The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna Part 14

"No. It was an old boat that Mr. Norman thought he was going fishing in, same as usual. Billy often brings home a mess of fish, or sells them.

You know, he has always been a helpful boy."

"We want to tell you, Alice dear," said Dorothy with a glance at her sister, "that we don't believe a word of what they say about Billy."

"Thank you, Miss," said Alice, eagerly. "I was sure his schoolmates would stand by him. But he was very foolish to run away--if he has run away."

"Otherwise, what has happened to him?"

"That is what is worrying father and me. The boat was old. Something might have happened. He might be drowned," sobbed the sister.

"Oh, no, Alice! Billy was a good swimmer."

"I know that. But often good swimmers are taken with cramps. And if the boat overturned, or sank, out in the middle of Lake Luna----"

"That's too dreadful a thing to think of!" cried Dora. "I believe he ran away because he was afraid of being arrested. Everybody was talking about his having a hand in that robbery."

"Well, he never did it. I could testify that he wasn't out of his bed Tuesday night when the robbery took place. I told the policemen so. But, of course, Billy could have gone out of the window and down the shed roof--and got back again, too--without our knowing it. He has more than once, I suppose," admitted the troubled sister.

"You see, on Wednesday Stresch & Potter sent their store detective to see Billy, and he bulldozed him and threatened him. I expect the boy was badly frightened, although the man was only a cheap bully. So we don't know what to think--whether Billy has deliberately run away, or that some accident happened to him on the lake."

"Chet and Lance Darby were looking for him Sat.u.r.day over at Cavern Island," said a twin. "But they met with an accident. We're all going over to the island again this coming Sat.u.r.day, and we'll search the east end for him."

"How would he live over there?" gasped his sister.

"Oh, there are berries this time of year. And of course, he could fish,"

said Dora eagerly.

"There's a man hiding there, anyway," added Dorothy, but then remembered that the information might add to Alice's fright, so said no more.

"We'll do everything we can to find Short and Long," Dora a.s.sured the boy's sister. "And we are telling everybody that we don't believe Billy would do such a thing as they say. As though there wasn't any other boy in Centerport who could have crawled through that window at Stresch & Potter's."

The twins parted from Alice Long, and ran home. They slipped to bed without encountering Aunt Dora and counted that day well spent because the old lady had not yet caught them so that she could identify Dora.

But on Tuesday Aunt Dora appeared at Central High and met Miss Grace G.

Carrington--otherwise "Gee Gee."

"I wish to hear my nieces recite," she said, with sharply twinkling eyes behind her gla.s.ses.

"It doesn't matter what cla.s.s--any cla.s.s will do."

Miss Carrington politely asked the prim old lady to sit beside her on the platform, and Aunt Dora listened to the recitation then in progress.

Both Dora and Dorothy took part; but for the life of her the near-sighted lady could not tell when Dora spoke, and when Dorothy answered!

"I suppose you know them apart?" she ventured, to Miss Carrington.

"Oh, no; but I believe they usually answer to their names. They stand about alike in their cla.s.ses and we have put them on their honor not to answer for each other. They are good girls and give me little trouble,"

added Gee Gee, which was a concession from her.

"So if you called one of them to the desk you could not be sure that the one you called really came?" asked Aunt Dora.

"Not as far as physical appearances go," said Gee Gee, shaking her head.

So Aunt Dora was thwarted again and went back to the cottage to invent some other method of tripping the twins. It had become a game, now, that both sides were determined to win; and Mr. Lockwood and Mrs. Betsey stood by and watched the play with amus.e.m.e.nt.

A veritable fleet of canoes, pair-oared and four-oared boats gathered at Central High boat house, just before noon the next Sat.u.r.day. It was a bright and calm day and the lake looked most inviting.

The girls were in fine fettle, particularly. The subscription paper to raise the sum necessary for the purchase of a new eight-oared sh.e.l.l had gone about town briskly that week and Laura reported that already more than half of the sum necessary had been promised. She had written to the builders of such sh.e.l.ls and they had replied that there was one in stock that they would be glad to send the girls of Central High, on approval, if the physical instructor agreed.

"And Mrs. Case is writing to them to-day," concluded Laura. "They will send on the new boat and we can pay for it after the money is all in.

And, oh, girls! We'll win that race from the Keyport and other crews, if such a thing is possible. After to-day the crew will be in training. We must try out the boat, and work in her just as soon as she arrives, and every other afternoon thereafter. So, you members of the crew make your preparations accordingly."

"And for goodness sake, Bobby," urged Nellie Agnew, to the little "c.o.x"

of the crew, "don't you go to cutting capers in school so that Gee Gee can condition you. She's just waiting for a chance to fix it so you cannot steer for us."

"Aw, pshaw!" said Clara Hargrew. "I don't do anything."

"No; but Gee Gee does something to you," declared Jess Morse, laughing.

"See that you don't give her a chance to stop your after-hour athletics again, Bobby," begged Laura.

"All right; I'll be good," said Bobby, grinning.

"But after school--well, when long vacation comes this time I think I'll have to set the old school house afire to celebrate!"

"No. You had trouble over fires before," advised Dorothy Lockwood.

"That's so," agreed Dora.

"Don't mention fire again!" exclaimed Jess. "That's why we lost the race before--because you could not steer for us, Bobby."

Laura and Lance Darby took Eve and Otto Sitz with them in Lance's nice boat. There were two pairs of sculls and Otto managed to row very well in the bow. Of course Chet took Jess in his boat, and the remainder paired off as fancy beckoned. But the twins paddled their cedar canoe.

And few of the fleet of small craft were propelled to the island in better shape than Dora's and Dorothy's canoe. The others cheered the pretty girls as they forced their craft through the rippling water. The management of a canoe--especially a double canoe--is not so easy as it appears. But the Lockwood twins had taken to that form of aquatic sports very kindly, and there really were few canoe crews in Centerport who handled their craft as well.

The fleet of boats crossed the lake in a short time and, headed by the twins' canoe, reached the eastern end of the island. They swept into the cove where the girls had seen, the previous Sat.u.r.day, the rough-looking, bewhiskered man upon the sh.o.r.e. Right here under the Boulder Head was the mouth of the cavern from which the island obtained its name.

As the twins swept their canoe on with easy strokes, Dora suddenly uttered a cry of excitement.

"See there, Dory!" she said.

"See where?" demanded her sister, craning her neck to see over Dora's shoulder.

"There! Down in the water! The sunken boat!"

The water in the cove was very clear, but it had considerable depth. The canoe was brought sharply up by the two girls and both peered down.

Below them could plainly be seen a sunken rowboat. It did not appear to be damaged in any way, but had simply filled and sunk.