The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat Part 17

"Who is going along? Tommy, I'll take you, Hazel and Margery this time if you wish to go. You haven't been out with me at all."

The four got into the small boat and rowed across the water to the same landing where less than half an hour before the boys' boat had been tied up. What Harriet learned at the farmhouse, filled her with delight.

"The boys know we are all right now. They are coming back again this afternoon. They are going to get another surprise, girls. Oh, we'll win that camera, won't we? Won't Miss Elting be amused when she hears what we have to tell her?" said Harriet.

"I gueth they won't want to thee uth again," suggested Tommy.

"Yes, they will. They have something to tell us," returned Harriet mysteriously.

"What is it?" asked Margery.

"I am not going to say. At least, not until I am sure it is so. I wonder if they will get suspicious of the island and search it for us?"

The Meadow-Brook Girls were on the alert all the rest of the day. They posted a lookout for the boys, in the person of Hazel Holland, who was to be depended upon. They drew the "Red Rover" into the cave as far as it would go, only the tip of the after deck protruding from the mouth of the cave. There was no more exploring that day. They did not dare get too far away from their hidden home, fearing lest the boys might come upon them unawares. Every boat on the lake in the vicinity was regarded with suspicion. But it was not until nearly five o'clock that Hazel came in with the report that the launch was heading across the upper end of the island, evidently making for the dock visited by it earlier in the day.

After reaching the landing, Captain Baker went up to the farmhouse alone. With his companions he had been searching along the lake the greater part of the afternoon for information about the "Red Rover," but without result. It was therefore with some misgivings that he once more knocked at the door of the farmhouse.

"Have you seen anything of the young ladies?" he asked the instant the door was opened in response to his knock.

"Oh! You are the young man who was here this morning? Yes, I've heard from them," replied the woman, with a twinkle in her eyes that Captain Baker failed to observe.

"You have? What have you heard?"

"The young women were here very shortly after you left this morning."

"You don't say so? Thank you ever so much. Did they say where they were stopping?" he questioned eagerly.

The woman shook her head.

"But they must be near here?"

"Maybe they are and maybe they ain't." The farmer's wife did not know exactly where the girls were, so she had told him no untruth.

"Haven't you seen their boat?"

"Not since the other day."

"That is queer. I don't understand it," pondered George. "Did they leave any message for us?"

"Yes," laughed the farmer's wife, keenly enjoying the puzzled look on Baker's face. "The young lady left word that if you wanted to see them you'd have to find them."

"That's the word, is it?" demanded George grimly, pulling his hat down over his eyes. "The challenge is accepted, and we'll find them!"

"Not!" added Larry Goheen skeptically, when he heard of George's confident answer.

CHAPTER XI

MARGERY MAKES A CUSTARD

"Oh, dear, but I jutht _do_ wonder what the boyth are going to do!"

lisped Tommy, as the motor boat started once more on its travels.

"There's nothing very uncertain, in their own minds," laughed Harriet.

"Just see how fast they're going. They've decided upon something."

"They're going back to their camp, but I've an idea they're going to come over soon," guessed Hazel, "and make a regular search for us."

"Something of that sort," agreed Miss Elting.

"Well," said Jane sagely, "from their speed and the comfortable way they're all sitting, I'm sure the boys are not doing any guessing about their plans."

"No. They've pathed the guething over to uth," lisped Tommy sagely.

"Anyway," said Jane McCarthy, "if our friends can't find us, then our enemies can't, either."

"I hadn't thought of that," Harriet nodded.

"I wish I knew what the boys' plan is. At any rate we must begin to think of outwitting them a second time."

"How?" asked Hazel eagerly.

"Oh, I have the greatest scheme! That is, if they come back again,"

added Harriet. "We will just have those boys so mystified that they won't know what they are doing."

"What do you propose to do?" asked Hazel.

"That is a dark secret. We won't even whisper it to the little birds yet, lest they carry it to our friends the tramps. I have an idea that our friends will be back here to-night. Just what they are going to do I don't know, but I think they are going to spy on the farmhouse. I wish they would come over to our Island of Delight. There are a number of things we could do to puzzle them. And then--"

"And then the wise housekeeper forgot all about her supper," interrupted Miss Elting, amid a chorus of laughter and many blushes from Harriet, who, in the excitement of planning to get the better of George Baker and his friends, had forgotten her household duties.

"Very good. I will confess that I have been dilatory. What do you girls wish for supper?"

"The same old thing--the old stand-by, bacon and eggs and coffee, and--"

"I know what I am going to have," interrupted Margery. "I'm going to have some custard. I haven't had any custard since I left home."

"Can you make it?" asked the guardian.

"Of course I can."

"You are quite sure of that?" teased Harriet.

"I guess I know. I've made it ever so many times. You will like it, if you get a chance to eat any of it. I am making this for myself."

"Thelfithh," jeered Tommy. "Make me thome plum pudding and thome angel food while you are about it. I jutht love angel food and plum duff, ath my father callth it."