"Say!" exclaimed Lance, "a lard can will hold a lot of money."

"All right. You laugh. I'm going to have another look for it when I get over there," said Billy.

"And I'm with you, Billy," said Josephine Morse, with a sigh. "Goodness me! I need to find a buried treasure, or something of the kind."

Jess's mother was a widow and in straitened circ.u.mstances, and sometimes Jess was cramped for clothing as well as spending money. She lived at the "poverty-stricken" end of Whiffle Street, just as the Beldings lived at the "wealthy" end.

So the party for the next Sat.u.r.day was made up in this impromptu fashion, without one of the members realizing what an important occasion that outing would prove.

It looked to Dora and Dorothy, when they reached home that evening, as though they might have to "cut" the "treasure hunt," however. Aunt Dora had gone to bed quite ill, and before morning Mr. Lockwood telephoned for the doctor. He came and the family was up most of that night. Aunt Dora had caught cold and it had settled into a severe muscular rheumatic attack.

The poor lady suffered a great deal during the next few days, having considerable fever, and being quite out of her head at times. She called for "Dora" then, almost incessantly, and no matter which twin responded she declared it wasn't her namesake, but Dorothy, and that they "were trying to fool her!"

"And, oh, dear, me," said Dorothy, "I wish we hadn't done it, Dora."

"I wish so, too. When I tell her that _I'm_ Dora she doesn't believe me."

"Poor Auntie!" sighed Dorothy. "I expect she has had her heart set on taking you home with her."

"Yes, it's preyed on her mind."

"I tell you what!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Dorothy.

"What now?"

"Let me take your place. I'll go home with her--for a while, at least."

"No you won't! I'm Dora. I'll go with her," said the other twin, decisively. "And just think how she went to Mr. Sharp and got us off from Gee Gee's decision."

"But you mustn't go with her to stay all the time, Dora. That would kill me!" cried Dorothy.

"No. But I'll go a little while this summer. We'll have to do something for her. I expect she's lonely in her big house with n.o.body but servants."

Thus the twins tried to quiet their consciences--they really had _two_ of those unfortunate arrangements. And the consciences would not be quieted easily. The girls ran home from school the next afternoon before they went to the boathouse; and were prepared to cut practice had Aunt Dora needed them.

But fortunately the patient was asleep, and the twins hurried down to take their places in the sh.e.l.l. The Big Day was now approaching. There were not many more afternoons on which the girls might practice for the races.

"We mustn't disappoint the other girls, and the whole school, and give up the eight-oared sh.e.l.l practice," Dora said to Dorothy.

"No; but if Aunt Dora is going to be ill long we will have to give up our canoe work. Let Hester Grimes and Lil Pendleton beat us in that, if they will. Aunt Dora needs us--and we owe her some grat.i.tude, if nothing more," agreed her twin.

CHAPTER XXII

THE STOLEN Sh.e.l.l

The very next morning Bobby Hargrew came screeching into the rear gate of the Lockwood premises as though she was being chased by a bear.

"For the land of pity's sake!" gasped Mrs. Betsey, appearing on the back porch, while Mary put her red head out of the kitchen window, and both of them waved admonitory hands at Bobby to still her shrieks. "What is the matter with that girl of Tom Hargrew's?" demanded the old housekeeper.

The twins came flying. Fortunately Aunt Dora was asleep, but they all feared Bobby's calliope-like voice would awaken the patient.

"Listen here! Listen here!" cried Bobby, smothering some of the upper register, but still quite "squally" enough, in all conscience, as Mrs.

Betsey said.

"We're listening, Bobby! Do tell us what it is," cried the twins in unison.

"The sh.e.l.l is gone!" cried Bobby.

"Gone where?"

"What sh.e.l.l?"

"Our new sh.e.l.l. And if I knew where it was gone I wouldn't be telling you about how it was stolen, for it would be an old story then," said Bobby, panting.

"You don't mean to say that the new sh.e.l.l has been taken out of the boathouse--and a watchman there?"

"That's what I mean. It's gone," said Bobby, solemnly. "Mike, the watchman, doesn't know when it was taken. One of the big doors was forced open and our beautiful sh.e.l.l has disappeared. There are two launches out searching the lake for it."

"But who would have done such a thing?" cried Dorothy.

"And what could be their object?" demanded her sister.

"Ask me an easier one," said the grocery-man's daughter. "I only know it's gone, and the intention evidently is to make us Central High girls lose the race."

"Oh, who would be so mean?" gasped one of the twins.

"There are four other contestants in the eight-oared cla.s.s," said Bobby, grimly.

"You don't believe any of the other girls have stolen the sh.e.l.l?" cried Dora, in horror.

"Why, Bobby! how could they do it? And in the night, too?" demanded Dorothy.

"I don't say who did it. But it may have been somebody hired to do it by some other crew."

"Keyport?" suggested Dora, doubtfully.

"They're the very best crew on the lake--next to ours," added Dorothy.

"And they probably think themselves the better of the two," said the shrewd Bobby. "I'd suspect either of the other three first."

"But it's just awful to suspect any of the other Highs. What a mean, mean trick!"

"If they'd only taken the old sh.e.l.l," wailed Dorothy.

"That's it. They knew we had little chance to beat them in the old sh.e.l.l. But some spy must have watched us and timed us in the new boat,"