CHAPTER XV
TROUBLE "BRUIN"
The other girls and Mrs. Havel were all down on the beach to meet thecatboat and her passengers. To see Wyn and Bessie returning across thelake in the sailboat, instead of the canoes, forewarned the Go-Aheadsthat an accident had happened.
But although the girls were wet and bedraggled, the captain of the clubmade light of the affair.
"Where are your canoes?"
"What's happened?"
"Who is it with you?"
"What under the sun did you do--go overboard?"
Wyn answered all questions in a single sentence:
"We were capsized and lost the letters and things; but Polly picked usup and brought us home."
Then, amid the excited cries and congratulations, her voice rose again:
"Isn't she brave? What do you think of my Polly Jolly _now_? Canyou blame me for being proud of her?"
"I tell you wh--what she is!" gasped Bessie. "She's the bravest andsmartest girl I ever heard of."
"Good for you, Bess!" shouted Frank Cameron, helping the castawaysashore. "You're coming to your senses."
"And--and I'm sorry," blurted out Bess, "that I ever treated her so----"
Polly shoved off the catboat and proceeded to get under way again.
"Oh, _do_ come ashore, Polly!" begged Grace.
"I want to hug you, Miss Jarley!" cried Percy.
"What? All wet as I am now?" returned the boatman's daughter,laughing--although the laugh was not a pleasant one. "You make too muchof this matter. We're used to oversets on the lake. It is nothing."
"You do not call saving two girls' lives _nothing_, mydear--surely?" proposed Mrs. Havel.
"If I saved them, I am very, very glad of it," returned Polly, gravely."Anybody would be glad of _that_, of course, But you are making toomuch of it----"
"My father will not think so!" exclaimed the almost hysterical Bess."When he learns of this he will not be able to do enough for you----"
"Your father can do nothing for me, Bessie Lavine!" cried the boatman'sdaughter, with sharpness.
"Oh, Polly!" said Wyn, holding out her arms to her.
"He'll--he'll _want_ to," pursued Bess, eagerly. "Oh! he will! He'ddo anything for you now----"
"There's only one thing Henry Lavine can do for me," cried Polly,turning an angry face now toward the shore. "He can stop telling storiesabout my father. He can be kind to him--be decent to him. I don't wantanything else--and I don't want that as pay for fishing you out of thelake!"
She had got the sail up again and now the breeze filled it. The_Coquette_ laid over and slipped away from the shore. Her lastwords had silenced all the girls--even Mrs. Havel herself.
Bess burst into tears. She was quite broken down, and Wyn went off withher to the tent, her arm over her shoulder, and whispering to hercomfortingly.
"I don't care. Polly's served her right," declared Frank Cameron.
"I do not know that Polly can be blamed," Mrs. Havel observed. "But--butI wish she was more forgiving. It is not for herself that she speaks,however. It is for her father."
"And I'll wager he's just as nice a man as ever was," declared Frank."I'm going to ask _my_ father if he will not do something for Mr.Jarley."
"Do so, Frances," advised the chaperon. "I think you will do well."
The accident cast a cloud over Green Knoll Camp for the evening. Thegirls who had been swamped went to bed and were dosed with hot drinksbrewed over the campfire by Mrs. Havel. And when the boys came over intheir fleet for an evening sing and frolic, they were sent back again tothe island almost at once.
The boys did not take altogether kindly to this rebuff, and Tubby washeard to say:
"Isn't that just like girls? Because they got a little wet they must goto bed and take catnip tea, or something, and be quiet. Their nerves areall unstrung! Gee! wouldn't that make your ears buzz?"
"Aw, you're a doubting Thomas and always will be, Tub," said FerdRoberts. "You never believe what you're told. You're as suspicious asthe farmer who went to town and bought a pair of shoes, and when he'dpaid for 'em the clerk says:
"'Now, sir, can't I sell you a pair of shoe trees?'
"'Don't you get fresh with me, sonny,' says the farmer, his whiskersbristling. 'I don't believe shoes kin be raised on trees any more 'n Ibelieve rubbers grow on rubber trees, or oysters on oyster plants,b'gosh!'"
"Well," snarled the fat youth, as the other Busters laughed, "the girlsare always making excuses. You can never tell what a girl means,anyway--not by what she _says_."
"You know speech was given us to hide our thoughts," laughed Dave.
"Say! I'll get square just the same--paddlin' clear over here fornothing. Humph! I know that Hedges girl is afraid there's bears in thewoods? Say, fellers! I've _got_ it! Yes, I've got it!"
When Tubby spoke in this way, and his eyes snapped and he began to lookeager, his mates knew that the fat youth's gigantic mind was workingovertime, and they immediately gathered around and stopped paddling.
As Dave said, chuckling, a little later, "trouble was bruin!"
In the morning the girls found the two lost canoes on the shore belowthe camp. Polly and her father had evidently gone out in the evening,after the moon rose, and recovered them. Neither, of course, wasdamaged.
"And we must do something nice to pay them for it!" cried Grace.
Bessie was still deeply concerned over Polly's attitude.
"I am going to write father at once, and tell him all about it," shesaid. "And I _am_ sorry for the way I treated Polly at first. Doyou suppose she will ever forgive me, Wyn?"
Just as Wyn had once said in discussing Bessie's character: when thelatter realized that she was in the wrong, or had been unfair to anyone,she was never afraid to admit her fault and try to "make it up." Butthis seemed to be a case where it was very difficult for Bessie to"square herself."
The boatman's daughter had shown herself unwilling to be friendly withBess. Nor was Polly, perhaps, to be blamed.
However, on this particular morning the girls of Green Knoll Camp hadsomething besides Bessie's disturbance of mind and Polly Jarley'sattitude to think about.
And this "something" came upon them with a suddenness that set theentire camp in an uproar. Grace, the dilatory, was picking berriesbefore breakfast along the edge of the clearing, and popping them intoher mouth as fast as she could find ripe ones.
"Come here and help, Grace!" called Percy from the tent where she wasshaking out the heavy blankets. "I'm not going to do all my work andyours, too."
"You come and help _me_. It's more fun," returned Grace, laughingat her.
Then the lazy girl turned and reached for a particularly juicyblackberry, in the clump ahead of her. Percy saw her struck motionlessfor a second, or two; then the big girl fairly fell backward, rolledover, picked herself up, and raced back to the tents, her mouth wideopen and her hair streaming in the wind.
"What _is_ the matter?" gasped Percy.
"Oh, Grace! you look dreadful! Tell us, what has happened!" beggedBessie, as the big girl sank down by the entrance to the tent, her limbstoo weak to bear her farther.
"What has scared you so, Grace?" demanded Wyn, running up.
Grace's eyes rolled, she shut and opened her mouth again several times.Then she was only able to gasp out the one word:
"Bear!"
The other girls came crowding around. "What do you mean, Grace?" "Stoptrying to scare us, Grace!" "She's fooling," were some of the cries theyuttered.
But Wyn saw that her friend was really frightened; she was not "puttingit on."
"You don't mean that it was a _real_ bear?" cried Frank Cameron.
"A bear, I tell you!" moaned Grace, rocking herself to and fro. "I toldyou they were here in the woods."
"Oh, dear me!" screamed Mina. "What shall we do?"
"You didn't _see_ it, Grace?" demanded Wyn, sternly. "You onlyheard it."
"I saw it, I tell you!"
"Not really?"
"Do--do you think I don't know a bear when I see one?" demanded Grace."He--he'll be right after us----"
"No. If it was a real, wild bear he would be just as scared at seeingyou as you would be at seeing him," remarked the decidedly sensiblecaptain.
"He--he _couldn't_ be as scared as I am," moaned Grace, withconsiderable emphasis.
"I don't believe there's a bear within miles and miles of here!"declared Frank.
"Well! I declare I hope there isn't," cried Bess.
"I'll look," offered Wyn. "Grace just thought she saw something."
"A great, black and brown hairy beast!" moaned Grace. "He stood right upon his hind legs and stretched out his arms to me----"
"Enamored of all your young charms," giggled Frank.
"It's no joke!" gasped the frightened one.
"It _might_ be a bear, you know," quavered Mina.
The breakfast was being neglected. Mrs. Havel was down at the edge ofthe lake washing out some bits of lace. She had not heard the rumpus.
"I'm going to see," announced Frank, and ran back over the course Gracehad come.
She reached the berry bushes. She parted them and peered through. Shebegan to enter the jungle, indeed, in search of bruin.
And then the girls all heard a sort of snuffling growl--just the sort ofa noise they _thought_ a bear must make. Frank jumped out of thosebushes as though they had become suddenly afire!
"Wha--what did I tell you?" screamed Grace.
"He's there!" groaned Mina.
Then suddenly a dark object appeared among the saplings and underbrush.
"Look out, Frank! Run!" cried the other girls, in chorus; but MissCameron needed no urging; she ran with all her might!
Wyn's Camping Days; Or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club Page 15