and their mother was devoted to them; but Bess and Mr. Lavine were pals
all the time.

Bess repeated this exclamation over and over again, until Wyn thought
she should shriek in nervous despair. She realized quite fully that
their chance for life was very slim indeed; but moaning and groaning
about it would not benefit them or change the situation in the slightest
degree.

Wyn kept her head and saved her breath for work. She raised up now and
then, breast high in the water, and tried to scan the shore.

Suddenly the sun revealed Green Knoll Camp to her--bathing the little
hillock, with the tents upon it, in the full strength of his rays. But
it was quite two miles away.

Wyn could see no moving figures upon the knoll. Nor could her friends
see her and Bess struggling in the water at that distance. If their
overset had not been sighted, Mrs. Havel and the four other members of
the Go-Ahead Club would not be aware of their peril.

And, Wyn believed, the swamping of the canoes could only have been
observed through a glass. Had anybody along shore been watching the two
canoes as the squall struck the craft and overset them?

In that possibility, she thought, lay their only hope of rescue.

CHAPTER XIV

THE REPULSE

As the squall threatened in the northwest, it had been observed by many
on the shores of Lake Honotonka--and many on the lake itself, as well.
Sailing craft had run for havens. The lake could be nasty at times and
there might be more than a capful of wind in the black cloud that spread
so quickly over a sky that had--an hour before--been of azure.

Had the two girls from Green Knoll Camp been observed by the watermen as
they embarked in their canoes at Meade's Forge, they might have been
warned against venturing far from the shore in those cockleshells. But
Wynifred and Bessie had not been observed, so were not warned.

The squall had come down so quickly that they were not much to be
blamed. It had startled other people on the lake--and those much more
used to its vagaries.

In a cove on the north shore a small cat-rigged boat had been drifting
since noon-time, its single occupant having found the fishing very good.
This fisher was the boatman's daughter, Polly Jarley.

She had now a splendid catch and she knew that, if the wind held true, a
sharp run to the westward would bring her to Braisely Park. At some one
of the private landings there her fish would be welcomed--she could get
more