ave said if his cousin, Frank Dumont, could come up here, he
would bring his father's motor boat. And he must have come yesterday
when we were busy and did not see him."

"Hurrah!" cried Frank. "A motor boat beats a canoe all to pieces."

"The Busters are aboard, all right," sighed Bess, after another look.
"Now we'll have a noisy time."

"Now there'll be something doing!" quoth Frank. "That's the trouble with
a crowd of girls. After they have played 'Ring Around the Rosy' and
'London Bridge is Falling Down' they don't know another living thing to
do except to sit down and look prim and be prosy. But with boys it's
different. There's something doing all the time."

"You should have been a boy, Frank," declared Bess, with some disgust.

"If I was one, I'd be hanging around your house all the time, Bessie
mine," laughed the other, hugging the boy-hater.

"Get away! I'd have Patrick turn the hose on you if you did!" cried
Bess, in mock wrath.

But secretly, Miss Lavine, as well as her mates, was glad of the break
in the quiet affairs of Green Knoll Camp made by the appearance of Dave
Shepard and his spirited chums.

"Oh, crackey, girls! you ought to see our camp! We've got a regular
pirates' cave," declared Ferdinand Roberts.

"Did your stores get wet in that awful storm?" demanded Wyn from the top
of the knoll.

"Not much. We managed to cover them with the canvas. And now we've
cleaned out the cave and it's great. All we need is some captives to
take over there and chain to the rocks," laughed Dave.

"And fatten 'em up till they're fit to eat," drawled Tubby Blaisdell.

"Stop it, Tub!" cried one of his mates. "We're not going to play
cannibals, but pirates."

"Well, in either case," declared Bess, "you will not get captives at
Green Knoll Camp."

"Is that what you call this pretty hillock?" cried Dave. "Well, it
_is_ a beauty spot! And how nice you girls have made everything.
Why! you don't need any boys around at all."

"That's what I've always told them," murmured Bess. "They're only a
nuisance."

"We came over to see if we could help you," continued Dave. "Here's my
cousin, Frank Dumont, girls. Some of you know him, anyway. This is his
motor boat, and if there really is nothing we can do to help you here,
why, Frank wants to take you all--with Mrs. Havel, if she is
agreeable--for a trip around the lake. We've got supplies aboard and
we'll stop somewhere and make a picnic dinner."

"Goody!" cried M