A SERIOUS ADVENTURE
Wyn Mallory was a pretty cool-headed girl; nor was this the first time
she had been in an accident of this nature.
Naturally, in learning to handle the light cedar craft as expertly as
they did, the members of the Go-Ahead Club had much experience. While
the weather was good the girls plied their paddles up and down the
Wintinooski, but seldom was the river as rough as this open lake in
which Wyn and Bessie Lavine had been so unexpectedly overturned.
"Oh! am I not the unluckiest girl that--that ever happened?" wailed
Bess, when she came up puffing.
"N-o-no more than _I_, Bess," stammered Wyn.
"Get your canoe, Wyn!" cried Bess.
"Oh, yes; but we can't turn them over in this sea. Oh! isn't that
horrid!" as another miniature wave slapped the captain of the club in
the face and rolled her companion completely over.
Bess lost her grip on her canoe. The latter floated beyond her reach
while Wyn was striving to get her friend to the surface again.
"Why! we're going to be drowned!" shrieked Bess, suddenly
horror-stricken.
"Don't you _dare_ lose your nerve," commanded Wynifred. "If we lose
courage we certainly will be lost."
"Oh, but, Wyn----"
"Oh, but, Bess! Don't you dare. Here! get hold of the keel of my canoe."
"But it won't bear us both up," groaned Bessie Lavine.
"It's got to," declared Wyn. "Have courage; don't be afraid."
"You needn't try to tell me you're not afraid yourself, Wyn Mallory!"
chattered her friend.
"Of course I am, dear; but I mean, don't lose your head because you
_are_ afraid," said Wyn. "Come, now! Paddle with one hand and cling
to the keel with the other. I'll do the same."
"Oh, dear, me! if we were only not so far from the shore," groaned Bess.
"Somebody may see us and come to our help," said Wyn, with more
confidence in her tone than she really felt.
"The canoes couldn't live in this gale."
"It's only a squall."
"That's all very well; but they wouldn't dare to start out for us from
Green Knoll."
"But the boys----"
"Their camp isn't in sight of this place, Wyn," moaned Bess. "Oh! we
_will_ be drowned."
But Wyn had another hope. She remembered, just before the overturn, that
she had caught a glimpse of the red and yellow cottage behind Jarley's
Landing.
"Oh, Bess!" she gasped. "Perhaps Mr. Jarley will see us. Perhaps
Polly----"
Another slapping wave came and rolled them and the canoe over. The frail
craft came keel up, level full of water. The least weight upon it now
would send it to the bottom of the lake.
"Oh, oh!" shrieked Bess, when she found her voice. "What shall we do
now?"
They could both swim; but the lake was rough. The sudden and spiteful
squall had torn up the surface for many yards around. Yet, as they rose
upon one of the waves, they saw the sun shining boldly in the westward.
The squall was scurrying away.
"Come on! we've got to swim," urged Wyn.
[Illustration: THEY COULD BOTH SWIM, BUT THE LAKE WAS ROUGH. _Page
146._]
"That's so hard," wailed Bess, but striking out, nevertheless, in the
way she had been so well taught by the instructor in Denton. All these
girls had been trained in the public school baths.
"There's the other canoe," said Wyn, hopefully.
"But we--we don't want to go that way," gasped Bess. "It's away from
land."
Now Wyn knew very well that they had scarcely a chance of swimming to
the distant shore. In ordinarily calm weather--yes; but in this rough
sea, and hampered as they were by their bloomers and other clothing--no.
The two girls swam close together, but Wyn dared not offer her comrade
help. She wanted to, but she feared that if she did so Bess would break
down and become helpless entirely; and Wyn hoped they would get much
farther inshore before that happened.
The squall had quite gone over and the sun began to shine. It seemed a
cruel thing--to drown out there in the sunlight. And yet the buffeting
little waves, kicked up by the wind-flaw, were so hard to swim through.
Had the waves been of a really serious size the struggle would have been
less difficult for the two girls. They could have ridden over the big
waves and managed to keep their heads above water; but every once in a
while a cross wavelet would slap their faces, and every time one did so
Bess managed to get a mouthful of water.
"Oh! what will papa do?" moaned Bess.
And Wyn knew what the poor girl meant. She was her father's close
companion and chum. The other girls in the Lavine family were smaller
and their mother was devoted to them; but Bess and Mr. Lavine were pals
all the time.
Bess repeated this exclamation over and over again, until Wyn thought
she should shriek in nervous despair. She realized quite fully that
their chance for life was very slim indeed; but moaning and groaning
about it would not benefit them or change the situation in the slightest
degree.
Wyn kept her head and saved her breath for work. She raised up now and
then, breast high in the water, and tried to scan the shore.
Suddenly the sun revealed Green Knoll Camp to her--bathing the little
hillock, with the tents upon it, in the full strength of his rays. But
it was quite two miles away.
Wyn could see no moving figures upon the knoll. Nor could her friends
see her and Bess struggling in the water at that distance. If their
overset had not been sighted, Mrs. Havel and the four other members of
the Go-Ahead Club would not be aware of their peril.
And, Wyn believed, the swamping of the canoes could only have been
observed through a glass. Had anybody along shore been watching the two
canoes as the squall struck the craft and overset them?
In that possibility, she thought, lay their only hope of rescue.