THE CALM
A more delightful scene than Crystal Bay presented, two hours after
the squall, could scarcely be imagined. To the motor girls it was
particularly effective, as may easily be imagined. Coming back around
the island the _Dixie_ picked up the lost canoe, so this left nothing
to be worried over in the record of adventure.
"How do you feel, Lottie?" Cora asked, when all had landed safely and
stood looking over the waters that could be so deceptive.
"Oh, I am all right, really," answered Lottie, a little ashamed that
she should have allowed herself to give way.
"But be careful," cautioned Cora. "Take it easy for the rest of the
day, at least. It doesn't do to try too much."
"Grandmother!" Lottie answered, with an affectionate squeeze of Cora's
arm. "What about you? Who did all the engineering in the storm? And
who is still 'on deck' giving orders?"
"Oh, I am strong," replied Cora, though strong as she was the last few
hours had told in the paler tint of her cheeks.
The return of the storm-stricken ones attracted crowds of bungalowers
and campers to the beach; for, of course, craft of all sorts had been
caught in the gale. The center of interest, however, was the
_Chelton_, for that boat had already gained a reputation at Crystal
Bay.
Not one person came in from the bay in dry clothes; in fact, many were
drenched, and naturally the girls showed the effects of the storm more
conspicuously than did the boys. Bess happened to be the one "who got
the worst of it," among the motor girls--perhaps because there was
more of her for the waves to hit.
"You are certainly a beauty," commented Belle, who had been more
fortunate in dodging the water. "You look like a swimming lesson in
the first stage."
"I feel as if I needed artificial respiration," replied Bess,
good-humoredly, "but I want to forget it all--all but this. Isn't this
wonderful?"
"Almost enough to make up for the danger," Belle returned. "But wasn't
Freda splendid? What good training she must have had to be able to
manage that boat. No one else except Cora could have done it, and she
was unfamiliar with the tricks of the bay. I do feel so sorry for
Freda and her mother!" This last was said with a wistful sigh, for all
the members of the Mote were now much attached to the motherly Mrs.
Lewis.
"Cora must have known those men were going to put the 'for sale' sign
on the cottage, when she hurried so to get Freda and her mother over
to our place the other night," went on Bess. "I knew there was
something more important than merely taking care of us."
"Oh, of course, that's just like Cora. Fancy Mrs. Lewis never hearing
a word about it. If she had been in the house when they tacked that
sign on----"
"It must be perfectly awful to lose everything that way; to feel it is
all an injustice, yet not to be able to prove one's own claim," said
Belle. "Tricky business men are worse to watch than spiteful girls,
and we always thought _they_ were about all that we could handle.
There's Ted and Jean. Just look at their boat!"
Among the last of the storm-bound ones to "enter port" were Ted and
Jean, members of "Camp All Alone." They certainly presented a sorry
spectacle, as they came up to the dock.
"How do you feel?" asked Lottie, who was down near the water's edge,
in spite of Cora's admonition.
"I feel like playing a spaghetti obligato on a big hot bowl of soup,"
replied Jean. "That would be the song to reach my heart."
"The sun is clucking, girls," announced Walter. "She may set at any
time. Is there aught to eat at the Mote? Let us thither. We intended
to go to the store before tea."
"After giving you your lunch!" exclaimed Cora, in surprise.
"But, don't you see, that is why we didn't get to the store. You are
really liable for our suppers. Don't you think so, fellows?" he asked.
"Not only liable, but accountable," added Ed. "Of course we will go
home and dress. I wonder what on earth the squall did to headquarters?"
he asked, suddenly realizing that the camp had had need of secure
moorings during the last two hours.
"Let's look," suggested Dray, who had now moored the _Dixie_ securely,
while Jack and Cora had attended to the _Chelton_.
"Oh, you ought to see your tent," sang out a little fellow, who wore
little beside a shirt and bathing trunks. He had been out in the
squall and had, very likely, enjoyed it immensely.
"What's the matter with it?" inquired Jack.
"Oh, it's all flippy-floppy," replied the urchin. "But some lady saw
it goin' and she tied it back to the stakes."
"Some lady?" repeated Jack.
"Mrs. Lewis, likely," suggested Cora. "I hope she did not go out in
that down-pour to tie the tents."
"I rather hope she did," admitted her brother. "I had some things in
that tent not warranted rainproof. Hey, fellows!" he called to the
other members of Camp Couldn't. "Hurry up. Our tent was struck, they
say."
At the word the crowd from the beach ran helter-skelter through the
woods toward the camp colony. Surely there was enough excitement
around Crystal Bay that afternoon to last for some time, and there was
every prospect now of new adventures developing.
"Any tents down?" asked Dainty, as he puffed along.
"Thinking of spilled grub?" queried Walter. "Nothing doing. We have a
salvage corps department to our housewives' league, you know, and they
are bound to protect the members from bandits. So you may just run
along and see what is going on at the Cattle."
The storm had played havoc in the woods. Pine branches had scratched
deep furrows in the white sand paths, beautiful bushes of blooming
mountain laurel and mountain pinks were shorn of every bloom, and the
wild roses were scattered like pink butterflies on the catch leaves of
shrubs.
The first camp to be met by the boys was Camp Hyphen. This was quite a
pretentious establishment with a smaller tent adjunct. The adjunct
stood for the hyphen, and it now lay in a heap like a discarded potato
sack, its store of supplies settled uncertainly in nearby bushes.
"My, and they had just joined the League," wailed Jack. "I suppose we
will all have to put up for the reinforcements."
"We are not an insurance company," Ed objected. "Why should we make
good for a storm?"
"Because we have a calamity clause. You had better look up your rules
and regulations, young man. The last time I saw them they were pasted
with a daub of good family flour on our back door."
"Thank goodness the rain will have suspended our constitution," Ed
replied. "That back door never could have gone dry through the
torrent. Don't you remember how the small showers doused it?"
"We do," Walter answered, "and as we have the only written rules, that
same fact of the back door may stand us in well."
"Pikers!" Jack called them with a laugh. "But will you observe the
Hys! They are going to rebuild!"
A hyphenated name seemed the worst of luck for this camp, for there
was no strong pole or cast iron bar to hold the two tents together,
and the "hy" was merely a strip of ground that gave extra play to the
wind. The smaller tent was now being dragged from the bed of wet sand
into which it had partly buried itself, and the campers were
struggling heroically to get it back to its pegs.
"Too bad!" called Walter, sympathetically.
"Worse than that," replied one fellow, who looked as if he might have
been shipwrecked.
"But we are insured--in the league, you know," shouted another member
of the demolished camp. "We are coming up for supper."
"You are?" returned Dray. "Say, fellows," to his own camp company,
"the best thing we can do is to take what stuff we find left and hide
up at the Mote. Those fellows will come down on us and won't believe
about the washed-away constitution. Who on earth put that indemnity
clause in, anyhow?"
"Oh, Clem did. He's studying engineering, and I suppose he is lonesome
for his math. We ought to make him pay the assessment. But I agree
with Dray," continued Walter. "We ought to 'beat it' up to the Mote,
quick. There are other tents flopping around, and everybody will be
good and hungry, you can be sure."
"Queer how old Denny made for his shack as soon as we got in," Ed
remarked. "I wonder if he thought that would be demolished?"
"No, not likely," Jack said, "but the old fellow was pretty wet and
played out. He's plucky, all right, and I don't believe we would be in
yet but for him and Freda. But he is old, just the same, and only his
pluck keeps him up to it. I would like to have been more decent to
him, but he won't give one a chance. We must fix it up some way,
though."
"We sure must," agreed the others.
"There's another," announced Jack, as a perfectly flat tent almost
blocked their way. This was evidently deserted, for not a boy was to
be seen, either lamenting or trying to right the canvas.
"Funny," commented Ed. "They must have gone to the hotel."
"Hotel!" exclaimed Jack. "Why, they borrowed a pint of our kerosene
this morning. They may have gone to jail."
"Let's run," suggested Ed. "This funeral march is getting on my
nerves. Besides, I am anxious to see the Couldn't."
In a few minutes the boys sighted their own tent. It looked all right.
"Thank goodness!" breathed Dray, fervently. "I really couldn't stand
any more nerve-racking experiences."
"We look intact," said Walter. "I wonder if my dress suit is still
unwrinkled."
"Your overalls?" asked Jack, mimicking Walter's tone of voice. "Oh, I
am sure they are perfectly all right, for I saw them in the wood box
just before we left."
"Brute!" responded Walter. "But I say! What's that? We are inhabited!"
Sounds of voices issued from inside the tent. Jack dashed ahead and
raised the flap.
"Robbers! Thieves! Police!" he yelled, then he had to dodge something.
"We are here for our rights," sang out a strong voice. "We demand our
insurance!"
"Seems to me the demand is rather violent," replied Ed, as the
Couldn'ts saw what was going on. The entire tent was filled with boys
from the wrecked camps, and they were making away with practically
everything in the line of eatables they could lay their hands on.
"Clear out!" ordered Dray, "or we will call the police. What sort of
way is this to keep law and order?"
"The only way," replied Hal, a boy from the "Mist." "We couldn't even
keep up in starvation, but with something to sustain us we might be
able to keep the law. As a matter of fact, it was civic pride that
compelled us to come in here and eat."
There was no help for it now, the Couldn'ts had been robbed. Even
their party paper napkins were being made into balls.
"Isn't it awful!" moaned Jack, falling into the one dry spot on the
sandy floor. "And we were the real benefactors of this ranch. That's
the way goodness is repaid in this hard, cruel world."
Nobody noticed the sermon--everyone was too busy looking for food.
Finally Walter and Ed, after a private conference with Dray and Jack,
decided to give to the unfortunates all the food they possessed, "in
order to avert worse damage to their property."
"But we are dining out," Ed put in, "and it's only fair that you
should take the provender home. We want to wash our little faces, you
know. We dine with ladies."
"Oh, we will pay it all back," declared Clem, who was scooping up
empty boxes in the hope of being agreeably disappointed in their
contents as compared with their weight.
"Yes--you--will!" mocked Jack, "when we can skate on the sand of the
desert. But hustle. There's not another scrap around. Land that oil
can, Ted. It's empty."
After considerable urging, ordering and coaxing, the Couldn'ts rid
themselves of their uninvited guests, and were once again in
possession of their own tents.
"Did the girls invite us?" asked Dray. "I hate to intrude."
"They did not," replied Jack, "and we are not going to intrude. We are
just going over to thank Mrs. Lewis for saving this camp from
destruction. She hammered down those stakes. Look at them!" he
ordered. "Ed, did you ever wield a hammer as truthfully as that?"