to, deah boy – dontcher know!" gasped Purt.
"Yes; you want to; but you want to talk, too. Keep your mouth shut, then you won't get water-logged," snapped Lance Darby, coming up on the other side.
"Oh! don't be harsh with him, boys," begged Dorothy Lockwood. "He's lost his boat."
"And that's his own fault. He would smoke a cigarette," said Chet, "and I told him the gasoline leaked."
"I wouldn't go in the old boat with him again for a farm down East with a pig on it!" declared Lance. "Now, easy! don't you dare swamp this canoe."
They made the almost helpless Purt seize the sharp stern of Laura's canoe with both hands. Then Chet swam beside him to keep him from dragging the girls' craft down, as Laura and Josephine Morse paddled for the shore of the island.
Lance followed on with the Lockwood canoe, and both reached the shore at about the same time. The Sweet boy struggled out upon the shore and lay down, almost overcome. But the other boys aided the girls in getting the cedar boats onto the shore, and out of harm's way.
"Nice mess we're in," gasped Lance, flinging himself down upon the sod, too. "Look at us! Not fit to appear on board the Lady of the Lake." That was the little steamer that transported passengers from Centerport to the amusement park at the west end of Cavern Island. Down at this end of the island the land was hilly and wild; but around the boat landing a park was laid out, with carrousels, a small menagerie, swings, and the like.
"Lo – lo – look at Purt!" burst out Jess, unable to hold in her laughter any longer. "What-what will his mo-mo-mother say when he gets home?"
Prettyman Sweet was, as Chet often declared, "the very niftiest dresser" in Central High. And even when he went motor-boating he was the very "glass of fashion." His fancy waistcoat would never be seen in its pristine lustre again, and as for the gaudy striped shirt and cuffs he had worn, the stripes were surely "fast" colors, in that they had immediately run into the white ground-work of the garment!
"I – I do-do-don't care," chattered Purt. "What are clothes, anyway? I'm dying of cold!"
"And in June," snorted Lance, with disgust.
"Let's build a campfire and warm him," suggested Laura.
"Haven't a dry match," declared her brother.
"I have. Don't catch me canoeing without a tightly corked bottle of matches. I've been upset too many times," laughed Laura.
Chet and Lance gathered the wood; but Purt only lay and moaned and shivered. The adventure was a serious matter for the exquisite.
"And I bet this settles Purt's motor-boating for all time," scoffed Jess Morse. "Got enough, haven't you, Pretty?"
"Weally, Miss Morse, I am too exhausted to speak about it – weally!" gasped Purt.
"And it was the only sport Purt would go into," grunted Chet. "He could get somebody to run his boat for him, you see. All he had to do was to sit tight and hold his ears on."
Purt felt affectionately for his ears – they stuck out like sails from the side of his head, "trimmed flat across the masts" – and said nothing. He could not retort in his present condition of mind and body. But his schoolmates talked on, quite ignoring him.
"What were you two boys doing out in the Duchess this afternoon, anyway?" demanded Laura. "I thought you were going to see the game between Lumberport and the East High team?"
"Why," said Chet, hesitating, looking at Lance, "if we tell you, you'll keep still about it – all you girls?"
"Of course," said Jess.
"All of you, I mean," said Chet, earnestly. "No passing it around with the usual platter of gossip on the athletic field this evening."
"How horrid of you, Chet!" cried Josephine Morse.
But Laura only laughed. "We can keep a secret as well as any crowd of boys – and he knows it," she said.
"Well," said her brother, squatting before the campfire, that was now burning briskly, and spreading out his jacket to the blaze, while the legs of his trousers began to steam. "Well, it's about Short and Long."
"Billy Long!" gasped Dorothy, looking at her sister.
"Poor Billy!" added Laura. "What about him?"
"He's missing," said Chet, gravely.
"Missing: The Short and Long of It, eh?" chuckled Jess.
"This is no laughing matter, Jess," declared Launcelot Darby, sharply. "Haven't you heard of the robbery?"
"At Stresch & Potter's department store?" cried Jess. "Of course. What's that got to do with Short and Long?"
"Nothing!" declared Chet, vigorously.
"Anybody who says that Billy Long helped in that robbery deserves to be kicked. He's not that kind of a fellow."
"But he's accused," said Laura, gravely.
"Somebody said they saw him hanging about the rear of the store with some men Tuesday afternoon. The men appeared to be surveyors. They are supposed to be the robbers, for nobody seems to know anything about them at the city engineer's office," Chet continued.
"A small boy had to be put through the little basement window where a screen was cut out. No man could have slipped through it and then opened that door for the men. Short and Long is accused – at least, he is suspected. A policeman went to his house Friday morning; but Billy had gone away over night."
"That looks suspicious," declared Jess.
"No, it doesn't. It looks as if Billy was scared – as of course he was," exclaimed Chet. "Who wouldn't be?"
"That is so," murmured one of the twins.
"Well," sighed Chet, "we heard that he had been seen to take a boat at Norman's Landing, and thought maybe he'd come over this way. So, as Purt wanted a sail – "
"And a bath, it seems," chuckled Jess.
"We came over this way, looking into the coves and inlets for the boat Billy is said to have borrowed. But we didn't see any sign of it, nor any sign of poor Billy. Of course he is innocent; but he's scared, and his folks are poor, and Billy was afraid to remain at home, I suppose, thinking he would get his father into trouble, too."
"It's a mean shame," said Lance. "What if Stresch & Potter were robbed of ten thousand dollars? They oughtn't to have accused a perfectly innocent boy of helping in the robbery."
"But that's it!" exclaimed Laura. "How is Billy to disprove the accusation if he runs away and makes it appear that he is guilty?"
"Don't we see that?" demanded her brother. "That's what we want to get at Billy for. We want to catch and bring him back and make him face the music. Then we'll all prove him innocent and make these Smart Alecks take back what they've been saying about him. It's a shame!" cried Chet, again.
"It is a shame," agreed Laura.
But just then both the Lockwood twins burst out with:
"Maybe he did come over to the island."
"Huh!
