come," said Polly, blushing again; and then she pocketed, the
piece of money Dave gave her, and pushed off a bit.

"Is this really where your father came so near losing his life, Polly?"
asked Wyn, seriously.

"Yes, Miss Wyn. Right yonder. It was so thick he could not see the
shore. A limb of that tree yonder--you can see where it was broken off;
see the scar?"

There was a long yellow mark high up on the tree trunk overhanging the
pool where Polly had been fishing.

"That limb brushed father out of the boat just as she struck. The snag
must have torn a big hole in the bottom of the _Bright Eyes_.
Lightened by his going overboard, she shot away--somewhere--toward the
middle of the lake, perhaps. He knows that he gave the wheel a twirl
just as he went overboard and that must have driven the nose of the boat
around.

"She shot away into the fog. He never saw or heard of her again. We
paddled about for a week afterward--the bateau men and I--and we
couldn't find it. Poor father was abed, you see, for a long time and
could not help."

"All a story, _I_ believe," whispered Bess, to Mina.

"Oh, don't!" begged the tender-hearted girl.

Perhaps Polly heard this aside. She plunged her oars into the water
again and the skiff shot away. She only nodded when they sang out
"Good-bye" to her.

The _Happy Day_ carried the party quickly back to the cove under
the hill on which Cave-in-the-Wood Camp had been established. The girls
and boys landed and were met by Professor Skillings--who could be a very
gallant man indeed, where ladies were concerned. He helped Mrs. Havel
out of the motor boat, which Dave had brought alongside of a steep bank,
where the water was deep, and which made a good landing place.

"My dear Mrs. Havel! I am charmed to see you again," said the professor.
"You are comfortably situated over there on the shore, I hope?"

"My girls are as successful in making me comfortable as are your boys in
looking after you, I believe, Professor Skillings," returned the lady,
laughing.

"More so--I have no doubt! More so," admitted the professor.

"Treason! treason!" shouted Dave Shepard.

"What's the matter with you?" demanded Wyn, who had hopped ashore behind
the chaperone.

"Professor Skillings is going back on us, boys," declared Dave.

"Why, Professor!" cried Ferdinand. "Where would you find in all the five
zones such a set of boys as we-uns?"

"Five zones? Correct, my boy," declared the professor, seri