"What is it, dear?" asked Miss Elting in a low voice.

"I heard a shout. There is it again. Did you hear?"

The guardian and the other girls nodded.

"It isn't far from here. May I go down to the end of the creek and find out what it means?"

"Wait a moment." The guardian turned down the light, then stepped out to the after deck, followed by the girls. From the deck they could hear the shouts much more plainly, but the shouters were too far away to make it possible to distinguish what they were saying.

"Yes, you may go, but do nothing imprudent," added Miss Elting.

"I will try not to do so."

"May I go with you, Harriet?" asked Jane.

"Perhaps it would be better for me to go alone." Miss Elting agreed with this, fearing that the girls might begin to laugh or talk and thus attract attention to themselves. Harriet quickly got the rowboat and began pushing her way down through the overhanging foliage that smote her in the face with every move of the oar.

The night was very dark. She had to feel her way along, but even at that the boat frequently b.u.mped into the bank. Reaching the lake, she paused to look and listen. Not more than ten rods above she saw lights on the sh.o.r.e of the island and a light on the water. A motor boat chugged a few times, the plash of an oar followed, then more shouts.

"I simply must find out what is going on there," muttered Harriet. "I wonder if it can be--Yes, I'll row a little further along. No one will see me unless I get within range of the lanterns there."

Taking careful note of the entrance to their secret creek that she might recognize the spot when she returned, Harriet crept to the stern of the rowboat and using one oar as a paddle propelled the boat through the water as quietly as possible.

As she neared the scene of activity the voices of the newcomers grew louder. Harriet finally ceased paddling and permitted her boat to drift, steering well into the shadows, hugging the sh.o.r.e of the island until she could touch it with an oar. Unless she splashed with the oar, she was reasonably certain of being able to avoid discovery. The Meadow-Brook girl was now within a few yards of where the operations were going on. Her eyes were fixed on the outlines of a launch in which two persons appeared to be working, when all at once and with a suddenness that nearly brought a cry to her lips, a canoe shot out of the shadows directly ahead of her and sped noiselessly out into the lake. The girl did not even remember to have seen any one in the canoe so quickly had it appeared and disappeared. She wondered, too, at the skill that enabled one to paddle without noise. A gentle ripple--the wake of the canoe--splashed against the bows of her own boat.

"Surely, I am not dreaming," whispered the girl. "I must have startled the man. Who could it have been, and is it possible that he has been here watching us?" A number of surmises entered the mind of Harriet Burrell. She collected her thoughts quickly and held her boat with the oar, for she was drifting perilously close to the launch. She was now in plain sight of the campers on sh.o.r.e. She could hear every word that was uttered there.

Harriet listened for fully fifteen minutes. All at once, she swung the rowboat about, leaning her body to one side to a.s.sist in the turning.

The second oar that had been laid across the seats lengthwise of the boat rolled to the other side with a rumble and a clatter that to her strained nerves sounded like thunder.

"Who's there?" called a voice from the launch.

There was no reply. Harriet, in her haste to get away, splashed noisily.

She heard a quick exclamation, then the sound of two people jumping into a rowboat. She knew it was the rowboat she had seen lying alongside the launch. She knew, too, that the rowers were pursuing her. But even then Harriet did not lose her presence of mind. Instead of doing so, she dipped her oars and sent the boat shooting ahead, with the water rippling away from the bows, making a noise that she feared her pursuers would hear and thus be able to locate her position accurately. Harriet had not once glanced over her shoulder, but her ears were on the alert and by the sense of sound she was able to gauge the distance between herself and the pursuing boat.

"They're gaining on me!" she muttered. "But I'm going to fool them just the same."

CHAPTER XII

MAKING AN EXCITING DISCOVERY

The Meadow-Brook girl did not dare to go on and enter the secret channel for fear of exposing the hiding place of the houseboat. She was watching for some other nook into which to drive her boat. In case her pursuers discovered her she determined to jump out and make her escape as best she could, leaving the boat on the beach. Then a sudden idea occurred to her.

Harriet picked up a tin dipper that lay in the boat and that had been used for bailing. This she hurled as far out in the lake as she could throw it. The dipper fell with a splash that was plainly heard both by herself and those in the pursuing boat.

"Out there he is!" cried a voice in the other boat. She heard the pursuers head out. Harriet took advantage of the opportunity to move her rowboat ahead a few rods. She then turned it sharply to the sh.o.r.e.

The girl was fortunate in being able to find cover in the overhanging foliage, behind which she took refuge. The water was quite shallow there. The keel of the rowboat touched bottom. She heard the grating sound as the boat grounded, but knew that she was not so firmly aground that she could not get away.

The men in the rowboat found neither the dipper nor the boat of which they were in pursuit. Instead of rowing on, they craftily turned sharply in toward sh.o.r.e in order to get the benefit of the shadows. One within the shadow could see out fairly well, but to one who was out in the lake, the sh.o.r.es and the water for some rods about were enveloped in blackness.

"Pull out a little, but keep close to the sh.o.r.e," commanded a voice.

"That fellow played some sort of trick on us and has gone on. It's curious we didn't hear him. Row fast and I'll keep watch. If he gets out into the lake we've got him."

The rowboat shot past Harriet Burrell's hiding place so close that she might have reached out an oar and touched it. She was tempted to give the person in the stern of the boat a poke with her oar, but wisely refrained from doing anything of the sort. After the boat had pa.s.sed, Harriet sat perfectly still, arms folded, a quiet smile on her face.

"Harriet Burrell, you are a pretty good scout, after all. You wouldn't have made such a bad Indian. I'll rap on wood."

She drummed on the gunwale of the boat. "I hope they won't go far. The girls will worry if I do not return soon. Still, Miss Elting will know that there is a good reason for my remaining away so long. There they come."

The rowboat was returning. The rowers were moving more slowly now, talking and wondering as to the man who had been spying on them. They pa.s.sed her talking loudly. One of them was threatening vengeance. The girl waited until they had rowed a safe distance from her, after which she cautiously pushed her boat out and began rowing toward home. Harriet was chuckling under her breath, but her eyes and ears were on the alert.

She had not forgotten that canoe. Any person who could paddle like that was well worth looking out for.

Harriet rowed past the entrance to their retreat without having observed it. But it was only a few moments later when she discovered her error.

She turned her boat more carefully this time, then rowed it into the secret waterway. So quietly did she enter that her companions did not discover her until the nose of her rowboat b.u.mped the scow.

There was a little scream, quickly suppressed by Miss Elting.

"Is that you, Harriet?" she questioned, with no trace of alarm in her voice.

"Yes."

"You were so quiet about it that you gave me the creeps," declared Margery.

"Did you find them, Harriet?" asked Jane.

"Yes. And they came near to finding me too. They chased me nearly all the way home. I hid in the bushes and waited. They pa.s.sed me and came on this way, I should judge nearly up to the entrance, after which they turned about and went back. That isn't the only strange experience I have had since I left you." Harriet related the incident of the mysterious canoe.

"What were the men doing?"

"They were pitching camp. We are going to have near neighbors," answered Harriet, unshipping the oar and tying the rowboat to the scow.

"Of course, you do not know who they are?"

"Yes, I do. It is George Baker and his friends."

A chorus of exclamations greeted this announcement.

"They have come over here to find us. I think we will play our second trick on them to-night. It won't do to wait until to-morrow. We will get caught if we do."

"Those boys certainly are persistent. They must suspect that we are in hiding somewhere hereabouts."

"Yes. I wanted them to think so. I did not wish them to believe we had been drowned and have the entire lakeside out looking for us. That wouldn't be fun. It is more fun to tease and tantalize them."

"Maybe they've got an oven tho Buthter can make her cuthtard," suggested Tommy Thompson.