IS IT THE "BRIGHT EYES"?
With a whirl and clash of paddles the little flotilla of canoes shot out
to the diving float. The bateau was only a few yards away. The two
rough-looking men in her were sounding the lake bottom, with long poles;
but as yet they had not got around to the right spot.
Wyn breathlessly told the boys to move the raft to the place to which
she paddled. The other girls were excitedly asking questions but neither
Wyn nor Dave answered.
The captain of the Go-Aheads thought that if the raft could be held
stationary--anchored in some way--directly over the sunken boat, the
prize would be safe until Mr. Jarley, or somebody else in authority,
came to claim the _Bright Eyes_. Of course, providing this sunken
boat was she.
Polly had seemed so positive, and so eager to get her father started
after the motor boat he had lost, that Wyn could not understand why the
Jarleys were not already on the spot.
"Hey, there! what are you boys doing?" demanded one of the bateau men,
hailing Dave and his friends on the raft.
"Moving our float," replied the captain of the Busters, promptly.
"Well, don't you git in our way," said the man, crossly.
"Hel-_lo_!" exclaimed the saucy Ferd Roberts. "I've always wondered
who owned Lake Honotonka, and now I know."
"You'll know a whole lot more if you don't look out, Young Fresh,"
growled the other boatman.
"I shouldn't wonder," laughed Ferd. "But I'm not going to school to
_you_, Mister."
"Do be quiet, Ferd," advised Dave. "Now, Wynnie! What do you say to
this?"
Meantime the boys had raised the two big stones that served the raft as
anchors, and had poled the float near to Wyn's canoe.
"Oh! a little farther, Dave, please," cried the anxious girl.
"Say! I wanter know what you young ones are up to?" repeated the first
boatman.
"Can't you see?" returned Dave. "We're shifting our raft."
"What for?"
"Cat's fur! To make kittens' breeches of, 'cause we couldn't get dog
fur--_now_ do you know?" snapped Ferd.
"Shut up, Ferd!" commanded Dave, again.
"He'd better shut up," growled the man, "or something'll happen to
him--the young shrimp!"
"Oh, dear me, Wyn!" cried Bessie Lavine; "let's go back to camp."
"You'd all better scatter--both gels and boys," said the boatman,
threateningly. "We're busy here an' we don't want to be bothered by
shrimps."
"I guess we'll stay a while longer, Mister," Dave said, boldly.
"We were here first," cried the irrepressible Ferd.
"You youngsters air in our way. Get out," commanded the Boatman.
He was working the bateau nearer to the raft, using one of the long
sweeps for that purpose.
"Heave over the anchors again, fellows," said Dave, quietly. "Then stand
by with your paddles to repel boarders. We mustn't let 'em have the
raft, or move it."
"Oh, Wyn!" begged Mina Everett, "let's go away."
The girls had all paddled near Wyn Mallory. Now they clustered about her
in plain anxiety. The boys had climbed upon the raft and all five were
plainly intending to offer resistance to the ugly boatmen.
"Now, girls," begged the captain of the Go-Aheads, firmly, "let us show
_some_ courage, at least. The boys are willing to fight our
battle----"
"_Our_ battle?" gasped Bessie. "What do you mean?"
In a whisper Wyn explained to the wondering and frightened girls what it
was all about.
"Polly and I believe the lost motor boat lies right beneath us here. We
must keep those men off, for they are hunting for the sunken boat, too,"
concluded Wynnie.
"My goodness! how exciting!" cried Grace Hedges.
"And we'll actually win the prize your father offered us, Bess!" gasped
Percy Havel.
"I don't see that _we_ have had much to do with it," said Frank.
"Wyn made the discovery."
"What is for one is for all," declared Wynnie. "But we won't win Mr.
Lavine's prize unless the boat is raised and the silver images are
delivered to Dr. Shelton. If those men get hold of the boat----"
Suddenly one of the boatmen--a long-legged fellow with a cast in one eye
and lantern jaws sparsely covered with sandy whisker--came forward to
the bow of the bateau and poised himself for a leap to the diving float.
"Keep off!" Dave warned him, swinging his paddle over his head. "You
jump over here and you'll catch this where Kellup caught the hen--right
in the neck! You let us alone and we'll let you alone."
The boatman told him, in no very choice language, what he would do to
Dave when he caught him; but the captain of the Busters did not appear
to be much shaken.
"Hold, on, Eb!" yelled the other boatman. "I'll run that raft down and
spill 'em all off."
"You try it and you'll likely smash your boat," shouted Dave. "I warn
you."
Mina Everett began to cry softly, for the suggestion of a pitched battle
between the boys and the boatmen frightened her dreadfully. Bess began
to grow excited.
"Aren't those men just _mean_? I wish I had something to hit them
with--I do! I believe I'll get out on the raft with _my_ paddle."
"That wouldn't be a bad idea," said Grace. "I think the boys are as nice
to us as they can be."
Suddenly, while the attention of all the others was held by the exciting
situation on the raft, Frank Cameron cried out:
"Who's this coming? Oh, girls! isn't that Polly? Look, Wyn!"
Wyn almost overturned her canoe in her eagerness to back out of the
group and whirl her canoe about that she might see. Down upon the scene
was bearing one of the larger power boats from the other end of the
lake.
"It's Dr. Shelton's _Sunshine Boy_!" cried Percy Havel.
"And that _is_ Polly Jolly in the bow," exclaimed Wyn. "Hurrah!"
She drove her paddle into the water and sent her canoe driving for the
approaching motor boat.
"Polly! Polly!" she called, long before the boatman's daughter could
hear her.
But Polly recognized her just the same, and waved her hand; there was a
gentleman pacing the deck, too, who came to lean on the rail and look at
the flying canoe. Wyn next saw Mr. Jarley, in his working clothes, put
his head out of the cabin that housed the motor.
"It's Dr. Shelton," Wyn thought. "Then he and Mr. Jarley have made it
up. I'm so glad!"
But the motor boat was coming fast and Wyn drove her canoe as though she
were racing. Swerving the craft quickly, the girl brought it very nicely
into a berth beside the motor boat. Polly leaned down and steadied the
canoe with the boat hook, and her friend hopped aboard. Then together
they hoisted over the rail the almost swamped canoe.
"What's all this? What's all this?" demanded Dr. Shelton. "You girls are
regular acrobats. Hullo! This is the young miss who won the canoe race
and the swimming match for girls, the other day. Am I right?"
"Yes, sir," said Polly, presenting Wyn proudly. "This is Miss Wynifred
Mallory, my very dear friend."
"The girl who thinks she has found our old motor boat--eh?" asked the
burly doctor.
"I am sure she has found it, sir," declared Polly. "And what are Eb and
his chum, Billy Smith, trying to do there at the raft, Wyn?"
"They suspect something; but the boys have got the float right over the
sunken boat and have promised to hold the bateau men off----"
Just then Dr. Shelton turned quickly, picked up a megaphone and bawled
through it to the bateau men, one of whom had leaped aboard the boys,
raft.
"Hey, you! Get off that raft and keep off it, or I'll put you both in
jail at the Forge. Understand me?"
It was evident that the boatmen _did_ understand the doctor, for
the trespasser aboard the raft leaped back into the bateau without a
blow being struck, although the boys were ready for him. The big sail of
the craft was immediately raised and she had borne off to some distance
when the _Sunshine Boy_ was allowed to drift in close to the float.
"Now, boys," said Dr. Shelton, genially, "I understand you have found my
old _Bright Eyes_ under water here and have been guarding it from
all comers. Is that right?"
"No, Doctor," returned Dave. "We fellows have had mighty little to do
with it. It's the girls----"
"It's Wyn!" cried Frank, "and nobody else."
"Wyn did it all," agreed Bess.
"But those men, poking around here, might have found it and laid claim
to it, sir, if the boys had not come to the rescue," declared the
captain of the Go-Aheads, warmly.
"You seem to be a Mutual Admiration Society," laughed the doctor.
"However, if the boat is here and that express box intact, as Jarley
says, I certainly owe somebody something handsome for finding it."
"Oh, no, sir!" murmured Wyn, quickly, standing by his side. "You owe me
nothing. Mr. Lavine has promised our club a present, and Polly and her
father are going to be made very happy if it turns out all right.
_That_ is reward enough for us."
"Humph! you feel that way about it; do you, Miss Mallory?" queried the
doctor. "Just the same, if the _Bright Eyes_ really is sunk here I
must show my gratitude to somebody."
"Then do something for Polly," Wyn whispered. "Give her a chance to go
to school--to Denton Academy with the rest of us girls. That would be
fine! She wouldn't let Mr. Lavine do that for her; but I know she'll
accept it from you, when her father has proved himself clear of
suspicion."
"Ha! John Jarley is a better man than I am," grunted Dr. Shelton. "I had
no business to talk to him the way I did regatta day. I'm free to admit
I was wrong, whether we recover the _Bright Eyes_ and the silver
images, or not!"
And the question, Is it the _Bright Eyes_? was the principal
subject of discussion among them all. The boys were just as eager as
were the girls over the affair.
"If the sunken boat is all right--and the images," said Dave Shepard,
"you girls will be lucky enough to sail a motor boat of your own."
"And we'd never own it if you boys hadn't come forward as you did,"
declared Wyn. "Isn't that so, Bess?"
Bess had to admit the fact, much as she disliked praising boys.
"Oh, we'll let you boys sail in our new boat once in a while," she said.
"Goodness me! I should say yes!" exclaimed Frank, suddenly. "For we've
got to have somebody teach us how to run a motor boat; haven't we?"