Wyn's Camping Days; Or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club

by Amy Bell Marlowe

  Produced by Roger Frank, Juliet Sutherland and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

  WYN'S CAMPING DAYS

  BOOKS FOR GIRLS

  By AMY BELL MARLOWE

  12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Price per volume, 75 cents, postpaid

  THE OLDEST OF FOUR Or Natalie's Way Out

  THE GIRLS OF HILLCREST FARM Or the Secret of the Rocks

  A LITTLE MISS NOBOBY Or With the Girls of Pinewood Hall

  THE GIRL FROM SUNSET RANCH Or Alone in a Great City

  WYN'S CAMPING DAYS Or The Outing of Go-Ahead Club

  FRANCES OF THE RANGES Or The Old Ranchman's Treasure

  THE GIRLS OF RIVERCLIFF SCHOOL Or Beth Baldwin's Resolve

  GROSSET & DUNLAP

  PUBLISHERS--NEW YORK

  IT DID SEEM, BECAUSE THEY WERE IN A HURRY, THATEVERYTHING WENT WRONG. _Frontispiece (Page 80)._]

  WYN'S CAMPING DAYS

  OR

  THE OUTING OF THE GO-AHEAD CLUB

  BY

  AMY BELL MARLOWE

  AUTHOR OFTHE OLDEST OF FOUR, THE GIRL FROM SUNSET RANCH,A LITTLE MISS NOBODY, ETC.

  Illustrated

  NEW YORK

  GROSSET & DUNLAP

  PUBLISHERS

  Copyright, 1914, by

  GROSSET & DUNLAP

  Wyn's Camping Days

  CONTENTS

  Chapter Page I. THE GO-AHEAD CLUB 1 II. THE BUSTERS 12 III. POLLY 20 IV. THE SILVER IMAGES 34 V. BESSIE LAVINE 49 VI. OFF FOR THE LAKE 55 VII. THE STORM BREAKS 71 VIII. AT WINDMILL FARM 83 IX. JOHN JARLEY, EXILE 94 X. THE "HAPPY DAY" 104 XI. WHERE THE ACCIDENT HAPPENED 120 XII. AN OVERTURN 129 XIII. A SERIOUS ADVENTURE 144 XIV. THE REPULSE 150 XV. TROUBLE "BRUIN" 161 XVI. TIT FOR TAT 171 XVII. VISITORS 188 XVIII. THE REGATTA 198 XIX. UNDER WHITE WINGS 207 XX. THE CANOE RACE 213 XXI. THE WAY OF THE WIND 224 XXII. THE PRISONERS OF THE TOWER 232 XXIII. WYN HITS SOMETHING 240 XXIV. THE NIGHT ALARM 248 XXV. THE STRANGE BATEAU 258 XXVI. THE BOYS TO THE RESCUE 267 XXVII. IS IT THE "BRIGHT EYES"? 278 XXVIII. A FRIEND IN NEED 288 XXIX. THE SUNKEN TREASURE 296 XXX. STRIKING CAMP 306

  WYN'S CAMPING DAYS

  CHAPTER I

  THE GO-AHEAD CLUB

  "Oh, girls! such news!" cried Wynifred Mallory, banging open the door ofCanoe Lodge, and bringing into the living room a big breath of the coolMay air, which drew out of the open fireplace a sudden balloon of smoke,setting the other members of the Go-Ahead Club there assembled coughing.

  Grace Hedges, who was acting as fireman that week, turned an exasperatedface, with a bar of smut across it, exclaiming:

  "If another soul comes in that door and creates a back-draught untilthis fire gets to burning properly, I certainly shall have hysterics! Inever did see such a mean old thing to burn."

  "Never mind, Gracie. We're all here now--all six of us. There are nomore Go-Aheads to come," observed Bessie Lavine, yawning over her bookin the only sunny corner of the room.

  "There! it's burning--finally," exclaimed Grace, with blended disgustand thankfulness. "I never was cut out for a fireman, girls."

  "Poor Gracie," purred Wyn, who had approached the blaze that was nowbeginning to curl through the hickory sticks piled more or lessscientifically against the backlog. "Don't you know it needed just thatback-draught to break the deadlock in the chimney and start your firecrackling this way?"

  "Bah! it was just hateful," grumbled Grace. "I hate fire making. And itdoes seem as though my week for playing fireman comes around twice asoften as it should." Wyn had moved rather too near to the dartingflames, and Grace suddenly pulled the captain of the club aside."_Don't_ stand so near, Silly!" she cried.

  "Fireman! save my che-ild!" wailed "Frank" Cameron, coming forward andwinding her long arms around Wynifred. "What's the news, Wyn, dear?Nobody had the politeness to ask you. Wherefore all the excitement?"

  "There must be a strike at the blacksmith shop," said Percy Havel, acurly-headed blonde girl.

  "No!" cried Frank, with a droll twist of her rather homely features."I'll wager they've laid off one of the hands of the town clock.Business is dreadfully dull. I heard my father say so."

  She was a tall, lanky girl, was Frances Cameron, with a great mass ofblue-black hair and flashing black eyes. She was thin, strong, andlacking in those soft curves of budding womanhood which girls of her ageusually display. "Straight up and down, my dears," she often said."Built upon the most approved clothespin plan, with every boneperfectly--not to say generously--developed."

  "Well," said Wyn, laughing, "if you girls will give me a chance I willdivulge my news."

  "Be still!" commanded Frank. "The oracle speaks."

  "Oh, hurry up, Wyn!" exclaimed Percy, coming nearer the group before thenow roaring fire. "I've been dying to tell them."

  "Well, girls," said Wyn, smiling, so that her brown eyes fairly danced."Mrs. Havel--Percy's aunt--says she will go."

  "Fine!" exclaimed Frankie.

  "You don't mean it, Wyn?" gasped Mina Everett. "Then we really_can_ go camping?"

  "And to Lake Honotonka?" put in Bessie.

  "That's what we aimed to do; wasn't it?" demanded Wyn, laughing. "Andwhen the Go-Ahead Club starts to do a thing, it usually arrives; doesn'tit?"

  "At least, the captain arrives for them," said Frank, giving Wyn's arm alittle squeeze. "We wouldn't get far in our 'go-ahead' plans if itwasn't for you, Wynnie."

  "Such flattery!" protested the captain.

  "You didn't have an easy time convincing my mother--I know that," saidMina, shaking _her_ head. "You know, she's so afraid of water."

  "And my mother is afraid of high winds," confessed Bessie. "Wyn had tocoax to bring her around."

  "And of course, Gracie's mother is afraid of fire," chuckled Frank; "andthere you have the three elements. You can plainly see that Gracie knowsvery little about fire. She never built one in her life until we formedour camping club."

  "Oh, well," observed Grace, trying to rub the smut off her face with ahandkerchief and the aid of a pocket-mirror, "this is about the end ofthe fire season, thank goodness! If we go into camp after school closes,on Lake Honotonka, there won't be any fires to build."

  "Oh, _won't_ there?" cried Bessie. "You just wait. Instead oftaking turns at being fireman for the week, as we do through the winter,we'll draw lots to see who shall build _all_ the fires. And youknow very well, Gracie, that you always _are_ unlucky."

  "Sure she is," agreed Frank. "She always draws the very boobiest of allbooby prizes out of the grab-bag."
<
br />   "Oh, dear me!" wailed Grace, who was big, and handsome, and not a littlelazy, "I do so hate to work, too. If there had been another set of girlsI liked at Denton Academy, I'd never have joined the Go-Ahead Club."

  "Right. Gracie is better fitted for a Fall-Behind Club," observed Wyn.

  "But tell us, Wynnie," begged Mina. "Is it really all arranged? Haseverybody agreed that we can go in our canoes to Lake Honotonka?"

  "And stay all vacation if we like?" cried Percy.

  "That is the understanding," Wyn assured them. "Percy's aunt is the verykindest lady who ever was----"

  "Vote we buy her something nice," interposed Frank.

  "That will come in due season," Wyn continued. "But Mrs. Havel went withme to all our people. She knows all about the place, of course----"

  "So does my father," interposed Bessie.

  "And he wasn't hard to convince," Wyn responded. "Of course, there arewild nooks along Honotonka's shores; but at the upper end is BraiselyPark, where all those rich folks live; and there's the village ofMeade's Forge at this end of the lake. We can get supplies, or a doctor,or send a telephone message, easily enough. And what more does onewant--camping out?"

  "We'll have just a lovely time!" sighed Bessie. "I can hardly wait forschool to close."

  "A month and a half yet," said Frank Cameron. "And every day will seemlonger than the one that preceded it. But then! when it does come----"

  "Just think of living under canvas--and for weeks and weeks! It almostmakes me feel spooky," declared Grace, beginning to grow enthusiastic.

  These girls, all attending Denton Academy and living within the limitsof that town, being the daughters of fairly well-to-do parents, had beenable to enjoy many advantages as well as pleasures that poorer girlscould not have; but none of them had chanced to experience the joys of avacation in the woods.

  During the preceding autumn they had become immensely interested incanoeing. Denton was situated upon the beautiful, winding Wintinooski,and the six members of the Go-Ahead Club had taken several Saturdaycruises on the river. But never had they gone as far up the stream asLake Honotonka.

  That was a wide and beautiful sheet of water, thirty-five miles to thewest of the town of Denton. Their boy friends had sometimes been allowedto go camping upon the shores of the lake; and their enthusiastic praiseof the fun to be had under canvas had set Wynifred Mallory and her chums"just wild," as Frank Cameron expressed it, to try it too.

  Wyn was a girl of determination and physical as well as moral courage.If she made up her mind that a thing was right, and she wanted it, sheusually got it.

  When the girls first broached their desire to spend the summer at thebig lake, and actually live under canvas, not one of their parentsencouraged the idea. Because the "Busters," a certain boys' club of thegirls' friends, were going to the lake again for the long vacation, madeno difference to the mothers and fathers--especially the mothers of Wynand her chums of the Go-Ahead Club.

  "It's no use," Bessie Lavine had reported, at their first meeting afterthe idea was born in Canoe Lodge, as the girls called their novelboathouse overhanging the bank of a quiet pool of the Wintinooski. "Evenfather won't hear of it. Six girls going alone into the wilds----"

  "But the Busters and Professor Skillings will be near our camp," Frankhad cried. "That's what I told mother. But she couldn't see it."

  Wyn had listened at that meeting to the opinions of all the othergirls--and to their hopeless and disappointed complaints as well--andthen she had taken the whole burden on her own shoulders.

  "Don't you say another word at home about it, girls--any of you," shesaid. "Leave it to me. Our idea of living for the summer in the open isa good one. We'll come back to school in the fall with ginger and healthenough to keep us going like dynamos during the next school year."

  "But you can't make my mother see that," wailed Percy. "She only seesthe snakes, and mosquitoes, and tramps, and big winds, and drowning, andI don't know but she visualizes earthquake shocks and volcanoes!"

  "Give me a chance," said Wyn.

  "Voted!" Frankie declared. "When Wyn sets out to do a thing we might aswell give her her head. She's like Davy Crockett; and I hope all ourfolks will come down without being shot, like the historic 'coon."

  And this present declaration of their captain, which had so aroused theGo-Ahead Club, was the result of Wyn Mallory's exertions.

  She had first obtained the interest and cooperation of Percy's AuntEvelyn, who was a widowed lady fond of outdoor life herself. Mrs. Havelwas to act as chaperone. With this addition to their forces, the girlsstood a much better chance to win over their parents to their plan.

  And finally Wyn had gained the permission of the most obdurate parent.The cruise of the Go-Ahead Club in their canoes to Lake Honotonka, andtheir camping for the summer at some available spot along the lakeshore, was decided upon.

  "And are the Busters going?" asked Frank. "That's the next importantmatter."

  "Oh, we can get along without those boys, I guess," scoffed Bessie.

  "Yes, I know. We don't need 'em. And they are a great nuisancesometimes," admitted Frank, laughing. "But just the same, we'll havelots more fun with them around--especially Dave Shepard--eh, Wynnie?"

  "I don't see that you need _me_ to witness the truth of yourstatement, Frank," returned Wyn, flushing very prettily, for the girlssometimes teased her about Dave, who was her next-door neighbor. "Ofcourse we want the boys, even if Bess is a man-hater."

  "I guess they'll go," Frank said. "They liked it so much last year. Andthe professor is interested in the geological specimens to be found upthat way."

  "Goodness!" exclaimed Mina. "Is Professor Skillings going with themagain? He is so odd."

  "He's very absent-minded," said Bessie.

  Frank began to laugh again. "Say!" she began, "did you hear about whathappened to him last week? Father met him coming down Lane Street--youknow, it's narrow and the sidewalk in places is scarcely wide enough fortwo people to pass comfortably.

  "There was poor Professor Skillings hobbling along with one footcontinually in the gutter, his eyes fixed on a book he was reading as hewalked. Father said to him:

  "'Good morning, Professor! How are you feeling to-day?'

  "'Why--why--why!' exclaimed the professor--you know his funny way ofspeaking. 'Why--why--why--I was very well when I started out, I thought.But I don't know what's come over me. Do you know, I've developed apronounced limp since leaving the house!'"

  "Well, the boys like him," Wyn said, when the girls' laughter hadsubsided.

  "I thought I saw Dave Shepard and that 'Tubby' Blaisdell around herewhen I hurried down from school to light the fire," remarked Grace.

  At that moment a strange, scraping sound was heard right above thegirls' heads. Bess and Mina jumped up.

  "What's that?" cried Grace.

  "It's something on the roof," declared Wyn.

  Now, Canoe Lodge was built on a high bank over the river. One steppedfrom the level sward into the living room. The roof on one side was ashort, sharp pitch; but over the river it ran out in a long, easy slopeto shelter the canoe landing.

  Suddenly there was a crash, and the very house shook. There was a wheezyshout of alarm, the sound of another voice in wild laughter, and someheavy body slid down the long side of the roof with the noise of anavalanche.

  "The Busters!" shrieked Percy, and ran to a window overlooking theriver.