"Oh! I'll withdraw the accusation if you'll only call me Jack! I love to hear you say that, Hazel! Call me Jack."

"Silly!" muttered Cora.

"Mushy, I call it," declared Bess. "Downright mushy!"

"You're jealous," added Walter.

"Say Jack!" commanded the dripping owner of the name, "or I'll come over and sit by you, Hazel, and I'm almost sure that blue dress of yours spots."

"It does! Oh, don't let him come near me!" begged Hazel, trying to retreat into the cabin.

"Say Jack then!" commanded the relentless one, dripping at every step as he pursued her.

"Oh-Jack!" she complied.

"Your brains seem to have gone overboard, and not to have come back with you," said Cora to her brother. "Quit your fooling. You're getting the cushions all wet."

Jack subsided after blowing a kiss to his sister, and sprinkling her with water from his dripping hair. Then the boat was put back on her course, the dingey was made fast, the life ring put in place, and there was peace and quietness once more, broken only by Jack's grunts and exclamations as he struggled to get off his wet shoes.

"Cora," called Jack, from the curtained cabin, where he was changing into dry garments, "I didn't put an extra pair of shoes in your valise; did I?"

"I rather guess not," was the quick answer.

"Then I haven't any," wailed Jack. "I'll have to borrow a pair of you girls' slippers. The biggest I can get-don't all speak at once."

There were some subdued giggles.

"Did I hear Cora say hers would be too big for me?" asked Jack.

"Oh, do get sensible!" commanded his sister. "There's a pair of worsted bedroom slippers of mine you can take until your shoes get dry. You can't stretch them any too much. Put your shoes near the m.u.f.fler.

They'll dry there."

"Yes, and get all out of shape," objected Jack. "I'll put them on the forward flag staff and let the gentle breezes dry them. 'Tis Nature's way."

"You'll do nothing of the sort!" groaned Cora. "What would people say on seeing a pair of shoes at the top of the staff? Please put them near the m.u.f.fler and they'll dry all right."

This Jack did, the iron cylinder that received the burned gases from the engine being quite hot, so that the wet garments and shoes bid fair to dry speedily. Jack, meanwhile, donned a pair of his sister's slippers-a pink one and a blue one, Cora not having been able to find mates.

"I don't know what's in him to-day," Cora confided to Hazel.

"He's awfully jolly, I think," said Paul's sister.

"Jolly? You wouldn't think so if you had to live with him as long as I have had to."

"Is he always this way?"

"No, thank goodness; it goes by streaks, like the lean and fat in a piece of bacon."

"The idea of comparing Jack to a piece of bacon!" commented Bess, who overheard.

"Well, he is that way," insisted Cora.

"I hope my shoes get dry by the time we reach Riverhead," Jack confided to Paul and Walter. "I have another pair in my trunk, but that may not be there when we get to camp. And I do hate wet shoes to dance in."

"Who said we were going to dance?" asked Walter.

"I did," replied Jack. "There's a hotel not far from the camp, I hear, and the season ought to be partly in swing now. Well, if you fellows don't want to go I can borrow your shoes."

"Who said we didn't want to go?" Paul cried.

"Oh, well, don't bite me!" pleaded Jack, in falsetto accents.

The little excitement caused by Jack's involuntary bath gradually subsided. He made a final and fairly successful effort to rid his hands of the grime caused by cleaning the carburetor, and then, attired in dry garments, and with one pink and one blue slippered foot resting "nonchalantly" (as he called it) on the rail, he watched the receding, wooded sh.o.r.es of the Chelton.

From somewhere in the distance a factory whistle blew.

"One o'clock!" cried Jack. "Is dinner ready? I say, Cora, I have a wonderful appet.i.te!"

"Never knew you when you didn't have," she replied.

"Why, we just had lunch-just before Jack fell overboard!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Hazel.

"That won't make a bit of difference to him-or them," said Belle, with a resigned air. "We'll have to serve another meal I suppose."

"A regular one this time, if you please," begged Walter. "Those olives, anchovies and the caviar sandwiches only made me a bit keen."

The girls were nothing loath to put out the food again, for, truth to tell, the river air had given them, as well as the boys, an appet.i.te.

They had brought plenty with them, for though they had requested Mr.

Floyd to have supper ready when they reached the bungalow (the first meal in camp the boys were to share with the girls), still Cora had feared they would arrive late, and had made arrangements accordingly.

They had as much fun over the regular lunch as they had had over the "temporary" one, as Walter and the boys designated the first meal, and the afternoon waned pleasantly.

"I hope we shall get to Riverhead before the storm," observed Cora, as she came back to take her place at the wheel again, a post she had abandoned while she helped the girls put away the dishes and what was left of the food.

"What storm?" asked Paul.

Cora indicated a bank of sullen-looking clouds in the west. They were sufficiently ominous to cause Cora to speed up the motor a bit, and to request her brothers and his chums to see to the side curtains.

"We ought to get in long before that breaks," Jack declared.

But he did not count on the speedy approach of the storm, nor on the fact that the boat ran into a shallow section of the river, where there grew long gra.s.s which got entangled in the propeller.

Though the _Corbelbes_ managed to force her way through this patch of "seaweed" as Jack called it, when she emerged into free water again the motor could hardly turn the screw. It was necessary to reverse the engine, to unwind the gra.s.s, and even then some had to be pulled away with the boat hook-no easy task.

And then, when they were once more under full speed, the storm came down with a rush and a roar, with blinding sheets of rain, with a wind that caught the boat broadside, where the rubber curtains made a wide sail area, and heeled her over at no small angle.

With the rain came thunder and lightning, sufficiently fierce and loud for a time to terrify at least Belle, who was the most nervous of the girls.