"Hush, Mother! It is frozen over, you know. He can come to no harm, I'm sure."

"Oh, Will, hurry! Do! Find my little baby!" cried the frantic mother.

Will dashed on, followed by the others. They kept their electric torches aglow, and could easily trace the line of tiny footsteps, since no other persons had pa.s.sed down this way over the Billette property to the frozen Argono.

A sound near the boathouse attracted Will, and he turned in that direction, seeing instinctively that the steps led there. Then he saw a flash of light in the structure where, in addition to some craft owned by Mollie, was stored Betty's motor boat, the _Gem_.

"Are you in there, Paul?" cried Will.

They all waited anxiously for the answer.

"Ess," was the childish answer. "What oo want? I goin' way off in boat.

I goin' be Robbyson Tuso."

"Oh, Paul!" reproached his mother. But her voice showed relief.

They pushed open the side door of the boat house, which had been left unlocked that day--inadvertently, it seemed--as a man was doing some repairs to Betty's craft.

They saw Paul gravely seated in the boat, which he had managed to get into by means of a chair. He had a lantern with him, taken, it developed, from where Isaac, the furnace man, had left it for a moment in the Billette kitchen. And Paul was gravely playing that he was Robinson Crusoe, starting off on a voyage.

"Oh, Paul, how could you frighten mamma so?" asked Mollie, as she caught him up. "You should be punished!"

"Pichure in my book about Robbyson Tuso. He got in boat--I go in boat.

Betty no care--does oo?"

"No, dear, not about my boat. But----"

"You were very, very naughty!" said Mollie, severely, "and sister doesn't love you any more. Naughty Paul!"

The sensitive lip of the toddler began pursing outward, quivering. His eyes filled with tears. Then catching sight of Grace, who, with the others, formed a circle about the recovered lost one, Paul smiled through the gathering mist of tears and asked:

"Oo dot any tandy?"

And he laughed with them as Grace produced some chocolates in a bag. And no one remarked on her failing--that time, at least.

Paul was soon in bed, having made many promises not to offend again.

Then Will went back with Amy, Mr. Blackford escorting Betty and Grace, who lived near each other. The girls promised to meet again next day, but this was hardly necessary, since scarcely a day pa.s.sed that they were not together--"inseparables," they had been dubbed.

Of course for the next few days little was talked of except the prospect of going to the winter camp. From the parents of the three, tentative permission had been wrung, Grace's father and mother being much in favor of her making the trip.

"Her lungs are none too strong," Mr. Ford had said to his wife, "and the winter in the pine woods will do her good."

"If only there is no danger!"

"Danger! Nonsense!" Mr. Ford had exclaimed.

But he did not know what was in prospect, or he might not have been so positive. Even as it was, a few days later brought unpleasant news to him.

He had been in correspondence with the old lumberman and his wife, and had practically arranged for them to take charge of the camp, and look after the girls, who would occupy one of the large cabins, if they went to the woods. Then came a letter from a brother lawyer who was looking after some details of the receivership.

"By Jove! That makes it bad!" exclaimed Mr. Ford on reading this communication.

"What is it, Daddy?" asked Grace, who happened to be in the library with her father when the mail came in.

"Why, Travert writes me that Jallow has begun cutting timber on the strip that is in dispute. Valuable timber, too, that I'm sure belongs to me. This is contrary to the ruling of the court. I must stop this if I have to come to an open fight!"

"Oh, Father, will this stop us going to camp?"

"No, not necessarily. The strip is far enough away from the camp itself.

I don't know but what it will be a good plan to have you on the ground, Grace. You can let me know if anything happens. Now I must see what I can do about this. If only I could find Paddy Malone, and he could testify about the changed boundary lines, I'd have none of this trouble," and Mr. Ford sighed.

"Maybe we can find him up there, papa," said Grace, softly.

"Maybe; but I doubt it. I've been trying for a year to locate him, and can't. But never mind. Don't let this bad news worry you. You and your chums can go there all right, and have a good time. Maybe you'll have more of a time than you want. It looks as though we would have a hard winter."

CHAPTER VI

PREPARATIONS

"How many dresses are you going to take?"

"I wonder if we ought to bring along something for evening wear?"

"Anyhow we want something warm."

"And what about shoes--or boots? How would it do to wear leggings, like the boy scouts?"

"I'm sure we won't want anything like evening dresses. Where could we wear them up in the wilderness?"

"Why, perhaps there may be a lumbermen's dance."

"Oh, listen to Mollie! As if we'd go!"

"Why not? Of course we could go if we had a chaperone," and Mollie, who had proposed this, looked rather defiantly at her chums.

The other foregoing remarks had been shot back and forth so quickly, in such zig-zag fashion, that it was difficult to tell who said which; in many cases the authors themselves being hardly able to identify their verbal creations.

The girls were at the home of Grace, discussing, as they had been doing ever since it was practically decided that they were to go to camp, what they should take, and what to wear. It was far from being settled yet.

"Well, I'm sure of one thing," remarked Grace, "and that is that, as Amy says, we ought to have at least two warm cloth dresses."

"An extra skirt, too, would be no harm," added Betty. "If we go out in deep snow the skirt is sure to get wet, and then we could change on coming in."

"Yes, I think that would be wise," admitted Mollie. "I am almost tempted to wear--bloomers!"