"Relationship!" Jack repeated, with a laugh. "You almost hit it, Dray.

I guess the bear would like to be her first cousin, for he is trying to get her goods and chattels from her."

"How?"

"Oh, we must not go into that; at least not just yet. I promised Cora not to be hasty with Moran. He's the 'gent' who is supposed to be president of the company."

"The one who wears the Panama? I wonder if anyone would think of haste in connection with that duffer. It took him just one hour to buy three soft crabs from some kids at the dock yesterday," said Walter. "I wouldn't like to be his messmate. But I don't like his eye; it's made on the bias."

"Yes, always looks as if it were going to slip out of the socket,"

confirmed Jack. "Well, I hope the girls won't go in too deep with their schemes. Those fellows are from little old N'Yawk."

"Quick!" whispered Walter. "There's that Black. If he lays eyes on your plates he'll lick them."

The last morsels of food were crammed into mouths before the call from the neighboring camper was answered.

"Come right in," Ed said, finally, "and help yourself. Have you had your grape fruit?"

"Oh, no," sighed Tom Black, "I didn't feel exactly right this morning." (He brushed a brown hand across his brow.) "Nerves, I guess."

"Nerves? Grub!" shouted Jack. "Didn't I see a can marked 'soup' in your back yard this a. m.?"

"Might have, but I didn't. Else I would have had soup."

"There were grubbers around last night," went on Jack, "and we thought we found a thread that matches your sweater, sticking to a nail in our grub box."

"My sweater is not ripped that I can see," replied Tom, innocently, "but if you are so kind I might take it. Don't think we put our sewing boxes in the kit, come to think of it."

"It will be ripped presently," announced Ed. "We have reason to suspect the Cattle; in fact, we have engaged counsel."

"The motor girls, I fancy, will defend you," said Tom, nonchalantly, "but I a.s.sure you, you will have no case. We are absolutely without grub; in fact, our case is pitiable."

"And you had a 'Doins' last night," Dray reminded him. "Now, Tom, we want to be fair, but we have arranged to form a housewives' league for the purpose of swiping systematically. For instance," (here he got a burnt match and tried to trace something on the oilcloth), "if we have company, and no olives, we could go over to your cupboard, take a bottle and deposit in its stead, say, a can of beans."

"Great!" shouted Tom, tossing up his cap, that landed on the flaming oil stove. "You should not waste oil," he said, as he rescued the cap.

"It's always wise to turn out the stove when you take off the pan."

"The meeting is to be held in our living room," Ed said, pointing outside to a bench made of a tree limb _au naturel_. "When we have formed our committees and settled on our const.i.tution----"

This last word seemed to give every boy present a sort of agony, for each began to "feel for his const.i.tution," as if that important part of his physique had been lost in the camp woods.

"I wish you could settle my const.i.tution," remarked Tom. "Once I get that settled, I don't care what happens."

"Now, quit your fooling," returned Walter. "I have an engagement and I would like to get my housework done. Tom, help yourself to a towel, and be careful not to wipe the plates on a gla.s.s towel. You can tell the difference by the border. The dish towel is all border, the center or hole went up on the oil stove, a little trick our stove has--it does not like towels. The proper towel for the gla.s.ses is that one with the black line drawn through the middle. The black line is not important, it was put there with a single wipe of the spark plug from the _La.s.sie_. Ed did it, very neatly."

Tom took the towel tossed to him, and, as only a boy can, began to dry the dishes that Walter was piling in front of him. First he patted and rubbed the towel on one side of the dish that lay before him; then he turned the same dish over with a bang and repeated the patting and rubbing on the other side. After that he gave the plate a spin. If it landed right side up he left it so; if the trade-mark showed he counted it a "foul," and tried the trick again. How boys can get work done that way is always a mystery to girls, who find the same play labor.

"Do I stay for lunch?" Tom asked. "I suppose when a fellow helps with the general housework he is ent.i.tled to his 'keep.'"

"Oh, we would just love to have you," replied Jack, with mock seriousness, "but the fact is, we are all invited out. We lunch on the _Chelton_ to-day," and he strutted around with such wide sweeping curves, and twists, that he knocked from the narrow board table every last bit of b.u.t.ter the "Couldn'ts" had in their camp. Gingerly he scooped up the top lump, that lay on the store dish, but the sc.r.a.ps had to be sc.r.a.ped up with the egg turner, and the spot on the floor (they had a board floor in the camp) had to be washed up with the dish water, when Walter finally relinquished that important commodity.

"More careful next time," commanded Dray. "I'm off to call the meeting. Where's that dinner bell?"

The "bell," a very old and very large tray, was found outside under the bench, and with a good strong stick Dray beat it furiously, until it might easily be heard by every camper on the grounds. At the first signal boys came scampering from all directions. Some carried towels--too much excited to drop them in their camps; others dashed through the woods with sweaters on their arms, and reluctant neckties in their fists, for it was early and the campers had scarcely time to make "careful" toilets.

"Grub?" they asked in chorus. "Let us see it? Lead us to it!"

"Grub nothing!" replied Walter. "You just get outside on that bench, the overflow can take the reserved seats on the nice green moss. This meeting has been called for the purpose of organizing the Housewives'

League of Crystal Bay."

"Aoo-oo-ou--oh!" came a groaning reply from those who felt able to groan. "And I left sugar in my coffee cup," wailed he with the dish towel.

"And there were perfectly good crumbs at my place," sighed Teddy, a boy with so many colors in his face that they called him "Rainbow."

"Come to order!" called Jack, banging on the tent table, which was to serve as the chairman's desk. "Every camp must qualify."

"We do! We do!" shouted the majority, the rest being engaged in a rough and tumble for places near the "door."

"The purpose of this meeting," went on Jack, ducking a lump of moss tossed in lieu of a bouquet, "is to formulate plans, whereby the humans of Prowlers' Paradise may continue to defy the birds of the air, and the beasts of the field, and live in a perfectly human way."

"Hurrah for the humans!" shouted Rainbow, and the cheers that followed did more than merely consume time.

"Let me explain," interrupted Dray, pushing Jack from his place, and taking the stand pompously. "We have been the victims of prowlers. We have lost our soup; we also lost our cans of milk--in fact, the cruel ones took everything but our appet.i.tes, and now we propose to put a stop to such depredations. We will form a league to borrow and to lend, also to pay back, but he who taketh his brother's soup and returneth not a can of beans shall be expelled from the Prowlers'

Paradise!"

"We did lose five small cans of milk," reiterated Walter to Dave, the head or chief of a big camp called "We-like-it," "and if we find the rowdy who took that he shall be court-martialed."

A commotion then started that broke up the meeting. The boys, in rolling and tumbling about, rolled Dainty, so-called because he never could get enough to eat, and because his quest showed in unweighable pounds of fat, deliberately down the small hill at the side of Camp Couldn't. Two of the Cattle did the rolling, and as Dainty made one full turn a can of milk squirmed out of his pocket.

"Robber! Thief! Traitor!" screamed the rollers, and then poor Dainty was lugged back to the camp.

Making the charge against him, and making an example of him would be too sad a tale for words; sufficient to say that the meeting adjourned at the request of a peace commission.

When the last visitor had been "shooed" away and the Couldn'ts had carefully prepared for the lunch to be taken on the _Chelton_ (although Ed claimed that Walter had appropriated his most becoming tie, and that the shade of tan rather marred Wallie's own "tannery"

effect), the boys finally put the camp flap down good and tight, and were off to the bay.

CHAPTER X

TOO MUCH JOY

Far out in the pretty bay the _Chelton_ was anch.o.r.ed. It was arranged that the luncheon should be given too far from land to get anything in supplies that might have been forgotten. In fact, it was to be a test meal, such as might be a necessity in case of "shipwreck" or accident.

It was such a day as sometimes makes early Summer copy Spring, when the mists of morning mingle with the sun's rays, and send up shafts of haze to pillar the sky from land or water.

There had been great preparations for this salt water lunch. The girls, enthusiastic over the possibilities, had vied with one another in arranging the affair.