"Me, too. He was pushed overboard by Purt, and it just served Purt right that he went into the water," Bobby declared.

The mongrel cur had swum n.o.bly for the sh.o.r.e. Before Purt was dragged aboard by Art the dog was nearing his goal.

They were well above the town of Lumberport now, and the sh.o.r.e along here was a shelving beach. After fighting the current the dog would have been unable to drag himself out had the bank been steep.

"He's done it!" exclaimed Liz, eagerly. "Well! I declare I'm glad."

"Gladder than you were over Purt?" chuckled Bobby.

"Well, if you ask me," drawled the maid-of-all-work, "I think the dog's wuth a whole lot more than that silly feller in the green pants."

"How horrid!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Lily.

"Gee!" said Bobby. "Don't you know, Lizzie, that there is only _one_ Pretty Sweet? I don't suppose you could find another fellow like him if you combed the zones of both hemispheres."

"Hear! hear!" drawled Jess. "How many zones do you suppose there are, Bobs?"

"Oh, a whole bunch of them," declared the reckless Bobby. "There's one torrid, two temperate, two frigid, and a lot of postal zones."

"How smart!" sneered Lily, in no very good temper.

Meanwhile the dog had crawled out of the water. They saw him shake himself and then sink upon the sh.o.r.e, evidently exhausted.

"Well," said Laura, "I guess Purt has finally gotten rid of the poor creature. But it was too funny for anything."

The sh.o.r.es of Rocky River, as they advanced, were very pretty indeed.

There were several suburban villages near Lumberport; but the farther they sailed up the stream the less inhabited the sh.o.r.es were and the wilder the scenery became.

"My!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Dorothy. "I had no idea this country was really so _woodsy_."

"You know there is scarcely anything but forest south of us, until you reach the B. & P. W. Railroad."

"Maybe there are bad people up in these woods, after all," suggested the timid Nell.

"Never you mind. Purt's got his revolver," chuckled Jess. "Lance says that it is one that hasn't been fired for twenty years and belonged to Purt's father."

"Goodness!" exclaimed Laura. "I _shall_ be afraid of that. It's those old guns that n.o.body supposes are loaded, that are always going off and killing the innocent bystander. You ought to confiscate that gun, Chet."

"Don't worry," returned her brother, laughing. "I've taken the trigger screw out of Purt's gun and he couldn't shoot it if he had forty cartridges in it. But I haven't told Purt, for the dear boy seems to place implicit confidence in the old gat as a defense against anything on two or four legs in the Big Woods."

CHAPTER IX

THE CAMP ON ACORN ISLAND

Although it was high noon when they were at Lumberport the Girls of Central High and their boy friends had not lunched there. Indeed, they waited to reach a certain pleasant grove which some of them knew about, on the south sh.o.r.e of the river, and several miles above the spot where Purt Sweet had taken his involuntary ducking.

As the motorboats put ash.o.r.e and the boys tied them to stubs in the high bank, they all began joking Purt about his plunge into the river.

The dude had been obliged to exchange his natty outing suit of Lincoln green for a suit of oil-stained overalls that he found in the cabin of the _d.u.c.h.ess_. He could not find his own baggage, as the boys with him had hidden it.

As for the tam-o'-shanter, it had fallen off and floated down the stream. Purt would never see that remarkable headgear again.

"But that isn't what the boy is worrying about," chuckled Lancelot Darby, as the party came ash.o.r.e with the luncheon hampers. "It's the fate of the Barnacle that is corroding Purt's sensitive soul!"

"How do you make that out?" demanded Reddy b.u.t.ts, broadly grinning.

"Why, isn't it a fact that he went in after the dog? I saw him dive right after the poor thing when it fell overboard. It was a mighty brave attempt at rescue, I should say--especially when we all know that Purt swims about as good as a stone fence."

"Some hero, Purt is," agreed Billy Long, chuckling.

"And didn't he make that dive gracefully?" demanded Reddy, bursting with laughter to think how he had shot the dude overboard by a sly twist of the wheel on the _d.u.c.h.ess_.

Purt was really ashamed of his present appearance. He felt it necessary to excuse it to the girls.

"Weally," he said, when he came ash.o.r.e, "I am not pwesentible; but I hope you ladies understand that it was an unavoidable accident."

"I don't know about that," said Laura, gravely.

"Oh! I a.s.sure you, Miss Belding," Purt hastened to say, "I had no intention of going overboard--weally!"

"So you were not actually trying to rescue the dog?" demanded Jess.

"That howwible cweature!" gasped Purt, in disgust. "I would fling him from the tallest cliff there is--could I safely do so."

"And not try to dive after him--eh?" chuckled Bobby.

"You are cruelty incarnate!" exclaimed Jess, gravely. "I am horrified to find that we have a boy at Central High who would willingly destroy such a beautiful--Oh! oh!" shrieked Jess, who had been facing a thick path of woods below this open camping place. "What is _that_? It's a bear!" she concluded, asking and answering the question herself.

She started in a very lively fashion for the boats. Some of the other girls were quite as agile. Like the word "mouse" in domestic scenes, the cry of "Bear!" in ruder surroundings "always gets a rise out of the girls," as Chet Belding slangily expressed it.

But it was not a bear. Purt Sweet was stooping to aid in blowing up the flame of the campfire over which they proposed making Mrs. Morse a cup of tea. He did not see the "bear" coming.

But the other boys recognized the object that had so frightened Jess, and they burst into a roar of laughter. Out of the bushes and across the opening in the wood came a half wet, bedraggled dog, which, with a joyful whine, leaped upon the individual who had so fatally attracted his doggish love and loyalty!

"The Barnacle!" yelled Chet. "What did I tell you? Talk about 'the cat coming back?' Crickey! the cat wasn't in it with this mongrel of Purt's."

In the exuberance of his joy Barnacle fairly pitched Purt across the fire, and tipped over the pail of water that had been hung over it to boil. The dude seemed fated to fall into trouble on this first day of the outing.

But now Purt was mad! He scrambled up, found a club, and chased the barking Barnacle all about the camp. The dog would not be chased away.

Perhaps he had observed Lizzie opening the lunch baskets. Besides, he seemed to take everything Purt tried to do to him as a game of play.

"Do leave the dog alone, Purt!" exclaimed Lil, at last. "You're making yourself perfectly ridiculous."

Lily Pendleton's opinion had weight with Pretty Sweet. He sat down, gloomy and breathless, and tried to ignore the Barnacle.

The latter sat on his tail all through the _alfresco_ meal, directly behind Purt. The dude gave him no attention; but the other boys threw pieces of meat and sweet crackers into the air for the Barnacle to catch.