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CHAPTER XVI
TIT FOR TAT
But instead of returning toward the tents she ran straight across the clearing. Possibly she did not stop to think where she was going, for she came against the underbrush again and that terrific growl was once more repeated.
Frankie stopped as though she had been shot. Right in front of her loomed a second black, hairy figure.
She glared around wildly. At the back of the clearing was the opening into the wood path leading from Windmill Farm down to the boat-landing at John Jarley’s place. And in that opening, and for an instant, appeared likewise a threatening form!
“Come here! Come here, Frank!” shrieked Bess. “There’s another of them–we’re surrounded.”
The Cameron girl started again, and let out the last link of speed that there was in her. She ran straight down to the shore where Mrs. Havel just aroused by the shrieks, was starting to return to camp.
The other girls piled after her. But Wyn brought up the rear. She looked around now and then. Three bears! In a place where no bears had been seen for years and years! Wyn was puzzled.
“There are bears in the woods, Mrs. Havel!” gasped Grace.
“Nonsense, child!”
“I saw ’em. One almost grabbed me,” declared the big girl.
“And I saw them, Auntie,” urged Percy Havel.
“This way! this way!” cried Frank, running along the shore under the high knoll on which the camp was pitched. “They can’t see us down here.”
Mrs. Havel was urged along by her niece and Grace. Wyn brought up the rear. Oddly enough, none of the bears came out of the bushes–that she could see.
The girls plunged along the sand, and through the shallow water for several yards. Here the bushes grew right down to the edge of the lake. Suddenly Wyn caught sight of something ahead, and uttered a sharp command:
“Stop! every one of you! Do you hear me, Frank? Stop!”
“Oh, dear! they can eat us here just as well as anywhere,” groaned Grace.
“Now be quiet!” said Wynifred, in some heat. “We’ve all been foolish enough. Those were not bears.”
“Cows, maybe, Wynnie?” asked Mrs. Havel. “But I am quite as afraid of cows – ”
“Nor cows, either. I guess you wouldn’t have been fooled for a minute if you had seen them,” said Wyn.
“What do you mean, Wyn?” cried Frank. “I tell you I saw them with my own eyes – ”
“Of course you did. So did I,” admitted Wyn. “But we did not see them right. They are not bears, walking on their hind legs; they are just boys walking on the only legs they’ve got!”
“The Busters!” ejaculated Frank.
“Oh, Wyn! do you think so?” asked Mina, hopefully.
“Look ahead,” commanded Wyn. “There are the boys’ canoes. They paddled over here this morning and dressed up in those old moth-eaten buffalo robes they had over there, on the island, and managed to frighten us nicely.”
“That’s it! They played a joke on us,” began Frank, laughing.
But Mrs. Havel was angry. “They should be sent home for playing such a trick,” she said, “and I shall speak to Professor Skillings about it.”
“Pooh!” said Wyn. “They’re only boys. And of course they’ll be up to such tricks. The thing to do is to go them one better.”
“How, Wyn, how?” cried her mates.
“I do not know that I can allow this, Wynifred,” began Mrs. Havel, doubtfully.
“You wish to punish them; don’t you, Mrs. Havel?”
“They should be punished–yes.”
“Then we have the chance,” cried Wyn, gleefully. “You go back to the camp, Mrs. Havel, and we girls will take their canoes–every one of them. We’ll call them the trophies of war, and we’ll make the Busters pay–and pay well for them–before they get their canoes back. What do you say, girls?”
“Splendid!” cried Frank. “And they frightened me so!”
“Look out for the biscuits, Mrs. Havel, please,” begged Bess. “I am afraid they will be burned.”
The lady returned hurriedly to the camp on the top of the hillock. When she mounted the rise from the shore, there was a circle of giggling youths about the open fireplace and a pile of moth-eaten buffalo hides near by. Dave was messing with the Dutch oven in which Bess had just before put the pan of biscuit for breakfast.
“Ho, ho!” cried Tubby. “Where are the girls?”
“Bear hunting, I bet!” cried Ferd Roberts.
“Good-morning, Mrs. Havel,” said Dave, smiling rather sheepishly. “I hope we didn’t scare you.”
“You rather startled me–coming unannounced,” admitted Mrs. Havel, but smiling quietly. “You surely have not breakfasted so early?”
“No. That’s part of the game,” declared another youth. “We claim forfeit–and in this case take payment in eats.”
“I am afraid you are more slangy than understandable,” returned Mrs. Havel. “Did you come for something particular?”
“Goodness! didn’t you see those girls running?” cried Ferd.
“Running? Where to?” queried the chaperone.
Dave began to look more serious.
“Perhaps they are running yet!” squealed Tubby, only seeing the fun of it.
“Bet they’ve gone for help to hunt the bears,” laughed another of the reckless youngsters.
“They’ll get out the whole countryside to find ’em,” choked Ferdinand Roberts. “That’s too rich.”
“Are you sure the girls didn’t come your way, Mrs. Havel?” asked Dave, with anxiety.
“Oh, the girls will be back presently. I came up to see to the biscuit, Mr. Shepard. About inviting you to breakfast–You know, I am only a guest of Green Knoll Camp myself. I couldn’t invite you,” said Mrs. Havel, demurely.
The boys looked at each other in some surprise and Tubby’s face fell woefully.
“Ca-can’t we do something to help you get breakfast, Mrs. Havel?”
Mrs. Havel had to hide a smile at that, but she remained obdurate. “I have really nothing to do with it, Sir Tubby. You must wait for the girls to come,” she said.
The boys began whispering together; but they did not move. They had scuttled over from their own camp early with the express intention of “getting one” on the girls, and making a breakfast out of it. But now the accomplishment of their purpose seemed doubtful, and there was a hollow look about them all that should have made Mrs. Havel pity them.
That lady, however, remembered vividly how she had run along the shore in fear of a flock of bears; this was a part of the boys’ punishment for that ill-begotten joke.
The biscuit were beginning to brown, the coffee sent off a delicious odor, and here were eggs ready to drop into the kettle of boiling water for their four-minute submersion. Besides, there was mush and milk. Every minute the boys became hungrier.
“Aren’t the girls ever coming?” sighed Tubby. “They couldn’t be so heartless.”
“They haven’t gone far; have they?” queried Dave Shepard. “We saw their canoes on the beach.”
Just then the laughter of the girls in the distance broke upon the ears of those on the hillock. They were approaching along the shore–apparently from the direction of Jarley’s landing.
“They don’t seem to have been much scared, after all,” grumbled Tubby to Ferd.
“It was a silly thing to do, anyway,” returned young Roberts. “Suppose we don’t get any breakfast?”
At this horrid thought the fat youth almost fainted. The girls came in sight, and at once hailed the boys gaily:
“Oh! see who’s here!” cried Frank. “What a lovely surprise!”
“Isn’t it?” said Bess, but with rather a vicious snap. “We couldn’t get along, of course, without having a parcel of boys around. ’Morning, Mr. Shepard.”
Bess made a difference between Dave and the rest of the Busters, for Dave had helped her in a serious difficulty.
“Where’s the professor?” demanded Grace. “Isn’t he here, too?”
“He’s having breakfast all by his lonesome over on the island,” said Ferd, and Tubby groaned at the word “breakfast,” while Dave added:
“We–we got a dreadfully early start this morning.”
“Quite a start–I should say,” returned Wyn, smiling broadly. “And now you’re hungry, I suppose?”
“Oh, aren’t we, just?” cried one of the crowd, hollowly.
“How about it, Bess? Is there enough for so many more?”
Bess was already sifting flour for more biscuit. She said: “I’ll have another panful in a jiffy. Put in the eggs, Mina. We can make a beginning.”
“There’s plenty of mush,” said Mina. “That’s one sure thing.”
“But we can’t all sit down,” cried Grace.
“You know, there are but six of these folding seats, and Wyn’s been sitting on a cracker box ever since we set up the tents.”
“Feed ’em where they’re sitting,” said Wyn, quickly. “Beggars mustn’t be choosers.”
“Jinks! we didn’t treat you like this when you came over to our camp,” cried Ferd.
“And we didn’t come over almost before you were up in the morning,” responded Frank, quickly. “How did you know we had made our ‘twilights’ at such an unconscionable hour?”
The girls were all laughing a good deal. Nobody said a word about the “bear” fright, and the boys felt a little diffidence about broaching the subject. Evidently their joke had fallen flat.
But the girls really had no intention of being mean to the six Busters. The first pan of biscuit came out of the oven a golden brown. Grace and Percy set them and the bowls of mush on the table, and handed around other bowls and a pitcher of milk to the circle of boys, sitting cross-legged on the ground like so many tailors.
There was honey for the biscuits, too, as well as golden butter–both from Windmill Farm. The eggs were cooked just right, and there were plenty of them. Crisp radishes and sliced cucumbers and tomatoes added to the fare.
“Gee!” sighed Tubby, “doesn’t it take girls to live right in camp? And look at those doughnuts.”
“I fried them,” cried Mina, proudly. “Mrs. Havel showed me how, though.”
“Mrs. Havel, come over to Gannet Island and teach us how to cook,” cried Dave. “We don’t have anything like this.”
“Not a sweetie except what we buy at the Forge–and that’s baker’s stuff,” complained Tubby.
“Don’t you think you boys had better be pretty good to us–if you want to come to tea–or breakfast–once in a while?” asked Wyn, pointedly.
“Right!” declared Dave.
“Got us there,” admitted Ferdinand.
“I’ll see that they behave themselves, Wyn,” cried Tubby, with great enthusiasm. “These fellows are too fresh, anyway – ”
But at this the other boys rose up in their might and pitched upon Master Blaisdell, rolling him over and over on the grass and making him lose half of his last doughnut.
“Now, now, now!” cried Mrs. Havel. “This is no bear-garden. Try to behave.”
The boys began to laugh uproariously at this. “What do you know about a bear-garden, Grace?” Ferd demanded.
“And wasn’t that growling of Dave’s awe-inspiring?” cried another.
“And weren’t you scared, Frank Cameron?” suggested Tubby, grinning hugely when his mates had let him up. “I never did know you could run so fast.”
“Why, pshaw!” responded Frank. “Did you boys really think you had scared us with those moth-eaten old robes?”
“How ridiculous!” chimed in Bess. “A boy is usually a good deal of a bear, I know; but he doesn’t look like one.”
“And–and there haven’t been any bears in this country for–for years,” said Grace, though rather quaveringly.
“Say! what do you know about all this?” demanded Dave, of his mates.
“Do you girls mean to say that you weren’t scared pretty near into fits?” cried one lad.
“Did we act scared?” laughed Wyn. “I guess we fooled you a little, eh?”
“You’re just as much mistaken,” said Frank, “as the red-headed man was who went to see the doctor because he had indigestion. When the doctor told him to diet, it wasn’t his hair he meant; but the red-headed man got mad just the same. Now, you boys – ”
“Aw, come! come!” cried Dave. “You can’t say honestly you were not scared. You know you were.”
“I am afraid your joke fell flat, Davie,” laughed Wyn. All the girls were enjoying the boys’ discomfiture. “Of course, I suppose you thought you deserved your breakfast as a forfeit because you got a trick across on us. But you’ll have to try again, I am afraid. Just because we ran doesn’t prove that we did not recognize the combination of a boy and a buffalo robe.”
“Aw, now!” cried one of the boys. “What did you run for?”
“There’s a reason,” laughed Percy.
“Wait!” advised Frank, shaking her head and her own eyes dancing. “You will find out soon enough why we ran.”
“‘He laughs best who laughs last,’” quoted Grace. “Bears, indeed!”
The boys were puzzled. Breakfast being over the girls went about their several tasks and paid their friends of the opposite sex very little attention. To all suggestions that they get out the canoes and go across to the island with the boys, or on other junkets, the girls responded with refusals. They evidently thought they had something like a joke themselves on the boys, and finally the latter went off through the brush toward the spot where they had tied their canoes, half inclined to be angry.
They were gone a long while, and were very quiet. The girls whispered together, and kept right near the tents, waiting for the explosion.
“At least,” Wyn said, chuckling, “we gave them a good breakfast, so they won’t starve to death; but if they want to go to the island they will have to swim.”
“We’ve given them ‘tit for tat,’” said Frankie, nodding her head. “Glad of it. And they’ll pay the forfeit, instead of us.”
“If they don’t find the canoes,” whispered Grace.
“They wouldn’t find them in a week of Sundays,” cried Percy.
“Then let’s set them a good hard task for payment,” suggested Bess.
“That’s right. They oughtn’t to have tried to scare us so,” agreed Mina.
“I guess it is agreed,” laughed Wyn, “to show them no mercy. Ah! here they come now.”
The Busters slowly climbed the knoll in rather woebegone fashion. Their feathers certainly were drooped, as Frank remarked.
“Well,” said Dave, throwing himself down on the sward, “we must hand it to you Go-Aheads. You’ve got us ’way out on the limb, and if you shake the tree very hard we’ll drop off.”
“No, thanks!” snapped Bess. “We don’t care for green fruit.”
“Oh, oh!” squealed Ferd. “I bet that hurt me.”
“Now, there’s no use quarreling,” said Dave. “We admit defeat. Where under the sun you girls could have hidden our canoes I don’t see. And your own haven’t been used this morning, that’s sure.”
Wyn and her mates broke into uncontrollable laughter at this.
“Who’s the joke on now?” cried Bess.
“What will you give to find your canoes?” exclaimed Frankie.
“Aw–say–don’t rub it in,” begged Tubby. “We own up to the corn. You beat us. Where are the canoes?”
“Ahem!” said Wynifred, clearing her throat loudly, and standing forth.
“Hear, hear!” cried Mina.
“Oh! you’ve got it all fixed up for us, I see,” muttered Ferd.
“The understanding always has been,” said Wyn, calmly, “that if one party succeeded in playing a practical joke on the other, and ‘getting away with it,’ as you slangy boys say, the party falling for the trick should pay forfeit. Isn’t that so?”
“Go on! Do your worst,” growled Ferd.
“That’s right. You state the case clearly, Miss Mallory,” said Dave, with a bow of mockery.
“And they never paid a forfeit for the time Tubby slid down our boathouse roof, plunk into the water,” cried Bessie.
“Aw–that’s ancient history,” growled Tubby.
“Let us stick to recent events,” agreed Wyn, smiling. “If we girls were at all frightened by your ‘bear-faced’ attempt to frighten us this morning, we have paid with a breakfast; haven’t we?”
“And it was a good one,” agreed Dave.
“It’s made me go right to cooking again,” said Bess. “A swarm of locusts would have brought about no greater devastation.”
“Then, gentlemen,” said Wynifred, “do you admit that the shoe is now on the other foot? You cannot find your canoes. Will you pay us to find them for you?”
“That’s only fair,” admitted Dave.
“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 Association, 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 passing 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 Saturday. 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 attitude. 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 pronounced, 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 anchored 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 ashore 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 shores 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 classes 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 shores 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.
They chanced to get well over toward the Jarley boat landing and suddenly Wyn set up a shout:
“Polly! Polly Jolly! I never knew you had a canoe. Come on over here!”
She had caught sight of the boatman’s daughter paddling near the shore in an Indian canoe. It was of birchbark and Polly shot it along under the stroke of her paddle as though it had the weight of a feather. And, indeed, it was not so heavy by a good deal as the cedar boats of the Go-Ahead girls.
Polly waved her hand and turned the canoe’s prow toward Wyn. Not until she was right among the other canoes did she realize that in one of them sat Bessie Lavine.
“We are very glad to see you, Polly,” declared Wyn. “Are you going to enter for the girls’ races?”
“Good-morning, Polly,” cried Grace, equally cordial. “What a pretty boat you have!”
Polly stammered some words of welcome and then looked from Bessie to Mr. Lavine. Evidently the boatman’s daughter suspected who the gentleman was.
Mr. Lavine was a pleasant enough man to meet socially. It is true that both he and his daughter were impulsive and perhaps prided themselves on being “good haters.” This does not mean that they were haters of that which was good; but that if they considered anybody their enemy the enmity was not allowed to die out.
“I am glad to see you again, Polly,” Bess said, driving her canoe close to that of the boatman’s daughter. “Won’t you speak to me at all?”
“Oh, Miss Lavine! I would not be so rude as to refuse to speak to you,” Polly replied. “But–but it doesn’t do any good – ”
“Yes, it does, Polly,” Bess said, quickly. “This is my father and he wants to thank you for saving my life.”
“Indeed I do!” exclaimed Mr. Lavine, heartily. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate what you did – ”
“Oh, yes, sir,” said Polly, hurriedly. “I know all about that. You told me how you felt in your letter. And I’m sure I am obliged to you – ”
“For what?” demanded the gentleman, smiling. “I have done nothing but acknowledge in empty phrases your bravery and good sense. I think a deal of my Bessie, and I must show you in some more substantial way how much I appreciate what you did for her.”
“No, sir; you cannot do that,” declared Polly, very much flushed, but with firmness, too.
“Oh, come, now I My dear girl! Don’t be so offish – ”
“You have thanked me sufficiently, sir,” declared Polly. “If I did not know better than to accept anything more substantial myself, my father would not allow it.”
“Oh, come now! Your father – ”
“My father, sir, is John Jarley. He used to be your friend and partner in business. You have seen fit to spread abroad tales about him that he denies–that are untrue, sir,” pursued Polly, her anger making her voice tremble.
“From you, Mr. Lavine, we could accept nothing–no charity. If we are poor, and if I have no advantages–such advantages as your daughter has, for instance–you are as much to blame for it as anybody.”
“Oh! come now!”
“It is true. Your libelling of my father ruined his reputation in Denton. He could get no business there. And it worried my mother almost to death. So he had to come away up here into the woods.”
“I really was not to blame for that, Polly,” said Mr. Lavine.
“You were! Whether you realize it yourself, or not, you are the cause of all our troubles, for they began with your being angry with father over the Steel Rivet Corporation deal. I know. He’s told me about it himself.”
Mr. Lavine was putting a strong brake upon his temper. He was deeply grateful to Polly; but he was a proud man, too.
“Let us put aside the difference of opinion between John Jarley and myself, my dear girl,” he said, quietly. “Perhaps he and I had better discuss that; not you and I. Bessie, I know, wishes to be your friend, and so do I. Had you not rescued her from the lake as you did, Polly, I should be mourning her death. It is a terrible thing to think of!”
Polly was silenced by this. But if she did not look actually sullen, she certainly gave no sign of giving way.
“So, my dear, you must see how strongly we both feel. You would be doing a kind action, Polly, if you allowed Bessie to be your friend.”
“That is true, Polly,” cried Bessie, putting out her hand again. “Do, do shake hands with me. Why! I owe you my life!”
“Don’t talk that way!” returned the boatman’s daughter. But she gave Bess her hand. “You make too much of what I did. And I don’t want to seem mean–and ungrateful.
“But, truly, you can do nothing for me. No, Mr. Lavine; there is nothing I could accept. You have wronged my father – ”
He put up his hand in denial, but she went on to say:
“At least, I believe so. You can do nothing for me. I would be glad if you would right the wrong you did him so long ago; but I do not want you to do that in payment for anything I may have done for Miss Bessie.
“No, sir. Right my father’s wrong because it is a wrong and because you realize it to be such–that you were mistaken – ”
“I do not see that,” Mr. Lavine returned, stiffly.
“Then there is nothing more to be said,” declared Polly, and with a quick flirt of her paddle, she drove her birchbark out of the huddle of other canoes and, in half a minute, was out of earshot.
