A TOY PISTOL
The girls were sailing out in mid-stream now with the mouth of Rainbow
Lake only a short half mile before them. And they were still discussing
the tramps and Betty’s masterly treatment of them.
In spite of the joke that had been played with the toy pistol, there
was an undercurrent of gravity in their conversation. It was impossible
to help wondering what might have happened had not Betty been possessed
of the toy pistol.
“How did you happen to have it?” asked Amy, curiously, referring to the
weapon. “You didn’t say anything to us about it.”
“Didn’t think of it,” returned Betty. Once more she had the wheel and
every once in a while she listened to the sound of the engine as though
she were not yet quite satisfied with it. “Dad brought it home to me,”
she was still speaking of the pistol, “a few nights ago. Said it might
come in handy sometime, but if he were in my place he wouldn’t shoot
unless it was absolutely necessary. Of course he meant it as a joke,
but he didn’t know what a serious purpose it was going to serve.”
“I’ll say he didn’t,” said Mollie, thoughtfully. “I tremble to think
what might have happened if you hadn’t had his little present handy.”
“Oh,” said Betty, confidently, “we’d have gotten rid of the tramps
somehow.”
“I don’t know,” returned Mollie, soberly. “They looked like a pretty
mean pair, and I don’t think they had any notion of giving up the _Gem_
till you flashed the pistol at them.”
“Do you think,” asked Amy, wide-eyed, “that they meant to steal the
boat?”
“More than likely,” said Grace, opening a box of fudge bought for this
occasion. “They knew we couldn’t do anything. What are four girls
anyway against two men?”
“A great deal if they happen to be Outdoor Girls,” said Betty
staunchly. “We haven’t lived in the open so much without developing
pretty good muscles, you know.”
“Just the same,” Grace persisted, “I reckon we’d have had a pretty hard
time making them move.”
“Well, we did make ’em move, anyway, which is the main point,” said
the Little Captain, sensibly. “And now suppose we forget about them.
Look,” she pointed eagerly ahead of them, “there’s where Rainbow Lake
begins. Not very far now, girls.”
“Hip, hip, hooray!” shouted Mollie irrepressibly. “I can’t wait to get
a glimpse of your brother’s shack, Amy.”
Amy smiled dreamily.
“I tell you what,” she said. “Let’s make a big campfire to-night after
dinner and all sit around it and tell stories. I’m just aching for a
sniff of burning wood.”
“We’ll give you more than a sniff, honey,” returned the Little Captain,
merrily. “We’ll build a fire that will make the birdie’s eyes pop out.”
“Sounds good to me,” said Mollie, longingly. “I say, Betty, don’t you
suppose we could work a little more speed out of the _Gem_? We don’t
seem to be making much progress.”
Betty looked worried.
“I’m doing my best,” she said. “But somehow she doesn’t work very well.
There’s still something wrong with the engine. It’s kicking like a
bucking broncho.”
“Let’s hope it holds out till we get to camp, anyway,” said Grace,
prayerfully. “We don’t want to stop at any more islands for repairs.”
“It’s getting late too,” said Amy anxiously. “We don’t want to get
there after dark.”
Betty laughed.
“Why, there isn’t a chance in the world of that now,” she said, adding
with a chuckle: “Why, we’re near enough now to get out and tow the
_Gem_ along shore and still get there before dark. Isn’t that the rock
your brother spoke of, Amy?” she asked eagerly, pointing to a huge
rock, whose jagged contour suggested a horse’s head, looming directly
ahead of them.
Unless she was mistaken it was this rock which Henry Blackford had told
them to look out for, as the cabin was situated a scant mile further
down the lake.
Amy followed Betty’s pointing finger and cried out eagerly.
“That’s it,” she said. “There couldn’t be two rocks like that at this
end of the lake.”
“Looks as if our journey were almost ended, girls,” said Grace, sighing
as she reluctantly placed the cover on her box of fudge. “We shall soon
see the spot where we are to spend two riotous months----”
“Maybe so and maybe not,” interrupted Betty in so chagrined a voice
that they looked at her in surprise. And then they noticed that the
rhythmic sound of the engine had ceased.
“Now what’s the matter?” asked Mollie, frowning.
“Search me,” returned the Little Captain, cheerfully. “I beg your
indulgence, ladies, till I find what’s up.”
But she could not find “what was up,” and neither, for that matter,
could any of the other girls. The only fact that they knew positively
was that for some mysterious reason and in some mysterious way
the engine of the little boat had “lain down”--gone suddenly and
irrevocably “dead.”
“Well, I’ll say this is our unlucky day,” said Mollie, disgustedly,
straightening up from her work on the engine to face the Little
Captain. “Beginning with engine trouble, then tramps and now more
engine trouble----”
“Well, there’s one comfort,” spoke up Amy, trying to be optimistic.
“We’ve had about all the trouble we can have. Things can’t be any
worse.”
“Oh, yes, they can,” contradicted Grace, in a voice of patient
resignation. “Has any one happened to notice that it’s raining?”
“Raining!” they gasped, and with one accord, turned startled faces to
the sky. What they saw there did little to cheer them up.
Mollie groaned.
“This was all we needed,” said she, “to make it a perfect day.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, cheer up,” commanded the Little Captain.
“Anybody would think from the way you talk that you’d never been rained
on before. Didn’t we buy these suits especially for knockabout wear? A
drop or two of rain can’t hurt them.”
“They may shrink,” said Grace doubtfully, carefully wiping a drop of
water from her “knickers” with a square of lace handkerchief.
In spite of their plight, the sight appealed to the girls’ sense of
humor.
They giggled, and Mollie, taking out her own rather soiled and grimy
handkerchief, carefully and gravely wiped another spot from Grace’s
suit.
“Stop your nonsense,” cried Betty, her eyes searching the gray and
lowering sky. “If we don’t get busy we may all be drowned. Amy,” she
added, in the tone of authority she always used when they faced an
emergency, “get out those oars, will you? I’m going to give you some
elbow work to do.”
As Amy obeyed, the girls thanked their stars for Betty’s
thoughtfulness. They had laughed when she had first suggested the oars,
asking “if she did not realize what a reflection it was on the _Gem_,”
but Betty had insisted, just the same, and now it seemed as though the
oars were to play a rather important part in their adventure.
The girls took turns rowing while Betty kept the wheel, steering a
straight course along the shore, meanwhile edging in steadily closer
to it. She was looking for the second land-mark Henry Blackford had
suggested, a small inlet off the main lake, like the one near Triangle
Island, in which it would be easy to run the _Gem_.
The cabin, Henry Blackford had assured them, was situated on a rise of
ground directly over the inlet. Betty remembered his words perfectly.
“If you follow your nose straight up the hill,” he had said, laughing,
“you can’t fail to find it. The house is situated in a small cleared
space at the very top of the hill.”
And so Betty searched with anxious eyes for the inlet, now and then
allowing her gaze to travel to the gray sky.
Luckily for them the storm seemed in no great hurry to overtake them.
Although the clouds gathered blacker and more threatening every moment
the rain reached them only in an occasional drop and Betty began to
hope that they might gain the shelter of the cabin before the downpour
overwhelmed them. Luckily they had brought the tarpaulin for the _Gem_
so that the little boat should not suffer.
Although the girls rowed steadily and hard they made slow progress,
pulling as they were against the wind. It seemed to Betty’s impatience
that they fairly crawled along.
“Oh, dear, where is that old inlet, anyway?” sighed Amy, unconsciously
uttering Betty’s thought. “Do you suppose we could have passed it,
Betty?”
“Not with my eagle eye doing duty,” Betty assured her, cheerfully, but
she was beginning to feel a bit anxious about it herself. Was it really
possible that they had passed the spot? The foliage was very heavy all
along the shore, the branches of trees, weighted with leaves, fairly
dragging in the clear water. And there was another drop of rain--and
another----
And then suddenly, almost in the act of passing, she saw the inlet, a
narrow, beckoning little strip of water, welcoming them home.
Almost at the same moment the other girls espied it also and let out a
yell of pure joy.
“Turn to the right!” shouted Mollie jubilantly. “We are making camp at
last!”