"Why, there's the landing!" exclaimed Cora, "how quickly we got here."

"And there is a crowd around. I'll wager they are there to welcome us," said Jack happily.

For a few moments all waited to see how the crowd would take the news of the finding of Cora.

"There are a lot of lights," remarked Ed in puzzled tones.

"And boats," added Walter.

They were looking intently at the center of the crowd on the water.

"What's going on over there?" asked Jack, looking up from the engine which he was slowing down.

"Something must have happened," answered Cora. "Hark! There's a lot of excited talk."

Across the water floated the murmur of voices, some of them raised high in discussion.

"What's going on?" called Jack to a man who slipped past the side of the Petrel in a rowboat.

"Fight!" was the quick answer. "Jim Peters and a fellow they call Tony. They had a quarrel about some papers and a girl, and I don't know what not."

"A girl?" gasped Cora, wondering if she could be involved in the unpleasantness.

"Well, that's what some say. I don't rightly know. Guess it didn't amount to much. Anyhow they've got Peters over there in his boat.

They're bringing him to a doctor. It seems Tony whacked him with a boat hook, and then, thinking he'd done serious damage, he leaped overboard and swam for it. They can't find him."

"And I don't believe they ever will," put in another voice, and as a second boat came up Cora recognized old Ben. "Ah, it's Miss Kimball and her friends," he added as he saw Cora and those in the Petrel.

"Now here's a chance for you to use your brains, Miss Cora. Can't you find Tony for us?"

"No, why should I," she answered somewhat coolly.

She did not quite like this familiarity.

"Oh, I didn't know," laughed Ben genially. "I just thought you always like to be doing things."

"Not that kind," put in Jack.

"Is Peters much hurt?" asked Ed.

"It's hard to say," answered Ben. "He's pretty tough and I guess it's hard to do him much damage. I'm going over to see about it."

He rowed over toward where the other boats were congregated and the Petrel with the slow progress of which he had been keeping pace, swung on to the dock. Cora and the others could see the return of the little flotilla about the boat in which was Jim Peters.

CHAPTER XIX

IN BRIGHTER MOOD

It takes but a small happening to furnish excitement for a small place, and the fact that Jim and Tony had quarreled, and that near the landing, created quite a buzz. Of course, much disliked as Jim was, he was one of the regular fishermen, while Tony was a comparative stranger. This caused the latter to disappear when he saw that he had knocked Jim down and had perhaps seriously injured him.

The landing of Cora and the meeting with her friends was almost unnoticed. It was the fight, and the possible hope of more of it, that occupied the morbid crowd.

"Cora! Cora!" the girls were exclaiming, each evidently trying to be the most exclamatory.

"Where have you been?" asked the ever-wise Hazel.

"Why, just getting Laurel," replied Cora as Belle loosed her hold on Cora's neck. "Belle dear, be careful," she begged, "my neck is awfully sunburned."

"We were scared to death," declared Bess, fanning herself with her handkerchief. "We thought you had been kidnapped."

"No, it was the boat that was kidnapped," replied Cora, "A boat is more useful than--"

"Now, Cora," interrupted Ed, "just be careful. Didn't we go after you? And didn't we carry you off?"

Laurel had taken Jack's advice and was resting on an old beam that lay alongside the dock. She was very pale, as one could see even in the uncertain light. Yet her sudden restoration to something like strength might be accounted for by the fact that she had eaten some food in the hut, the previous fast having weakened her greatly. Or was it the letter Jack gave her?

"It's wonderful to be back again," remarked Cora. "You have no idea how far away Fern Island is at night."

"Oh, dreadful!" exclaimed Belle. "I would have died."

"Poor place for dying," put in Ed. "'Twould be like the babes in the wood, and the birdies and the leaves and all that sort of thing.

Even to die, Belle, one may do it up in style."

"I don't think you should make a joke of death," objected Belle, pouting.

"Oh, I didn't," declared Ed. "I was only trying to make a joke out of the idea of you being able to die--any place. You never will, Belle. You will go on being nice forever, like the brook."

The crowd had now scattered, so that the girls might make their way along to camp without brushing through the throng. They had left their boat at the landing, in order to see the girls, who, Jack declared, were waiting there. They could now go aboard again and finish the journey.

"Say folks," said Ed in a merry voice, "I propose that we make for the camp. We are starved, every one of us.

"And Laurel must be actually weak," added Cora, "for all sorts of adventures interfered with our supper."

Seeing the canoe girl, the others drew up to her. Whispered remarks were politely pa.s.sed, but Jack kept winking and making queer signs toward Walter. Cora joined in the mirth as well as she could but was still nervous. As Cora's boat was setting out, Ben leaned over and whispered:

"Don't listen to word from any one, and what's more, if you know anything about the cause for this fight keep it close-to yourself.

I told your brother the rest," and he covered her small white hand with his own brown rough palm.

"Thank you, Ben, and yes, I will remember," said Cora, with more stress in her voice than in her words. Then the Petrel puffed up to Camp Cozy.

There all attention was bestowed upon Laurel. The girl had gone from shock to shock until she was really in need of rest and nourishment. Of course Cora made light of her own predicament. She admitted she had been frightened when she found the boat gone, and Laurel sick, but tried to laugh and call it just one more experience, that would add to her general knowledge. But her face was white, and even Belle and Bess who had risen from prostration to over-joy could not be deceived.

"It's about that man Peters," Bess whispered to Belle. "You know she had some interest in him because she felt he knew about the hermit and the girl. But the girl is here now," she finished, unable further to explain Cora's agitation.

It was Jack who made the opportunity for Cora to talk privately with him, and the sister was not averse to seizing it.