unstrung! Gee! wouldn't that make your ears buzz?"

"Aw, you're a doubting Thomas and always will be, Tub," said Ferd
Roberts. "You never believe what you're told. You're as suspicious as
the farmer who went to town and bought a pair of shoes, and when he'd
paid for 'em the clerk says:

"'Now, sir, can't I sell you a pair of shoe trees?'

"'Don't you get fresh with me, sonny,' says the farmer, his whiskers
bristling. 'I don't believe shoes kin be raised on trees any more 'n I
believe rubbers grow on rubber trees, or oysters on oyster plants,
b'gosh!'"

"Well," snarled the fat youth, as the other Busters laughed, "the girls
are always making excuses. You can never tell what a girl means,
anyway--not by what she _says_."

"You know speech was given us to hide our thoughts," laughed Dave.

"Say! I'll get square just the same--paddlin' clear over here for
nothing. Humph! I know that Hedges girl is afraid there's bears in the
woods? Say, fellers! I've _got_ it! Yes, I've got it!"

When Tubby spoke in this way, and his eyes snapped and he began to look
eager, his mates knew that the fat youth's gigantic mind was working
overtime, and they immediately gathered around and stopped paddling.

As Dave said, chuckling, a little later, "trouble was bruin!"

In the morning the girls found the two lost canoes on the shore below
the camp. Polly and her father had evidently gone out in the evening,
after the moon rose, and recovered them. Neither, of course, was
damaged.

"And we must do something nice to pay them for it!" cried Grace.

Bessie was still deeply concerned over Polly's attitude.

"I am going to write father at once, and tell him all about it," she
said. "And I _am_ sorry for the way I treated Polly at first. Do
you suppose she will ever forgive me, Wyn?"

Just as Wyn had once said in discussing Bessie's character: when the
latter realized that she was in the wrong, or had been unfair to anyone,
she was never afraid to admit her fault and try to "make it up." But
this seemed to be a case where it was very difficult for Bessie to
"square herself."

The boatman's daughter had shown herself unwilling to be friendly with
Bess. Nor was Polly, perhaps, to be blamed.

However, on this particular morning the girls of Green Knoll Camp had
something besides Bessie's disturbance of mind and Polly Jarley's
attitude to think about.

And this "something" came upon them with a suddenness that set the
entire camp in an