, I did think of it,” answered Dick calmly, hunching his shoulders in expectation of a shower of water, “but as I am only a passenger I didn’t think I had any right to make suggestions.”

“Gee!” muttered Chub. But before he could bring his paddle into play Dick had thrown himself out of the canoe into a foot of water and was plunging up the beach out of danger.

“Got your feet good and wet,” taunted Chub.

“I like them that way,” laughed Dick from a safe distance. “If I had that motor-boat I could have saved you fellows—”

“If you mention that fool motor-boat again to-day,” cried Chub wildly, “I’ll—I’ll—”

But the threat was never finished, for a canoe with its bow grounded on the beach and its stern afloat is something you can’t take liberties with. Chub, balancing himself in the stern, forgot this fact for a moment, and when he remembered it he was sitting in the water and Roy and Dick were howling gleefully. Strange to say, this misadventure restored Chub’s good-nature, and, after sitting for a minute up to his waist in the water and laughing at his predicament, he jumped up dripping, and hauled the canoe up the beach. They unloaded the rowboat, depositing tent and poles and supplies on the sand, and then considered the matter of a site for the camp.

They had landed on Inner Beach where School Point curves toward the middle of the river. Above the beach there was a fringe of scrub-pines and a few low bushes, but beyond these all underbrush had been cleared away so that there was a full quarter of an acre of grass-carpeted ground interspersed with well-grown maples and birches. There were plenty of signs of former occupancy; here and there benches had been built between a couple of neighborly trees; some wooden pegs driven into the trunk above one of these benches showed where during the spring camping the towels had been hung. Paths crossed and recrossed the clearing, many of them converging at the beach.

“’Most any place here is all right,” said Chub.

“When we look for a camp site out our way,” observed Dick, “we think first about water.”

“Well, I guess we won’t suffer for that with the river so near,” said Chub dryly.

“I’d forgotten the river!” murmured Dick, looking foolish.

In the end they decided on a spot some ten yards back from the beach at Victory Cove. This, being well out on the point, Roy argued, would be cool and at the same time accessible from both sides. The sun would reach the tent for awhile in the afternoon, but not when it was hot enough to matter. The trees were well thinned out on both sides so that they had a clear view of the river to right and left. It was a good deal like camping out in one’s own back yard, said Roy, for there, just across the inner channel, was the float and the boat-house, and, further up on the hill, the familiar forms of the school buildings. Over their heads the branches of the trees almost met, and, as Chub pointed out, in case of a heavy rainstorm they would have a second roof above them. There were a few pines scattered near by toward the rising ground inland, and their resinous fragrance mingled with the aroma of damp earth and dewy foliage.

They brought the tent and poles up and, under the direction of Dick, who was quite in his element now, soon had them erected. Dick showed them how to drive the pegs in a line with the guy-ropes instead of at an angle, so that the straining of the tent in a wind would not loosen them. The tent was not a new one, as several patches proved, but it was made of good heavy duck and was quite tight. It was a wall tent, twelve by eight feet in size, and there was a shelter curtain which could be raised over the doorway. Chub called it the porch roof. Then they had brought a third piece of canvas which could be stretched over the little sheet-iron stove on rainy days. Dick, who had volunteered to do the cooking, selected a site for the “kitchen,” and, while the others went off for pine branches for the beds, he set up the stove. After the boughs were placed in the tent and the blankets spread over them they scooped out a trench around the outside of the tent to drain off the water in case of a heavy rain. Then the boys separated in search of firewood, Roy looking for dead branches in the “forest” and Chub and Dick going to the upper end of the island. Chub took the canoe and Dick the rowboat, and by the time they had met, after having paddled along opposite shores, each had accumulated a respectable quantity of driftwood. Much of it was too wet to burn, and so when they got back to camp they spread it out in the sun. Roy had meanwhile made several trips into the woods and a good-sized heap of dry branches lay beside the stove.

“Now what?” asked Dick, surveying the scene with satisfaction and wiping the perspiration from his face. Chub looked speculatively at the flagpole which stands at the end of School Point.

“We ought to have a flag,” he said. “Why didn’t we bring along the school flag?”

“Because this isn’t the school camp,” answered Roy. “It’s a private affair. We must have a flag of our own.”

“With the name of the camp on it,” said Dick. “By the way, [what is the name of the camp?]”

“Well, I’ve been thinking of that,” answered Chub, gravely, seating himself on a root which had apparently shaped itself for the purpose, “and I’ve got it all settled. It’s a nice camp, and it ought to have a nice name, a name that stands for—er—respectability and renown. So I suggest that we call it Camp Thomas H. Eaton.”

“What I’ve always admired in you,” said Dick, sarcastically, “is your modesty, Chub.”

“Yes, it is one of my many excellent qualities,” Chub replied sweetly.

“Who’s got a piece of paper?” Roy demanded. No one had, so he pulled a strip of bark from a birch-tree. “I’ve got an idea,” he said. “You fellows wait a minute.” He seated himself cross-legged and began to write on the bark, scowling intently. Chub viewed him apprehensively.

“Do you think it’s over-study?” he asked Dick in a hoarse whisper, “or merely the sun?”

“Crazed by the heat,” responded Dick, sadly.

“Isn’t it a sad case?” continued Chub. “Such a promising youth as he was! He was always promising—and never doing it. And so young, too!”

“Say, dry up a minute, you fellows,” Roy begged.

“He may get over it, though,” observed Dick, thoughtfully. But Chub shook his head.

“I’m afraid not,” he said. “Just look at his eyes; see that baleful glare, Dick? That’s what tells the story, the baleful glare; when you develop the baleful glare you are quite incurable. And see his lips work. He’s muttering to himself. That’s a frightfully bad sign, Dick. Pretty soon he will gibber, and when—”

[“‘What is the name of the camp?’”]

“Dry up, Chub,” commanded Roy. “Now listen. Let’s get a name the way the soap and biscuit people do.”

“A romantic idea,” murmured Chub, politely.

“I mean by using the initials or first two letters.”

“What first two letters?” asked Dick.

“Of our names, of course. You can’t make anything out of the initials, because they’re all consonants, but—”

“We could make believe it was a Russian name,” said Chub helpfully.

“By using the first two letters,” continued Roy, “you get Torodi. How’s that?”

“It’s even worse than we feared!” said Chub to Dick sotto voce.

“Oh, cut it out,” exclaimed Roy, testily. “Talk sense.”

“Well, it sounds rather—er—interesting, don’t you think, Dick?”

“Oh, it’s great,” Dick answered. “What’s it mean?”

“It doesn’t mean anything, you silly chump!” Roy answered warmly. “It’s just a name; T-o, for Tom; r-o, for Roy; d-i, for Dick.”

“Sort of a shorthand effect,” said Chub, thoughtfully. “But why not put it the other way, and call it Rotodi? I think Rotodi is much more musical to the ear.”

“Lend me your pencil,” said Dick. “I’ve got a better one.”

“Let him have it, Roy,” Chub said. “In the end you’ll all come back to my suggestion; you can’t beat Camp Thomas H. Eaton if you spoil all the bark on the tree. Hand him a new piece of bark Roy; humor him; let him have his way.”

“Say, can’t you stop talking for a minute?” demanded Dick.

Chub grinned and accepted the suggestion. In a minute Dick said triumphantly:

“I’ve got it! Camp Sopœa!”

“So—what?” asked Chub.

“How do you get that?” inquired Roy.

“First two letters of our last names,” answered Dick, proudly.

“Sounds like Camp Sapolio,” Chub objected, “and if you’re going in for that sort of thing I think Camp Pearline would be much prettier.”

“Oh, well, you try it, then,” said Dick, tossing the pencil to Chub.

“I knew you’d have to come to me in the end,” said Chub. “Now let me see.”

“No funny business,” warned Roy. Chub shook his head. At that moment the silence, which had been disturbed only by the puffing of a distant steamer, was suddenly rudely shattered by a discordant sound that was like something between the finished efforts of a fish peddler and the wail of a bereaved cow.

“Tell Dick to stop snoring,” said Chub without looking up from his task.

“What the dickens is that?” marvelled Roy, as the sound again reached them, apparently from some distance down the river.

“Blamed if I know!” said Dick.

“It’s a cow,” said Chub. “She’s in great pain.”

“A cow!” jeered Dick.

“Certainly. Cows eat too much nice green grass at this time of year and have the tummy ache. I know. We used to own one.”

“What, a tummy ache?” asked Roy. But Chub was busy again and made no answer. Presently he looked up with a smile of satisfaction.

“I’ve beat you at your own game, Roy,” he said. “The name is Camp Torohadik, with the accent, you will kindly observe, on the penultimate syllable.”

“How do you spell it?” questioned Roy suspiciously. And, when Chub had responded, “Where do you get your ‘h,a’?” he asked.

“I will explain. I put myself first—”

“That’s your modesty,” said Dick.

“Because I was here first. Then Roy came next and then that sneering youth over there. That made ‘Torodi,’ which is just what Roy had. But by adding another letter of Dick’s name, out of compliment, and because of the fact that the camp was his idea, I get ‘Torodik,’ which is a better sounding word than ‘Torodi.’ But still, it is not yet perfect. At this point genius gets in its work. I introduce the letters h,a, and the thing is complete.”

“Yes, but where do you get your old ‘h,a’?” demanded Roy.

“From the first name of the fourth member of the party,” replied Chub triumphantly.

“The fourth member?” puzzled Roy.

“Harry, of course,” said Dick. “And what does it make, Chub?”

“Torohadik, an Indian word meaning ‘four friends,’” responded the inventor affably.

“That’s not so bad,” laughed Roy. “It really does sound like an Indian word, doesn’t it, Dick?”

“Sure. It’s all right. Camp Torohadik it is. We’ll get Harry to make us a flag out of a piece of white cloth, and we’ll paint the name on it. Only I don’t know how—”

“There’s Chub’s cow again,” interrupted Roy as the wail once more broke the silence. “I wish you’d give her some Jamaica ginger or something, Chub.”

“I’m going to see what that is,” said Dick, scrambling to his feet. “Sounds like a horn to me.”

“Horn!” cried Chub. “That’s just what it is, I’ll bet. It’s Harry at the landing. She said she’d blow a tin horn when she was ready to—”

“Yes, there she is,” said Dick, “on the landing, with a basket. I’d forgotten all about the horn part of it. I’ll go over for her in the rowboat. You fellows are more tired than I am.”

“All right,” Chub agreed with a laugh, “but the current’s pretty strong coming back, and you’ll have to row hard, Dick!”

Dick groaned as he made toward the beach, leaving Roy to administer well-deserved punishment.

[CHAPTER V]
A BATCH OF DOUGHNUTS

“Of course this isn’t real camping,” said Dick as he munched his fifth sandwich.

“It’s a mighty good lunch, though,” answered Chub. “And I can’t wait to get to those crullers—I mean doughnuts. What’s the difference, anyway, Roy?”

“A cruller is a doughnut with the hole left out.”

“Get out! What we call crullers are built just like these, with a hole in the middle.”

“Some folks call them fried-cakes,” offered Dick.

“Well, it doesn’t matter what they’re called,” said Chub, cheerfully; “they look fine and Harry has made lots of them. And, say, fellows, look at the sugar on them! Let’s hurry and reach the dessert.”

Dick had brought Harry and her lunch basket across to the island and now they were seated on the grass in front of the tent with the contents of the basket spread before them. There were two kinds of sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, bananas and doughnuts. There was also clear, cold water from the river served from a tin coffee-pot for want of anything more suitable and drunk from tin cups. Strange to say, the enthusiasm over the doughnuts brought no response from Harry. In fact, as the meal progressed and the time for the dessert drew near, she exhibited well-defined symptoms of uneasiness, and when, finally, Chub, unable to hold off any longer, seized the first doughnut and bit into it, she forgot the sandwich she was struggling with and watched him anxiously.

“Um-m!” said Chub rapturously. Then he repeated the remark, but with a note of doubt. Then he shot a puzzled look at Harry, who dropped her eyes quickly and devoured her sandwich so hurriedly that she choked and had to be slapped on the back by Dick. During this diversion Chub glanced frowningly at the doughnut in his hand, dropped it surreptitiously into his pocket and took a banana. When Harry looked again the doughnut had disappeared and her face expressed relief. Then Dick reached for one.

“How are Harry’s doughnuts, Chub?” he asked.

“Great!” said Chub with extraordinary, even suspicious, enthusiasm.

“Well, they certainly look fine,” replied Dick, setting his teeth into one.

“They surely do,” agreed Roy, following his example. “Aren’t you going to have one, Harry?”

“Please,” said Harry, her hand stretched toward the plate and her gaze on Dick.

Dick was munching his first mouthful somewhat gingerly and viewing the doughnut with surprise. There was a moment of silence. Then,

“I say, Harry,” blurted Dick, “what the dickens did you put into these things?”

“Why?” she faltered.

“Don’t they taste sort of funny?” he asked. “How’s yours, Roy?”

“All right,” replied Roy, eating doggedly, his eyes fixed on space as though he were trying to concentrate all efforts on the task. Dick laid his doughnut aside and picked up another.

“Maybe that one isn’t a fair sample,” he said hopefully. “I thought it tasted of—of—I don’t know just what.”

But he appeared to derive small pleasure from his second one and with a sigh of disappointment he laid it down on his knee with a fine simulation of carelessness and took a banana. Then:

“Hello,” he said, “aren’t you eating any doughnuts, Chub?”

“Me? Oh, yes, I had one,” answered Chub. “Fine, aren’t they?”

“Great,” answered Dick warmly.

“Toss me a banana, will you, Dick?” This from Roy, who, having caused the last of his doughnut to disappear, was still swallowing convulsively. “I ate so many sandwiches,” he added, in an apologetic tone, “that I can’t do justice to the doughnuts. Doughnuts are awfully filling things, aren’t they?”

“They certainly are,” agreed Dick and Chub together.

“These will be fine for supper,” continued Dick.

“Yes,” answered Roy, but with less enthusiasm.

“Or breakfast,” suggested Chub. “I’m awfully fond of doughnuts for breakfast. With lots of coffee,” he added as an afterthought.

Harry, who had listened to the remarks with a puckered brow and downcast eyes, struggling heroically with her own doughnut meanwhile, suddenly dropped her face into her hands and there was an audible sob.

“Hello!” cried Chub. “What’s the matter, Harry?”

There was no reply save more sobs. The three boys gazed from Harry’s heaving shoulders and bent head to each other’s faces and then back again in dismay.

“It’s the doughnuts,” whispered Dick in a flash of comprehension. Then in loud, cheerful tones, “Have another doughnut, Roy?” he asked. “I’m going to.”

“Sure,” said Roy. “Have one, Chub?”

“You bet! I just didn’t want to eat them all now for fear there wouldn’t be any left for breakfast; but I dare say there’ll be enough. Good, aren’t they?”

“Don’t think I ever tasted better,” said Dick.

“Swell!” said Roy.

“They’re not! They’re perfectly horrid!” Harry’s tearful eyes were gazing at them tragically. “It—it’s the almond!”

“The—the what?” asked Roy.

“The almond flav-flavoring,” faltered Harry. “I thought it would be nice to put some flavoring in—and I got too—too much, and they’re nasty!”

“Nothing of the sort!” cried Chub, deftly tossing a half-devoured doughnut over his head and reaching for another. “They’re not bad at all, are they, fellows?”

“I should say not!” exclaimed Dick. “I guess it was the flavoring I tasted that time. You see, I didn’t know they were flavored, Harry. If I’d known it, I’d have—er—understood.”

“I put in too much,” sniffed Harry, dabbing her eyes with a diminutive handkerchief. “I didn’t know how much to use and so I put in four tablespoonfuls. They’re just as bitter and horrid as they can be!”

“Oh, well, don’t you care, Harry,” Roy comforted. “You’ll know better next time.”

“There isn’t going to be any—next time,” answered Harry, dolefully. “I’m never going to make any more.”

But this elicited such a torrent of protestation, and it sounded so genuine, that Harry was comforted, and in the end relented.

“Maybe they’d be better just plain,” she said, “without any flavoring at all.”

“Well, we could try them that way next time,” said Chub, “and see. I suppose the trouble with almond is that it’s pretty strong. Now, vanilla or—or wintergreen—”

This produced a howl of derisive laughter in which even Harry joined. Chub pretended that his feelings were wounded and in another minute or two the doughnut incident was quite forgotten and Harry was eating a banana very cheerfully. The only untoward incident to threaten the serenity occurred when Chub absent-mindedly whisked his handkerchief from his pocket and at the same time whisked forth a half-eaten doughnut which flew across into Harry’s lap. For a moment her gloom returned, and Dick and Roy silently threatened Chub with dire punishment; but Chub saved the situation in a measure by rare presence of mind.

“Here,” he said calmly, “that’s mine.” And when it was returned to him he ate it unflinchingly, nay, even with every mark of enjoyment, allowing carelessly that possibly there was a little too much flavor to it but that he thought one could get very fond of almond after a time. But to go a little ahead of our story, when supper was eaten the doughnuts, through some oversight, were not placed on the menu, and every one tactfully forebore to remark upon the omission.

They had made out a list of groceries and supplies the evening before which Mrs. Emery was to hand to the groceryman from Silver Cove when he came for her order in the morning. And so in the middle of the afternoon they went over in the rowboat to get the things.

They made Dick row both ways because, as Chub put it, “he had imposed upon his superiors in the morning.” Dick made a great fuss about the labor but in reality enjoyed rowing hugely.

They found their supplies awaiting them at the Cottage—two big baskets of them. They had managed to get quite a little excitement the evening before out of ordering. They had all made suggestions, Dick’s imagination refusing to go farther than bacon, potatoes, and coffee; Roy holding forth for what might be called staples, fresh meat, flour, sugar, salt, pepper, and lard, and Chub’s fancy roaming blissfully amid such delicacies as guava jelly, fancy biscuits, and pickles. As for Harry, her suggestions, like Chub’s, ran to “trimmings,” such as nuts and raisins, chocolate, patent preparations which by the addition of boiling water magically turned into highly-colored puddings, and dried fruit. (Dried fruit, she explained, was awfully nice when you were hungry between meals.) But Mrs. Emery’s counsel usually prevailed, and so when it was finished the list didn’t contain many unnecessary articles. They stopped at the Cottage long enough for Dick to write his letter to the boat-builder ordering the launch. As he signed his name to the check which was to accompany it he grinned.

“Can’t go to London now, anyway,” he said; “haven’t enough money left.”

“Oh, it doesn’t cost much by steerage,” observed Chub.

Then they carried the baskets down to the boat and across to the island. Here Harry took command and directed the arrangement of the supplies in the packing-case in the tent. Butter and lard, they decided, would not keep hard there, so Chub built what he called a “larder” on the edge of the water. He dug away the sand until he had a small hole. At the bottom of this he placed a flat stone. Then he built up around with pieces of box cover driven into the sand. The butter firkin and lard tin were placed on the bottom and the water, passing in between the pieces of wood, came half-way up them, keeping them cold. A nice square piece of wood, selected from the pile which was drying on the beach, was placed over the top and a stone was rested on it to keep it from blowing off. Chub was very proud of his “larder” and straightway insisted that each member of the party should stop his or her labors and admire it. Each member good-naturedly did so.

By this time the sun was getting down and Dick started a fire in the stove and prepared to cook the evening meal. As it did not grow dark until quite late Harry had received permission to remain on the island for supper. Roy and Chub piled wood together for the camp-fire, and Harry, having stowed away the last of the groceries to her liking, furnished Dick with some slight assistance and much advice. He accepted both thankfully and paid no heed to the latter; for Harry’s way of cooking was not Dick’s. She was not too insistent with her advice; possibly with the doughnut fiasco still in mind she thought it behooved her to be humble. As a camp cook, Dick proved himself an unqualified success from the start. Even Harry acknowledged that he was a wonder. He possessed the knack of doing several things at once and not losing his head, and the easy, unflustered manner in which he boiled potatoes, made tea, and fried steak at one and the same moment was a source of wonderment to the others, who, washed and ready for supper, sat around and almost forgot their hunger in admiration.

Now when you have been busy out of doors all day long, steak sizzling in butter, potatoes steaming through burst jackets, thick slices of snowy bread, and tea glowing like amber when it is poured from the pot in the late sunlight, are just about the finest things ever fashioned. If the steak was a little bit overdone no one realized it, and if condensed milk wasn’t quite up to the fresh article it was too paltry a fact to mention. From where they sat, within, for Dick, easy reaching distance of the stove, they looked out upon the placid water of the river, hued like molten gold under the last rays of the setting sun, across to the green-black shadows of the tree-lined shore. High up above the slope of verdure a window in School Hall caught the radiance and shot it back, glowing ruddily. When for a moment, which was not frequently, the conversation paused there was only the leap of a small fish from the stream, the twittering of a bird, the distant screech of a locomotive, or the lazy creak of a boom as some small boat crept by the island, to mar the mellow stillness of the sunset hour.

But you may be sure the fish and the bird, the engine and the boat, had scant opportunity to make themselves heard at Camp Torohadik, for every one was in the best of spirits and there was so much to talk about that it required all of one’s politeness to keep from interrupting. The school year just closed was a never-failing subject, for there were dozens of incidents to be recalled. And there were plans to lay, marvelous plans for excursions and explorations. After every one had eaten as much as possible, and when there was no longer any excuse for remaining about the “table,” they cleaned up, washing the tin pans and plates in the water of the cove where an accommodating stone jutted out from the sand.

The sunlight lingered and lingered on the tops of the hills in the west and then the twilight filled the valley with soft shadows and toned the bosom of the river to shades of steely gray. And so it was almost eight o’clock before there was any valid excuse for lighting the camp-fire. A tiny breeze sprang up out of the east and fanned the flames into leaping forms of orange and ruby. Gradually the conversation died away, and finally Harry yawned frankly and sleepily. [Chub and Roy paddled her across the darkening water] to the landing, pausing now and then and letting the canoe drift while they gazed back at the point, where Dick’s shadow, monstrous and grotesque, moved across the side of the tent as he mended the fire. They went part way up the path with Harry, bade her good night, and scampered back to the landing and the canoe. As they glided softly into the shadow of the island Dick’s voice challenged them.

[“Chub and Roy paddled her across the darkening water”]

“Who goes there?”

“Friends,” answered Chub.

“Advance, friends, and give the countersign.”

“What the dickens is the countersign?” whispered Chub.

“You may search me,” replied Roy with a yawn.

“Torohadik,” ventured Chub.

“Wrong,” answered Dick, sternly.

“Liberty,” said Roy.

“Freedom,” said Chub.

“Wrong,” replied Dick.

“Oh, go to thunder,” grumbled Chub, paddling for the beach. “I don’t know what it is.”

“Doughnuts!” laughed Dick, pulling the canoe up. “Any one ought to know that.”

“Well, it isn’t anything you could easily forget,” answered Chub, ruefully. “Weren’t they fierce?”

“They certainly were,” answered Roy as he jumped ashore. “And,” he added determinedly, “that reminds me of a duty to humanity.” He disappeared into the tent and when he emerged again he bore something in one hand. An instant later there was a series of light splashes. Chub took his cap off.

“Requiescat in pace,” he murmured.

[CHAPTER VI]
EXPLORATION

“Get up, you lazy beggar!” cried Roy, snatching off the gray woolen blanket and disclosing Chub, in a pair of blue pajamas, sprawled, face down, on his bed.

“Eh?” muttered Chub sleepily.

“Get up! Harry’s over on the landing blowing that tin tooter of hers for all she’s worth. It’s after seven o’clock. You’re a great camper, you are!”

Chub turned over dazedly on his elbow and blinked at his chum. Then his eyes wandered to the other two empty beds.

“Where’s Dick?” he asked.

“Getting breakfast. He’s been up half an hour. And we’ve been yelling at you at the top of our lungs, and all we could get out of you was ‘Ye-e-s!’”

“Get out,” answered Chub, indignantly, sitting up on his lowly couch, “I haven’t opened my mouth!”

“Haven’t you? You had it open most of the night, for one thing. To-night we’re going to make you sleep outdoors, probably on the other end of the island. Get some clothes on and we’ll go over and fetch Harry.”

Chub shook his head anxiously.

“It occurs to me,” he said, “that that girl is going to annoy me with her strenuousness. This is no time to be making such noises as that. Think of the poor little birdies trying to sleep in their downy nests.”

“Well, you get a move out of your downy nest,” laughed Roy. “If you don’t I’ll call Dick and we’ll pull you out.”

“Think I’m afraid of you brutes?” asked Chub, scathingly. “I’d have you understand, Mr. Porter, that I am not to be coerced. I am a free-born citizen of this glorious Republic, and as such I have rights which cannot—”

“Oh, Dick!” shouted Roy. Chub gave a bound off his bed and was standing in the middle of the tent in a twinkling.

“I dare you to pull me out!” he said with immense dignity. Then, “How’s the water?” he asked.

“Cold,” replied Roy. “Besides, you haven’t got time for a bath. If you want to bathe before breakfast you must get up at a decent time. Get a move on now.”

Roy went out, leaving Chub indignantly searching for a pair of stockings which he plainly remembered having taken off last night but which at the present moment were not to be seen.

“Decent time!” he muttered. “What’s a vacation for if you can’t lie in bed when you’re sleepy? I’ve a good mind to go back again.” He looked speculatively at his disordered bed, and then peeped through the tent door. What he saw decided him.

“Bacon and eggs,” he murmured appreciatively. “Where are my trousers? A fellow doesn’t have to have socks to eat breakfast in.” But the trousers revealed the missing stockings, and as he proceeded to dress leisurely he warbled loudly for the benefit of the others:

“The lark came up to meet the sun
And carol forth its lay;
The farmer’s boy took down his gun
And at him blazed away.

“The busy bee arose at five
And hummed the meadows o’er;
The farmer’s wife went to his hive
And robbed him of his store.

“The little ant rose early too,
His labors to begin;
The greedy sparrow that way flew
And took his antship in.

“O birds and bees and ants, be wise;
In proverbs take no stock;
Like me, refuse from bed to rise
Till half past eight o’clock.”

“If you’re not out here in two minutes,” called Dick, “we’re going to duck you.”

“Brutes!” answered Chub. “Who’s got my necktie?”

The inquiry elicited no response and he was compelled to solve the mystery unaided. The missing article was finally discovered dangling from the pocket of his shirt. The tent was filled with a subdued yellow light, for the sun was shining brightly from a clear, blue sky, and here and there a low-hanging branch was silhouetted against the canvas. Through the opening a cool, moist breeze blew in, tempting the dawdler into the morning world. But what tempted him still more was the fragrant odor that came from Dick’s pan and the accompanying eloquent sizzling sound. Chub was out before the two minutes had expired. The bacon and eggs were frying merrily, the coffee-pot was exhaling a fragrant aroma through its spout, and life was wonderfully well worth living. Chub balanced himself precariously on the jutting stone and performed a somewhat sketchy toilet. Then he and Roy tumbled into the canoe and shot it out across the green-shadowed water.

Harry had given up her horn in disgust and was sitting on the landing, a picture of patience. As they drew near a fox terrier rustled out of the trees and ran toward them wagging a wisp of a tail in hilarious greeting.

“I brought Snip along,” explained Harry. “He loves to run around on the island, and I’m not afraid of his getting lost because, of course, he can’t get off. Methuselah wanted to come too, but I didn’t see how I could bring him.”

“It’s just as well,” said Roy. “He might get seasick crossing over.”

“Do you think parrots can get seasick?” asked Harry curiously as she took her place in the canoe.

“Well, we wouldn’t want to risk it,” answered Roy evasively. “Isn’t it a swell morning?”

“Beautiful. I’ve been up nearly two hours. I hope you’ve got something nice for breakfast.”

“You bet we have,” said Chub. “Bacon and eggs, all sputtering together in a pan like a happy family. Gee, I’m hungry enough to eat this paddle. Talk about being up a long time, Harry! Why, I’ve been up ever since—”

“Ten minutes ago,” finished Roy. “Snip, if you lean any farther out you’ll find a watery grave.”

“Snip can swim beautifully,” said Harry indignantly. “Can’t you, darling?” Darling intimated by a quick dab of his tongue at her chin that swimming was one of the easiest things he did.

“Huh!” said Chub. “Snip swims like Sid Welch; makes an awful lot of fuss but doesn’t get anywhere. Why, when Sid gets into the water there’s foam for a mile up and down the river; looks like a regular flotilla of excursion steamers had been along. As for Sid, he grunts and thrashes his arms and legs around and stays just where he started.”

“I think Snip swims very well for a small dog,” said Harry with hauteur.

“Talking about swimming,” observed Roy, “who’s going in this forenoon? Did you bring your bathing-suit, Harry?”

“I guess I’ll wait until to-morrow,” answered Harry. “Then I can get into my bathing-suit at the house and put on a mackintosh and you can row me over.”

“For that matter,” said Roy, “we might just as well go in from the float. The swimming’s just as good there as it is on the island.” But Harry raised instant protest.

“No, you mustn’t,” she declared. “That wouldn’t be fair. You must make believe that the island is away off from everywhere and that it takes days and days to get to the camp.”

“Of course,” laughed Roy. “Let me see, to-day’s Friday; we ought to get breakfast about Sunday, eh?”

“Dick will have it all eaten by then,” said Chub sadly.

“Oh, we’ve already been two days on the trip,” answered Harry merrily. “We’ll be there in a few minutes now.”

“Hooray!” Chub shouted. “Land ho!”

“Where away?” asked Roy.

“Two points off the bow paddle,” answered Chub. “And, say, I can smell that bacon!”

A moment later they were aground on Inner Beach and Roy helped Harry out on to the sand. At the stove Dick was busily transferring slices of crisp bacon and golden-brown eggs on to the tin plates.

“Good morning, Harry,” he shouted. “You’re just in time. Have a fried egg?”

“No,” answered Chub, “she isn’t hungry. She says I can have hers.”

“Oh, you fibber!” cried Harry. “I didn’t say anything of the kind, Dick! I’m so hungry—”

“That’s all right,” Dick replied. “No one ever believes Chub. Here you are, now; get busy. Pass your cups if you want coffee. Say, Roy, get the sugar, will you? I forgot it.”

“Oh, don’t we have the best things to eat!” sighed Harry presently.

“We sure do,” answered Roy. “Is there another egg there, Dickums?”

“Yes, there’s two each. Pass your plate.”

“I don’t want a second one,” Harry announced, “so some one can have it.”

“Thanks,” said Roy. “Much obliged, Harry.” Chub, who had opened his mouth, shut it again and looked disgustedly at Roy. He was silent a moment, while the others watched him amusedly, then:

“I know a good English conundrum about a lobster,” he announced gravely.

“All right,” said Dick. “Out with it; get it off your mind.”

“Why is Roy like a lobster?”

“Why is he a lobster, you mean, don’t you?”

“No, that’s beyond explaining. I mean why is he like a lobster?”

“Is there any known answer?” scoffed Roy, “or is it like most of your conundrums?”

“There’s a very excellent answer,” replied Chub with dignity, as he stole Dick’s slice of bread undetected. “The answer is: because he is selfish.”

“Selfish? I don’t see—” began Dick.

“Oh, shell-fish!” cried Harry. “Don’t you see? Selfish—shell-fish. That’s it, isn’t it, Chub?”

“Yes, that’s it; good, isn’t it?”

“About the poorest I ever heard,” said Roy. “Shell-fish!”

“It’s an English conundrum,” answered Chub, calmly.

“It sounds like one,” Dick agreed.

“Yes, if you drop the h it’s all right!”

“O-oh!” cried the others in chorus. Chub bowed modestly.

“I’d like another egg, please,” he said.

“Well, you don’t deserve it,” said Roy. “But I’ll give you Harry’s.”

“I’ll compromise on half.”

“Here, I’ll cook another,” said Dick, but Chub and Roy decided that half an egg would be all they could eat with comfort.

After breakfast it was decided that they were to walk around the island, or, in the words of Harry, explore their domain.

“I tell you what we ought to do,” said Roy. “We ought to make a [map] of it, showing all the bays and peninsulas and—and—”

“Rivers,” suggested Chub. “Who’s going to do it?”

“I will,” Roy answered. “Where can I get a piece of paper?”

“There’s a tablet in my suit case that I brought along to write letters on,” said Dick. “Will that do?”

“Have to,” Roy replied. “Can I find it?”

“Sure. Pull things out until you reach it. It’s there somewhere. Where’s Snip got to, Harry?”

“Oh, he’s around somewhere,” Chub answered. “I heard him barking like anything awhile ago. Probably he’s caught a bear.”

“Yes, a Teddy bear,” said Dick. “Here, Snip! Here, Snip!”

“I hope it’s a white one,” laughed Harry; “I like them better than the brown ones, don’t you?”

“Yes, the cinnamon gets up my nose,” Chub assured them. “Here he comes, with his tongue hanging out so far that he’s stepping on it! What did you find, Snipper-Snapper?”

“That’s not his name, Chub Eaton,” Harry remonstrated. “His name’s Darlingest Snip.”

“Well, come on, Darlingest Snip,” said Chub as Roy joined them; “but you must behave yourself and not kill any more bears. If you do you’ll be arrested for violation of the game laws of Fox Island.”

They set off along Inner Beach, pausing every minute or so while Roy made marks on the tablet.

“Of course,” he explained, apologetically, “this will be only a rough map, you know.” Chub sniffed but forebore to make any comment.

At Round Head, the big rock at the farther end of the beach, they sat down in the sunlight for awhile and allowed Roy to puzzle over his map. Then they followed the little well-worn path which skirts the shore under the trees past Turtle Cove, Turtle Point, and Round Harbor. This brought them to the upper end of the island where it terminates in a rocky point that breasts the water like the prow of a battle-ship. Roy originated the simile, and Chub remarked that it wasn’t the bow of a ship but the stern, and that the two little islets lying beyond were the battle-ship’s tenders in tow.

“We’re getting quite—quite poetical,” said Dick. “What’s the name of this point, Roy?”

Roy shook his head and looked questioningly at Chub.

“Don’t believe it has any name,” said the latter. “We’ve always called it just ‘the other end,’ or something like that.”

“Oh, let’s name it!” cried Harry.

“Point Torohadik,” Roy suggested.

“Point Harriet,” Chub corrected. Harry clapped her hands.

“Couldn’t we call it that?” she asked eagerly.

“That’s its name henceforth,” replied Chub solemnly. “And we ought really to change the names of those islands there to Snip and Methuselah!”

“I’m afraid we can’t do that,” laughed Roy. “They’ve been called Treasure Island and Far Island for years.”

“I tell you, though,” cried Chub. “The Grapes haven’t been named. There are eight of them. We’ll name those!”

They hurried past the point to where a cluster of tiny islets, the largest scarcely bigger than a barn door, lay just off the shore. A few of them held turf and bushes, but most were just barren lumps of rock and sand.

“Now,” said Chub, “the largest we will name Snip Island, the next largest Methuselah, the next Spot, the next—”

“Lady Gray!” prompted Harry.

“Lady Gray. Then comes—are there any more cats or kittens, Harry?”

“There’s Joe,” said Harry, somewhat reproachfully.

“Oh, yes, of course. Well, that’s Joe Island over there, the three-cornered one. Now what?”

“Well, there are the black rabbits,” Harry suggested.

“Just the thing!” said Roy. “There are three of them and there are just three islands left. I name thee—”

“Say, who’s officiating at this christening, anyhow?” asked Chub. “You run away and play, Mr. Porter. Now, the next island to Joe is Pete, the next Repeat, and the last one Threepete.”

“Referred to in the geographies as the Rabbit Group,” added Dick. “And now, if the ceremony is completed, we will move on to the next exhibit.”

They ran up the little slope of Hood’s Hill, where the three boys had awaited the boat-race, and then, like a celebrated army, ran down again. That brought them to Outer Beach, and [they followed the edge of the water] to Gull Point and from there on to Lookout, a small promontory dividing Outer Beach proper from the smaller crescent of sand known as Victory Cove. Then they were home again.

“Let’s see your old map,” said Chub, and when it was exhibited he laughed uproariously.

“Call that a map!” he shouted. “Why, say, Roy, that’s the diagram of a nightmare! Come and look, Dick.”

“You wait until I fix it up,” answered Roy, unruffled, thrusting it in his pocket to Dick’s disappointment. “It’s got to be drawn over again with ink.”

“Huh!” scoffed Chub. “The ink will turn pale when it sees that!”

They threw themselves down on the ground in the shade of the whispering birches, and Snip, who had wandered afield some moments before, came trotting into sight, his tongue hanging out, and subsided, very warm and happy, at Harry’s feet.

“He’s been at it again,” said Chub regretfully.

“At what?” Harry demanded.

“Killing bears. We won’t have any left on the island if you don’t stop him, Harry.”

“You’re very silly,” said Harry.

“Oh, very well,” was the response. “I’m not going to stay here and be insulted. Me for the water.” With a glance of contempt our hero turned upon his heel and strode haughtily away.

Chub tried turning on his heel, but as there was a root in the way he made rather a failure of it. But he had better success with the rest of the performance, for the look of haughtiness which he assumed sent the others into howls of laughter. Dick and Roy followed him into the tent and Harry and Snip wandered away along Inner Beach in search of blueberries. Presently there was a chorus of yells that sent the hair along the middle of Snip’s back pointing upward like the quills of the fretful porcupine and the three boys came tearing along the beach in their bathing-suits. As they came abreast of Harry and Snip Chub shouted:

“Last one in is a fool!”

There was a mighty thrashing of the water as the trio floundered through the first few yards and then three splashes almost simultaneous followed. In a moment they were all up, laughing and gasping, and calling to Harry to settle the question of who the fool was.

“Why,” said Harry, “you all went in at the same time, so you’re all three fools!”

“No sooner said than stung,” cried Chub. “Harry, if you’ll come nearer I’ll tell you a secret.”

“Yes, and throw water on me,” answered Harry shrewdly. “No thanks; I’m very comfortable where I am.”

[“They followed the edge of the water”]

“I hate a suspicious person,” Chub grumbled. “That’s what I like about Dick. He’s never suspicious.” Whereupon Chub dived quickly and grabbed the unsuspicious one by the ankle and for a minute the water boiled as the two struggled together. At length Chub broke away and fled to the beach, and presently they were all out of the water and sunning themselves on the sloping surface of Round Head. Harry and Snip joined them, Snip hitting upon the enjoyable pastime of licking the boys’ faces as soon as they lay down and closed their eyes against the sunlight. This innocent diversion proved to be Snip’s undoing, for while he was operating on Dick, that youth, unable to stand the tickling sensation any longer, arose suddenly and toppled the luckless Snip over the edge of the rock into the water.

“Oh, he will drown!” wailed Harry.

But Snip came up coughing and choking and struck out bravely for the beach, and his anxious mistress reached him just in time to get well spattered as he emerged from the water and shook himself.

“I thought you said he could swim beautifully,” said Chub.

“Well, didn’t he?”

“Yes, but you were scared he’d drown. If you knew he could swim—”

“Of course I knew he could swim, but—but supposing a shark got him!” And she was quite incredulous when they assured her that there were no sharks that far up the Hudson. “You don’t know anything about it,” she said. “A shark could swim up here if he wanted to.”

“Oh, well, the only shark Snip need be afraid of is a dog-shark,” said Chub. “And they keep those muzzled.”

Presently, inaction beginning to pall on them, they started diving from the rock, Dick, who knew little about diving, cheerfully striving to duplicate every stunt shown by Roy and Chub and coming many a cropper in consequence. Then they had a foot-race up the beach which Chub won handily, and a broad-jumping contest which went to Roy.

“What time do we have dinner?” asked Chub, as he climbed back to the rock, panting.

“Any time; whenever we’re ready for it,” answered Roy.

“Well, I’m ready right now,” Chub assured him. “What time is it, do you suppose?”

“About a quarter of twelve,” replied Dick after a scrutiny of the sun and the shadows. “Let’s mosey back and get dressed. There are potatoes to get ready.”

“O-o-oh!” howled Chub.

“What’s the matter?” asked Harry anxiously.

“I hurt my wrist when I was jumping,” answered Chub.

“Badly? Did you sprain it?”

“Well, I don’t think it’s actually sprained,” answered Chub cautiously, “but it’s too badly hurt to allow me to hold a potato-knife.”

“Oh!” said Harry indignantly, as the others laughed. “I thought you meant it.”

“For that,” said Roy, “we’ll make him peel them all, eh, Dick?”

“Every last one,” replied Dick sternly. There was no answer from Chub for a moment. Then he observed casually, apparently addressing his remarks to Snip:

“I was reading somewhere the other day that the most healthful way in which to eat potatoes was with the bark on.”

“Bark!” ridiculed Harry.

“We had them that way last night,” said Dick. “To-day they’re to be peeled; and you’re going to peel them. So come along.”

“I wonder,” muttered Chub as he arose and followed the others along the beach, “why it is I always have to do most of the work. I suppose I’m too good-natured and obliging. Woe is me!”

Ten minutes later he was sitting cross-legged on the rock in the cove with a pan of potatoes beside him, peeling and whistling contentedly.

“How many have you got?” asked Dick, coming down for the butter.

“Plenty,” answered Chub cheerfully. “Let’s see, there’s one for you and one for Harry and a little one for Roy and a tiny one for Snip and four for me.”

“Two or three more will be enough,” said Dick. “But, for goodness sake, Chub, which are the potatoes and which are the peelings?”

“You run away,” answered Chub aggrievedly. “Those peelings are mere wafers. I’m celebrated for peeling potatoes.”

“Humph!” Dick grunted as he turned away.

“Humph yourself!” answered Chub, throwing a peeling at him. “Chub,” he continued, talking to himself, “this is a very ungrateful world. But you must make the best of it. Do your duty, Chub, and all will be well. Whereupon our hero, brushing aside the unmanly tears, applied himself with renewed vigor to his degrading task.” And Chub, working the potato-knife slowly, took up his whistling again.

[CHAPTER VII]
“W. N.” PAYS A VISIT

“I’m not grumbling,” denied Chub. “I’m only—only stating my position.”

They had been on Fox Island just one week; had bathed, canoed up and down the river, explored the country on each side of them to some extent, had eaten three generous meals every day, and had slept nine hours every night; and now Chub had given the first expression of dissatisfaction. They had finished dinner and were still sitting about the scanty remains of the feast. Harry was not present, to-day being one of the two days in the week when piano practice kept her an unwilling prisoner at the Cottage. Yesterday it had rained from morning until night, keeping them close to camp, and to-day, although the rain had ceased after breakfast, the clouds hung low, and there was an uncomfortable rawness in the east wind. The square of canvas over the stove flapped dismally, and the camp fire smoldered smokily, as though it were depressed by the cheerlessness of the leaden sky and the gray river.

“What do you expect in camp?” asked Roy, almost irritably, tilting back on the soap-box which had served him for a dining chair. “A parade in the morning, circus in the afternoon, and theater in the evening?”

“Maybe he’d rather have a garden-party this afternoon and a concert to-night,” suggested Dick, sarcastically.

“Now, look here,” answered Chub, warmly, “you fellows needn’t jump on me. I only said that life was growing dull, and it is, and you know it is—only you’re afraid to say so.”

“Who’s jumping on you?” asked Dick.

“You, you old lobster; and Roy, too. I’m bored to death, if you want to know; and I don’t care who hears it. I say let’s do something. We’ve stuck around the camp here for two days and played cards till I can’t tell a king from a four-spot. I want excitement!” And in proof of the assertion Chub rolled over backward off his box and flourished his legs in air. The others laughed and good nature returned to Camp Torohadik.

“Well, what is there to do?” asked Dick. “You suggest something and we’ll do it. If the launch was only here—”

“You and your launch!” jeered Chub. “It was going to be here in six days, and it’s eight now. I don’t believe you bought it.”

“It may be at the Cove now,” answered Dick. “Suppose we go down and see?”

“Oh, there’s no fun paddling around in this sort of weather,” said Roy. “We’ll go up to the Cottage and telephone. Then if it is there we can go down in the canoe and get it and we won’t have to paddle home.”

“Won’t we?” asked Chub, ironically. “How do you propose to get the launch up here?”

“We’ll get you to push it,” answered Dick. “Well, let’s go over and telephone, then. That’ll take Chub’s mind from his troubles.”

“And, say,” added Chub, “while we’re there, let’s have a couple of sets of tennis. Harry and I will play you two.”

“Harry won’t be through practising until three or half past,” answered Roy. “Besides, it doesn’t seem quite fair, somehow, to play tennis when you’re camping out.”

“Fair be blowed!” said Chub. “If it will keep me from growing dippy, it’s all right, isn’t it?”

They agreed that it was, and after the dinner things were cleared up they tumbled into the canoe and paddled over to the landing. As they neared the Cottage the dismal strains of the piano, suffering an agony of scales and five-finger exercises, reached them.

“Poor Harry!” sighed Roy. “She’s worse off than we are.”

They stole up to the window and rapped on the pane, and when Harry looked startledly up she was confronted with a row of three grinning faces whose owners applauded silently with their hands.

She flew across to the window and threw it open.

“What is it?” she demanded eagerly.

“Nothing. We came up to telephone to the Cove to see if the launch has come. How much longer have you to torture that piano?”

“About—” Harry looked doubtfully at the little gilt clock on the mantel—“about half an hour—or twenty minutes.”

“Make it fifteen,” said Chub, “and come on out and play tennis. Dick and Roy against you and me. A cinch!”

“I can’t,” faltered Harry. “I have to practice two hours, you know. Mama’s away. If she were here I might skimp a little, but I don’t like to cheat when she’s gone.”

“That’s a noble sentiment,” said Dick. “Go ahead and do your worst, Harry; we’ll wait for you.”

“We’ll get our rackets and go over to the court,” said Roy.

“You’ll have to put the net up,” said Harry. “But don’t you go and begin to play till I come. Promise!”

“We promise!” answered the three in unison. Then they went around to the door, and as Harry closed the window, laughing, she heard them stampeding into the hall.

The launch had not arrived, the freight agent at the steamboat wharf informed them. There followed a council and Dick returned to the telephone and sent a message to be forwarded by wire to the boat-builder.

“When he gets that I bet he’ll sit up and take notice,” growled Dick.

“He will be scared to death,” agreed Chub. “I didn’t know you could be so stern and masterful, Dickums. It becomes you, though, ’deed it does, Dickums!”

Half an hour later they were all four engaged in mighty combat on the tennis-court. Chub forgot his boredom and, with Harry at his side, played splendid tennis. But the first set went to the opponents, none the less, six games to four. They changed courts and the contest was renewed. This time Chub performed so well that the first two games went to them before the others had found themselves. Then, at two games to one, Harry, encouraged by their success, won on her serve, and they had a lead of three; and, although Dick and Roy fought doggedly and brought the score up to 3—5, Chub and Harry went out brilliantly on the next game. At that moment, as though in applause, the sun burst through the bank of clouds in the west and lighted the damp world with a soft, golden glow.

“Come on, Harry!” cried Chub. “That set made even the sun sit up! Let’s take the next one now.”

But Roy was on his mettle and made his service tell every time, which is equivalent to saying that he had things his own way. But it was no walkover at that, and when the quartet threw themselves down on the bench under the apple-tree the score was 6—4.

“If you’d serve like a gentleman,” grumbled Chub, good-naturedly, “we might have a show. But I’d like to know how any fellow can be expected to take those fool twisters of yours that never leave the ground after they ’light!”

“When Roy came here two years ago,” said Harry reminiscently, “he couldn’t play hardly at all. Could you, Roy? Why, I used to beat him all the time!”

“That’s so,” answered Roy. “Harry taught me the game.”

“I didn’t teach you that serve,” said Harry. “I wish I could do it.”

“Well, I’ve tried to show you,” Roy laughed.

“Wish I could play as well as Harry,” remarked Dick disconsolately.

“Oh, you can, Dick, and you know it!” cried Harry.

“Indeed I can’t!”

“Well, there’s only one way to settle it,” said Chub. “You two get up and have it out.”

“Are you too tired?” asked Dick. Harry assured him that she wasn’t a bit tired, and they took their places. Roy and Chub made a very appreciative “gallery,” applauding everything, even mis-strokes. In the end Dick proved his assertion by getting himself beaten seven games to five, and the four, stopping at the Cottage for Harry to get her coat, raced down to the landing and paddled across to camp in the highest of spirits. The camp-fire had gone out in their absence, but Dick soon had it going again. And then the stove was lighted and he set about getting supper, Harry, as usual, volunteering to assist and becoming wildly enthusiastic over the frying of the potatoes, so enthusiastic that she allowed them to burn under her nose. It mustn’t be imagined from this, however, that her culinary efforts always ended in disaster, for there had been several batches of doughnuts—unflavored—which had turned out excellently, and even now the party was finishing a recent baking of vanilla cookies. Doughnuts and cookies, however, were prepared at the Cottage; when it came to camp cookery Harry wasn’t an unqualified success; perhaps there was too much to distract her attention.

Chub declared that he preferred his potatoes well browned and the others said that it didn’t matter a bit. Harry, who had been suddenly plunged into deepest woe by the calamity, recovered her spirits sufficiently to suggest tentatively that perhaps it was better to have them too well done than not done enough. Dick and Roy were about to agree heartily to this sentiment when a shout from [Chub who had been sent to the “larder”] for the butter [interrupted them].

“Somebody’s swiped almost half the butter,” he called, “and left a piece of poetry.”

“Swiped the butter!” exclaimed Dick.

“Left a piece of poultry!” cried Roy.

“Yes,” answered Chub as he came up, a plate of butter in one hand and a very dirty slip of paper in the other, “helped himself to about half a pound of it, and left this in the tub.” And he fluttered the paper.

“What is it?” asked Harry, as they crowded around him.

“Poetry, verse,” answered Chub, “and the craziest stuff you ever read.”

“Oh, I thought you said poultry,” said Roy. “What does it say?”

“Thanks for your hospitality
Which I accept, as you can see.
When I possess what you have not
Pray help yourself to what I’ve got.

“W. N.”

“Well, what do you think of that?” gasped Roy when Chub had finished reading. “Of all the cheeky beggars!”

“Let’s see it,” said Dick. He took the paper and looked it over carefully. It appeared to be the half of a page from a pocket note-book. It was traversed by pale blue lines and the lower corners were curled as though from much handling. The writing was small and the letters well formed.

“Do you reckon it’s a joke?” asked Chub.

“Who could have done it?” inquired Roy. “We don’t know any one around here, now that school is closed.”

“Wait a bit,” exclaimed Dick. “Here’s something on the other side; it’s been rubbed out, but I can see the words ‘set’ and ‘Billings,’ and there are some figures, I think.”

“‘Seth Billings,’” pondered Roy. “It isn’t ‘Seth Billings,’ is it?”

“No, I don’t think so; I can’t see any h. Here, you see what you can make of it.”

Roy took the paper and scrutinized it closely, but was unable to decipher any more than Dick.

“Well, ‘Seth Billings’ wants to keep away from this camp in future,” said Chub, “or he will get his head punched.”

“I don’t think his name can be Seth Billings,” said Harry, “because he signed that verse ‘N. W.’”

“‘W. N.,’” Chub corrected. “Not that it matters, though. He was probably going by in a boat and saw the camp and just naturally snooped around and helped himself to—say, do you suppose he’s taken anything else?”

There was a concerted movement toward the tent and a rapid inventory of their property. Nothing was missing, however; or so, at least, it seemed until Dick raised the cover of the tin bread-box. Then:

“Bread, too,” he said dryly; “and here’s another sonnet in the bottom of the box. Listen to this:

“What’s the good o’ butter
When it can’t be spread?
Hence I am your debtor
For half a loaf of bread.

“W. N.”

Chub burst into a laugh and the others joined him.

“He’s a joker, he is!” he gasped. “As far as I’m concerned he’s welcome. But I wouldn’t want him to visit us every day; we’d be bankrupt in a week!”

“But who is he?” puzzled Roy. “Any one know a ‘W. N.’?”

They all thought hard but without solving the riddle.

“Oh, he’s probably a tramp or—or something like that,” said Roy.

“Tramps don’t usually pay for what they take with verses,” Chub objected; “and his rhymes aren’t bad, you know, all except ‘butter,’ and ‘debtor’; that’s poetic license with a vengeance.”

“Well, we’ll call him the Licensed Poet,” said Dick, “and have our supper. We ought to be thankful that he didn’t take more than he did. There were two whole loaves of bread there besides the half loaf; it was decent of him to take the half.”

“For that matter,” observed Roy, “it was decent of him, I suppose, not to swipe the tent and the cook stove. After this we won’t dare to leave the camp alone.”

“Supper! Supper!” cried Chub. “We can talk about it just as well while we’re eating. Come on, Harry; take the head of the table, please.”

“No, I’m not going to sit at the head,” Harry declared. “There’s a horrid old root there. I’m going to sit here, right by the preserve.”

Of course there was just one all-absorbing topic of conversation, and that was “W. N.,” “Seth Billings,” or “The Licensed Poet,” as he was variously called. Harry advanced a theory to account for the difference between the initials signed to the verses and the name on the reverse of the paper which found instant favor. The theory was that there had been two visitors, that “W. N.” had written the verses, and that “Seth Billings” had supplied the leaf out of his note-book. That explanation was very plausible, and, while it didn’t begin to explain all they wanted to know, it brought a measure of relief.

As the twilight fell Harry became fidgety and evinced a disposition to start abruptly at slight noises and to glance continually over her shoulder toward the edge of the woods, and long before her accustomed hour for leaving she decided that she would return to the Cottage, pleading that the tennis had made her very tired and sleepy. Chub grinned skeptically but said nothing, and he and Roy took Harry home, accompanying her all the way up the hill and only turning back when the lights of the Cottage were in sight across the campus.

“Shall we fasten the tent-flap?” asked Roy when they had undressed under the swinging lantern and were ready to dispense with its feeble radiance.

“What’s the use?” yawned Chub. “If Seth Billings wants to steal us I guess he will do it anyhow.”

“I’d like to see what he’d write after he’d stolen you and had a good look at you,” said Roy as he blew out the lantern. For once Chub made no retort, for he was already fast asleep.

They awoke the next morning to find the sky swept clear of clouds and the sunlight burnishing the green leaves. There was a dip in the blue waters of the cove and a race back to the tent where three tingling bodies were rubbed dry and invested with clothing. Then Dick, who could dress or undress while Roy or Chub were getting ready to do it, went whistling out to start the fire. In a moment the whistling ceased abruptly and there was silence. Then the tent flap was pushed back and Dick appeared in the opening holding forth a square of birch bark on which lay four good-sized fish.

“Pickerel!” exclaimed Roy. “Where’d you get them?”

“Found them on top of the stove.”

“Seth Billings, I’ll bet!” cried Chub. “Was there any poetry?”

“Not a line,” answered Dick. “If Seth left them, we’re very much obliged to him, but I’d just like to catch a glimpse of him; he’s too plaguey mysterious for comfort.”

“I tell you!” said Roy. “He’s camping out here on the island! What’ll you bet he isn’t?”

“I’ll bet he is!” answered Chub. “Let’s go and look for him!”

“All right. But it was careless of him not to write a poem this time,” said Dick.

“Are you sure there wasn’t one?” Chub asked. “Did you look around? It might have blown off.”

“Yes, I looked. What I like best about these fish is that they’re already cleaned. All I’ve got to do is to slide them into the frying-pan.”

Roy and Chub followed him out and watched while the pickerel were transferred from the birch bark to the pan. Dick tossed the bark aside and Chub rescued it out of curiosity.

“It made a pretty good platter,” he said. Then, “Here it is!” he cried delightedly.

“What?” asked the others in a breath.

“The verse! He wrote it on the other side of the bark! Listen!

“Fish, so the scientists agree,
As food for brain do serve.
So help yourself, but as for me,
I take them for my nerve!

“W. N.”

[CHAPTER VIII]
A GUEST AT CAMP

“For his nerve!” gasped Dick.

Then they all howled with laughter until Dick leaped to the stove to rescue the coffee which was bubbling out of the spout.

“Think of his needing anything for his nerve!” said Chub. “Isn’t he the dizzy joker? I guess he’s squared himself now for the butter and the bread, eh?”

“I suppose so,” answered Roy, “but he had no business stealing our things.”

“Oh, well, he’s paid us back.”

“Just the same he had no right to—”

But just at that moment there came an imperative tooting from the Ferry Hill landing, and Roy and Chub shoved the canoe into the water and paddled over for Harry and Snip. Harry was wildly excited as soon as she had learned of “W. N.’s” latest vagary, and insisted that they should at once set out on a hunt for him. The boys, however, were unanimously in favor of eating breakfast first, and Harry was forced to submit to the delay. The fish were delicious; even Snip agreed to that; and before the repast was ended the four were feeling very kindly toward the Licensed Poet.

“I tell you what we’ll do,” said Chub. “We’ll get Snip to trail Seth Billings to his lair.”

“How?” demanded Harry.

“Let him smell the piece of birch bark,” answered Chub promptly. “Here, Snip! Come, smell! Good dog! Find him, sir, find him!”

Snip sniffed at the bark in a really interested manner, and Chub was quite encouraged until Roy remarked that what Snip smelled was the fish. Snip next evinced a strong inclination to chew up the bark, and, foiled in this, he wagged his tail cordially, just to prove that there was no ill-feeling, and sat down. Chub shook his head.

“He doesn’t understand,” he said. “He will never make a man-hunter.”

As though pained at this observation, Snip got up and ambled down to the river for a drink, and Chub turned to the others triumphantly.

“There!” he cried. “How’s that for intelligence? He smelled the fish and went right down to the river where they came from! Talk about your bloodhounds!”

“Come on,” laughed Dick. “We’ll be our own bloodhounds.”

“What are we going to say to him if we find him?” asked Roy as they set off, Snip far in the lead, along Inner Beach.

“Thank him for the fish,” suggested Chub.

“Tell him to keep out of our camp,” said Dick.

“I don’t think I’d say it just that way,” remonstrated Harry cautiously. “You see, Dick, he’s a poet, and poets are very easily offended; they’re so—so sensitive, you know.”

“Seems to me you know a lot about them!” said Roy.

“I’ve read,” answered Harry oracularly.

“Well, I’ll bet you anything this poet isn’t very sensitive,” scoffed Chub. “Any fellow who will swipe your butter can’t be suffering much that way!”

“I don’t believe we ought to accuse him of swiping anything, either,” said Harry. “Swiping is a very—very ordinary word, Chub.”

“Gee!” exclaimed Chub. “You must want us to thank him for stealing our grub and invite him to dinner!”

“I think it would be very nice to invite him to dinner. I’ve never met a real poet.”

“Well, if we do,” said Dick grimly, “I’m for hiding the solid silver.”

They reached Point Harriet without finding trace of the quarry, although whenever Snip barked in the woods Chub insisted that the poet was treed. They turned homeward and passed the Grapes and Hood’s Hill. Then, as they scrambled down to Outer Beach, Roy gave a shout. [At their feet lay the still smoldering remains of a small fire.] The sand between the fire and the edge of the water was trampled, and marks showed where a boat of some sort had been pulled partly out of the water. But there was no one in sight.

[“At their feet lay the still smoldering remains of a small fire”]

“He’s gone,” said Harry disappointedly.

“Yes,” answered Dick. “He spent the night here, I guess, although there isn’t any sign of a tent or anything. Perhaps he slept in his boat.”

“Well,” said Roy, “we won’t have to hide the grub when we leave camp. That’s one comfort.”

“Maybe he will come back.” Harry spoke at once questioningly and hopefully.

“Guess not,” answered Dick. “I suppose he has gone on down the river.”

“Maybe he didn’t like our butter,” suggested Chub. “I’ve thought sometimes myself that it wasn’t all it should be. He can’t have been gone very long, though, fellows; look at the fire.”

“Well,” said Roy, “he’s gone, and that’s enough for us.”

They went on finally along the beach and so back to camp. They had planned a trip to the hills after huckleberries. Harry knew a place where there were just millions of them, she declared; and so as soon as camp was cleaned up they set out for the west shore at a point a mile or so above Coleville, armed with an empty lard-pail, two tin cans which had once held preserved peaches, and a pint measure. It was a long walk, made more so by the fact that Harry had forgotten just how to reach the spot, and it was well on toward eleven before they began picking. But Harry’s startling tales of the fruitfulness of the locality proved in no wise exaggerated.

“Thunder!” exclaimed Chub, as he pushed back his cap and wiped the perspiration from his forehead, “there’s just slathers of ’em!”

And there was. By one o’clock their pails were filled to overflowing and Dick’s cap had been called into service. So they started homeward, very warm and hungry. Only one incident marred the return. Dick in a moment of forgetfulness, finding the sun uncomfortably warm on his head, thoughtlessly attempted to put his cap on, and half a pint of berries was lost. They still had fully five quarts, however, and, as Chub pointed out, philosophically, there was no use in crying over spilled berries. They reached the island again at a little after two and found a note pinned to the front of the tent.

“Very sorry,” it read, “to be out when you called. Come again. W. N.”

“He’s back!” cried Harry.

“Wonder why he didn’t write it in poetry,” said Chub.

“Wonder what he swiped,” growled Roy.

“By Jove!” exclaimed Dick. “That’s so. I guess we’d better look around.”

“I think it’s horrid of you to be so suspicious,” said Harry. “I just know he didn’t take a thing!”

And as far as they could find out Harry was right.

“As soon as we’ve had dinner,” said Dick, “we’ll go around there and see him. How would it do to take some berries along? We’ve got heaps more than we need.”

“Bully!” said Chub.

“And let’s ask him to supper,” added Harry. The boys laughed.

“Harry’s fallen in love with the Licensed Poet!” cried Chub.

“I haven’t!” denied Harry warmly. “But I do think it would be nice to ask him to supper.”

“Maybe he didn’t bring his dress-clothes,” said Roy.

“I guess we’d better have a look at him first,” said Dick. “Then if we want to ask him we can. Only there isn’t very much in the pantry just now; I guess bacon or ham and some fried potatoes will be about all we can set before his poetship.”

“There’s plenty of preserve and jelly,” said Harry, hopefully; “and there’s huckleberries, too, and fancy crackers. I do wish I’d made some doughnuts to-day.”

Dick had been very busy meanwhile, and already a slice of steak was sizzling on the dry skillet. A quarter of an hour later they were very eagerly assuaging their hunger: three famished boys, one famished girl, and a famished dog.

It took some time to get enough to eat to-day, and so it was well into the middle of the afternoon before the procession set out for the farther end of Outer Beach, bearing a quart of huckleberries as an offering to the Licensed Poet. But once more they were doomed to disappointment, for the poet was again away from home. A new fire had been built since the morning and some egg-shells at the edge of the bushes showed that the poet had not wanted for food. I think Harry resented the sight of those egg-shells as being unromantic and opposed to her notion of poets, who, according to her reading, always starved in garrets. Roy pretended to be relieved at finding “W. N.” away, but in reality he was quite as curious as any one, and just as anxious to see the mysterious person.

“We can’t invite him to supper,” said Harry sorrowfully.

“Let’s leave him a note and put it on the berries,” said Chub.

After some discussion this plan was agreed to. Dick supplied a scrap of paper from the back of an envelop and Chub had a pencil at the end of his watch chain.

“I suppose this ought to be in rhyme,” said Chub, “but it’s beyond me.”

“Oh, never mind that,” said Roy. “We can’t all be poets.”

“Well, how will this do? ‘The pleasure of W. N.’s company is cordially requested at Camp Torohadik this evening at six thirty for supper. R.S.V.P.’ Is that all right?”

“Dandy!” cried Harry.

“Fine,” said Dick and Roy in unison. “Only,” added Roy, “I’d leave off the ‘R.S.V.P.’ part of it. We don’t want him coming around this afternoon while we’re away.”

“That’s so,” laughed Chub, cancelling the letters, “the tent’s only pegged down.”

“If he’d wanted to steal anything he could have done it when he left that note,” said Harry indignantly.

“Please be careful how you speak of Harry’s poet,” begged Dick, “or we won’t get any more doughnuts and cookies.”

They placed the can of berries with the note on top of it beside the smoldering ashes and, calling Snip, who was trying very hard to eat an egg-shell, they returned to camp. Later Roy and Chub went canoeing down the river while Dick and Harry and Snip rowed over to the landing in the skiff and went up to the Cottage to see if there was any news of the launch. They found word from the freight agent that the boat had arrived and was awaiting the consignee at the wharf at Silver Cove. It was too late to go after it to-day, so, after Harry had begged for and received half a loaf of cake from her mother, they returned to the landing and set forth in search of Chub and Roy to tell them the news. The canoe was finally descried half a mile above Fox Island and Dick rowed toward it. That its occupants had not been entirely upon pleasure bent was evident from the pile of wood which lay in the middle of the craft. Firewood was getting low at Camp Torohadik and the cargo would be welcome. When within hailing distance Dick shouted his news:

“Fellows, the launch is here!”

Chub looked around him and searched the horizon.

“Where?” he shouted back.

“Down at the Cove,” answered Dick. “We’ll go down the first thing in the morning and bring it up. What do you say?”

“Sure,” answered Roy. “I suppose it’s too late to go this evening?”

“Yes, I guess so. Besides, we’ve got company coming to supper, you know, and I’ll have to get busy pretty soon. Mrs. Emery gave us a whole half a cake.”

“That’s rank partiality,” grumbled Chub as the two boats drew together. “Here we’ve been camping out for over a week and not a bit of cake have I seen. And now, just because the Licensed Poet is going to take supper with us, Harry brings a whole half loaf! Gee! Wish I was a poet!”

“You always have cake when there’s company,” answered Harry.

“Wish I was company, then,” said Chub. “I tell you what, fellows; I’ll go off and camp by myself at the other end of the island and then you can invite me to take dinner and supper with you and feed me cake. Chocolate cake, for choice,” he added reflectively.

The two boats drifted down to the island and presently were side by side on Inner Beach. In the intervals of assisting Dick with the task of preparing the evening meal, the others played quoits with horse-shoes which had been left from spring camping. At six Harry stopped playing and seated herself with dignity on a log near the tent, smoothing her skirt and retying her hair-ribbons. Chub wondered whether they ought to dress for their guest.

“About all I could do,” he reflected, “would be to change my necktie and put on another shirt. But as the shirt would be just like this one, he wouldn’t know that I’d changed. In fact, as he has never seen me at all, he wouldn’t know whether this one was the one I’d been wearing right along or one that I’d put on in his honor; and so if I changed this one for another one he wouldn’t know which one—”

“That’ll do for you,” interrupted Roy. “Seeing that you’ve got only two shirts on the island you do an awful lot of talking about them. I’m not going to change anything. If Seth Billings doesn’t like what I wear he can get off our island.”

Harry’s gaze wandered frequently toward the path from Outer Beach as half past six drew near; and so did that of the boys; but the half hour came and passed and no guest arrived.

“He’s awfully fashionable,” grumbled Chub.

“Maybe he didn’t come back,” said Roy.

“Perhaps he didn’t find the note,” Dick suggested. “Perhaps one of those bears which Chub’s always talking about ate the huckleberries and the note too.”

“Most likely he’s dropped his collar stud under the bureau and can’t find it,” said Chub. “I vote we sit down and eat.”

But Harry begged for another ten minutes and the boys agreed to wait. But at last they were forced to begin the meal without the guest of honor. It was plain that Harry was greatly disappointed, but I can’t truthfully say that the absence of the Licensed Poet interfered with the appetites of any of the others. And a very nice supper it was, too, for Dick had gone to extra pains, while Harry had ransacked the packing-case cupboard and had set out everything which she thought might tempt the palate of a starving poet.

They had been eating several minutes when Snip, who since the return to camp had been appearing and disappearing as he pleased, treeing mythical bears and barking himself hoarse over the scent of a squirrel, trotted out of the woods with his tongue hanging and crawled into Harry’s lap.

“You must wait awhile, Snip,” said Harry, “for your supper. I guess you’re a pretty hungry little dog, aren’t you?”

“I should think he would be,” said Chub, “the way he’s been—say, what’s that on his neck?”

It proved to be a piece of twisted paper tied about the middle and attached to Snip’s collar.

“Hold him still,” said Chub, “and I’ll get it off.”

The others had gathered around and, in spite of Snip’s struggles—he laboring under the delusion that Chub wanted to play with him—the paper was untied and unfolded amid the breathless interest of the group.

“It’s ‘W. N.’ again!” cried Chub. “Poetry, too! Listen, fellows!

“A man with his clothes on the line
With friends is unable to dine;
So he shivers and frets
And sends his regrets
By messenger No. K 9.”

“But—but how did he manage to get hold of Snip?” marveled Dick. They all talked at once for a minute and great excitement reigned at Camp Torohadik. Finally Harry’s voice triumphed above the babel.

“I think it’s perfectly wonderful!” she exclaimed. “Snip will never go near strangers. It just shows that he must be a beautiful character!”

“Who?” asked Dick. “The dog?”

“No, the poet,” replied Harry, earnestly. “Couldn’t we lend him some clothes, Roy?”

“Yes, if we knew his size. But we don’t. He may be as big as all outdoors or as small as Chub.”

“We might offer to do it, anyway,” said Chub, ignoring the insult. “I’ve got a shirt he can take, and a sweater—”

“And he can have my duck trousers,” said Dick. “We might take them over to him and tell him we’d be glad to have him come, no matter if he wasn’t dressed quite conventionally.”

“Who’ll go?” asked Chub.

“Tie the things on to Snip and let him take them,” Roy said.

“I don’t mind going,” Dick volunteered. “Get your shirt and sweater, Chub, and I’ll find those trousers. I dare say he has shoes and stockings. It’s a jolly good lark, anyhow, isn’t it?”

“It’s downright exciting,” answered Chub. “I’m all of a tremble. Want me to go along?”

“Oh, no, Chub,” said Harry, earnestly. “You mustn’t! It might embarrass him if so many went. Let Dick go alone. Tell him we don’t mind what he wears, Dick; that we will feel—feel much honored—and pleased—”

“Tell him we’ll send the carriage for him in a quarter of an hour,” interrupted Roy unkindly. “You’d better take Snip along to show you the way.”

Perhaps Snip understood what Roy said. At all events, he jumped up at once and bounded over to where Dick was bundling the garments under his arm, wagging his tail and barking hysterically.

“Snip, too, has fallen victim to the charms of the Unknown One,” said Chub. “Tell Seth that I’ve got a necktie he can have if he’s fussy, and that if he wants me to, I’ll go over and tie it for him.”

“All right; but you’d better put the supper back on the stove so it won’t be all cold if he does come. I’ll be right back and let you know.” Dick, with Snip running excitedly ahead, moved toward the path leading to Lookout and Outer Beach.

“Be sure and tell him, Dick, that we don’t mind what he wears,” called Harry. “Tell him we’re none of us dressed up, and that—”

“Dear young lady, say no more!”

Harry gave a little shriek, the boys turned quickly around and Snip barked valiantly. Behind them, standing in the mellow glow of the setting sun, bowing with one hand on his heart, stood as strange a looking figure as had ever met their sight.

[CHAPTER IX]
THE LICENSED POET

The group about the camp stared in open-mouthed amazement, while Snip barked hysterically and the stranger having completed his bow, returned their regard with merry, twinkling eyes.

He was rather small in stature and slight of build, with a round, much freckled face, an extremely stubbed nose, a wide mouth, a pair of intensely blue eyes and, crowning all, a thin crop of the most violently red hair that you can conceive of, red hair of that peculiar shade which usually wins for the possessor the nickname of “Carrots.” In age he appeared to be somewhere—almost anywhere, in fact—between thirty and thirty-five years.

But it was neither face nor figure which excited the wonder and amusement of the campers, but the attire. To begin at the ground and work upward, there was, first of all, a pair of low tan shoes; then came a pair of black stockings; then, strange to relate, a pair of voluminous white trousers which hung about the wearer like the folds of a deflated balloon and reached down one leg almost to the ankle and on the other scarcely below the knee. They were decorated in the queerest way, too! For on one leg was a disk of red, while on the other was a black star. Above the trousers was what seemed to be a brief space of red flannel, and surmounting this was a light blue Zouave jacket, much faded and stained, trimmed with a deal of tarnished silver braid and many silver buttons. Above this was a high collar and a black dress-tie, and as a finishing touch to the incongruous apparel he held in his hand a high silk hat upon which the level rays of the sun scintillated dazzlingly. Roy was the first one to find his voice.

“H-how do you do?” he stammered. But Dick’s amazement got the better of his manners, and—

“Who the dickens are you?” he blurted.

The stranger’s broad, smiling mouth drew itself into lines of decorum and, with the silk hat held at his breast, he advanced toward them with measured and dignified tread. At three yards’ distance he stopped, drew himself up with his right knee bent until only the toe touched the ground, thrust his left hand into a pocket of his huge trousers and pulled them out for almost a yard on that side, stretched the silk hat straight before him, crown down, at arm’s length, threw back his head, and—

“Lady and gentlemen!” he announced grandiloquently. “[I have the honor to introduce to your attention the world-famed Signor Billinuni], late of the Royal Hippodrome, Vienna!”

Harry gasped, Snip redoubled his barking and the others stared in amazed and admiring awe. There was a moment of silence, save for the frantic voice of the indomitable Snip. Then—

[“‘I have the honor to introduce to your attention the world-famed Signor Billinuni’”]

“It’s Seth Billings!” cried Chub.

“It’s ‘W. N.’!” murmured Roy.

“It’s the Poet!” exclaimed Harry.

“More familiarly known,” laughed the man, abandoning his pose and extravagant manner, “as Billy Noon, at your service.”

“Oh!” cried Harry, scrambling somewhat confusedly to her feet. “You—you’ve come to supper, haven’t you? Won’t you—won’t you be seated?”

“After you, my dear young lady,” answered Mr. Noon gallantly.

“We thought you weren’t coming,” said Chub. “We were just sending Dick over on a relief expedition with some clothes. What happened? Did you get wet?”

The guest had laid aside his tall silk hat and seated himself on the ground at Harry’s side. At Chub’s question his smiling face instantly took on an expression of thoughtful gravity.

“Have you ever,” he asked Chub, “been immersed in the Hudson River with your clothes on?”

Chub assured him that he never had, feeling rather apologetic about it. Mr. Noon sighed.

“Then you don’t know what it is to be thoroughly wet. I was so wet that after I had removed my apparel I was obliged to go in bathing to get dry.”

Harry gasped and looked puzzledly at Mr. Noon’s sober countenance until Chub and Dick and Roy burst out laughing. Then Mr. Noon laughed also, and Snip, who had been nosing nearer and nearer, took courage to sniff at the newcomer, and, recognizing an acquaintance, to strive frantically to lick his face.

“Hello, ‘K 9,’” said the guest of honor, patting Snip, “did you deliver that note I gave you?”

“Yes, he did,” answered Harry. “And we were so surprised, because Snip doesn’t like strangers usually.”

“I never have any trouble making friends with dogs,” said Mr. Noon. “And that’s a lucky thing for me, because in my present pursuit I meet all kinds of dogs, and if I didn’t get on with them pretty well I wouldn’t do much business.”

“Oh, are you a dog doc—I mean a veterinary surgeon?” asked Harry interestedly. But the other shook his head.

“I have been a good many things,” he said, “but I haven’t tried that yet. It’s a good idea, though,” he added thoughtfully, “a very good idea. I’ll keep it in mind.”

Dick, assisted by Roy, had been transferring the delayed supper back on to the “table,” and now all was in readiness for a new start. Mr. Noon sniffed the aroma of ham and potatoes and tea with frank appreciation. Then he sighed comfortably.

“Well, I’m glad I decided to waive the conventions and accept your kind invitation,” he remarked as he accepted his helping. “You see, as soon as I sent that note I regretted it. I said to myself: ‘Billy, you’ve made a mistake. You’ve missed a good meal because of over-sensitiveness. These kind friends don’t care what sort of clothes you wear. Forget your pride.’ So I overhauled my wardrobe and found—these.” He looked down at the blue jacket and the flowing white pantaloons and sighed. “They are all I have left to remind me of my former glory. Faded but dear to my heart,” he murmured sadly.

Harry looked very sympathetic.

“Well, it’s a mighty nobby coat,” said Chub cheerfully, between mouthfuls. “Were you in the army?”

Mr. Noon shook his head and chuckled.

“No,” he answered. “These garments were worn by me when I traveled with Northcott’s Great United Shows. I was Signor Billinuni, the celebrated European Clown. That explains the pantaloons. The coat I wore in the parades. I played the trombone in the band.” He sighed again. “Those were indeed glorious days!”

“A circus clown!” cried Chub. “Say, that’s bully. I’ve always wanted to meet a real clown!” And the others murmured assent; all save Harry, whose face fell.

“I thought you were a poet,” she faltered.

Mr. Noon turned to her and smiled apologetically.

“I have been a great many things,” he said, “but I can’t truthfully claim the poet’s mantle. I own to a certain ability in the felicitous rhyming of words, but nothing more, nothing more.” He waved his fork on which a slice of fried potato was impaled and smiled modestly about the circle.

“But I think your verses are perfectly lovely!” cried Harry.

“You are too kind,” he murmured with a bow. “Which reminds me that I owe an apology, never rightly expressed, for the liberty I took with your commissariat.” They all looked rather blank; all except Dick. “I had arrived on this island but an hour before and the problem of supper was occupying a great deal of thought. To be frank, I had in my pantry a little coffee, a fried egg left over from dinner and—and a can of mushrooms, I may better say the can of mushrooms.”

“Mushrooms!” repeated Roy curiously.

“Yes. You see, I happen to be inordinately fond of mushrooms. In an extravagant moment I purchased a can of them; they cost me sixty cents. Naturally, they can only be opened on some occasion of special importance, an occasion which has not yet transpired. So, to all practical purposes, the can of mushrooms was non-existent. Well, considering the problem confronting me, I took a walk about my new domain and stumbled on your camp. It was empty. ‘Providence,’ thought I, ‘has befriended me. I will investigate.’ I assure you, young gentlemen—and young lady—that I took no liberties beyond what you know of. Said I, ‘I will take of their plenty, paying as I can, now in a verse and later, maybe, in something more practical.’ So I took half a loaf of bread and perhaps half a pound of butter, the whole valued at about eighteen cents, let us say. In return I left two verses worth, at market rates, about two dollars. My conscience was at rest and my stomach at peace.”

“Why,” exclaimed Harry, “then we owe you a dollar and seventy-two cents!”

“Eighty-two,” corrected Roy. But the Licensed Poet raised his left hand, which at that moment happened not to be busy, in a gesture of disavowal.

“The market price, dear young lady,” he said, “is not my price. My price for the verses was about eighteen cents.”

“Oh!” murmured Harry, a little mystified.

“Thanks for the fish,” said Dick. “They were fine.”

“You are very welcome. I was so fortunate as to catch eight that morning.”

“Here on the island?” asked Chub interestedly.

“No, some distance up the river, near where a small stream enters.”

“I know the place,” said Chub eagerly. “We must try it some time, fellows.”

“Then you have a boat,” said Roy.

“Yes,” answered the Poet. “The Minerva. She is neither large nor beautiful, but she does very well. I bought her for four dollars and a half, throwing in a set of dentist’s instruments. The instruments originally cost nearly twenty dollars, but they were no longer in their first bloom.”

“Are you a dentist, too?” asked Harry, shrinking a little away from him.

“I was a dentist for a brief space,” was the reply. “But I never had any heart for the profession. I am by nature, though I say it myself, very gentle. If I had my way there’d be no pain in the world. Naturally, extracting teeth was not an agreeable task; I believe that in most cases I suffered more agony than the patient. Would it be a breach of manners to ask for another small piece of the ham?”

“No, indeed,” declared Dick, replenishing the guest’s plate. Although he had been talking almost constantly since sitting down, the Poet had managed to do full justice to the viands. Harry was at first pained to observe that his table manners did not match his speech; he relied rather too much on his knife, for one thing, while there was also a marked tendency to fill the mouth somewhat too full and to talk while it was in that condition. But presently Harry recollected that the poets of whom she had read had all been notably eccentric and, in some cases, even more disregardful of the social niceties than Mr. Noon.

“Are you going to be here long?” asked Roy when the visitor’s wants had been attended to.

“I hardly know,” was the reply. “It is a convenient spot and very attractive and peaceful. I love peace and Nature. I have led rather a busy life heretofore, and now to sleep under the trees when I want to, to lie on my back in the sunlight, to watch the water ripple past the boat—these are delights for which my soul has long yearned.”