Chet's crew certainly were a scrub lot, and he did not expect to get much speed out of them; but Otto was a strong oar and had Purt been able to keep the stroke the girls would have made a bad showing to the buoy.

Up to that turn the boys kept ahead. Laura set an easy stroke, and found that Eve Sitz was not much inferior to either Dora or Dorothy.

"They're going to beat!" gasped Bobby, swinging with the rowers.

"Don't let them worry you," advised Laura, between her teeth. "The race isn't done until we cross the line."

But in turning the buoy the boys came to grief. Or, rather, Purt Sweet came to grief. He managed to catch a most famous crab, and went over on his back, hitting his head a resounding crack upon the handle of Lance's oar, and waving his long legs in the air.

"Now!" cried Laura, increasing her stroke, and the girls' boat went past their opponents' at a fast clip.

The boys got together again after half a minute; but those thirty seconds told the story of the race. The best the boys could do brought them across the line several lengths behind. And the whole crowd were shouting with laughter over Purt's mishap.

"I wish you'd kept your vest on, Purt," snarled Lance. "There'd been some satisfaction in your getting it wet. My goodness! what a lubber you are in a boat!"

"Weally, I couldn't help it, dear boy," sighed Pretty.

"Just the same, you crabbed the race," grunted Chet. "Now the girls have put it all over us."

And the girls certainly did not spare the boys, and joked at their expense all the way home. But the day was voted a very merry one and Eve and Otto went home in the evening strongly of the opinion that the boys and girls of Central High were a jolly company indeed. Eve promised Laura before she went home that, if she could pa.s.s the exams, for junior cla.s.ses under Princ.i.p.al Sharp, she would surely attend Central High in the fall.

"We've got a splendid bit of athletic timber in Eve Sitz," Laura said, discussing the matter with Jess and the Lockwood twins.

"I hope she'll take up rowing. We can put her into Celia's place on the eight for next year, and then there will be no danger of Hester Grimes getting it," said Jess, who was very outspoken.

"She is better material for stroke than Hester," admitted Laura.

"And enough sight better tempered," Dora observed.

"You know what Hester is doing now?" demanded Jess, in anger.

"What is it?" asked Dorothy.

"She is trying to make the other girls think that the Executive Committee only cares about the eight-oared boat race, and that we'll put up no fight for Central High's entries in the other events."

"She is going to make trouble if she can," declared Dora.

"It isn't so," Laura said, firmly. "There is going to be a fine canoe race--we look to you twins to make good for Central High in that."

"We'll do our best," said the twins together, nodding.

Aunt Dora did not approve of the twins being on the lake so much; in her girlhood "young ladies" of the twins' age did not row, and paddle, and swim, and otherwise imitate boys.

"And I remember that you never were any fun, as a girl, Dora," observed Mr. Lockwood, at the supper table that night, when his sister uttered her usual criticisms of the twins' conduct. "You squealed if you came across a caterpillar, and a garter snake sent you into spasms, and it tired you to walk half a mile, and----"

"Thanks be! I was no tomboy," gasped Aunt Dora.

"Far from it," said the flower lover. "And mother was always having the doctor for you, and you got cold the easiest of any person I ever saw--and do to this day----"

"That is perfectly ridiculous, Lemuel."

"I believe you're sitting in a draught now, Dora," said Mr. Lockwood, quickly.

"Well--I----Achoo! I believe you! I never did see such a draughty place as this house, Lemuel. Ahem! Dora! get me my little knit shawl, will you, child?"

"Oh, yes, Auntie," said one of the twins, as they both rose.

"We're both through our suppers, Auntie," said the other. "We'll bring the shawl."

"Now!" exclaimed the exasperated old lady, when the twins were out of the room. "Which of 'em went for it?"

Her brother shook his head sadly, but his eyes were a-twinkle. "I could not undertake to say, Sister."

It annoyed Aunt Dora very much to hear the girls talk continually of the coming Big Day on Lake Luna and the part the girls of Central High would take in the races. And that next week Dora and Dorothy certainly were full of the new eight-oared sh.e.l.l.

It arrived at the boathouse early in the week, and proved to be the handsomest sh.e.l.l that had ever been launched in Luna waters. Even the wealthy Luna Boat Club did not own a sh.e.l.l like it.

Every other afternoon Mrs. Case allowed the crew to go out for a spin, and Professor Dimp, who coached the boys' crews, looked after the girls'

rowing, as well. Some of the girls' parents went down to the sh.o.r.e in the early evening to watch the practice work off Colonel Richard Swayne's estate; but would Aunt Dora go? Only once!

By some inquiry she learned that each member of the crew of eight girls had her own particular seat in the big sh.e.l.l. Dorothy was supposed to row Number 2 and Dora Number 6. But the twins sometimes changed seats--and who was to know the difference?

Not the coach, for Professor Dimp could tell them apart no better than other people. Had Aunt Dora been sure that her namesake rowed in her right place on the evening when she viewed the practice, she would have met the sh.e.l.l at the landing, seized Number 6 oar, and marched her home and locked her into her own room until tickets could be bought for Aunt Dora's home city.

But in their natty-looking costumes the twins looked more alike than ever--were that possible!

CHAPTER XV

TOMMY LONG HAS A BAD DAY

It was all in the papers one evening about detectives from Centerport's police headquarters, aided by the park police, beating the eastern end of Cavern Island, and the caves as well, for poor Short and Long.

Reporters had accompanied the expedition; but they rather made fun of the crowd of police searching so diligently for one small boy. It was suggested in the news stories that the efforts of the officers might better be aimed at finding the burglars themselves instead of chasing a frightened youngster who was supposed to have helped the real criminals.

The only thing the police succeeded in doing was to pick up two men who were fighting. These were Tony Allegretto, who had a concession at the amus.e.m.e.nt park, and another Italian.

The fight might have been a serious matter had not the police came upon the men when they did. Tony had already drawn a knife. The papers reported that Tony and his monkey were shut up together in the park calaboose waiting for court to sit the next morning. The other Italian had been sent off the island and warned to keep away.

But no trace of Short and Long was found during the police search. Mr.

Norman, the boat builder, raised the sunken rowboat Billy had borrowed, however, and brought it back to his landing.

The Lockwood twins chanced to be pa.s.sing Mr. Norman's place when the old boat arrived, and they walked down the long dock to look at it.

"No sign of anything wrong having happened to little Billy," said Mr.

Norman. "He tied this old craft, and she filled after a time and sank, breaking the painter, which was a long one. That's all that happened. I don't care about the boat a mite; I only wish I knew what has become of the poor little chap."