r the scenery became.

"My!" ejaculated Dorothy. "I had no idea this country was really so
_woodsy_."

"You know there is scarcely anything but forest south of us, until you
reach the B. & P. W. Railroad."

"Maybe there are bad people up in these woods, after all," suggested
the timid Nell.

"Never you mind. Purt's got his revolver," chuckled Jess. "Lance says
that it is one that hasn't been fired for twenty years and belonged to
Purt's father."

"Goodness!" exclaimed Laura. "I _shall_ be afraid of that. It's those
old guns that nobody supposes are loaded, that are always going off
and killing the innocent bystander. You ought to confiscate that gun,
Chet."

"Don't worry," returned her brother, laughing. "I've taken the
trigger screw out of Purt's gun and he couldn't shoot it if he had
forty cartridges in it. But I haven't told Purt, for the dear boy
seems to place implicit confidence in the old gat as a defense against
anything on two or four legs in the Big Woods."

CHAPTER IX

THE CAMP ON ACORN ISLAND

Although it was high noon when they were at Lumberport the Girls of
Central High and their boy friends had not lunched there. Indeed, they
waited to reach a certain pleasant grove which some of them knew
about, on the south shore of the river, and several miles above the
spot where Purt Sweet had taken his involuntary ducking.

As the motorboats put ashore and the boys tied them to stubs in the
high bank, they all began joking Purt about his plunge into the river.
The dude had been obliged to exchange his natty outing suit of Lincoln
green for a suit of oil-stained overalls that he found in the cabin of
the _Duchess_. He could not find his own baggage, as the boys with him
had hidden it.

As for the tam-o'-shanter, it had fallen off and floated down the
stream. Purt would never see that remarkable headgear again.

"But that isn't what the boy is worrying about," chuckled Lancelot
Darby, as the party came ashore with the luncheon hampers. "It's the
fate of the Barnacle that is corroding Purt's sensitive soul!"

"How do you make that out?" demanded Reddy Butts, broadly grinning.

"Why, isn't it a fact that he went in after the dog? I saw him dive
right after the poor thing when it fell overboard. It was a mighty
brave attempt at rescue, I should say--especially when we all know
that Purt swims about as good as a stone fence."

"Some hero, Purt is," agreed Billy Long, chuckling.

"And didn't