"Say! how do we pay you?" demanded Ferd.

"Shall I tell them what we demand, girls?" asked Wyn.

"Go ahead!" "It'll serve them right!" "They've got to do it!" were some of the exclamations from the Go-Aheads.

"Oh, let the blow fall!" groaned Dave.

"Then, gentlemen of the Busters a.s.sociation, it is agreed by the ladies of the Go-Ahead Club that while we remain in camp on Green Knoll this summer, you young gentlemen shall cut and stack all the firewood we shall need!"

"Ow-ouch!" cried Ferd.

"What a cheek!" gasped Tubby, rolling his eyes.

"_All_ the firewood you use?" repeated one of the other boys.

"Why--that will be cords and cords!"

"Every stick!" declared Wyn, firmly.

"And I'd be ashamed, if I were you, to complain," pursued Bessie. "If you had been gentlemanly you would have offered to cut our wood before.

You know that that is the _one_ thing that girls can't do easily about a camp."

"Gee! you have quite a heap of stove wood yonder," said Tubby.

"That is what Mr. Jarley cut for us," Wyn said. "But it doesn't matter what other means we may have for getting our firewood cut. Will you accept the forfeit like honorable gentlemen?"

"Why, we've _got_ to!" cried Ferd.

"We're honestly caught," admitted Dave Shepard. "I'll do my share. Two of us, for half a day a week, can more than keep you supplied--unless you waste it."

"And we can have the canoes back?" demanded one of the other Busters, eagerly.

And so it was agreed--"signed, sworn to, and delivered," as Frankie said. With great glee the girls led the Busters to the steep bank by the waterside, over which a great curtain of wild honeysuckle hung. This curtain of fragrant flowers and thick vines dragged upon the ground.

There was a hollow behind it that Wyn had discovered quite by chance.

And this hollow was big enough to hide the six canoes, one stacked a-top of the other. One pa.s.sing by would never have suspected the hiding place, and in hiding the craft the girls had left no tell-tale footprints.

So, for once at least, the Go-Aheads got the best of the Busters.

CHAPTER XVII

VISITORS

Bessie Lavine had written home, as she said she would, regarding her adventure with Wyn when they were overturned by the squall, and all about Polly Jarley. But the result of this letter--and the others that went along to Denton with it--was not just what the girls had expected.

Although Mrs. Havel, in charge of the Go-Aheads, reported regularly to her brother-in-law, Percy's father, the story of the overturn made a great stir among the mothers especially, whose consent to the six girls living under canvas for the summer had been gained with such difficulty.

"What do you know about this, girls?" cried Frank, on next mail day. "My mother and father are coming out here. They can stay but one night; but they say they must see with their own eyes just how we are living here."

"And my Uncle Will is coming," announced Grace. "What do you know about _that_? Mother has made him promise to come and see if I am all right."

"_My_ mother says," quoth Mina, slowly, "that she doesn't doubt Mrs. Havel does the very best she can by us; but she and papa are coming up here with Mr. and Mrs. Cameron."

Bessie began to laugh, too. "Pa's coming," she said. "It's a plot, I believe. He says he has hired the _Sissy Radcliffe_, and all of our parents can come if they like. The boat's big enough. He will bring another sleeping tent and those who wish can sleep under canvas while they remain. The boat has lots of berths in it. Say! maybe we'll have a great time."

"I expect," said Mrs. Havel, looking up and smiling, from her own letter, "that your mothers, girls, will not really be content until they see for themselves how you are getting along. So we may as well make ready for visitors. They will arrive on Sat.u.r.day. Some will remain only over Sunday and return by train from the Forge. But Mr. Lavine, I believe, and some of the gentlemen, will be here on the lake for a week, or more."

"No more oversets, now, girls," said Frankie. "That's what is bringing the mothers up here."

"_My_ father is coming to see if he cannot do something for Polly Jarley," declared Bessie, with emphasis.

But Wynifred Mallory was quite sure that the Lavines--no matter how good their intentions now were toward the boatman's daughter--would find Polly rather difficult. Wyn had been down to the boatkeeper's house several times alone to see Polly; but the backwoods girl would not be shaken from her att.i.tude. She would not come to Green Knoll Camp any more, nor would she send any word to Bess Lavine.

Bess really was sorry for what she had said and the way she had treated Polly. But the latter was obdurate.

"I don't want anything from those Lavines," she replied to Wyn's urging.

"Only that Mr. Lavine should treat my father kindly. I'd pull the girl out of the lake again--sure! But I don't want her for a friend, and I don't want to be paid for doing my duty. _You_ don't offer to pay me, Wynnie."

"No, dear. I couldn't pay you for saving my life," Wynifred admitted.

"Neither can they!" retorted Polly, heatedly. "They think they're so much above us, because they have money and we have none. They are like those millionaires at the other end of the lake--Dr. Shelton and the others. I don't want their money!"

But Polly's obstinacy was cutting the boatman's daughter out of a lot of fun. This fact became more p.r.o.nounced, too, when the visitors from Denton, in the _Sissy Radcliffe_, came to Green Knoll Camp.

The _Sissy_ was a big motor launch, and there was a good-sized party aboard. When the ladies had once seen how the girls and Mrs. Havel lived, they were glad to take advantage of the tent Mr. Lavine brought.

The gentlemen slept aboard the launch, which was anch.o.r.ed at night off Green Knoll Camp.

There were indeed gay times, for instead of acting as "wet-blankets" to the young folks' fun, the visitors entered into the spirit of the outing and, with the Busters and Professor Skillings from Gannet Island, made a holiday of the occasion.

Both the girls and boys "showed off" in their canoes in the shallow water under the bank, and in their bathing suits. They showed the more or less anxious parents just how skillful they were in the management of the tricky craft.

When the canoes were overturned, the girls and boys were able to right them, bail them out, and scramble aboard again. They could all swim and dive like ducks--save Bessie and Tubby. But Bessie was improving every day, and Tubby never _could_ really sink, they all declared, unless he swallowed so much of the lake for ballast that he would be able to wade ash.o.r.e from the middle.

It was now the height of the camping season and the Busters and Go-Aheads, with their friends, were not the only parties along the sh.o.r.es of Lake Honotonka. The Jarleys were doing a good business, almost all their craft being in use most of the time. A battalion of Boy Scouts went into camp about ten miles to the west of Gannet Island and Dave and his mates had some friends among them.

Several small steamboats plied the waters of the lake with excursion parties. The people at Braisely Park often came down to Gannet Island and the neighborhood of Green Knoll in their boats. Altogether there was considerable intimacy among the campers and between them and the residents of Braisely Park.

This pleasant condition of affairs brought about the idea of the regatta, or boating sports. Some of the wealthy men at the west end of the lake arranged the events, put up the prizes for certain cla.s.ses of boat trials and other aquatic sports, had the necessary printing and advertising done, and

HONOTONKA REGATTA DAY

became emblazoned on the billboards along the neighboring highways and railroad lines.

The events were entirely amateur and were confined to those actually camping on, or living on, the sh.o.r.es of the lake. Arrangements went ahead with a rush, the date being set so close that most of the parents and friends who had come up with Mr. Lavine from Denton were encouraged to stay over.

Some of the Busters were going to enter for the canoeing events, and there was a girls' contest, too, that interested our friends. Bessie Lavine could paddle a canoe as well as anybody, and she was eager to take part in one or two of the races. So she got out early one morning, with Wyn and Grace, and Mr. Lavine for referee, and they did some good work.