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Title: The Riddle Club at Sunrise Beach

How they toured to the shore, what happened on the sand and how they solved the mystery of Rattlesnake Island

Author: Alice Dale Hardy

Illustrator: Walter S. Rogers

Release date: March 19, 2023 [eBook #70321]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Grosset & Dunlap, 1925

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/70321

Credits: David Edwards, Graeme Mackreth and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RIDDLE CLUB AT SUNRISE BEACH ***

"AND NOW LET'S HAVE SOME BREAKFAST."

The Riddle Club at Sunrise Beach.        Frontispiece—(Page 229)

THE RIDDLE CLUB

AT SUNRISE BEACH

How They Toured to the Shore

What Happened on the Sand

And How They Solved the Mystery of

Rattlesnake Island

BY

ALICE DALE HARDY

AUTHOR OF "THE RIDDLE CLUB AT HOME," "THE RIDDLE CLUB THROUGH THE HOLIDAYS," ETC.

ILLUSTRATED BY

WALTER S. ROGERS

NEW YORK

GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS

Made in the United States of America

THE RIDDLE CLUB BOOKS

By ALICE DALE HARDY

12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.

THE RIDDLE CLUB AT HOME

THE RIDDLE CLUB IN CAMP

THE RIDDLE CLUB THROUGH THE HOLIDAYS

THE RIDDLE CLUB AT SUNRISE BEACH

GROSSET & DUNLAP

Publishers    :    :    New York

Copyright, 1925, by

GROSSET & DUNLAP

The Riddle Club at Sunrise Beach

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

PAGE

I

AN INFORMAL SESSION

1

II

WARD'S HARD LUCK

10

III

THE GLORIOUS FOURTH

19

IV

MR. KIRBY'S PACKAGE

28

V

FULL SPEED AHEAD

38

VI

PUNS AND POEMS

47

VII

AN INTERESTING DETOUR

56

VIII

MEEKER'S COTTAGE

65

IX

ANOTHER MEETING

75

X

VACATION DAYS

85

XI

SOME OLD FRIENDS

93

XII

THE CARNIVAL

103

XIII

SIX PASSES

114

XIV

THE SIDE SHOWS

123

XV

ARTIE'S RAFT

133

XVI

A BIT OF GOOD FORTUNE

143

XVII

THE BEACH PARTY

154

XVIII

SWIMMING RACES

165

XIX

BAD NEWS

177

XX

POLLY SAVES THE DAY

188

XXI

A CONTRARY ENGINE

197

XXII

ALL ADRIFT

207

XXIII

ONE NIGHT AT SEA

217

XXIV

A GREAT DISCOVERY

227

XXV

THE TREASURER IS PLEASED

237

THE RIDDLE CLUB AT SUNRISE BEACH

CHAPTER I

AN INFORMAL SESSION

"I DON'T think you ought to be fussing just because it is a little hot," Jess Larue said, scrubbing her chin with a moist and grimy handkerchief.

"A little hot!" cried Margy Williamson. "Why, last night I couldn't sleep a wink. I think last night was the hottest night we ever had in River Bend."

Fred, Margy's twin brother, pretended to fan himself.

"I never knew it to be like this before," he complained, mimicking his sister's tone. "Every year, just before the Fourth, we always have a snowstorm. I remember last year we shot off firecrackers under the snowman we built, and it was so cold not even the heat could melt the snow."

Margy sniffed and Artie Marley giggled.

"Oh, of course it's hot! But who cares?" said Polly Marley, the born peacemaker. "Think about the beach and the fun we'll have there. And just as soon as Ward comes, we'll hold our meeting."

"I don't know what can be keeping him." Jess spoke of her brother. "He can't run fast, because he is so fat, but he can hurry when he wants to. Perhaps he stayed to watch the boat come in."

It was a pleasant room in which the five children were gathered, even if it was a loft room of the Larue barn. The window was up and let in plenty of light and as much air as could be expected to circulate on a warm July day. From this window, neat gardens could be seen, and, beyond the gardens, green fields where early haymaking was already in progress.

"I'm going to finish sewing, if we have to wait forever," said Margy, moving over to the table. "Lend me your thimble, Jess?"

The room was so small that a table, a rug, and the six chairs for the members were all that could be squeezed into it. Margy, who was a good needlewoman and a little vain of her accomplishment, had a heap of soft bright green material on the table, and now she bent over this.

"What are you making, Margy?" asked Artie Marley curiously.

"Sewing the initials on my bathing suit," Margy returned. "See?"

She held up the Jersey cloth and showed the white letters "R.C." basted in place.

"How lovely!" cried Polly. "We can all have initials. That will be fun."

"But our pins are blue and gold," Artie objected, feeling of the little pin on his blouse.

"Well, this isn't a pin I'm putting on my bathing suit—just initials," said Margy.

"I guess Mother will sew some on for me," Jess announced hopefully. "My bathing suit is red—white letters would look all right, wouldn't they?"

"Of course. I'll have white, too, on my blue suit," decided Polly. "Where did you get your letters, Margy?"

"Mother cut them out for me—white flannel," Margy murmured, absorbed in going around the curve of the "C" with close, even stitches. "She cut out a set for each of you."

As Fred and Artie began to discuss how far it was from the window to the ground, Polly decided to call the meeting to order. Once the boys talked about jumping, it would be only a step to the actual jump.

"The Riddle Club will please come to order!" said Polly, thumping the table impressively. "While we are waiting for Mr. Ward Larue to arrive with the fireworks, we'll take up unfinished business—if there is any."

"I collected the dues," Fred contributed, and his manner indicated that his interest in any other club business was of the slightest.

Fred was club treasurer, and every one agreed that he was devoted to his duties.

"Oh, Polly, it's too hot to bother!" said Margy Williamson. "There isn't any unfinished business, anyway."

"What makes you so touchy, Margy?" Jess asked curiously.

To her surprise, Margy did not "flare up." Instead tears came into her eyes.

"I thought we'd have such fun at Sunrise Beach," she explained. "But ever since I heard Mattie Helms' mother had taken a bungalow there, I haven't felt like going. Everything will be spoiled!"

Polly swept away the sewing and gave Margy a hug that, despite its warmth, was very comforting.

"You're tired getting ready and the last day of school upset you," she declared. "Just wait till you get to the Beach—you may not see Mattie all summer. She is at the end where all the new houses are and we're in the unfashionable section. It will take more than Mattie Helms to spoil our fun."

"Ask a riddle, Polly," suggested Jess. "Here we are having a meeting and we haven't done a thing."

"All right, I know a riddle that is just the thing for to-day," said Polly, smiling. "I'll ask you, Margy. Name a wheel that can't be used in any machinery."

Margy thought for a moment. Her face cleared.

"A bicycle!" said she.

"You can use a bicycle in machinery," Polly insisted. "Take it apart and use it for lots of things. Three guesses, Margy, because it isn't thinking weather, as Artie says. Try again."

Margy thought so long that her brother Fred began to shuffle his feet impatiently. Margy looked at him reproachfully.

"How can I think when you are so noisy?" she asked. "Is this right, Polly? A flywheel?"

Fred and Artie hooted, for this was too much for their mechanical minds.

"A flywheel is a part of machinery," Fred explained.

"Then it must be a wheelwright," said Margy.

"What's that?" Artie demanded, while Polly looked puzzled.

"It's a man, isn't it?" said Jess slowly.

"Yes. And you can't use a man in any machinery can you?" Margy pointed out. "Daddy told me the other night about a wheelwright."

"But he isn't a wheel," declared Fred. "That isn't the answer, is it, Polly? Anyway, you said it was just the thing for to-day, and I don't see what a wheelwright has to do with to-day."

"The real answer is a pin-wheel," Polly explained. "And it's only two days to Fourth of July, you know, so it fits."

"Isn't it funny I didn't think of that?" said Margy. "But as long as we haven't forfeits, I don't mind. We shan't have forfeits, shall we, Polly, because it is so hot?"

"Margy can't seem to forget the weather for a minute," Jess thought. But then, Margy had often declared that she liked winter better than summer. Unfortunately she liked winter when it was summer and as soon as it began to snow she was heard to sigh for summer! There are a great many people who feel about the weather as she did.

"It's your turn now, Jess," said Polly quietly.

Jess Larue pulled her curly dark hair and thought for as long as two seconds.

"Artie," she said, "what kind of crackers are there that no one would care to eat?"

"Graham," Artie responded promptly.

They all laughed, for Artie's dislike for graham crackers was well known. Wherever he went, he was sure to be offered graham crackers—the River Bend mothers thought graham crackers wholesome, and so they are—and Artie had once been heard to say that if he ever kept a grocery store not a graham cracker should be allowed on his shelves.

"No, that's not right," declared Jess. "Try again."

"Nutcrackers?" said Artie brilliantly.

"Say, you're all right!" Fred exclaimed approvingly. "Isn't that the right answer, Jess? No one would care to eat nutcrackers?"

"No, they wouldn't," agreed Jess. "But, you see, I forgot to tell you this is a Fourth of July riddle."

"It's my fault," Polly announced, flushing a little. "I should have said that at this meeting all the riddles must have something to do with the Fourth of July. Thinking about Ward and waiting for him, made me forget."

"He's stopped somewhere," said Jess. "Well, Artie, you have one more guess. What kind of crackers would no one care to eat—and it has to do with Fourth of July, remember."

"Huh, firecrackers," Artie guessed confidently. "That's easy."

Jess admitted that he was right.

"But if I hadn't told you about the Fourth, you never would have guessed it," she told him.

It was decided that Fred was to ask the next riddle, and he was ready.

"Polly," he said slowly, "what kind of a candle never stands still?"

"A revolving one," Polly answered, speaking before she thought.

Naturally Fred demanded to know what a revolving candle was and Polly had to confess that she didn't know.

"It might be in a lantern," contributed Jess helpfully, but Fred discarded this answer as "silly."

"Well, two more guesses won't help me," Polly declared. "So I'll give up. What kind of a candle never stands still, Fred?"

"A Roman candle," said Fred.

Polly looked a little blank.

"Of course you don't want to say it that way," Fred explained. "Say a roaming candle and you'll get the idea."

"Lots of children say a 'roaming candle,'" declared Margy.

"But I don't," replied Polly. "Still, if you say that is the answer to the riddle, all right, it is."

"Now it's my turn!" Artie cried eagerly.

But he did not have a chance to ask his riddle. Just as he opened his mouth and the riddle trembled on the tip of his tongue, a loud explosion sounded outside.

Bang!

"A cannon!" screamed Jess. "Some one fired off a cannon!"

Bang! bang! bang!

As one person, the five children raced for the door. Down the loft ladder they tumbled and made for the barn door.

"It was, too, a cannon—half a dozen cannons," Jess argued as she ran. "What else could make a noise like that?"

CHAPTER II

WARD'S HARD LUCK

THE noise of the explosions had been heard throughout the neighborhood. From the houses near by heads were thrust from the windows and a nervous dog was barking excitedly, trying to tell any one who would listen that he just knew something had happened.

"What was it?" cried Polly, as she and the other members of the Riddle Club ran out. "Where was it? It sounded back of the barn."

Around to the other side of the Larue barn the boys and girls ran and there saw a sight that made them gasp in astonishment. Ward Larue, Jess's brother, sat on the ground, surrounded by the smoking ruins of what had been a large package of fine fireworks. There was nothing left of the treasure but a few smoldering sticks—everything had burned.

"All blew up—everything!" was the way Ward expressed it.

"Are you hurt?" demanded Polly anxiously.

"What happened?" Margy cried.

"Where are the fireworks?" This from Artie, though what was left of the fireworks was only too apparent.

Ward got slowly to his feet. He was not seriously hurt, though one or two of his fingers were painfully scorched. He blew upon them to cool them.

"Now we haven't got a blamed thing for the Fourth of July," he remarked sadly. "After I spent two days persuading Fred to let us spend some of the money, too!"

Even Fred had to laugh at this. Ward had been most insistent that some of the dues of the club be expended for fireworks and he had, with some assistance from the others, induced Fred, as treasurer, to let them take a small sum from the bank and expend it for the coming Fourth of July celebration.

"Never mind, as long as you are not hurt," said Polly consolingly. "It is a wonder you didn't blow up with the fireworks."

"I suppose you put a box of matches in with 'em," Fred suggested. "Or were you fooling with the punk?"

Ward glanced at him indignantly. It was bad enough, he thought, to be almost frightened out of his wits by having a package of fireworks go off in his arms, but to be accused of setting the fire was too much.

"Is any one killed?" asked Mrs. Pepper, peering fearfully over the fence.

Her garden joined the Larue place and she had been weeding her onions when the noise had startled her and made her, so she complained, drop the sharp hoe on her foot.

"I came within an ace of slicing off my toe," she said. "What was that racket?"

"I had some fireworks and they blew up," Ward explained.

"I wish they'd all blow up and get it over with," announced Mrs. Pepper grimly. "The time to have fireworks go off is a week before the Fourth. Then we might enjoy the day in peace."

She looked severely at Ward as though she blamed him for the fireworks that had not blown up.

"Perhaps now you'll be spared to your folks for another year, with all your arms and legs," continued Mrs. Pepper. "You take my advice and don't get any more fireworks, young man."

She went back to her weeding, and Ward complained that there was no hope of getting more fireworks. Not unless Fred resigned as treasurer.

"What I want to know," Fred said sternly, ignoring this last remark, "is this: How came the explosions?"

Ward beckoned toward the barn door.

"Come up to the clubroom and I'll tell you," he whispered mysteriously.

Back in the clubroom, the members of the Riddle Club gathered around Ward. He was still carrying the smoking remains of the fireworks and now he put them down on the table and looked at them regretfully.

"They were the best Roman candles you ever saw," he mourned. "Better than last year, a heap. And pinwheels and snakes——"

Margy gave a squeak of anguish. "Snakes" were her pet diversion on the Fourth and she had expressly stipulated that they be included in Ward's purchases.

"But how did they blow up? What happened?" urged Fred.

"Those fireworks," Ward said solemnly, "were blown up!"

The others stared at him. Polly was the first to speak.

"You mean," she almost whispered, "you mean—some one deliberately blew them up?"

Ward nodded. His round face was smudged with smoke and damp with perspiration.

"Firecracker!" he told them shortly. "Joe Anderson threw it."

"That mean, hateful boy!" sputtered Margy, but Fred was strangely calm.

"Are you sure?" he demanded.

"Of course I'm sure," and Ward nodded. "I was coming around the back way, to go into the barn, and all of a sudden Joe ran out from behind the old lilac bush. He had a firecracker in his hand and it was sputtering. I yelled at him, but he threw it straight at me and the next thing I knew things started to go off with a bang. Did you hear it?" he asked as an afterthought.

"Yes, we heard it," admitted Fred.

"Of all the mean boys!" Margy said again. "Now I hope the Conundrum Club is happy—we won't have a thing to celebrate with on the Fourth of July."

"Perhaps he didn't know Ward was carrying fireworks," protested Polly, the peacemaker.

"Maybe there is something that will go off yet," her brother Artie suggested, a hopeful hint that had the effect of setting them all to looking over the wreckage to see what might be salvaged.

If this is the first time you have met these girls and boys, you will need to know something more about them. The history of the Riddle Club, how Polly Marley started it and how it prospered so that a rival organization was formed, is told in the first book of this series, called "The Riddle Club at Home." The story of the first prize riddle contests and how they were won, is also told in that book. A second volume, "The Riddle Club in Camp" follows the adventures of the six chums at beautiful Lake Bassing and tells how they were able to help a kind old hermit find his lost home and friends. Up to that time the Riddle Club had met in the Larue barn, where they had a room to themselves. But cold weather made a heated room desirable, and when Mrs. Marley gave them the use of a room in her house for the winter, the club took possession gratefully. How they enjoyed the winter and what sport they had, is revealed in the third book, "The Riddle Club Through the Holidays." Treasurer Fred Williamson lost the dues and the bank. But he found them again, and the experience only tended to make him more careful.

As soon as spring came, the children moved back to the clubroom in the Larue barn, for it was a delightful place and had the additional charm of seclusion. No matter how much the boys and girls stamped on the floor, or how often they might be moved to song, no one would ever be disturbed. No wonder the members of the Conundrum Club, of which Carrie Pepper was president, often envied the Riddle Club its choice of meeting places.

"There isn't a thing left," pronounced Fred, when he had examined the blackened ruins. "Not a thing. I wish I knew whether Joe meant to throw that firecracker at you."

"There wasn't any one else back of the barn except me," Ward declared. "Of course he was throwing it at me."

"Well, he might not have known that you were carrying fireworks," said Fred. "He might have been trying to scare you and tossed the firecracker before he noticed what you had in your arms."

"Yes, that must have been it," Polly chimed in, always ready to find an excuse for every one.

Ward did not seem convinced.

"Then why," he asked slowly, "didn't Joe Anderson stick around when he heard the noise? How did he know I wasn't burned up or something?"

This was a difficult question to answer, so no one attempted to reply. Instead, Polly suggested that they consider the meeting adjourned and go in to supper.

Of course, with the Fourth of July two days away and no fireworks on hand, the Riddle Club had something to think about. Urged by Fred and by Polly, who, as the oldest, had considerable influence, they were careful not to accuse Joe Anderson of purposely setting fire to the package in Ward's arms.

"You can't go around saying he did it," Fred declared, "for there is no way to prove it. Anyway, we can show the Conundrum Club that we don't bicker. We'll have some fireworks, anyway, because we each have a dollar to spend."

On hearing the tragic news, the three mothers had generously provided a dollar for each club member, and this, on the advice of Polly, was to be most wisely expended "fifty-fifty" for firecrackers by day and Roman candles and other glittering delights by night.

"We ought to get a lot of stuff," said Fred cheerfully, as they set off for the shop the next morning. "I'm glad now that Ward went early; if he had waited till the last minute and then the things blew up, everything might have been sold out."

Six dollars will, as you doubtless know, buy a quantity of firecrackers, punk and fireworks, even for six children with varying demands and tastes. Mr. Harrison, whose small store was crammed with Fourth of July supplies, wrapped everything up in one large package and the three boys agreed to take turns carrying it.

"Let's go down by the wharf," suggested Polly, as they left the shop.

Mr. Larue was the head of the steamboat line, and the wharf on which his office was built was of course familiar ground to the Riddle Club. Nearly all the express and freight business in River Bend was done by the boats, as the nearest railroad was some miles away.

"You're just the folks I wanted to see," said Mr. Larue, who was busy on the wharf as the boys and girls came in sight. "There is a package here addressed to the Riddle Club. I thought you might know something about it and where it ought to go."

"A package!" said six voices in chorus. "Who sent it?"

CHAPTER III

THE GLORIOUS FOURTH

"WHERE is it?" cried Artie, in great excitement.

"What is it?" Ward demanded.

Mr. Larue smiled as he continued to write placidly in his consignment book.

"I do not know what is in it," he admitted. "But I can tell you where to find it—on my desk."

Mr. Larue's office was small, but the entire membership of the Riddle Club succeeded in getting through the narrow doorway at the same moment—or nearly. There on the desk was a large square package.

"The Riddle Club, River Bend, Wharf Number One," read Polly aloud. "Oh, my goodness! What do you suppose it can be?"

The sharp-eyed Margy had been reading the sender's address printed in the upper right-hand corner.

"Look!" she cried. "Look! It says 'T. Kirby, Rye.' Mr. Kirby sent it to us!"

Before any one could stop him, Ward had torn off a small corner of the wrapping paper.

"Fireworks!" he shouted. "I saw the red! I saw the red!"

He meant he had seen the brilliant red of the paper which enclosed the contents of the package.

Of course there was nothing to do but open the parcel. It was from Mr. Kirby, the cousin of the old hermit the children had befriended at camp, the same Mr. Kirby who had sent them their club pins and rings. Evidently he knew exactly what the Riddle Club liked, though he could not have known their special need for fireworks, since the package had been expressed before the explosion which had come so near to burning Ward.

"Say!" Fred was so excited he almost stuttered. "Say! I tell you what let's do—we won't say a word about these fireworks. We'll pretend we have only the stuff we bought this afternoon, and then Fourth of July night we'll set all this off and the Conundrum Club won't know what to make of it."

Every one agreed to this plan and the package was left in the office, Mr. Larue promising to bring it home with him that night. This proved to be a lucky decision, as far as secrecy was concerned, for halfway home the children met Carrie Pepper, the head of the rival club, accompanied by two other members of the Conundrum Club, Stella Dorman and Albert Holmes.

"Where you been?" asked Carrie sociably.

"We had to go and buy more fireworks," Fred answered, noting with alarm the blank look in Artie Marley's eyes.

Artie was rather absent-minded and he had been known to give away a secret without knowing it.

"Oh, yes, yours burned up, didn't they?" said Carrie. "That was too bad. I don't suppose you could get very much; all the good things were bought. We have some dandy fireworks. We are going to set them off on my lawn. You'll be able to see them, and that will be almost as much fun as though you had some."

"Oh, we have some," Margy hastened to explain. "We each had a dollar, and if you put everything together, you have more, or at least it always seems that way."

"Well, anyway, you can see ours," repeated Carrie. "We have two dozen Roman candles."

Stella Dorman stared coolly at Ward.

"You burned up the fireworks, didn't you?" she asked, with apparent interest.

The unexpectedness of this left Ward gasping for breath. Jess spoke for him.

"Ward had nothing to do with it," she cried indignantly. "It's a wonder he wasn't burned up—every one says so. Joe Anderson threw a lighted firecracker and it exploded all the stuff."

"But he didn't mean to," Carrie put in hastily. "Joe wasn't looking. He just threw the firecracker over his shoulder and he jumped a mile when he heard the explosion."

"Yes, we noticed he jumped around the block and down the street home," commented Fred dryly.

"You don't think he meant to do it, do you?" Albert Holmes said. "Joe wouldn't do a thing like that."

Ward had regained his breath by this time and he was determined to be heard.

"I don't see," he remarked a little pensively, "how any one can throw a firecracker over his shoulder the minute I come in sight. He waited till I was almost in front of him."

"He told me that the firecracker was ready to explode," Albert insisted. "You wouldn't want him to burn his fingers off, would you?"

"I think we ought to be going home," said Polly. "Mother wants me to help her pack—the trunks are going to-night."

"We're going to Sunrise Beach for the whole summer," proclaimed Carrie. "If you get time, come and see us. We'll be at the bungalow colony: Mattie Helms' mother has a beautiful new bungalow."

"Now, Margy, don't burst," advised Polly, as the Riddle Club members walked on. "I wish you could have seen your face when Carrie was talking. You looked like some offended queen."

"Did you ever hear of anything so silly in your life!" sputtered Margy furiously. "Asking us to come and see her as though she had just met us. And I've known Carrie Pepper ever since we were in kindergarten!"

Margy was just a little inclined to "put on airs" herself, if the truth were known, but she did not like to be the victim of some one else's affectations.

"Oh, what difference does it make?" good-natured Polly protested. "We won't see her all summer—at least I don't think we shall. The Helms love to dress up and have parties, and we are not going to have that kind of summer at all."

"Anyway, wait till we have our own fireworks party," Artie said gayly. "Perhaps the Conundrum Club will come over and watch us. And won't they wonder where we got the stuff!"

The evening before the Fourth was close and muggy, but it is doubtful if any of the Riddle Club members minded the heat, even Margy, who dearly liked to be comfortable. Lights burned late in the Marley and Larue and Williamson houses, for trunks were being packed for the trip to Sunrise Beach. They would go to the railroad station by motor truck late that night, and the day after the Fourth of July the three families were to follow, making the trip in Mr. Larue's and Mr. Williamson's cars.

"I want to be right here at home for the Fourth," Mrs. Marley had declared, when the question was raised of spending the holiday at the beach. "Shore towns are crowded over the Fourth and we shall be more comfortable in our own homes. Besides, the traffic will be less crowded the day after, one way at least. Let's stay at home till after the Fourth."

This was felt to be wise advice, and the boys and girls were secretly pleased. They had a good many matters of importance to attend to, including the meeting of the Riddle Club which Ward had so unfortunately missed, and they felt that fireworks at home might present greater opportunities for "experiments" than a strange resort would afford.

Boom! sounded early the next morning. Boom! Boom!

"It's Fourth of July!" shouted Jess, tumbling out of bed. "I told Ward to wake me up!"

But Ward was merrily firing his crackers, with no thought of sleeping sisters. Fred Williamson and Artie Marley were with him, and by the time the three girls had joined them they had made a respectable hole in their packages and had announced to all of River Bend that another Independence Day had dawned.

"Mother says not to shoot another thing till after breakfast," said Margy. "Oh-h, look at the tin can!"

For as she spoke a tin can sailed skyward with telling effect and Fred beamed proudly.

"Let me do that!" begged Margy.

"After breakfast," Fred promised, and the chums separated reluctantly.

They all ate with more speed than their mothers could strictly approve, but as the Fourth of July, like Christmas, comes but once a year, leniency was granted.

"It is so warm, I shouldn't think you'd want to go near a firecracker," said Mrs. Marley, catching Artie as he asked to be excused and made a dash for the front porch.

"Oh, yes, Mother, they're great," he assured her. "Only Joe Anderson has a pistol," he added.

"He's a more foolish and reckless boy than I gave him credit for, then," declared Artie's father, who overheard this. "A lad of his age has no business with such a thing."

"Now let me fire a tin can," Margy demanded, as soon as they were reassembled after breakfast.

The sun was blazing down over them, but the boys and girls scarcely felt its rays. Margy knelt on the gravel walk and held her breath while she touched the firecracker with a long piece of punk, clapped the tin can over it, and dashed back to the grass.

The can trembled violently—and fell over.

"Yours went up!" complained Margy. "Why didn't mine go up, Fred?"

"Practice," her brother returned, but Polly laughed.

"He put more crackers under it, of course," she said. "Look, Margy—this is the way."

And Polly deftly placed a mound of half a dozen crackers under the can, touched a fuse with her lighted punk, and let the can slip over the sputtering pile.

Bang! the can shot to a gratifying height and Margy gazed at her friend with respect.

"I can do that," she declared. "Let me try it."

So Margy tried again, and then Jess, and finally they all tired of shooting off firecrackers under a can and turned their attention to something else.

"Want to see how far I can throw one?" boasted Artie. "Just you watch."

They were on the Marley lawn, and Mrs. Marley had cautioned them not to throw any of the lighted firecrackers toward the house. So now Artie, in his best pitching form, hurled a lighted cracker toward the road.

It went further than his fondest hopes encouraged him to expect. That lighted cracker landed in the middle of the road, beyond the sidewalk.

"Good gracious!" whispered Polly suddenly. "There's Mrs. Pepper's pet rooster. You don't suppose he will try to eat it, do you?"

"He is!" Jess shrieked. "I'm not going to look!" and she put her hands over her ears as though they would prevent her seeing what might be going to happen.

CHAPTER IV

MR. KIRBY'S PACKAGE

MRS. PEPPER, Carrie's mother, was very proud of her chickens. She spent a good deal of time and money in caring for them, and they were seldom allowed to stray from their own runs. But sometimes, as on an extremely warm day, she would let them out for a change of scene, and it must be stated that her neighbors did not like their subsequent behavior. Mrs. Pepper's chickens visited all the gardens and scratched up neat lawns and entered into battles with the dogs and cats who tried to argue the right of way with them.

Now here was the pet, prize rooster of the Pepper flock, gravely inspecting the sputtering firecracker Artie had thrown into the road.

"Go chase him!" Polly urged. "Chase him quick!"

Artie meant to be quick, but the fuse was short and just as he started the rooster bent his head to peck at the fraying, reddening string. It behaved, he probably thought, like some kind of worm.

Bang! Fire and smoke and a terrible noise overwhelmed the poor rooster, and with a loud squawk he scuttled for the safety of his own chickenyard.

"If my mother catches you throwing firecrackers at her chickens, she'll tell your father, Artie Marley!" called Carrie Pepper, appearing around a bush of the Larue place, a piece of lighted punk in her hand.

The Larues lived across the street from the Marleys and the Pepper house and yard faced on another street. But the back yards of the Larue and the Pepper places joined and most of the fences were hedge, so that it was easy enough to go from one street to the other without going around.

Artie, halted on his errand of mercy, looked as guilty as though he had intentionally thrown the cracker at the rooster.

"He came after it!" he told Carrie lamely.

"Huh, I suppose he did—and you came down to meet him," Carrie retorted disagreeably.

"Don't argue, Artie," Polly called in a low voice. "Come on back and we'll do something else."

Carrie was fond of declaring that she couldn't "abide" the Riddle Club—she didn't like any of the boys and girls who belonged to it. And yet, strange to say, whatever they did or said had a tremendous fascination for her. She wanted to be with them and listen to them.

"I'm waiting for Mattie Helms to come over," Carrie announced. "I'll come over and sit on your steps, I guess. Are those all the fireworks you have?"

"Well, ours burned up, you know," said Fred, trying hard to make his voice sound pathetic. "Of course, we did the best we could, but we couldn't buy so many things for to-night. Flower-pots and things like that cost too much."

"Firecrackers are cheap, but they don't look pretty at night," Jess observed, unconsciously helping Fred out.

"You ought to see what we're going to have to-night," said Carrie complacently. "Red and green and yellow fire—pinwheels—sky rockets—Roman candles. I guess you can see them from here. I have invited all the Conundrum Club over to our house, or I'd ask you to come over."

"Oh, we can see," Fred assured her.

"Don't you want to set off a snake?" said Polly quietly.

Carrie was as fond of "snakes" as Margy was, and she graciously consented to touch off one of the silvery, wriggling things. Indeed, so pleasant was this that she set off two more without further invitation. Then she tried some of the "baby" firecrackers—setting off half a pack at a time for the fun of seeing them sparkle and hiss—and she burned a package of sparklers and used up a box of torpedoes, aiming at a flower-pot.

"I guess I'll have to go around to Mattie's house and see why she doesn't come," she said, when not another torpedo could she shake from the box. "Don't forget to watch our things to-night."

When she was gone the Riddle Club looked at one another. Polly snickered and Jess laughed outright. Ward and Artie fell into each other's arms and rolled on the lawn, always an indication of their delight.

"I don't think it's funny," Margy said. "She burned up three of my snakes, and I have only four left."

"Take mine, Margy darling," offered the generous Polly. "I was the one who asked her to do it. But I didn't know she would try everything we had."

By afternoon, about everything in the first package had been fired off. The lawn looked as though a small battle had been staged on it and even Artie, most ardent of patriots, was ready to take kindly to the idea of lunch, a bath, clean clothes and the "exercises" on the town green.

Nearly every one in River Bend went to the Fourth of July exercises. The band played patriotic airs, the Declaration of Independence was read, and there were one or two speeches, followed by community singing.

"I wish it would hurry and get dark," said Ward, as the six chums were walking home together after the singing. "It's such fun to have fireworks that we don't know ourselves."

"You mean we don't know what they are," Fred replied. "Wouldn't it be a joke if Mr. Kirby sent us candy fireworks or something like that?"

"He wouldn't," declared Polly. "He never plays that silly kind of jokes."

"Here comes Miss Allen," Artie said quickly. "I wonder where she's been; she always leads the singing at the exercises."

Miss Allen was the town nurse, and she smiled when she saw the children.

"You'll have to go and see Joe Anderson and try and cheer him up," she said, putting down her black bag on the pavement and fanning herself with her handkerchief. She had been walking fast and was warm.

"Is he sick?" asked Polly quickly.

"Oh, dear no, not sick! Didn't you hear?" Miss Allen returned. "His pistol exploded—just before I was starting for the exercises—and he has some painful powder burns."

"It won't kill him, will it?" Margy said fearfully, while the others stared.

"Mercy no," the nurse answered vigorously. "He's lucky to get off as lightly as he has, though. The pistol was old and a cheap affair, and he should never have been allowed to touch it. His right hand is burned, but not deeply. Doctor Mains says he'll be all right in a few weeks."

She went on and the Riddle Club members continued their walk, a little sobered by the news.

"Do you suppose Joe really did mean to set off the fireworks?" asked Artie seriously.

"I do," Fred announced promptly. "But I don't see any sense in going all around town, spouting that. I wouldn't be surprised to hear it was a nice little plan, made up by some one who told him how to go about it. Joe isn't very good when it comes to having ideas of his own."

"I'll bet he means Carrie Pepper suggested that," said Jess to herself.

But she forgot Carrie and the burned fireworks when they reached home and found that Mrs. Williamson had invited the Riddle Club to a porch supper. It was served on the big front porch and was exactly like a picnic except, as Ward put it, you did not have to go anywhere.

"Where'll we set off our fireworks?" asked Fred, munching his fourth peanut butter sandwich.

"Can we start as soon as it is dark?" Artie wanted to know.

"We want to start early, because we have to go to bed early," declared Polly. "Mother says we want to get a good early start in the morning."

Margy gave a wriggle of pure delight.

"Isn't it fun!" she sighed. "We have fireworks to-night and in the morning we are going to Sunrise Beach and this minute we're going to have ice-cream!"

They all laughed at her summing up, but the red, white and blue ice-cream was hailed with a cheer.

It obligingly grew dark as rapidly as possible, and it was decided that the Larue lawn was the best for the fireworks. The mothers were to be the guests of honor and sit on the porch while the three fathers and the children would set off the contents of Mr. Kirby's package.

"There goes a Roman candle!" cried Ward, as one shot up from the dark tree tops that enclosed the Pepper yard.

There was a great hubbub of laughter and talk from the Pepper side porch, where the fourteen members of the Conundrum Club were gathered. They did not seem to be agreeing either, for several voices were arguing loudly that "it's my turn"—"you've had yours"—"you said it was my turn next."

But the Riddle Club forgot to listen when they began their own entertainment. Only one package of the many arranged neatly in the large box Mr. Kirby had sent was labeled. This bore a small card which said, "Set this off when everything else is gone."

"What do you suppose it can be?" the curious Margy speculated, holding it up to her ear and shaking it as if she hoped to detect it by this action.

"I don't know. Whoopee, look at the pin-wheel!" Jess cried joyously.

There surely had never been such a box of fireworks. Not in River Bend, at least. There were little tiny flat packages that flared into beautiful geometrical figures that spun and whirled and dazzled for long, breath-taking seconds. There were pieces that folded into a tiny space and yet which, when sent up, proved to be large and elaborate and quite beyond the power of any one to name. The Roman candles shot up to the stars—Polly was positive. The colored fire made the yard a place for fairies. They had never seen such fireworks, the Riddle Club were sure.

"My goodness, how long have you been shooting off things?" demanded Carrie Pepper suddenly, out of the darkness. "Did you see ours? We're all through and we were going in when we saw one of your rockets. Where did you get 'em? I thought you only had a few things."

"Come up on the steps, Carrie," Mrs. Larue called pleasantly. "Mr. Kirby sent the children a box of fireworks. Don't you want to stay and see? We must be nearly through, too."

"Seven more left!" announced Fred triumphantly. "Not counting the surprise."

That settled Carrie. If there was a surprise, she meant to see it. Followed by the thirteen other members of the Conundrum Club, she settled down on the steps of the porch and watched critically.

"Oh! Ah!" said every one, as a flower-pot of great brilliancy and wonderful color spread out before their eyes.

"Oh! Ah!" they said for each successive piece, and the Conundrum Club joined in the chorus of admiration.

"What is the surprise?" Carrie whispered to Polly, as she dashed up to get a new piece of punk.

"I don't know—none of us does," said Polly. "Fred is going to touch it off after we light this next piece."

Fred's hand trembled a little as he put the last piece in position and lit it. Then he stepped back and joined the others on the porch. They held their breaths for a few minutes and then——

"Well, what do you know about that?" shouted Ward Larue, in amazement.

CHAPTER V

FULL SPEED AHEAD

"MY goodness gracious!" Carrie Pepper gasped. "Good land sakes!" she added, as though the occasion demanded more.

Before the delighted and envious eyes of the watchers, the pin of the Riddle Club was blazing—the gold question mark in the center of the shield. It burned brightly for a few seconds, faded to a red glow, grew cold, and died out.

"Oh!" breathed Polly softly. "Oh, how lovely!"

"Where did you get it?" Joe Anderson asked curiously, forgetting his bandaged hand and the pain it gave him.

"Mr. Kirby sent the box, but I don't see how he could get our pin," puzzled Fred.

"Why, Son, he had that piece made to order," Mr. Williamson explained. "I must say, he has gone to a great deal of trouble to give you pleasure. But I think he would feel repaid if he saw this crowd."

"Well, it was great," said Albert Holmes heartily. "I never saw anything like that. I didn't know you could have fireworks made to order. Good-night, everybody."

The three households were early astir the next morning. There was breakfast to get—and eat—doors to be locked, last minute reminders given to Dora, the maid in the Larue house who was to keep it open for the three fathers who would have to spend some part of each week in River Bend. There were messages and keys and plants and canary birds to be distributed around among the neighbors—who, by the way, all came out to see the two cars start—and finally, just as Ward had declared that he knew they would be in exactly the same place the next day, everything was pronounced in readiness.

"Wait one minute, till I call the roll," said Mr. Williamson. "Polly, Artie, Jess, Ward, Margy and Fred—they seem to be present and accounted for. All right, Mother?"

The children were to go in Mr. Williamson's car and Mr. Larue was to drive the grown-ups. This had been Mr. Marley's plan and, as he pointed out, the advantages were obvious. He didn't think, he said, that grown-up talk as a rule interested the youngsters, and, for his part, he liked to talk without being interrupted with endless questions.

"Of course, Tom, it is rather hard on you," said Mr. Marley, as he swung Artie into the car.

"I am glad to say I know when I am well off," jolly Mr. Williamson informed him. "You'll talk about business and complain of the heat and I'll be listening to plans for the best vacation ever. I wouldn't trade places with you for a farm."

"Gee, I'll bet we forgot the lunch!" exclaimed Fred, as the cars rolled down Elm Road. "Mother told me to put the box in and I never thought of it again."

"Guess we have to starve then," his father answered. "Can't go back. There were chicken sandwiches, too; Mother told me."

Mr. Larue was ahead and Fred stood up and shouted.

"We forgot the lunch!" he called. "I left it on the hall table."

"It's right here, in the car," Mrs. Larue called back. "Don't worry—we haven't forgotten a thing."

This was very comforting for, of course, no one likes to start a long automobile trip without something to eat.

River Bend was a straggling town and followed the river, so that, as soon as the cars turned into a cross-road, they were out of the town. Another turn brought them to the beautiful state road upon which two steady streams of cars were constantly passing.

"Gee, look at the cars!" said Ward. "Most of them are coming toward us. I suppose they're folks coming home from the shore."

"Did you see the shield on that one?" Fred exclaimed. "It was shaped like our pins," and instinctively his fingers sought the little Riddle Club pin he wore on his coat.

"You all have your pins on, haven't you?" said Mr. Williamson. "That would be an easy way to describe you, if you were lost—a boy wearing a pin with a question mark on it. Or one girl—has a pin with a question mark on its face."

"But our names are on the back," Polly reminded him. "Even if we forgot our names, the pins would tell."

As she spoke Polly unfastened her pin and turned it over in her hand. The car lurched suddenly, as Mr. Williamson sent it almost into the ditch in an effort to avoid a reckless driver who had turned out quickly from the line of cars headed toward them. Polly dropped the pin into the grass.

"My pin!" she cried in alarm.

"Did you drop it, Polly? Where? Here, I'll turn in and some of you children run back and find Polly's pin," Mr. Williamson said, bringing the car to a stop under a tree.

"When did you drop it?" asked Jess, opening the door as she spoke.

"Back there, when we turned out for that green car," Polly replied. "I hit the side of our car and that knocked the pin out of my hand."

"I can find it," declared Artie confidently. "I'll bet you it is right in line with that fence post with the sign for orange marmalade on it."

All the children tumbled from the car and hastened back along the road, walking carefully at one side so as not to be in the way of approaching automobiles.

"Orange marmalade!" Fred exploded. "What in the world are you talking about? What has that to do with Polly's pin?"

Artie merely sniffed and ran ahead. When he saw the fence post with the advertisement he had mentioned nailed to it, he walked to a point directly opposite it. Then, while the others hung back and watched him, he scuffled his feet about in the dusty grass that bordered the roadside. Suddenly he stooped and picked up something.

"You've found it!" Polly hugged him in her delight, though she knew that Artie did not take kindly to caresses. "You found it! Good for you, Artie!"

"How did you know it was there?" asked Margy, while Polly fastened the pin to her blouse and resolved to be more careful in the future.

"Yes, tell us how come you're a detective," Fred suggested.

Artie wanted to pretend that his feelings were hurt. He succeeded in looking injured and in keeping still until they came back to the car. Then Mr. Williamson's interest and curiosity were too much to be resisted.

"It was this way," explained Artie while Mr. Williamson shot ahead, anxious to catch up with the other car.

"I read in a book that people with sense always watch things. When they are taking a walk, they see the trees and the plants. When they are out driving they notice the landmarks. I like advertisements—I always watch them. And when our car tipped to let the other go by, I looked right at that advertisement for orange marmalade and I remembered it. So when Polly said she dropped her pin I knew she must have dropped it there."

"My goodness, you read a lot of books, don't you, Artie?" Jess said, with manifest respect.

"Improving ones," replied Artie modestly.

"Huh, what about the story books you keep under your bed?" Fred suggested. "Nothing very improving about Indians and pirates, that I ever heard of."

"That's because you don't read 'em," announced Artie. "Ward and I have an invention most made now—a new kind of arrow. Any book is improving that teaches you something."

"Right you are, Artie," Mr. Williamson flung over his shoulder. "I daresay even arithmetic and spelling books would be 'improving,' if certain students should learn something from them."

They all laughed, for Fred "detested" spelling and Margy and Jess were none too strong in arithmetic.

"That was rather mean of me—on vacation, too," said Mr. Williamson. "I hope you won't hold it against me. Hullo, what's this?"

He slowed down and the children looked ahead. There were three or four cars, one Mr. Larue's, motionless a few yards further on.

"Oh, my, just look at the cows!" cried Polly. "Where are they going? They fill the whole road."

The children stood up, to see better. The road, beyond the stalled cars, was filled with a moving, swaying mass of black and white cows.

THE ROAD WAS A MASS OF BLACK AND WHITE COWS.

The Riddle Club at Sunrise Beach.      Page 44

"Where do you suppose they came from?" speculated Fred. "And why doesn't some one drive them to some place?"

"I read once that cows must not be hurried," Artie declared. "It makes them nervous, I think."

Polly laughed and Mr. Williamson frowned a little as he glanced back.

"There'll be a jam here, if something isn't done," he said. "More cars are coming in back of us. I think we'll have to do a little prospecting. The boys may come, but we'll let the girls cheer us on from their places in the car."

Mr. Williamson got out and the three boys tumbled eagerly after him. Even Margy, who did not generally envy boys, at that moment would gladly have exchanged places with her brother.

"They always have all the fun," Jess almost wept. "I can chase cows! I know I can!"

Mr. Williamson and the boys found half a dozen men, including Mr. Marley and Mr. Larue, trying to herd the cows down the road, the idea being that there must be a lane somewhere into which they could be turned.

"Of course we could jam a way through," said Mr. Marley. "But there is always the danger of hurting one of the animals. They've broken out of some pasture, of course—there must be a dairy farm in the neighborhood."

The poor cows were by now sadly frightened, and whatever sense they had had deserted them completely when the motorists on both sides of them began to blow their horns loudly. Whichever way the cows turned, there were champing, snorting machines and noisy horns to distract them.

"I agree with Artie that cows should not be made nervous," said Mr. Williamson. "Ward, go around and ask every one please to stop blowing his horn. Fred and Artie, help me let down these bars. I think we can drive the cows in here."

"But that's an alfalfa field," Mr. Marley protested. "The cows will ruin it, won't they?"

"If the cows stay here much longer they'll be ruined," replied Mr. Williamson. "The choice is not a wide one."

CHAPTER VI

PUNS AND POEMS

FRED and Artie hurried to let down the bars as Mr. Williamson directed, and then, not without some shouting and a wild rush after an obstinate beast or two, the cows were driven into the field and the bars replaced.

Some of the automobilists did not wait for the last cow to get out of the road before they started off, anxious to make up for the lost time. The Larue and Williamson cars were the last to leave, and, to the surprise of the children, Mr. Williamson drove ahead while Mr. Larue turned around and went back in the direction from which they had just come.

"I don't believe even the Riddle Club can solve that," said Mr. Williamson teasingly, as six pairs of eyes stared at him in amazement.

"Where are they going?" Margy asked. "Back home?"

"You see, we want to find the owner of the cows," her father explained. "We can't leave them to eat their heads off among the alfalfa. But who knows where the farmer lives? He may be in that house we passed a mile or so back, or he may live on ahead. This way we'll make sure."

A half mile further on they came to a farm that looked as though it might be a dairy farm. As Artie observed, it had a barn and most farms had barns. Better still, there were two large silos. That meant there were cows to be fed through the winter. And Mr. Williamson said that the owner of two silos would plant alfalfa to go in them. So they turned up the winding road that brought them to the great white-washed barns.

"Good morning," Mr. Williamson greeted the man who came out of the barn with a pitchfork in his hand. "Have you missed any cows lately?"

"Haven't seen 'em since we drove them out to pasture this morning," the man replied. "Have they broken through the fence again?"

All the children nodded silently before Mr. Williamson could speak.

"I'll go get 'em. Where are they?" said the man, as though he was used to getting the cows.

"They had blocked the road till another five minutes would have meant a detour," Mr. Williamson told the farmer. "Cars were held up both ways, and we did the only thing we could do—drove them into an alfalfa field."

"You've more than done your part, driving up to tell me," the farmer declared. "I'll send the boys right down. And wouldn't the kids like some cold buttermilk to drink?"

In another minute he had sent two tall lads flying down the lane after the cows and his wife had come out and was asking them all to "stay for dinner."

"We have our lunch," Polly explained. "We're going to the seashore—Sunrise Beach."

"Then you let me get you some of my cookies," Mrs. Marshall—she had told them her name—insisted. "I'll bet those pesky cows gave you a lot of trouble. My husband keeps his fences up, but he has a neighbor who won't do his share on the line."

She hurried into the house and in five minutes came back with a box which she told Polly not to open till lunch time.

"It's my baking day, and I just had some little pies handy," she said. "The boys like to take a little pie out in the field with them and eat it while they're at work."

Artie had spied a well, and nothing must do but he must pull up the bucket and have a drink.

"I read about a boy once who dropped his mother's teapot down the well," he announced, when he had had his drink and Polly was holding on to him as he leaned over the curb.

"That isn't so bad as dropping your brother down the well," Polly informed him. "And if you don't come away this minute, you're likely to go in—I can't hold you another minute."

"All aboard!" called Mr. Williamson, and three loud blasts from a horn told them that Mr. Larue's car was waiting at the foot of the lane.

Mr. and Mrs. Marshall waved to them till the tops of the orchard trees hid them from sight.

"We found the farmer!" called Ward, as he caught a glimpse of his father. "We found the man who owns the cows."

"They were driving them out of the field as we came past," said Mr. Larue. "The boys told us you had notified them. Now I suppose we continue our journey?"

"Unless we find another blockade," Mrs. Marley smilingly answered.

"Mother, you wouldn't call that a catastrophe, would you?" inquired Artie, who could use words "as long as himself" his father sometimes declared.

"Huh, that was a cowtastrophe," Fred said placidly.

"I never thought you'd do a thing like that, Fred," said Mr. Williamson. "Never. I am more shocked than grieved."

"What did he do?" clamored Ward and Jess, for the other car had shot on ahead. "What did Fred do?"

"He made a pun, and that is worse than a riddle," Mr. Williamson answered.

"He just did it for fun," said Polly, half-believing that Fred's father was displeased.

"I made a pun—just for fun," Fred chanted. "Gee, that's poetry."

"It was bum," sang Artie. "That makes more poetry."

"More truth than poetry, you mean," Margy put in. "'Bum' doesn't rhyme with 'pun.'"

"It does, too," Artie insisted. "Doesn't it, Polly?"

"No, it doesn't," the honest Polly admitted.

Then Artie wanted to know what would rhyme with "pun" and they told him "gun" and "run" and "sun" and half a dozen other words.

"I'll make up some poetry," Artie announced brightly, and forthwith he occupied himself with the poetic muse, paying not the slightest attention to the chatter and noise that went on about him.

They passed through Wickware and drove out on the country highway again. It was hot and dusty for perhaps another half mile, and then they came to a group of magnificent willow trees, growing close to a little white bridge that spanned a creek. The water was low in the creek now, but the grass was thick and green on either bank and the shade offered by the trees was delightful.

"Here's our hotel," said Mr. Larue, as they came up with him. "That is, if we haven't lost the lunch."

"Why, Polly, what is that?" asked Mrs. Marley, as the children climbed out of the car. "I didn't put that box in."

"It's lunch. Mrs. Marshall gave it to us," Polly explained.

"More lunch!" groaned Mrs. Larue. "We have more now than we can eat."

"I never heard of Mrs. Marshall—who is she?" said Mrs. Williamson curiously.

"She owns the cows," Margy told her mother. "She gave Polly the box because Daddy came and told her the cows were eating the alfalfa."

"Oh!" said Mrs. Williamson. "But what is the matter with Artie?"

Artie still sat in the car, though every one else was glad to be sitting under the trees in the shade.

"I'm writing a poem," he announced. "I'll be through in a minute."

So the lunch was unpacked and it was discovered that nothing had been forgotten—the chicken sandwiches were there and the boiled eggs and even the salt—Mr. Marley said it was the first picnic he had really enjoyed in fifteen years, because usually some one forgot the salt.

"Artie!" called Mrs. Marley, when everything was ready. "If you do not come this minute, you can't have your share of Mrs. Marshall's box."

The poet hopped down quickly. He said his poem was finished anyway. But to tell the truth, he was anxious not to miss the picnic lunch. He said it made him hungry to write poems.

Mrs. Marshall had put six beautiful rhubarb saucer pies in her box, two dozen sugar cookies and half a chocolate layer cake. As the three mothers had counted on hearty appetites, they had packed generous boxes, too, and Mr. Larue said that they could probably live the rest of the summer on what was left over. But, to everyone's surprise, there was very little left.

"We must all be poets," said Mr. Marley, pulling Artie over backward and tickling him. "For look what we have done to the party—the birds are lucky if they get a few crumbs."

"Tell us your poem, Artie?" coaxed Jess, when the waxed paper and the remains of the picnic—except the food scattered for the birds—had been neatly buried in a hole dug by Mr. Williamson. "Tell us what you wrote?"

"Well, I don't mind," agreed Artie unexpectedly.

He stood up and gazed at them calmly.

"Fred made a pun,

And called it fun.

I took my gun

And made him run,

Which seemed to stun

Him."

"Is that a poem?" asked Fred doubtfully.

"Of course it is," the indignant poet retorted. "Don't you know poetry when you hear it?"

That rather discouraged further criticism, though Jess whispered to Margy as they climbed back into their seats that she thought it "ended queer."

"Lots of poems do," said Margy.

The grown-ups were anxious to reach Sunrise Beach in time for dinner, and the two cars made excellent time in the hour that followed.

"We'll soon be there now," Mr. Williamson had just remarked when Ward's sharp eyes saw the car ahead stop.

"Daddy's stopped! He's standing up and shouting to us," said Ward. "I wonder if there are any more cows?"

"The road is blocked—What on earth can that be?" Mr. Williamson frowned a little.

"It must be an automobile house," contributed Artie. "I read about one in a book. It is a regular house, except that it is on wheels, and people live in it."

"Well, what do you know about that!" Mr. Williamson said blankly, as they came abreast of the other car and for the first time could see clearly what it was that blocked the roadway.

CHAPTER VII

AN INTERESTING DETOUR

"DIDN'T I tell you?" Artie insisted. "It is an automobile house, isn't it?"

"Certainly it isn't," retorted Fred, in his most crushing manner. "I should think you would know a barn when you see one."

Artie stared. Truth to tell, the building did look more like a barn than a house. But what was a barn doing in the middle of the road?

"Can't hope to drive that anywhere," Mr. Larue called. "Wonder what we do next?"

"Detour," Mr. Williamson said briefly, and the three mothers groaned.

"There won't be anything in the house to eat, you know," Mrs. Marley announced. "We can't get supplies and cook dinner if we get there so late."

"We'll go to the hotel," promised Mr. Marley. "It will be our one chance to be fashionable, so we ought to make the most of it."

"Oh, Mother, let's go to a hotel!" Margy begged. "I love to eat in a big dining-room."

The boys sniffed and Mrs. Williamson laughed.

"We'll look out of place in these traveling clothes," she said, "but I suppose it is the only thing to do; we certainly won't make Sunrise Beach before seven o'clock or half-past now."

"You sound like Carrie Pepper when you talk like that," Fred told his sister as the cars were backed.

"What is the barn there for?" asked Artie.

"She doesn't sound like Carrie Pepper. Mattie Helms talks that way," Ward declared.

"Stop squabbling about Margy and her talk, or you can't have any pink ice cream for your dinner," Mr. Williamson warned them. "The barn is in the middle of the road, Artie, because it is being moved."

Artie then wanted to know why the barn was being moved and where it had come from and where it was going.

"Perhaps they sold the farm and the owner didn't like the location of the barn," Mr. Williamson explained. He was always ready to answer questions. "I suspect that is what happened, Artie, because I noticed that the old foundations, from which the barn had been lifted, were almost squarely in front of the farmhouse. You wouldn't want to sit on your front porch and have the view blocked by a barn, would you? I think they are moving it across the road, and then it will be farther from the house and nearer to the hayfields, two points in its favor."

They were going back over the road now and, following Mr. Larue's car, made a sharp turn.

"We can cut off five miles if we go through the Mooney estate," said Mr. Larue, who had been consulting a road map, when they were up with him.

"But that is private, isn't it?" Mrs. Williamson asked.

"I think it is open to the public on certain days of the week," her husband replied. "And doubtless they will not object to a couple of cars, if we don't speed. There's the main entrance. Let's drive in, and if we see any one we'll ask permission to go through."

Just ahead of them was an elaborate entrance, built of gray stone and fitted with tall spiked iron gates. These were open, and, as Mr. Larue said, that might be an indication that the public was allowed to enter.

"Who lives here?" asked Margy, almost in a whisper, as they rolled between the stone posts and found themselves in a beautiful park.

"Captain Hal Mooney," Mr. Williamson answered.

"Is he in the army?" Fred inquired, while Ward said he was sure he ran an ocean liner.

"Ward is nearer right than you are, Fred," said Mr. Williamson, with a smile. "Captain Mooney is interested in boats, though not in ocean liners. He is immensely wealthy and builds and sails racing yachts."

"Just look at the flowers!" Polly cried. "Did you ever see anything like them! And the grass—I wonder who runs the lawn mower?"

There were great beds and borders of flowers on either side of the road, beautiful trees, planted singly and in groups, and acres and acres of the richest and smoothest green lawns that the children had ever seen.

"Hello, you'll have a chance to see the lawn mower, Polly," said Mr. Williamson suddenly. "And we'll ask this man whether Captain Mooney allows trespassing."

Polly glanced over to one side and saw a tractor pulling a lawn mower as easily as her daddy pushed their lawn mower at home. So that was how these lawns were kept so evenly clipped and trimmed!

There was one man running the tractor and another stood on a gravel path, watching him. He turned at the sound of the cars and looked inquiringly at the driver. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man in golf clothes, and had a pleasant face and a white mustache that made his dark eyes very noticeable.

"I hope we're not trespassing," said Mr. Larue courteously. "But we are anxious to reach Sunrise Beach and were forced to make a detour because they are moving a barn across the road and the way is blocked. Do you know whether Captain Mooney objects to travel over his roads—the gates were open—or not?"

The man smiled a little and lifted his hat to show the white hair beneath.

"I am sure Captain Mooney will have no objections," he said heartily. "The roads are only closed to motorists who abuse their privileges."

The children were staring in fascination at the lawn mower, and so absorbed were they that the clang of a clear little bell made them all jump. A girl about Polly's age came wheeling up the gravel path and jumped from her bicycle.

"Daddy, I thought we were going to the beach!" she exclaimed. "Oh!" she said, suddenly noticing the two cars.

"Ella, all these young people are going to Sunrise Beach," said the white-haired man, smiling. "You'd like to have some brothers and sisters like that to play with, wouldn't you?"

The little girl smiled and Polly saw how pretty she was. Her bobbed hair was yellow, but her eyes were dark like her father's, and she was tanned as though she had spent much time near the water. Her teeth were very even and very white.

"I haven't any one to play with," she mourned. "Are you all brothers and sisters?"

It was slightly confusing to introduce so many at once, but Mr. Williamson managed it, and then the little girl's father put his arm around her and said something that surprised them all.

"I am Captain Mooney," he said simply, "and this is my daughter, Ella. And I hope we may see you this summer, for we drive to Sunrise Beach almost daily."

The mothers were anxious to reach the shore and get settled before it should be dark, so with a few more words, chiefly between Ella and the children, the two cars went on. They wound in and out, over a perfectly kept road and between handsome shrubbery, and soon came to the road that would take them straight to the beach.

"Hasn't Ella Mooney any brothers or sisters?" Jess asked, as soon as they had left the father and daughter.

"No. And her mother is dead," said Mr. Williamson soberly. "So, in spite of all her money, she is a lonely little girl."

"I suppose she has a pony," Artie mused.

"And all the dresses she wants." This from Margy.

"And she can go traveling and see California," said Polly.

"I wouldn't mind running that tractor," Fred declared.

"But I wouldn't want to live all alone and have no one to play with," objected Jess.

"She isn't all alone—she lives with her father," Ward declared.

"Well, fathers are all right, but you need a mother and some other people, too," Jess informed him, and Mr. Williamson laughed and said she was right.

"If she comes down to the beach and we see her, she can come to a meeting of the Riddle Club, can't she, Polly?" Margy suggested.

Polly said of course, and just then Artie caught a glimpse of the ocean and Ward saw a man in a bathing suit and every one was suddenly aware that they had reached the seashore at last.

"Where's our house?" said Margy, staring at the rows of houses on either side of the street as though she expected to recognize the house they were to occupy.

"It's at the other end of town, Margy," her father said. "This is the comparatively new section—pretty new houses and bungalows. There's the hotel—we'll come back there for dinner. Well, children, there's the ocean—are you glad to see it?"

They had turned down another street and were now facing the great blue ocean that lay smoothly before them. It was as smooth as the Rocio River, except for the breakers that broke and ran up the beach and back again.

The children had seen the ocean, for they had gone on excursions several times from River Bend. This was the first summer they were to stay for any length of time near salt water, and they looked forward to many good times.

"Is this the unfashionable part of Sunrise Beach?" asked Margy, a little uncertainly.

"It is," her father laughed. "So I have been informed. The houses are larger and more comfortable, they have yards of their own, and the bathhouses are built under the porch for comfort and convenience. Would you rather be comfortable or fashionable, Margy?"

"Comfortable, I guess," said Margy sensibly.

Mr. Larue and Mr. Williamson had hired the cottage and had wired ahead to have it opened and aired. It was a brown house, large and rambling and set in a garden that had been planted with many old-fashioned flowers and then left to itself. The effect was pretty, but so tangled that the paths around the house were quite over-grown. There was a porch around three sides, a fireplace in the hall, which was also the living-room and every room had an "ocean view." As Mr. Williamson said, what more could any one want?

They found the trunks had been delivered and were in the hall. But every one was too tired and too hungry to think of "dressing up."

"Let us go and get our dinners and come back and go to bed early," Mrs. Larue suggested. "Then we'll be up early to-morrow morning and accomplish wonders."

"All I wish is that Carrie Pepper could see me now," whispered Margy, a half hour later as she walked into the dining room of the large hotel.

"There's Mattie Helms!" Artie announced, in a tone that he fondly imagined was very low, but which made Mattie—across the room—look up in surprise.

CHAPTER VIII

MEEKER'S COTTAGE

MATTIE was seated at a table with her mother and two other ladies. Mrs. Helms nodded pleasantly when she saw the River Bend folk, but Margy was almost crying as she sat down at the table the waiter found for them.

"I knew it!" she declared. "I knew it! If we didn't dress up, I was sure we'd see some one we knew."

The boys laughed at her wail, but Mrs. Williamson spoke soothingly.

"Never mind, Daughter," she advised. "We have been traveling and are tired. Our dresses are dark, but they are clean and neat, and that is all that is necessary."

Poor Margy, however, during the dinner kept glancing over toward the table at which Mattie sat. Mattie wore a pink dress, with slippers and stockings to match. She came over to speak to her friends before they had finished.

"Hello, everybody!" said Mattie cheerfully. "We got here at noon. Isn't this a nice hotel? We are going to take all our meals here, so Mother won't have to keep house. Have you seen our bungalow? It is the fourth down the street. It's painted brown and white. Carrie is coming to-morrow to stay with me. I suppose you came in the car? Wasn't it hot? Where are you going to be? Oh, that part of Sunrise Beach is awfully out of date. Nobody goes there any more."

She rattled on, hardly pausing for a reply to her questions, till her mother caught her eye and signaled to her to go with her. Artie stared after her as she left the dining room.

"She's kind of dressed up, isn't she?" he ventured.

"Did you see her lovely slippers?" Margy sighed.

"You know if you had to get into pink slippers every night, you'd make an awful fuss," the practical Fred declared. "I'm glad my mother has some sense."

"Thank you," laughed Mrs. Williamson. "And now let's wander back to our comfortable, old-fashioned house and see about settling down for a good rest."

The house had been thoroughly aired and all the bedding, and it did not take the three mothers long to have the beds made up. There was a shabby old barn at the end of the lot which served as a garage, and the cars had been run in there. The house was three stories high, but there was only one room on the third floor—a large room that had a balcony in front of one of the windows. Indeed, as Polly said, whenever they didn't know what to do, they built a balcony. Some were almost porches and others were little more than platforms, but nearly every window had its balcony. The large room in the third story, it was decided, should be given over to the boys. Three cots were put up there, and Fred and Artie and Ward were delighted.

"What's the bell for?" asked Fred, pointing to a black iron bell in one corner over the door.

"I suppose it connects with the kitchen, and if we had a maid it would be a signal for her," Mr. Williamson said. "We'll use it to let you know when breakfast is ready. One ring will be the rising bell; two, a summons to breakfast; three will mean that if you don't hurry you'll get nothing to eat; and four rings will tell you that all is over—we have eaten everything up."

There were four large square bedrooms on the second floor, and the one allotted to the three girls had two balconies, one of them directly under the third story balcony. Polly said they could sit out and listen to the ocean, but Margy was sure that some one would hear them and come to say they must go to bed.

"They won't hear us listen," argued Polly. "Of course I don't mean to-night, for we'd go to sleep sitting up. But some night we can sit out here, if we don't get to giggling."

However, no one felt like listening to the ocean that night. They were all tired from the long drive, and Polly's cheeks were burning from the wind. Within half an hour the whole house was dark and silent, and though the breakers came in and ran out ceaselessly and the tide turned, rose and turned again, not a person in Meeker's Cottage paid the slightest attention.

Polly was awake before Jess or Margy, and she dressed very quietly. When she was ready, she stepped out on the balcony to get a glimpse of the ocean, sparkling in the sun.

"Um, um, isn't that good!" she whispered, taking a long breath of the salty air. "I'm so glad we came to the beach—it is nicer even than Lake Bassing."

Then, in spite of her resolution to keep perfectly quiet and wake no one else, she jumped and shrieked. A huge black spider had spun silently down before her, and now dangled just under her nose.

"What is it?" cried Margy, rushing to the window. "What is it, Polly?"

A snicker made Polly look up. There was Ward perched on the upper balcony, holding the make-believe spider by a string.

"You're a wretch," Polly informed him, laughing. "How can you be playing tricks the very first morning, Ward? How long have you been up?"

"Hours," said Ward confidently. "I'm hungry."

Polly's shriek had wakened the others, and, as she waited for Margy and Jess to get dressed, they found the grown-ups downstairs when they went down. The boys did not wait for the warning bell, but came tumbling down, three steps at a time.

"Did you know there were bathhouses under the porch?" demanded Fred, who had made an inspection tour, when he came in to breakfast. "Dinky little closets where we can dress and not have to bring wet suits into the house. Say, I think this is a great place."

After breakfast, the three mothers announced that they wanted a morning to "put things to rights," and they said they would work much better if every one went down to the beach and stayed till lunch time.

"The children won't rest till they get into their bathing suits," said Mrs. Marley; "so they might as well do that first. Then, with three daddies to see that they stay out of the water for an hour or so, I think they will be all right. Take the old sweaters down with you and leave them in a pile on the sand. Our beach is so far from the crowd that it is safe to leave things unwatched—Mrs. Meeker wrote me that."

Mrs. Meeker owned the cottage, and that was why it was called "Meeker's Cottage." It had been known by that name for years, and once the governor of the state had rented it for a summer. Mrs. Meeker was very proud of that. In those days, Meeker's Cottage had been in the fashionable part of Sunrise Beach.

You may be sure it did not take the Riddle Club long to get into their bathing suits. Very pretty the suits looked, too, with the white initials "R.C." on each. The girls had caps to match their suits—Polly blue, Jess red and Margy green. Each had a sweater—"a last year school sweater," as Margy described hers—to put on if it was chilly when they came out of the surf. As soon as they were ready, they raced across the road, scrambled over a sand dune, and were out on the beach and capering about as though they had just been released from some box.

"Can't go in for a couple of hours," said Mr. Williamson firmly, capturing Fred, who seemed inclined to meet a breaker more than halfway. "Now we'd like to run through the papers before we go in. Will you promise to stay on the beach until we give the word?"

"Of course," promised Polly, and the others nodded. "I'll tell you what we will do—we'll walk up the beach as far as the fishing pier and back, and then we'll hold a meeting of the Riddle Club. By that time we can go in bathing."

"But I can't collect the dues," Fred objected. "No one has any money and I haven't any pocket."

"It won't be a regular meeting," argued Polly. "We'll just ask as many riddles as we can remember."

"Well, let me tell you this club can't go on forever and not collect any dues," Fred declared earnestly. "We're always having special meetings, and 'special' means no dues taken up. Ever since we put our money in the bank, you all seem to think we have a fortune and don't need any more."

"Calm yourself, Fred," said his father. "As this is a special meeting, I'll pay the dues."

"No, we'll chip in," Mr. Marley suggested. "I'll pay twenty cents for Polly and Artie."

"Here is twenty for Jess and Ward," said Mr. Larue.

Mr. Williamson took the money and added another twenty cents for his two children, Margy and Fred.

"I'll be acting treasurer till the real treasurer gets to his trousers pockets," said Mr. Williamson. "Now then, let's carry out the program."

The children started to walk to the fishing pier while the fathers settled down comfortably in the sand, under a section of abandoned boardwalk that served to shade them nicely. They were anxious to read their morning papers.

"I wonder how far the beach goes?" speculated Jess, as she let a breaker come up almost to her ankles before she retreated.

"Florida," Artie said promptly.

"Could we walk to Florida?" said Jess a little doubtfully.

"Sure we could! Don't you remember how the coast looks on the map?" Fred reminded her.

"We could walk all around the United States if we went on the top of Canada," said Ward, screwing up his eyes as though he were looking at a map a long way off. "Say, that would be fun, wouldn't it?"

"Don't let's start in our bathing suits," Margy cautioned, with something of her father's teasing seriousness.

Polly had stopped to examine a shell.

"Let's pick up all the prettiest shells we see," she suggested. "We can save them and then, just before we go home, select six perfect ones for our clubroom."

"What do we want shells for?" Jess asked.

"Oh, to remind us of Sunrise Beach," said Polly.

"You can use clam shells for dishes," Artie now announced. "I read it in a book. You wash 'em and bake things in them."

"All right, we'll get some for Mother," decided Fred, approving of this practical idea. "Here's a dandy clam shell."

There were many clam shells on the beach, and the boys and girls carried home a dozen that morning. These were scrubbed, and the Riddle Club was filled with surprise and delight when they appeared on the table that evening at supper—the clam shells, not the children—with escalloped potatoes in them.

"But try and find larger ones next time," said Mrs. Williamson. "Large shells make excellent dishes; they sell them in some stores for ramekins."

Picking up shells and seeing how near they could come to going into the ocean without actually getting wet, made the walk to the fishing pier seem short. It was a long pier and the end was black with people, all trying their luck with line and pole.

"Dad likes to fish from a boat," remarked Fred. "He said we could go with him, if he goes to-morrow."

"We can't go—I asked Mother," said Jess. "Just you boys, because girls don't go out. Ward says men have a better time fishing by themselves."

"Well, I should think they would," Polly declared. "I don't see any fun in catching fish, and Mother doesn't, either. So of course we wouldn't have a very good time."

"Fish are too smelly," said Margy, as though that settled the matter for her.

"Let's go back and have our meeting," Ward suggested. "I've just thought of a dandy riddle."

"We'll run, so you won't forget it," said Fred, wheeling suddenly and setting off down the beach at top speed.

CHAPTER IX

ANOTHER MEETING

WARD was not a good runner and he was quickly out of breath. Panting and gasping, he trailed after the others and by the time he came up with them he was in no shape to ask a riddle or any kind of question for as long as three minutes.

They all dropped comfortably on the sand and Polly insisted that no one should ask a riddle until Ward was ready.

"That is, if he hasn't forgotten the one he remembered," Fred remarked, for Ward often remembered something and forgot it before he could tell it.

Fat Ward looked reproachfully at Fred, but just then he recalled his riddle and that pleased him so much he decided not to be cross.

"I'm all ready," he beamed. "Who'll I ask?"

"Me," said Artie. "Bet you can't ask a riddle I can't answer."

Of course this rash challenge earned him the right to be "asked first," and Ward's eyes danced.

"When does the ocean resemble a big bakery?" he demanded.

"Huh," Artie said. "Huh, that's easy——"

Then he stopped.

"Hurry up," prodded Ward. "I thought you said you could guess any riddle."

"I didn't say without thinking," Artie retorted. "When does the ocean resemble a big bakery? Keep still and let me think."

Artie was famous for taking a fearful length of time to meditate on his answers to riddles, and the others settled down for a long wait. He was staring out to sea as though he expected the water to give him help of some kind.

"When does the ocean—" he kept murmuring. "When does the ocean——"

"Fish cakes!" he said triumphantly. "That's it, isn't it, Ward?"

"They don't have fish cakes in a bakery," Ward informed him. "Besides, I never heard of fish cakes in the ocean."

"If a fish hit the side of that old piling he'd be a fish cake, I guess," argued Artie.

"Well that isn't the answer, anyway," Ward declared, with finality.

"Let every one have a guess," suggested Polly. "If Artie gives up, ask Margy."

"My goodness, I don't know," Margy cried a little wildly. "I wasn't even thinking."

"Margy always shies off as though a riddle was going to bite her," said Fred. "I should say a bakery was like the ocean when it has scales."

"You mean the ocean is like a bakery," Ward corrected. "But that isn't right, Fred."

Jess ventured the answer, "when it is crowded," and in response to the laughter explained that the ocean was crowded "in spots."

"I've seen the excursion crowds," she said.

"When it's full of rolls?" Polly hazarded slowly, when it came her turn.

"You've got it!" exclaimed Ward, in delight. "'When it's full of fresh rolls,' is right, but rolls is the answer. Good for you, Polly!"

"How'd you do it, Polly?" asked Margy.

"I saw the breakers rolling in and that made me think of it," Polly said modestly.

They insisted that she must ask the next riddle, as a reward for guessing correctly, so Polly thought for a few moments and then asked:

"What fish always goes around armed?" and added: "That's the easiest one I know."

"A shark!" cried Jess.

Polly shook her head.

"I don't know many fish," Margy complained. "Only bluefish and weakfish and—and——"

"Poor fish!" said Ward teasingly. "Anyway, whose turn is it to guess?"

"I meant to ask Jess," Polly said. "If she has given up, any one may try."

Fred thought it might be a flounder. "He might flounder when he's attacked and then the other fish couldn't fight him," he explained.

"That doesn't sound just right," Artie objected, but Polly, anxious to forestall a long argument on flounders and floundering, suggested that Ward had not had his turn.

"The fish that always goes armed," recited Ward, in his best classroom manner, "is the swordfish."

"Good gracious!" Jess stared at her brother in mingled admiration and pride. "How did you know?"

"I thought of guns and then I thought of swords," Ward beamed. "Then, of course, I remembered swordfish."

"Want to go in now?" called Mr. Williamson. "We're going up to get in our suits, and we'll be right down. Wait for us."

The children waved their hands to show they had heard and understood and Margy said hurriedly:

"Ask another—let Artie, because he ought to know an easy one."

"I think we ought to have some system," Artie announced, with earnest disapproval. "I'll start with Jess and go right around the circle, asking: Why is a ship always polite?"

"I suppose because it is called 'her,'" said Jess composedly.

The others stared.

"Her?" repeated Fred. "Who says her?"

"I know it, because some one said so," Jess maintained. "You never heard a ship called 'him.' Daddy always says, 'She's built from the best dried lumber,' when he's talking about his boats."

"But what has that got to do with being polite?" Polly asked, puzzled.

"Oh, girls are always more polite than boys, so ships must be," said Jess, apparently thinking her reasoning was most clear.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Artie declared, with more frankness than courtesy. "But, anyway, that isn't the right answer. Margy?"

Margy looked anxious. She took her riddles seriously.

"Is it because it dips its colors when it meets another boat?" she asked.

"No, that isn't right," Artie said. "They don't all dip their colors, either. Can you guess, Ward?"

"Maybe because the decks are scrubbed," declared Ward. "My mother says it is polite to have clean hands."

Artie shook his head, not against the clean hands, but to signify that the answer was not the one sought.

Polly, whose turn was next, gave up frankly and Fred asked for a few minutes in which to think.

"Maybe it is because it will wig-wag back when some one signals," he said finally. "It is polite to answer when you're spoken to."

"Everybody's wrong," Artie announced, a little triumphantly. "I'm the only one who knows the answer."

Fred laughed good-naturedly.

"Well, I should hope you'd know the answer to your own riddle," he said quickly. "Come on and let us share the secret."

Artie cleared his throat.

"A ship is always polite," said he, "because it approaches with a bow."

"And arrow?" Ward chimed in.

"No, not an arrow, silly," said Artie. "This is another kind of a bow. I mean the front part of a ship."

Fred and Polly looked as though they wanted to laugh.

"Say," said Fred, "did you hear that riddle, Artie, or did you read it? I'll bet a cookie you read it."

"Of course I read it—in a book," Artie answered. "It said the front part of a ship."

"That's all right," replied Fred, grinning. "But you don't pronounce this b-o-w that way. The front part of a ship is the bow, the way you say you made a bow. See? That's where the being polite, comes in."

Ward made a dive for Artie and they rolled over on the sand.

"Nobody could guess the riddle!" chuckled Ward. "Not even Artie had it right!"

"Anybody going swimming?" asked Mr. Larue, coming down to them in his bathing suit, followed by Mr. Marley and Mr. Williamson. "If the Riddle Club will adjourn, we'll take you as far as you want to go, to make up for waiting so patiently."

"I move that the meeting be adjourned," said Jess, and Margy seconded the motion.

Two minutes later the Riddle Club membership might have been seen floating far out, just beyond the lazy breakers. They could swim a little, and all of them could float, and they stayed there till an unusually heavy comber frightened Margy and she wanted to come in. Then they splashed around in the shallower water for another half hour, and then put on their sweaters and toasted themselves in the sun till reminded that it was time to go up to the cottage and get dressed for lunch.

"Gee, I like it here," announced Fred, as they toiled through the heavy sand. "We can have heaps of fun—there's country back of all the cottages."

"Yes, farms and things," Polly agreed. "They bring in fresh vegetables every morning."

"Don't talk of vegetables—I'm starved," said Margy, and they all owned that whether it was the riddles or the swim in salt water that was responsible, the fact remained that they were exceedingly hungry.

The three mothers had spent a busy morning, and the trunks were unpacked, light curtains hung at the doors and windows—"to take away the bare, rented look," Mrs. Marley explained—fresh towels and bureau scarfs distributed throughout the rooms, and, best of all, a substantial lunch cooked and waiting.

"Now, this afternoon you're to rest," announced Mr. Williamson. "Whatever these young Indians do, they mustn't make a single demand on any mother. If we are not careful every one will have a fine vacation except these mothers, who will work harder than they do at home."

"Oh, the worst is done now," Mrs. Williamson said quickly. "We're ready to keep house with as little fuss and trouble as possible. This afternoon we have planned to take our needlework down to the beach, if you'll put up the tent for us."

A large square of canvas was rolled up in the back hall, and this, Mrs. Meeker had explained, was to be tied over a simple frame of light wood that rested in the sand. This gave the sketchiest kind of a "tent," merely a protection from the sun, but affording a comfortable place to sit and read and sew. The beach at this end of the town was dotted with these tents, and here mothers sat for hours while their babies slept and the older children frolicked on the sands.

By the time the tent was up, the Riddle Club members had decided that what they needed was exercise, and they declared they would walk to the post-office, going by way of the beach. There could not be any mail yet, but it would be interesting to see the town and, as Artie remarked, it was their duty to know the location of the post-office. Artie had a lively sense of duty, and now and then his friends confused it with curiosity.

"Here comes a girl in a pink dress," said Margy, when they had walked about half a mile up the beach. "She looks something like Mattie Helms, doesn't she?"

Margy and Polly and Jess wore dark blue skirts and middy blouses, and the two girls coming toward them were dressed in fluffy light-colored frocks and one carried a blue parasol.

"It is Mattie Helms," Jess declared. "Who do you suppose that is with her?"

"Well, no matter who it is, don't stop and talk," warned Artie. "We'll never get anywhere."

"There's a boy looks like Joe Anderson," Fred said suddenly. "Say——"

He and Polly had the same thought at the same time. They spoke simultaneously.

"That must be Carrie Pepper!" they cried.

"I knew if I wore this blouse with a berry stain on it, we'd meet somebody," Margy almost wept. "I wanted to change it, and you wouldn't wait."

CHAPTER X

VACATION DAYS

CARRIE PEPPER did not allow the berry stain on Margy's blouse to chill her greeting to the Riddle Club.

"Well, for goodness' sake!" she said most cordially. "Where are you going?"

"To the post-office," Polly explained. "Hello, Mattie. Hello, Joe," for Joe Anderson had stopped skipping stones into the water and had come up to them.

"We got here this noon," volunteered Carrie. "Joe Anderson is going to stay with Albert Holmes for two weeks—they have the bungalow next to Mrs. Helms'."

"Where is your bungalow?" Mattie asked curiously.

Fred glanced at Polly and laughed.

"Have to be some bungalow to get us all in," he said. "We have a large cottage and it's none too big. Guess you don't know it—the Meeker Cottage, they call it."

"We have balconies to spare," Polly chimed in. "Regular little porches and stuck wherever there is a window."

"Oh, those old-fashioned places are so queer," said Mattie, with a smile. "Daddy wanted Mother to take a cottage over where you are, but she says no one goes there any more. Our bungalow is awfully pretty, but the rooms are a little small and we have to keep the shades down all the time because the houses on either side are built so close every one looks right in our windows. But it's a lovely house, isn't it, Carrie?"

"I should say it was!" Carrie responded enthusiastically.

"Have you been in the water yet?" asked Fred, speaking to Joe Anderson, who seemed strangely silent.

Usually Joe was more than willing to tell what he had done or intended to do.

"Went in right away, had a cramp and had to come out," Joe said briefly.

Polly saw that he looked pale and instantly excused him for seeming rather sullen.

"I guess I'll go on to the post-office with you," announced Carrie, quite as though she had been considering this plan, as indeed she had.

Mattie stared and Polly at once asked her to come, too.

"I can't go so far in these slippers," Mattie answered. "Besides, the sun is too hot. I hate to get tanned. Polly, your nose is red this minute."

Joe Anderson said he was going to sit under the fishing pier in the shade and Mattie made for the boardwalk, which would be kinder, she had no doubt, to her patent leather slippers than the hot sand. Carrie slipped her arm through Margy's as the Riddle Club resumed its tramp.

Carrie did most of the talking on that walk, and it did not seem to exhaust her at all. When the Riddle Club reached the town, she accompanied them to the post-office, and when Fred said something to Polly about going home another way, she declared that she would love to go.

"I like to walk; and, anyway, you'll have to take me home for I don't know my way," she said. "I'll tell you—let's go as far as your cottage and I'll see your folks and then you can walk back to the bungalow with me."

No one was especially pleased with this plan, but there did not seem to be any reason for rejecting it. So, a little glumly, the Riddle Club members marched home again, Carrie going with them. Fred was a bit ashamed of himself when he saw how pleasantly his mother greeted Carrie. Mrs. Marley brought out ice-cold ginger ale for them, and Mr. Larue, who was going to run the car out to a farm and back, to make arrangements for the delivery of vegetables, offered to take Carrie back to the bungalow colony.

"It's a kind of nice house," said Carrie wistfully, when she was ready to go. "I suppose a crowd can have lots of fun in a place like this. You can't make a bit of noise in Mrs. Helms' bungalow, because the neighbors can hear you. And they play their phonographs sometimes till midnight, Mr. Helms says. I like this big yard."

"Come and see us whenever you feel like it, Carrie," Mrs. Williamson said, as Carrie went down the steps.

"Oh, Mother!" Margy hardly waited till the car had rounded the corner.

"Oh, Daughter!"

"What made you say that?" wailed Margy. "Now she'll be here all the time and spoil all our fun."

"No, she won't, Margy," Mrs. Williamson comforted her. "She will be too busy with Mattie to bother you very much. But her mother is a neighbor of ours, and Carrie might be lonely or home-sick down here and need old friends. You wouldn't want to be away from home, would you, and have old friends treat you unkindly?"

"I could stand her if she was lonely or home-sick," the rebellious Margy protested. "But all she does is to talk about Mattie's clothes."

Margy spoke with such energy that every one laughed and, after a minute or two, she had to laugh at herself.

"Take my advice, Margy," said Mr. Marley, from the railing where he was tying up a trailing vine, "and be so busy you won't have any time to be annoyed."

Meeker Cottage was so comfortable and so convenient that by the time they had occupied it three days, the three River Bend families began to feel as though they really lived there. They soon settled down to a more or less regular program, and as Sunrise Beach was one of those excellently managed shore towns where every one likes to know every one else and friendly courtesy seems to be part of the atmosphere, the children were allowed to come and go pretty much as they pleased. They had certain tasks to do each morning, as their contribution to the work of running the house, and some older person was always on hand when they went bathing. But they took long walks up and down the beach, explored the country back of the town with fair thoroughness, and, inside a week, knew, so Mr. Marley declared, the name of every cottage and bungalow resident.

"Artie speaks to all the dogs," said Mr. Marley. "Fred knows all the fishermen. And Ward, I notice, likes to do the errands. I hope he doesn't wheedle cakes from the fat bakery lady."

For the first week the three fathers enjoyed a rest and a real vacation, and then one morning they went back to River Bend in Mr. Larue's car, promising to return the following Friday.

"Polly, do you know what the boys are doing?" Margy asked, squinting a little, which gave her a wise look.

The sun was in her eyes, for she and Polly and Jess had ridden to the crossroads in the car and were now walking back to the cottage. The boys had declined the invitation to go.

"No, I don't, but it's something mysterious," said Polly promptly.

"I think they're mean not to tell us," Jess declared. "I met Carrie Pepper in the post-office yesterday and she said she saw them 'way up past the fishing pier. There's nothing to see up there."

"We might go and look," suggested Margy. "Maybe they're building that raft they're always talking about."

Polly giggled. Artie had been responsible for the idea of a raft. He had read of a raft—in a book—and nothing would do but that he must make one this summer. Fred and Ward had discouraged him good-naturedly, but at intervals Artie voiced his desire to build a raft.

"Let's go see if we can find what they're up to," Margy suggested. "They always want to know our secrets, and yet they have dozens they never tell us."

Margy was exaggerating slightly. Indeed, Fred had once declared that she found out everything he ever tried to hide from her, so it was safer to tell her and let her help.

Polly and Jess had no objection to walking as far as the fishing pier. They would cause no worry at the cottage if they did not come back till lunch time and they were quite as curious as Margy to see what the boys were doing. For three mornings the boys had vanished from the breakfast table and, turning up at bathing time, had resolutely declined to give a hint as to how they had been spending the hours.

"I don't see them anywhere," said Jess disappointedly, when they had walked to the pier.

"We'll walk under it and look on the other side," Polly replied. "They may be further down the beach."

Margy and Jess scrambled under the heavy iron beams, absorbed in getting through quickly. But Polly's quick eyes spied something that she had never seen before, though she had been under the pier a dozen times.

"Look!" she cried, stopping suddenly. "Somebody's been digging here."

There was a huge mound of sand heaped up between two beams and a circular pit dug carefully around it. A board was laid across a hole in the mound.

"That's Artie's shovel," Polly whispered. "I'll bet this is what they've been doing."

"But what is it?" said Margy, puzzled. "It looks like a—a—grave."

Polly clutched her arm and Jess shrieked. Before their fascinated eyes the mound was sinking. It slumped in the middle, cracks appeared in the sand far behind it, and without a sound the mound caved in.

"Dig!" commanded Polly furiously. "Dig! Don't stand there and do nothing!"

CHAPTER XI

SOME OLD FRIENDS

POLLY was down on her knees, flinging handfuls of sand behind her with feverish energy.

"What's the matter?" Jess demanded. "What's underneath?"

Polly never stopped scooping up the sand.

"I don't know," she flung over her shoulder, with a flurry of sand. "I don't know for sure, but I think the boys are buried in this."

That roused Margy and Jess to action, and they began, too, to dig. A few feet behind the mound there was an upheaval and Fred's face and shoulders came into view. Polly never stopped digging, though Jess and Margy paused and stared.

"I've got Ward," sputtered Fred, and he pulled the younger boy up beside him.

Then they all rushed to Polly, who had uncovered the sturdy legs in their brown socks that belonged to Artie. A frenzied and concerted effort uncovered the whole boy in less time than it takes to tell it—a purple-faced Artie who was several minutes recovering his breath, but who was all right as soon as he found he could breathe.

"Gee," said Fred, "I never thought the thing would bust in like that!"

"I couldn't tell what hit us," Ward observed, trying to rub the sand out of his hair.

"You didn't see our cave, did you, Polly?" asked Artie, apparently unaware that he had been nearly suffocated.

"Is that a cave?" Margy's tone was scornful. "Is that what you've been doing all this time? It didn't look like much."

"That's because you didn't see the inside," said Fred. "You could almost stand up in the main room, and we had a lot of tunnels and passages we were building."

"It was great," and Artie nodded. "We were going to have the largest cave any one ever made at Sunrise Beach."

"It looks as though there'd been an earthquake, doesn't it?" giggled Jess.

All the tunnels and passages the boys had labored so faithfully to dig had caved in, together with the mound which had been the roof of the main room. As Jess said, the depressions did look as though an earthquake, or some such havoc-maker, had visited that section of beach.

"Well, I don't think you'd better build any more caves," Polly said, with decision. "It isn't safe. Artie might have choked before we dug him out."

"You mean, you dug him out," Fred declared. "You're the one who had your wits about you, Polly. What made you think we were in the cave?"

"I wasn't sure," admitted Polly. "But when the sand began to break down, I thought 'maybe the boys are under it somewhere,' and if you were, I knew the only thing to do was to dig you up."

"We figured out it was wet enough to pack and make firm walls," Fred explained. "But I guess it wasn't. Of course, if we had had boards we could have fixed up a good cave—shored it up as they do in mines, you know."

"Come on and let's go swimming," suggested Margy, anxious to get away from the talk of cave-building.

The boys, too, had had quite enough of their secret, and they abandoned the scene of their labors without a protest. When the three mothers heard what had happened, they declared that no more sand caves were to be thought of, as long as they remained at Sunrise Beach.

Artie and Ward went over for the mail that afternoon, and when they returned they were filled with news of a carnival that had come to the edge of the town and set up its tents on the vacant lots bordering the village limits.

"It's exactly like a circus, only different," said Ward, and then wondered why the others laughed at him.

"There's a merry-go-round," Artie announced, looking at Jess, who had a weakness for that form of amusement.

"And fat ladies and snakes and everything, probably," contributed Fred.

Mrs. Marley laughed and said that if Fred liked fat ladies he need not go so far from home.

"You're not fat, Mother!" Polly protested indignantly.

Pretty Mrs. Marley laughed again and declared that if she wasn't, it was not Mrs. Williamson's fault.

"For she will persist in giving us berry short-cakes, and I cannot refuse them," said Mrs. Marley regretfully. "Well, chicks, I suppose we'll have to go over and see this wonderful carnival some day."

"They don't stay very long in one place," hinted Artie.

"My goodness, won't it be there to-morrow?" his mother asked, in seeming alarm.

"It would be safer to go to-night," Ward assured her earnestly.

As eager as the other children were to go, they couldn't help laughing, and Mrs. Marley said she thought that the next afternoon would be time enough.

"I do, too," agreed Mrs. Larue decidedly. "If your fathers were here, we might go over at night, though I think it is far better to go to bed early. But we wouldn't find it pleasant going about in a crowd at night, so the afternoon will be much better in every way."

"I'll have lunch early, and we will go as soon as it is over," Mrs. Williamson promised. "Then we can have a long afternoon there and you will have a chance to go into everything and see everything."

Mrs. Williamson was "cook" that week. The mothers took turns so that the work might be evenly divided.

They were down on the beach—where Ward and Artie had brought the mail—and now the active mind of Jess suggested that they might go wading and pick up shells. So they took off their shoes and stockings and left them under the tent where the three mothers were comfortably established with their book and sewing, and off they went to walk and wade along the edge of the ocean.

"Here comes Joe Anderson and Albert Holmes," said Fred, looking up the beach. "I wonder where they're going?"

"Hello!" was Joe's greeting. "Been over to the carnival?"

"We're going to-morrow afternoon," Fred informed him. "Have you seen it?"

"On our way now," answered Albert Holmes. "Don't you want to come? All of you. Somebody at the hotel said it was pretty good."

"We'll wait, thanks," Fred responded. "Say, isn't that somebody calling to you?"

Joe did not turn, but he seemed to know that Fred was right.

"It's Carrie Pepper and Mattie Helms," he said hurriedly. "Come on, Albert, we'll have to hurry. You see, Fred, we said we'd take the girls to the carnival, and then we changed our minds. Carrie wants to eat everything she sees and Mattie isn't much better, and we haven't got money enough to take them and have a good time ourselves. Are they coming this way?"

"Sure! And waving for you to stop," Fred reported.

Without another word Joe and Albert hurried off up the beach, carefully refraining from looking over their shoulders.

"Nice unselfish people," remarked Margy sarcastically.

"I think it's pretty mean to invite the girls and then go off and leave them," Jess said mildly.

"What are you going to say?" Polly asked Fred.

"Tell 'em the truth, of course," that brave young man declared. "Carrie ought to hear it once in a while."

He looked so determined that Polly and Jess had hard work not to laugh when, as the red-faced Carrie and the wilted Mattie came up to them and demanded, "What did Joe say? Where was he going?" Fred began to stutter.

"I—I guess he was going to town," he said, and not another word.

"He and Albert are going to the carnival," chirped Artie, who had a passion for telling all he knew, as Polly had discovered more than once when she wished to keep Riddle Club matters a secret.

"They are! Why, they asked us to go!" exclaimed Mattie Helms. "Last night we had a beach party and we invited them, and Joe said would we go to the carnival this afternoon? I think that's a funny way to act."

"What did Joe Anderson say, Artie?" said Carrie suddenly, and flattering Artie with her attention. Usually she ignored him.

Polly and the others stared fascinatedly at Artie. They were all hoping that he would not remember Joe's remark concerning Carrie' appetite. By good luck he passed that over, but his memory was appallingly clear as regarded the rest of Joe's speech.

"He said he and Albert didn't have enough money to take you and Mattie and have a good time themselves," repeated Artie slowly and carefully as though he was on the witness stand.

An angry color came into Mattie's face and she opened the elaborate beaded bag she carried.

"Carrie and I don't need Joe Anderson to take us to any carnival," she declared loudly. "Daddy gave me five dollars when he heard we were going. Carrie and I'll have a good time all by ourselves."

"Go to it," advised Fred, in all sincerity. "We're going to take in the show to-morrow."

Carrie and Mattie plowed on through the sand, and the Riddle Club members trailed silently back to the water. Polly's eyes were dancing, and, happening to glance at Fred, she began to laugh. Jess and Margy snickered, and in a moment all six were laughing uncontrollably.

"Oh dear!" cried Jess, wiping her eyes. "Did you ever hear of anything so funny! Mattie and Carrie probably have more money to spend than the boys have."

"I hope Joe and Albert see them coming and dodge them," Fred gurgled. "Can't you picture those two boys dodging Carrie and Mattie all the afternoon, afraid they'll be asked to treat them to a soda or take them on a merry-go-round? And all the time Carrie and Mattie will be having a grand time and taking in all the sights as fast as they can! I hope Carrie gets a chance to tell Joe what she thinks of him. Trust her to do it."

"Mother said you weren't to talk about Carrie Pepper the way you do," Margy reproved him.

"I don't think she's so bad," said Artie in a tone that convulsed the others again.

"She probably thinks you're a wonder," Jess told him.

"The original little information booth, aren't you, Artie?" Fred added.

Artie happened to find an exceptionally large clam shell just then and wisely forebore to argue. And the Riddle Club spent the rest of the afternoon amiably, asking and answering riddles, searching for shells, and watching the fishing boats come in.

"There's a motor boat," said Jess, as a small boat some distance out turned and sped down the coast. "Look how fast it goes!"

"That's Larry's boat," Fred said. "It's called the Clara and he takes picnic parties out."

Fred had gone on several fishing trips with his father, and already he knew most of the boats at the beach and the names of their skippers.

"Who is Larry?" asked Margy idly.

"Oh, he's a native," Fred answered. "Every one calls him Larry. I never heard his other name."

Artie wanted to know if he was a native.

"Not of Sunrise Beach," Jess told him good-naturedly. "You're a native of River Bend, Artie."

"Why am I?" insisted Artie, whose thirst for information was remarkable.

"You happened to be born there," Fred told him. "Now I'll ask you a riddle: What is hung in the middle and wags both ways?"

"My tongue," said Artie, with irresistible sweet temper.

They carried home several additions to Artie's collection of dishes and were careful not to leave them on the porch railing. The talk at supper was all of the carnival.

CHAPTER XII

THE CARNIVAL

THE alarm clock in the boys' room went off at five o'clock the next morning.

"Want any errands done before breakfast?" called Fred down the stairs.

Fred's mother was a wise woman, and she could, as her husband often said, make the most of any situation. If the boys, who usually had to be called at least twice, were awake at five and ready to give practical help, what reason was there for waiting till eight o'clock and breakfast time?

"I wish you'd go after some eggs, Fred," said Mrs. Williamson, perhaps a little sleepily. "Get yourself some bread and butter and a glass of milk and then you can walk out to the farm and back before breakfast."

"Let's go, too," whispered Polly to Margy.

The alarm had wakened the two girls, and now they jumped up and managed to get dressed without disturbing Jess.

"Are you up?" said Fred, when they came into the kitchen where he and Artie were getting their bread and milk.

"Did we wake you up?" Artie asked, staring round-eyed over his glass of milk.

"Yes, to both questions," said Polly. "We thought we'd go out to the farm with you. Hand me the bread knife, please."

"Where's Ward?" Margy demanded, pouring out a glass of milk for Polly and one for herself.

"Sleeping," replied Fred, grinning. "He said he wasn't going to get up early when he didn't have to."

"Well, I think myself it's kind of silly," Margy said frankly. "What made you set the alarm for five o'clock?"

"Oh, I just thought I'd feel gay this morning, and I do," declared Fred. "I think the carnival makes me a little skittish."

They all laughed, recognizing one of the pet words of Mrs. Pepper, Carrie's mother.

"Come on, or we won't get back for breakfast," Fred urged. "Mother gave me the egg money. Let's hurry."

Even Margy changed her mind about the silliness of an early rising hour when they stepped outside the cottage and saw the sunrise over the point of land that ran out beyond the fishing pier. A wonderful rosy glow was over the world, and the ocean, which had not yet begun to sparkle, lay smooth and dark.

"I can count three, four—no, seven, sails!" cried Margy.

"Fishing boats," Fred said. "Look—from here we can see eleven boats, counting the sails and hulls."

Polly found another ship, barely visible, and Artie picked up another and that gave them thirteen before they turned away to follow the road that would take them back into the country.

"Say, I know a riddle!" exclaimed Artie. "Fred, why is the ocean never a lonely place?"

"Why is the ocean never a lonely place?" repeated Fred slowly. "Because it's full of fish, I guess."

"No," drawled Artie.

"I don't think that was a good answer," observed Margy. "Fish—horrid old things—wouldn't keep any one, not even another fish, from being lonely."

"What is the answer, Artie?" said Polly, after a little more thought on the part of all. "We all give up."

"The ocean is never lonely because it is always filled with old Salts."

"Old salts?" queried Margy. "What does that mean?"

"Old Salts are old sailors, Margy," explained her brother impatiently. "And the ocean is full of salt and the old Salts— Well, I don't think that's a very good riddle, Artie. No wonder we couldn't guess it."

"Maybe not," agreed Artie good-naturedly. "But lots of our riddles aren't so very good."

"I wouldn't mind getting up at this time every morning," declared Fred, who seemed to be unusually energetic. "What say, Artie, my lad?"

"Go on, if you like," Artie encouraged him. "But I am not going to get up at five o'clock every morning—not if I know it."

"It's no fun getting up alone, so I'll have to stay in bed, I suppose," said Fred. "Well, if I am not famous for doing a day's work before breakfast, you'll be the one to blame, Artie."

The farm where Mrs. Williamson bought eggs was some two miles from the beach. The boys and girls were forced to walk in the middle of the road, for the grass was wet with dew. Now and then a farmer's cart rattled past them, but it was too early for the truck gardeners to be out with their loads of green vegetables.

"Why don't we take the Riddle Club dues and buy a farm with 'em?" suggested Artie, as they passed a particularly well-kept place which apparently struck his fancy.

"The only reason," Fred returned, "is that if we took the dues out of the bank, it would collapse. I don't want to be responsible for wrecking the River Bend Bank—do you?"

Artie giggled and shook his head.

"I guess we won't add much to the account this summer," said Polly seriously. "We have the dues for the last meeting, but even if we have another meeting we won't be fussy about collecting. Mother said she thought we should have our allowances to spend for vacation fun as long as we were at the beach."

"I don't care if we don't add much to the amount in the bank," Fred said. "But it does get me to have the boys always planning some way to spend what we have. If Ward and Artie had had their way, we wouldn't have a cent to show."

"Well, can't I even have ideas?" demanded the aggrieved Artie. "I didn't say to buy a farm—I just asked why we couldn't."

"Isn't this where we turn in?" Polly suggested diplomatically.

They had reached the farm, and though Margy whispered that she didn't believe the folks would be up, they found the farmer and his family at breakfast. While the "farmeress," as Polly designated her, bustled around and put three dozen eggs in a pail, her husband kept urging the children to "pull up your chairs and have a bite to eat."

"We're going to have breakfast as soon as we get home, thank you," said Polly, who was generally appointed spokesman by silent consent. "And we had bread and milk before we started."

They found it a little difficult to get away, for the farmer's wife liked to talk and did not often have visitors so early in the day. When they finally were out on the road again, Artie announced that he had changed his mind about buying a farm. He thought they could do better with the money saved from their club dues.

"Did you hear that man?" he asked. "He said he gets up at four o'clock the year around. Gee, in winter it's pitch dark at four o'clock! Why, I wouldn't get up at four o'clock in winter for—for anything."

They brought tremendous appetites home with them for breakfast, but Mrs. Williamson was ready for them. So was Jess, who scolded roundly because the other girls had not wakened her. The morning sped by on wings, for there was the prospect of a lively afternoon before them to lend zest even to the tasks of putting their rooms in order and sweeping off the porches before they went swimming.

"That's the only trouble with all these balconies," Margy confided to Polly. "You have to sweep 'em off, just as though they were really porches. I think there is such a thing as having too many balconies."

Sometimes the children sat about on the sand in their bathing suits and found the hot sun so pleasant after their baths that they over-stayed their time and one of the mothers had to come out and ring a huge old-fashioned dinner bell to remind them that it was time to come in and get dressed. However, this morning they cut their water sports short and were dressed before lunch was ready.

"I see that nothing is to prevent our trip to town this afternoon," remarked Mrs. Larue, smiling, as they sat down at the table. "All I ask is, please do not expect me to ride on the merry-go-round."

"We'll watch and let the youngsters do the wild things," Mrs. Williamson said, ladling out the delicious clam chowder she had made for them. "I dare say the carnival will be too full of motion for us."

"Oh, but, Mother, they have movies!" said Margy eagerly. "You like moving pictures, Mother! You know you do!"

"Yes, I do," Mrs. Williamson admitted. "Well, we can see them and then find a quiet place to sit while you investigate the rest of the carnival."

There was a neat little bus that ran from one end of the beach to the other and through the town. This passed Meeker Cottage on a side street, and the mothers voted to ride to the carnival grounds. As soon as the lunch dishes were out of the way, they started, and when Artie saw the bus coming toward them with a huge sign fastened on the front, reading "TO THE CARNIVAL," he almost ran to meet it. Or so Fred declared.

"Here it is!" cried Artie, when they came in sight of the tents. "They have a band! I hear it!"

"A band does certainly affect Artie," Mrs. Larue declared. "We'll have to watch him or he might follow it as the children did the Pied Piper."

Artie scarcely heard what they were saying. His eyes were shining and his feet were tapping merrily and he looked so happy and so thoroughly alive that every one who passed him turned to smile.

"Let's go to movies first," suggested Margy. "Mother likes them."

The moving pictures were shown in a large tent. It was not as large as it looked, for it was set over another tent, and in this darkened inner place were the seats for the people who came to see the pictures. If you think it is hard to find your way down the aisles of a dark theater—especially if you are staring at the screen as you walk, so as not to miss any of the picture being shown—you ought to try to find your way into a tent as the Riddle Club members and their mothers did that afternoon.

The chairs were fastened together in rows of six, and if the people in them happened to be excitable when something happened on the screen they were apt to jerk or twist about in their seats and in time this moved the rows closer together or sent them sideways. As a result, some of the rows were closed, some were open, a few were bunched so closely together that it was impossible to walk between them, and at least one row was completely overturned.

Margy and Polly made this discovery in a rather painful manner by falling over the chairs.

"Ow—oh!" wailed Margy, in the darkness. "What was that?"

"Sh!" Polly warned her, trying not to laugh. "We walked into something. Come on."

Jess grabbed Margy and dragged her along in the darkness until Fred managed to find them an unoccupied row of seats into which they filed. He had not counted enough, and he and Artie found themselves "left over," as Ward expressed it.

"We'll go further down," Fred whispered.

"Wait for us at the door, will you, when you go out?"

The others promised him to wait, and Fred and Artie went down the aisle, trying to find two more vacant seats.

"There's two," Artie said, in a shrill whisper, and darted ahead of Fred.

He slipped into a row and sat down. Some one large and impressive rose and shook him from her lap as though he had been a small and troublesome lap dog.

"I sat on a lady," Artie explained, rejoining Fred, who laughed and guided him into another row with better success.

The moving pictures were a great success, from Artie's point of view, because they displayed a wonderful raft in one of the stories. It was a trick raft, so Fred insisted, but Artie chose to believe that any well-constructed raft could behave as well.

"I'm going to build a raft and then you'll see," he whispered to Fred.

"Better let Larry put in a motor for you," Fred counseled him. "Then you can make better speed. I think a motor raft would be a wonder, Artie."

"I'd rather pole it along," said Artie earnestly. "Motor boats are always breaking down. Larry had engine trouble the other day."

"When he was coming from Blackberry Island?" said Fred. "Yes, I heard about that. But Larry always fixes his engine. He's a dandy mechanic."

Then the people about them said "Sh!" and the boys turned their attention to the picture which was delighting Margy, but which did not have the appeal for Fred and Artie the raft picture had had, because it was, to quote them, "all girls and clothes."

Ward blinked as they came out into the sunlight, after staying till the intermission.

"Bet you were asleep!" Jess accused him.

"I was not!" he flashed back indignantly. "But I couldn't see very well because a tall wide man sat in front of me. Let's go on the merry-go-round."

"I hear it stopping now," Jess cried. "We'd better hurry."

CHAPTER XIII

SIX PASSES

MRS. LARUE laughed and said she thought that even if they missed the next ride, it would not be a serious matter.

"I see a number of comfortable benches over there in the shade," she announced, "and they look as though they had been placed there especially for patient parents. We'll go over there and wait for you."

The entrancing music grew slower, the platform of prancing beasts began to revolve more slowly and at last stopped. There was a wild scramble of children to get on their favorite mounts.

"I want the giraffe!" cried Jess, who never rode anything else.

"I like a lion!" this from Ward.

Polly and Fred chose cream-colored horses and Artie was delighted with an elephant while Margy climbed into a red plush car and sat on the high seat like a queen in a gondola.

With a suddenness that made Mrs. Marley jump, the music started, the merry-go-round began to move, and the blissful ride was well under way.

When the music stopped, Jess took another giraffe, on the outside of the platform this time, Ward deserted his lion for a friendly-looking bear and Fred and Polly tried the zebras. Artie stuck to his elephant and Margy refused to budge from her car, though the others urged her to ride an animal.

"It's lots more fun than that silly old car," said Fred, with brotherly disapproval.

"I like it here," Margy retorted.

When the second ride was over, they trooped off. Margy pulled Polly aside as they were walking over to the benches where the mothers were waiting.

"Polly, look!" said Margy.

She held out her little pink hand, palm up, and there twinkled a ring with two white stones.

"Diamonds!" Polly said. "Where did you get that?"

"I found it," explained Margy. "You know when I sit on a sofa or in a stuffed chair, I run my fingers down along the edges of the seat. I don't even know when I do it—I just do, that's all. And that's what I did in that car on the merry-go-round. And I felt something hard and pulled out this."

As soon as Margy showed the ring to her mother, Mrs. Williamson declared that some one must have lost it.

"We'll hunt up the man in charge of the merry-go-round and he will know if any inquiries have been made," she said.

"You don't want a parade following you," Mrs. Larue declared; "so the rest of us will wait here for you."

"Let Polly and Jess come," begged Margy. But Mrs. Marley said that was too many; so Mrs. Williamson and Margy went in search of the man who was in charge of the merry-go-round.

They found him—after some questioning—in a queer little cubbyhole so surrounded by odds and ends of lumber and tent rigging and paint pots that Margy wondered how he ever got in or out of his tiny office without breaking his neck.

Mrs. Williamson explained that her little girl had found a ring in one of the cars on the merry-go-round. She had hardly explained, before the manager was greatly excited.

"You don't say!" he cried in a hoarse voice. "So that's where it was! A lady lost it last night and she's offered a reward of a hundred dollars. Has the ring got two diamonds, ma'am? Yes, that's it. Then your little girl gets the money."

"Oh, she doesn't want any money for finding the ring," Mrs. Williamson said quickly. "She's only too glad to return it to the owner. No, we won't leave any name or address. That isn't necessary either."

The manager tugged at his mustache and seemed distressed.

"I wish you'd let me do something for you, ma'am," he said wistfully. "If you don't want the little girl to take the money, how about a pass? I own most of this show and I'll write her out a pass in a minute that will take her into most anything she wants to see."

Mrs. Williamson laughed and explained that Margy was one of a party of six children who had come to the carnival.

"That's all right—I'll be glad to give 'em all passes," said the manager heartily. "You say the word and these kids can have the run of the show. We've got as fine a side show over on the other lot as you'll see in the best circus going."

He was so anxious to do something for Margy that Mrs. Williamson did not want to decline the passes. So she said that the children would be delighted, and within a few moments Margy had six bright-colored bits of pasteboards that would, the manager told her, "let her in free" to any of the carnival attractions.

"And don't miss the side show, or you'll always regret it," he finished earnestly.

Mrs. Williamson and Margy went back to the rest of their party, and maybe those children's eyes didn't pop out when Margy showed them the passes and explained what they meant.

"Can you get ice cream cones with 'em?" Ward wanted to know.

"Are they good for any time?" demanded Fred. "Then, let's come every day and see something different."

Mrs. Williamson laughed and shook her head.

"Make the most of your fun while you're here," she said warningly. "This is positively the last trip we'll make. Besides, Fred, these traveling carnivals seldom stay long in one place. The whole thing may move on to-morrow."

"What do you want to do, Polly?" Margy asked.

"I'd perfectly love to have my fortune told," said Polly, her eyes dancing.

"But maybe nobody tells fortunes," Margy objected.

"Oh, you'll find that in the side show," Mrs. Larue interposed. "I never yet saw a good side show that didn't reveal a fine future for any curious person who asked."

"Goodness, he said we mustn't miss it, either," said Margy eagerly. "The side show, I mean. We'll always regret it, if we do."

"Probably," agreed Mrs. Larue. "But I think any one over sixteen who does see a side show regrets it. I think we can wait here for you in this quiet, shady place."

"I think so, too," Mrs. Marley said. "The children will be all right—there isn't a large crowd and they all seem to be nice people. So if you'll promise to keep together and not get lost you may investigate this wonderful side show and then come back and tell us everything you see."

Margy gave each child a pass, and they set gayly out for the side show. The manager had said it was on "the other lot," and they found this to mean a lot across the road from the one where the merry-go-round was put up. On the way Ward saw a peanut and popcorn stand, and he could not resist trying the magic of his pasteboard.

"Could I have some peanuts—I mean buy them with this?" he asked the little fat man behind the stand.

"Sure! A quart enough?" was the answer, and Ward managed to say he thought a quart would be enough.

"Here, what are you trying to do?" asked the man, as Ward took the bag of peanuts and started to walk away. "Fifteen cents, young feller."

"But I have a pass," Ward said, his face scarlet. "I showed it to you and you said it was all right."

"I thought it was a dollar bill," declared the fat man. "What's a pass to me? I don't care if the manager did give it to you, he doesn't own my peanuts and popcorn. I pay him rent for this stand, and what I sell is my own. See?"

Ward never, by any chance, having a cent in his pockets, Fred paid for the peanuts and as several people had stopped to listen, Ward was glad to get away.

"I'm awfully sorry, Ward," Margy apologized, feeling she was responsible for the fat boy's trouble. "I thought he said it was good for everything."

"Refreshment stands are different, I guess," said Jess. "I don't believe you can ever get anything to eat on a pass. Here's the place to have your fortune told, Polly."

Polly looked eagerly. She saw a black tent, the front plastered with queer signs cut out of red cloth. Suns and stars and moons were freely sprinkled over the sides of the tent, too. The signs on the front flaps were the zodiac signs, though Polly did not know that.

"I don't believe you can go in on a pass," said Ward. "You'd better not try."

Boys are seldom as eager to have their fortunes told as girls, for some reason, and Fred and Artie declared that nothing would induce them to go in and see "Madame Zelda Orlando," who would, so her announcement said, "read your past, present and future for fifty cents."

"Huh, I know my past and the present is what is happening to me right now," Artie sniffed. "And I can get along without the future till it happens."

But Polly and Margy and Jess were filled with curiosity and they held out their yellow, blue and white passes to the strange turbaned man who stood on guard at the tent door.

"Enter!" he said, and held back the mysterious curtain.

Polly gave one startled backward glance at the boys and went in, followed by Jess and Margy. The turbaned guard dropped the curtain back into place.

"Say, I didn't think they could get in on their passes," said Fred. "I wonder if we ought to have gone in with them."

"They're all right," Ward declared carelessly. "Come on and let's see the snakes while we're waiting."

"No, we said we'd keep together and we'll stay right here," said Fred firmly. "The girls will want to see the snakes, too. I don't suppose it takes very long to tell your past and present and future."

Madame Orlando evidently agreed with Fred, for in less than fifteen minutes Polly and Jess and Margy came out. Madame had read their palms, they said, and she said that good fortune awaited them all through life.

"I could have said that," complained Ward. "Hurry up and let's see the snakes. They're over here."

Their passes admitted them into the inky darkness of the snake tent where the reptiles, in glass tanks, writhed back and forth in the glare of electric lights turned full upon them.

"Wait a minute, I dropped my pass," whispered Ward.

The next moment a woman began to shriek and to jump up and down and wring her hands.

CHAPTER XIV

THE SIDE SHOWS

"IT'S out!" screamed the woman. "Oh-oh! It's out and it's got me! Save me! Save me!"

As Polly told her mother later it was "creepy" to hear these screams in the darkness of the tent, and a dozen voices began to ask:

"What is it? What's the matter?"

The snake charmer, who had been behind the scenes of the tiny stage, came out in her beautiful pink velvet dress and spoke calmly.

"What is it, lady?" she called clearly. "What is the matter with you?"

"There it is again!" shrieked the woman. "It's the boa constrictor! I can feel it creeping over my feet!"

My goodness, that was enough to make any one nervous! Two or three more people began to cry that they, too, could feel the boa constrictor crawling over their feet on the floor of the tent.

There might have been a panic in another minute, but a carnival attendant who had heard the racket came pushing his way through the crowd of people, a powerful flashlight in his hand.

"What's the matter here?" he kept asking. "What's wrong? Hey, madam, keep still and tell me what's bothering you."

"A snake!" gasped the woman. "There! There! Get him, quick!"

Polly and Margy were holding hands tightly and Jess had a desperate clutch on Polly's skirt. Fred and Artie were close by. All leaned forward as the attendant swept the floor with his light.

Then every one began to laugh and the tent resounded to the sound of relief. There in the glare of the light, flat on his stomach, was Ward, his hair sticking straight up, his face red with the heat and his exertions, and the precious pass gripped tightly in his right hand.

"I got it!" he beamed. "Somebody stepped on it, but I found it all right."

"My land, was it you crawling around in the dark?" the woman who had begun the screaming asked in amazement. "Don't you know any better than to scare folks out of their wits?"

"Ladies and gentlemen," began the snake charmer diplomatically, "now that your fears have been proved groundless, may I ask for your kindest attention? I want to present to you Richard the Third, the noblest snake——"

She began to fondle and exhibit her snakes and the crowd pressed closer. Ward made all haste to get further away from the woman who had been frightened. He was afraid she might begin to scold again, but she was too interested in the snake charmer to remember her fright.

The Riddle Club stayed till the last snake had been put back in its box and then came out, the strong sunlight making their eyes blink after the darkness.

"Say, this is your unlucky day all right, Ward," said the grinning Fred. "First your pass is no good for peanuts and then you give the whole snake show a regular fit. Now here's the fat boy. We'll go see him, and if he takes you for his brother, don't blame me."

Ward was fat, there was no denying the fact. But he was not as fat as the lad they found propped up in a red velvet chair on a little red velvet platform. This boy looked as though he might be ten or twelve years old, but he was fatter than Mr. Higsby, the fattest man in River Bend.

"Willis King, the fattest boy for his age in the world," read Artie.

"Sh! That isn't polite," Polly reproved him. "You'll hurt his feelings."

"No, he won't. I'm used to that," the fat boy answered, for he had overheard. "I know I'm fat, and I don't mind if people do say so."

Ward silently handed him the bag of peanuts, and he took a handful.

"I should think you'd like to travel around," said Artie. "It must be fun to see all the different places and people."

"Do you have to go to school?" Ward asked.

"Can't—I'm too fat," said the boy. "I'd break down all the benches. My mother teaches me. And let me tell you, it isn't such fun going around, especially in hot weather. I'd like to spend a summer at the beach and just have a good time."

"Why don't you?" Margy asked.

"Because I have to work," the fat boy replied. "This is work, though you may not know it. I have to sit up here and have people look at me and the lights make it awful hot at night. Then going on trains and boats is tiresome. You don't know how lucky you are, to stay in one place all summer."

"How did you get fat?" asked Jess, determined to prevent Ward from gaining another pound.

"I was born fat," was the answer. "And then I eat lots of food and don't exercise. Now I try not to get thin, because I expect to earn my living this way, and if I was thin, I couldn't be an exhibit."

He ate three more peanuts as though he feared he might have lost some weight through the exertion of talking.

"I don't think he is very bright," commented Jess, as they left the tent. "First he says it is no fun to be fat and then he says he wants to stay fat so he can be an exhibit."

"Well, I don't suppose he'd ever be real thin, and if he is going to be fat, he thinks he'd better be fatter than any one else," Polly said. "Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well, Mrs. Pepper says."

The others laughed and Ward asked anxiously if they thought he would ever be an exhibit.

"You'd better be careful," said Jess.

"And whatever you do," added Fred, "stop when you have had two helpings of dessert. It is the third time that will put you in the freak class, Ward."

"Mother hardly ever lets me have even two helpings," Ward murmured. He would take Fred's teasing seriously nearly every time.

There were a few more sights, not many, for the carnival was a small one, and when they had been into every tent they went back to the benches where the three mothers were waiting.

"We thought we wouldn't have ice cream till you came," said Mrs. Marley, "but we are glad we don't have to wait any longer. Who knows where we can find something cool to eat and drink?"

The children had passed a refreshment pavilion and they led the way back to this. Here they had ice cream and rice waffles, and then it was time to think of starting for home.

As they were standing at the side of the road, waiting for the bus, Joe Anderson and Albert Holmes came up the road. They had walked from the bungalow colony and they looked warm and dusty.

"We've seen everything," Artie told them as soon as the two boys were within hearing distance. "Margy found a diamond ring and we had passes and saw everything free."

Joe and Albert stared open-mouthed and the members of the Riddle Club were obliged to explain.

"Gee, what did you do with the passes?" asked Joe quickly. "Perhaps we could use them."

"We gave them back to the manager. Mother said to," Margy told him.

"I don't see why you did that. We could have had a good time with them to-night, and maybe you could have used them again to-morrow," said Joe, looking much put out, as though Margy had acted very inconsiderately.

"Mother said we couldn't come again, and anyway the carnival won't be here long," Fred announced.

"And the man meant us to go in just once, I think," said Polly slowly. "It wouldn't be fair for everybody to use the passes and see the carnival free."

"Just the same, I think you might have let us have 'em," grumbled Joe.

The bus came along just then, and the Riddle Club members followed their mothers, leaving Joe and Albert to go on to the Carnival and make the most of their nickels.

"I don't believe he liked it because we gave the passes back," said Margy, finding a seat between Jess and Ward.

"Who? Joe? Don't let that worry you," Fred counseled. "I'm glad you didn't have a pass to give him; he would have thought he owned the show."

"The hundred dollars would have been nice in the bank account, wouldn't it?" Margy suggested, with a little sigh.

Now, Margy was not the only one who had had that idea, and Mrs. Williamson had talked to Fred about it at some length while they waited for the bus. Fred was club treasurer and very proud of the bank account opened in the name of the Riddle Club. Mrs. Williamson had been afraid that he would regret the hundred dollars Margy might have taken for finding the ring.

"Mother said," Fred reported, "that she hopes we'll never take money when we haven't done anything to earn it. She said it is all right to offer rewards and to accept them, if we really do something. If Margy had heard about the ring being lost and she had gone out and hunted and walked miles and worked her head off and then found it, it wouldn't be so bad to take the money. But Mother says all she did was to put her hand down in the crack and pull out the ring. If she kept it, that would be stealing. But if she took it back and took the hundred dollars that would be almost like paying her for not stealing. You have to really earn a reward."

"But we'll not ever have a chance to get a hundred dollar reward again," sighed Jess.

"How do you know?" Polly challenged. "I'm going to have good fortune all my life—my hand says so. Maybe I'll get a hundred dollars reward for doing something wonderful."

"Will you put it in the club fund?" asked Jess, and Polly promised that the money should go in the bank and be credited to the Riddle Club.

All were tired after their strenuous day, and there were no protests when Mrs. Marley suggested that every one go to bed at eight o'clock. Waking up at his usual hour the next morning, Fred discovered that Artie was not in the room.

"He's dressed and gone out," said Fred in surprise, noting that Artie's shoes were not under the chair where he always left them and that his clothes had disappeared.

Fred made haste to get downstairs and found that Artie was not in the house. The sound of hammering drew him to the barn. There was only one car in it now, of course, since one was in River Bend whither it had carried the three fathers.

"What do you call it you're doing?" asked Fred, peering in at the door.

The hammering stopped. Artie was working in the darkest corner.

"I'm building a raft," he announced coolly. "I want to get it done before Daddy comes to-morrow night."

"Why don't you build it somewhere near the water?" Fred asked. "I should think you'd know it has to be carried down somehow."

"Well, I guess a horse can pull it, can't he?" said Artie. "Lots of boats are built where there isn't any water. I've seen them on freight cars."

So had Fred. But his common sense told him that when one lived almost across the street from the ocean, the beach was the place to construct a raft.

"Where did you get your hammer and nails, Artie?" he asked curiously. "And the boards? It must take heavy boards to build a raft."

"They're already nailed together," Artie informed him. "I only have to put on a couple of cross-pieces and it will be done."

"But I think you're an awful chump to build it in the barn," persisted Fred. "You can't see in that dark corner, either. And why get up in the middle of the night to build a raft?"

"It isn't the middle of the night," Artie argued. "Besides, I want to try to sail it before breakfast."

Fred suddenly thought of something. He darted out and ran around back of the barn. Sure enough, his suspicions were correct.

"Come out here a minute, Artie!" he called.

CHAPTER XV

ARTIE'S RAFT

ARTIE came reluctantly. His face was red and he looked anxious.

"What do you want?" he asked ungraciously.

"What do you suppose Mrs. Meeker will say when she finds you took half her fence to build a raft?" Fred demanded sternly.

He pointed to a wide gap in the board fence back of the barn which showed the source of Artie's lumber supply.

"I didn't take it," that ambitious youth protested. "It fell down, truly it did, Fred. And I saw it and it was just the right size for a raft. I can put it back, anyway, after I've used it a little."

"You'd better not let any one see you taking the fence," warned Fred. "Leave it alone till after breakfast, and I'll help you carry it down to the water. We'll get Ward to help."

Artie decided that Fred was interested in the raft—as indeed he was—and as he knew he could not carry the heavy boards down to the ocean without help, he readily agreed to let the rest of his carpenter work go till after breakfast.

Fortune favored the conspirators, for as soon as breakfast was over Mrs. Larue declared that she must get wool to finish a sweater she was knitting and that as she had tried and could not match it in Sunrise Beach, she meant to take the Shore Line bus and go down the coast to Glen Haven, where there were larger shops.

"Let's all go," Mrs. Marley suggested. "I've always wanted to take a trip on that bus—it follows the boulevard part of the way, and they say the scenery is beautiful."

Polly and Margy and Jess were eager to go, but the boys hung back.

"It's no fun going into stores," Fred complained.

"I hate standing around for hours," almost wept Ward.

And Artie, his raft ever in mind, remarked that he didn't feel as though he could spare the time.

"That's a speech you have borrowed from your daddy," laughed Mrs. Marley. "But if you boys want to stay at home, I don't see any reason why you should not. We can leave you a nice lunch on the kitchen table, and perhaps you'll have a good time without any feminine friends to bother you."

"If you go in bathing, promise not to go out beyond the tent piling," Mrs. Williamson said quickly.

This was the limit always imposed on the children when they went in swimming without an older person at hand. The boys promised readily, and after half an hour of bustling preparation, the three mothers and their daughters were off.

"Now come on out and help me with the raft," coaxed Artie, as soon as the house was quiet. "Ward will want to eat up the lunch right away, if he stays here."

Ward was even then lifting the cloth which covered the lunch that had been left for them, but he declared that he meant only to look and had no intention of tasting.

"Come away from temptation," Fred insisted, dragging him across the kitchen floor and out the door. "We have a busy day ahead of us. We have to try this raft and get it back in place before my dad and yours and Mr. Marley come to-night."

Ward had not known that Artie was building a raft, much less that he had "borrowed" a section of the fence, and his questions rather nettled the young builder, who was intent on getting his invention down to the water-side.

"How do you know that it will float?" asked Ward, as he tugged manfully at the end allotted to him.

"I don't!" puffed Artie. "But the only way to find out is to put it in the water. Are you lifting, Ward, or just talking?"

Ward was purple in the face. The fence boards were heavy and the section which had fallen was wide. Artie had been unwilling, or afraid, to cut it, so he really had a larger raft than he would have chosen to build.

By dint of much tugging and dragging, the boys managed to get the heavy thing across the sand and down to the water. They were dripping with perspiration when they finally accomplished this feat and were glad to sit down and rest a moment before the launching.

"I'm glad there isn't any one around," confided Artie, glancing up the deserted beach. "It may not float, and then we'd feel foolish."

"If it sinks," said Ward, staring placidly out to sea, "you won't be able to put it back in Mrs. Meeker's fence."

Artie had not thought of this and neither had Fred. The latter now suggested that they ought to have an anchor.

"Or I tell you what we can do," he said. "Tie it to the piling. Then if it sinks, we can pull it in."

Artie protested that he wanted to sail the raft and Fred pointed out that if it did not sink, they could untie the rope and sail it as far as they liked.

"Well, all right; but where's a rope?" demanded Artie, feeling that he had done all that could be expected of him when he supplied the raft. Anything else, like ropes, could be furnished by those suggesting them.

"I saw one in the barn. I'll go get it," offered Ward, with unusual alacrity.

He was gone longer than it would have taken Fred or Artie, but they forgave him because they knew that if he hurried he was apt to lose his breath. He brought back a coil of fairly heavy rope, and this was tied around one end of the raft. They had to drag it almost a hundred feet to get it near the piling, and while Fred was in the act of fastening the other end of the rope to a brace between two of the logs, who should hail him but Joe Anderson and Albert Holmes.

"Joe's going home to-day," Albert volunteered. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing," replied Artie, scowling, for once in his life averse to giving information.

"Gee! it's a raft, isn't it?" said Joe. "Whose is it—yours? Have you any poles to guide it with?"

They had forgotten poles, but Fred thought oars would do.

"I saw a couple of old ones in the barn," Ward chimed in. "I'll go and get them."

He darted off before Fred and Artie could say yes or no, and this time stayed longer—but he might have been hunting for the oars.

"Let me try to sail it?" said Joe, when Ward came back, trailing the clumsy oars in the sand behind him.

"It won't carry five," Artie declared, including Albert in his calculations.

"No, it may not carry one," said Fred. "Artie has the first chance to be drowned, because it is his raft. We'll stand by to rescue him, and then if he survives some more of us can ship with him."

Artie giggled and took off his shoes and stockings. As he remarked, there was no use in spoiling them.

Fred and Ward took off their shoes and stockings, too, for they knew they would have to help shove the raft into the water.

"Let her go!" sang out Artie, as he stepped into the water, holding up his end of the raft.

With the best intentions in the world, Fred and Ward shoved. The raft caught Artie under the chin and he went over backward. Of course he was in shallow water, but it was as wet as any other kind would have been and when he rose, sputtering and wrathful, Fred made an unfortunate remark.

"You ought to have put on your bathing suit," said he.

"I would have, if I'd known you were going to be so dumb," Artie returned angrily.

"Anyway, it floats," said Ward, pointing to the raft bobbing gently up and down.

Sure enough, it did float, and all the boys were eager to climb on it. Artie, who could certainly get no wetter than he was, scrambled on it and it sank a few inches with his added weight, but still floated.

"Ward's too fat—let me try," urged Joe Anderson.

He waded into the water—he had taken off his shoes and stockings when the others had—and Albert followed him. In spite of Artie's warnings, they insisted on climbing aboard. As a result, they found themselves sitting in water up to their waists.

"Didn't I tell you?" Fred scolded.

"Gee, these are the clothes I am supposed to wear home this afternoon," Joe sighed crossly. "My others are packed."

"You'd better come on back to the house and get dried off," suggested Albert, whose teeth were chattering. He seldom went bathing in the ocean because the water was too cold for him.

Joe slid off the raft and tramped moodily ashore. He was inclined to blame Fred and Artie for what had happened, but even Albert declared that it was not their fault. "But it isn't much of a raft," Albert added.

"Now let me on," urged Ward, as the two boys disappeared up the beach. "I'm glad Joe is going home to-day—perhaps we can have a little peace."

Ward gingerly took his place on the raft, though he had to be pulled by Artie and pushed by Fred, before he could gain a foothold, and then, as the craft did not sink, Fred himself came aboard. The raft remained afloat, though it could not be said to be absolutely dry.

"I'll try poling," said Fred, who had brought one of the oars with him.

He meant to pole toward the piling, but either because he was excited or did not think, he began to propel the raft away from the anchorage, and the first thing he knew his oar had stuck in the sand. It broke off with a loud crack and Fred pitched into the water, head over heels.

IT BROKE OFF AND FRED PITCHED INTO THE WATER.

The Riddle Club at Sunrise Beach.      Page 141

"Did he land on his head?" cried Artie in alarm, running to the end of the raft where Fred had disappeared.

As Ward was also at that end, naturally the raft tipped and both boys went into the sea, coming up within a foot of Fred, who was shaking the water from his eyes and staring about him with a bewildered expression.

"Hello!" Artie greeted him rather foolishly.

"Some raft!" said Fred, in disgust. "And we're the dubs not to have worn our bathing suits. Let's go up to the house and get them on now and hang these clothes out to dry."

This was voted a sensible plan, and the boys waded ashore. When they reached the house and donned their bathing suits, hanging their wet clothes on the line strung in the side yard, Ward suggested that they might as well eat their lunch.

"Then we can stay out all the afternoon," he said.

"Don't forget we have to have that fence fixed before Dad gets here," Fred reminded him.

Artie reached the kitchen first and lifted the cloth which was spread over their lunch. Alas, three empty saucers showed that some one had been there before him.

"Ward Larue, you ate the pies!" cried Artie. "Of all the mean tricks!"

"So that's why you were so anxious to come up and get the rope and the oars," Fred said, suddenly understanding.

"I never get enough pie," stammered Ward. "I thought you wouldn't mind. I won't touch the sandwiches and milk—you can have 'em all."

It was impossible to be long angry with Ward and of course he had his share of the rest of the food. Ward dearly loved to eat, and those pies had been too much for him—at home his mother kept the cookie and cake and pie cans securely locked, lest he be tempted too severely.

At Artie's suggestion they washed the dishes—after a fashion—and then hurried back to the beach. It was then only eleven o'clock and the prospect of a long afternoon was entrancing. Artie ran ahead to see if the raft was still afloat.

"It's gone!" they heard him shout. "Boys, the raft is gone! Somebody's stolen our raft! What do you know about that?"

"And it's Mrs. Meeker's fence, too," Ward muttered, fear-stricken. "What shall we do?"

CHAPTER XVI

A BIT OF GOOD FORTUNE

WARD said the rope must have broken and Fred thought perhaps the raft had sunk, but nothing would convince Artie that his raft was not stolen.

"All right, say somebody took it," Fred gave in. "What would they do with it?"

"Use it," said Artie. "It was a good raft."

"Maybe," Ward offered in his slow way, "Joe Anderson took it, just to be mean."

"Now you're talking!" exclaimed Fred. "That would be a Joe Anderson trick, all right. But he's going home this afternoon."

"He could hide it," Ward suggested.

"Well, I didn't think he'd take it on the train with him," grinned Fred. "Now it's up to us to do a little detective work."

This sounded exciting, and Artie and Ward waited expectantly for Fred to tell them what to do.

"Are there any footprints?" Fred demanded. "Look around and see if you see any footprints on the sand."

The boys reported that, as far as they could tell, the only marks were those made by their own feet.

"That proves," announced Fred triumphantly, "that Joe came in a boat and towed the raft away—just what I thought!"

"Huh," Artie snorted, "the tide's been in. Even if he had walked, we wouldn't see his footprints. Those we made ourselves before lunch are all washed out."

This shrewd observation was disconcerting, even to a detective of Fred's ability.

"He couldn't drag the raft very far on land," he argued. "I know he couldn't drag it as far as the bungalow. That's more than a mile from here."

"Yes, I know," replied Artie. "But I don't believe he came in a boat. Look!" and he swooped down upon something in the sand.

He held up a long splinter—an ugly, jagged strip of wood from which a rusty nail protruded.

"He chopped it!" Artie cried, his voice shaking with rage. "He went and chopped it up. And now the fence is gone!"

The loss of the raft would have been serious enough, but far more tragic was the double crime of destroying Mrs. Meeker's fence. And, as Ward said, the first thing their fathers would notice when they came home would be the gap in the boards.

"Perhaps it would have fallen down anyway," said Ward, trying to say something comfortable.

"I shook it—just a little," Artie confessed.

Now that they guessed the raft had been chopped up, it was easy enough to find more evidence. There were numerous splinters lying on the sand and a few feet past the piling a tangled wreckage of boards and rope floated on the water.

"I guess Joe came back, all right," admitted Fred. "All I have to say is that it was a mean trick."

But that did not help solve the problem of how to replace the borrowed section of fence.

The boys waded in and brought the bits of floating wood ashore, but Joe, if he had chopped it, had been thorough and any hope of salvage was seen to be hopeless.

"Well, we might as well go home," Fred said at last. "The folks will be coming back."

Rather disconsolately they trailed up to the cottage and Artie's guilty conscience gave him a distinct shock when he saw a strange man sitting on the porch steps.

"I—I guess I'll walk out to the bus line and meet the folks," he murmured, hanging back.

"In your bathing suit, I suppose," Fred countered sarcastically. "You come along—he can't arrest you for knocking down a piece of fence."

Artie did not feel at all sure on this point, but he dragged himself up to the steps and managed a weak smile in response to the broad grin with which the stranger greeted them.

"I thought every one was drowned, perhaps," said the man, pointing over his shoulder to the array of garments swinging on the line. "Where's your ma?"

The boys explained that their mothers were away for the day.

"Well, I figured there wasn't anybody home, so I told Ben to start right in," the man said comfortably. "Mrs. Meeker gave the order, and she allowed the noise wouldn't disturb any one, but I thought I'd ask first, if there was some one hanging around to ask."

For the first time the boys were aware of a noise of hammering. It seemed to come from behind the barn.

"Are you Mr. Meeker?" asked Artie fearfully.

"Mr. Meeker's been dead ten years, son," the stranger replied. "I'm Jim Wright, the carpenter. That's Ben you hear back there. He's making a racket all right, isn't he? But once it's torn down the worst is over. The wood's so rotten, Mrs. Meeker said to chop it up for firewood. Your ma can have it and welcome."

Fred was puzzled, and so were Artie and Ward. By common consent they moved toward the barn. The sound of hammering and ripping and tearing grew louder. Half dazedly, they went around to the back of the barn and to the fence which had furnished Artie with his ill-fated raft.

There was another man, evidently "Ben," the carpenter's helper. He was busily engaged in tearing down the fence, and, as they watched, a section fell with a crash. Dust and splinters flew high in the air.

"Hello," Ben greeted the boys cheerfully. "You're just in time to see the wrecking crew get in the last fine strokes."

He hit one of the posts a mighty blow with his hammer, and it fell with a crash. The boys stared in fascination till Margy, running out to them, announced the arrival of the party from Glen Haven.

"They're tearing down the fence, aren't they?" said Margy, as one who makes a discovery. "Say, we called you and called you and you never answered. Mother wants to know if you fell in—all your clothes are out on the line."

There was a scramble to get dressed quickly after that, and by the time they were ready for supper and had heard the day's shopping adventures Mr. Larue drove up with Mr. Marley and Mr. Williamson.

"The next time you want a raft," muttered Fred to Artie, as they sat down at the table, "I hope you'll have sense enough to let other people's fences alone."

Artie said nothing. He was still thinking over his narrow escape.

"We came through the Mooney place again," said Mr. Larue at supper. "It is still necessary to make that detour."

"Did you see Ella?" asked Polly and Jess eagerly.

"What did she have on?" Margy chimed in.

Mr. Larue laughed and answered that he could never tell what little girls wore.

"But we did see Ella, and she and her father are going to spend this week end at the hotel," Mr. Larue went on to stay. "The Captain thinks that a little change will be good for Ella—they live such a quiet life in that beautiful big house with no one to talk to but the servants."

"Maybe we'll see Ella," said Polly hopefully.

She had liked the rather shy little girl who had smiled at them in such a friendly manner, but who had said almost nothing.

Later that evening, when they were all sitting on the porch, Jess suddenly announced that she had a bright idea.

"Why can't we give a beach party and invite Ella Mooney?" she suggested.

"What's a beach party?" Artie asked immediately.

"Oh, it's a party," said Jess impatiently.

"Carrie Pepper and Mattie Helms are always giving 'em," put in Margy. "They've had two since we've been down here."

"Mother, can't we have a beach party?" asked Jess.

"I suppose so," Mrs. Larue answered. "I think it would be nice to ask Ella Mooney. And to-morrow night, if it is clear, would be a good time to hold it."

Ward wanted to know if there would be "eats," and, satisfied on that score, he seemed to think that his only responsibility toward the party was to attend it.

"Are we going to ask Carrie Pepper?" said Jess. "And Mattie?"

"For goodness' sake, why?" Margy demanded. "They never asked us to any of their parties."

"Well, I just thought perhaps we ought to," Jess replied, and subsided.

The next day was hot and clear and every one knew that the evening would be ideal for a beach party. Mrs. Marley and Mrs. Williamson went over to the hotel, taking Polly with them, to call on Captain Mooney and his daughter. They announced, on their return, that Ella had seemed delighted with the idea of a party and that she would come at half past seven.

As always, when a party is to be given, there was a great deal to be done to get ready for it.

"We'll get the driftwood," Mr. Marley promised, "and we'll see that you have enough sticks sharpened for the bacon and marshmallows. I think right out in front of the house is a good place for the fire; the sand dune will break the wind."

Along in the afternoon, Artie took advantage of the temporary lull in the day's activities to suggest that he might go after the mail.

"Get the marshmallows, too," his mother asked him, giving him the money. "And, Artie, do try to hurry."

Artie promised speed and set off joyfully for the town. He went by way of the beach, and of course no one can hurry along a beach, for there are so many interesting things to see and do, even though one has seen and done them all many times before.

"Shall I get the mail first, or the candy?" thought Artie, as he came in sight of the town.

He decided to get the candy first, for he rather hoped the marshmallows would be sold by the pound. If they were in a paper bag, he argued, there would be no harm in eating one or two.

Alas, the marshmallows came in pound tins and the shopkeeper gave Artie three tins so tightly sealed and wrapped that a burglar could not have opened them and left no trace.

Artie went on to the post-office and there, waiting for the letters to be sorted, was Carrie Pepper.

"Hello, Artie," she greeted him. "Mercy, what's that you are carrying? Eggs?"

"No," said Artie, always ready to give information, especially when asked. "No, I haven't any eggs. These are marshmallows."

Carried looked as though she rather expected him to offer her one.

"They're in a box and sealed up, so I can't offer you any," Artie explained. "Anyway, they're for to-night."

"What are you going to do to-night?" asked Carrie curiously.

"Have a beach party down in front of our house," Artie replied. "Ella Mooney is coming."

Carrie said "Oh!" and just then the little wooden shutter at the post-office window went up with a bang and the postmaster began to distribute the mail. Artie had a small sheaf of letters and papers to take back with him and he did not see Carrie again.

Margy was the only one of the three girls who was deeply interested in the question of what she should wear. Margy dearly loved pretty clothes and, if her mother had allowed her, it is to be feared she would have worn her most fetching frock to the beach party, a white lace affair with a pink sash. As it was, she had to be content with her pongee, but at least, so she said, she could do her hair a new way. She meant part it a new way, for it was bobbed.

After supper she went upstairs to dress, knowing by experience that it would take her longer than either Polly or Jess. Polly, drying dishes for Mrs. Larue, was startled a few minutes later to hear a frantic call from Margy.

"Polly!" called her chum. "Oh, Polly! Jess! Listen, girls!"

Dish towel in hand, Polly ran out into the hall. Margy was leaning over the banisters, distress pictured vividly in her anxious face.

"Polly, who do you suppose is coming?" whispered Margy. "I happened to look out of the bathroom window, and I saw them coming down the road! Mattie Helms and Carrie Pepper!"

"Perhaps they're not coming here," Polly whispered back hopefully, but at that instant the screen door banged and Jess flew into the hall.

"Say, Carrie Pepper and Mattie Helms are coming!" she cried. "I saw them up the road. Who invited them to our party?"

Polly's sense of humor helped her to see the funny side.

"You sound as though you were telling us, 'the enemy are advancing!'" she giggled. "I don't know who invited Mattie and Carrie, but if they have come, we'll just have to be nice to them, I suppose. Maybe they didn't know we were going to have a beach party and this is just a call they're making."

"I'll bet a cookie they've come to the party!" Margy announced, as they heard the unbidden guests ascending the porch steps.

CHAPTER XVII

THE BEACH PARTY

MARGY declaring that she was not dressed and Jess flatly refusing to go, Polly had to answer the ring at the door.

"Hello," said Carrie, smiling. "We thought we'd come over for a little while. Isn't it a lovely evening?"

Polly thought it was and asked them to sit down on the porch, "while I tell Jess and Margy you're here."

She also told her mother and the others. To her surprise, they seemed to take the situation calmly.

"Why, dear, we have plenty of everything to eat," Mrs. Marley declared. "I think it will be nice to have Carrie and Mattie stay. Run out on the porch and talk with them until I get the rest of this bacon sliced."

"But they didn't ask us to their parties!" objected Jess, who was listening.

"What difference does that make?" Mrs. Larue said briskly. "Beach parties are anything but formal. Of course we must ask Carrie and Mattie to stay and share our fun."

Polly and Jess went out on the porch and talked to Carrie and Mattie till Margy came down in her pongee dress, her hair parted on one side. She usually parted it in the center.

"Here comes somebody," Carrie observed, a few minutes later. "Why, she's coming here. Do you know her?"

"That's Ella Mooney," said Polly quietly, going down the steps to meet the little girl who was advancing shyly.

She introduced Ella to the two girls she had not met and then every one came out on the porch and in the general hubbub of greetings and getting started for the beach, Ella quite forgot to be tongue-tied, and chatted as gayly as any of the others.

The boys' amazement when they saw Carrie and Mattie was so open that Polly wanted to laugh. Fred frankly scowled and his mother thought it best to keep him very busy with boxes and parcels, lest he forget his position as host and say something discourteous.

"A beach party!" trilled Carrie, when Mrs. Williamson explained what was planned. "Oh, I didn't know you were going to have a party to-night! Mattie and I would not have dreamed of coming over."

Artie was halfway down the steps with a box of stuffed eggs in his hands, but he heard this remark and turned in astonishment.

"Why, I told you we were going to have a party," he said clearly. "In the post-office this afternoon. Don't you remember? I said Ella Mooney was coming. That was why I had the marshmallows."

Carrie blushed and Mattie looked queer, but neither girl made any reply. In desperation Polly began to talk very fast about nothing at all, and in a few minutes the party had climbed over the dunes and were on the beach.

The fire was the most important thing to be attended to, and when the wood was piled, Mr. Williamson handed a match to Ella Mooney.

"We'll ask the honor guest to light the fire," he said, with a smile.

Ella was such a quiet child that one had to look at her intently to realize the charm of her seriousness. She had bright eyes that missed nothing of what went on around her, and though thinner than Jess, she was more muscular. It was easy to see that she lived an outdoor life and that she was much alone. She rarely spoke unless first spoken to, and then she replied readily enough and with a charming smile that lighted up her sober face.

"But she has a good time, just listening," said Polly to herself, after watching her guest a few minutes. "She likes to hear the fun and she laughs at all the jokes."

"Tell about the club," suggested Ella Mooney, forgetting to be shy. "Your father said you had a Riddle Club, and I'd love to hear about what you do. I never belonged to any club, because I don't know many boys or girls."

"Don't you go to school?" Mattie Helms asked curiously.

"No, I have a governess who comes and teaches me," answered Ella. "Daddy doesn't like to have me go away to school, and the Sunrise school isn't very good."

So Polly, with the active help of the other members, tried to tell her something about the Riddle Club, and what they did and something of the experiences they had had.

"What nice times you have together!" said Ella wistfully.

"We have more fun in our Conundrum Club," Carrie declared. "We meet around at different houses, and it's more exciting. Besides, there are fourteen of us—seven boys and seven girls—and we can have better times with a crowd."

"I think clubs and pins and meetings are all nice," replied Ella quietly.

By this time the fire presented a glowing bed of embers and was pronounced "just right" for toasting the bacon and cheese sandwiches. Fred passed around the pointed sticks, and as fast as one toasted his or her sandwich, it was eaten.

"Gee, that's good!" sighed Ward, in blissful satisfaction, after he had disposed of three sandwiches and as many more of the stuffed eggs.

The moon was making a silver path across the water, and the older folk decided that a walk on the beach would please them more than sitting still and toasting marshmallows. So, after promising to return within an hour, they set off up the beach and left the fire to the Riddle Club and their guests.

"I've eaten so many marshmallows I don't want to taste another one," said Carrie Pepper, putting down her stick, after a busy interval in which the luscious brown and dripping marshmallows had been enjoyed to the uttermost. "Let's do something for fun."

It was, perhaps, not Carrie's place to propose a change in the program, but Carrie had never been called backward or shy. She said what came into her head and said it so plainly that few people were left in doubt as to her opinions and wishes.

"Ella hasn't finished yet," said Polly significantly.

Ella Mooney was intently roasting a marshmallow, her whole mind absorbed in getting it just the right shade of brown. There was no doubt about Ella having a good time—her face was transfigured with happiness, and though she did not talk much, she laughed more and more spontaneously.

"That child is lonely," Mrs. Marley had remarked, as the elders left the children gathered around the fire. "It will do her good to play a little with our boys and girls; she needs companions of her own age."

"I'm through now," Ella said hastily, popping her candy into her mouth. "I didn't know I was eating so many."

"You didn't—not half as many as the boys," Jess assured her. "And there's a pound left in that box we haven't touched."

Ella, however, could not be persuaded to eat any more, so they put more driftwood on to burn and leaned back to watch the fire.

"I tell you what would be fun to do," said Carrie, helping herself to a marshmallow from the freshly opened box and apparently forgetting what she had just said. "Let's each write a message on a strip of paper and put them in that tin box. Then throw it in the ocean and perhaps it will be picked up fifty years from now."

"By the Chinese, who can't read it," Fred suggested.

"Then they can have the messages translated," retorted Carrie.

Artie's mind approved thoroughly of this idea, and he was eager to try it. He was quite sure that a waiting world would be eager to hear from them fifty years hence.

"Well, here's a pencil," said Fred grudgingly. "But I haven't any paper."

"Tear up the labels on the candy boxes," Jess suggested. "We can write on the back."

"And don't let any one know what you are going to write," said Mattie Helms. "Then it will be a surprise."

Jess whispered that she didn't see who was going to be surprised, but Margy was busily writing and told her to hush.

After some thought and a little bickering, due to the impatience of one or two of the writers who didn't like to have to wait for the pencil, the nine slips of paper were ready to be put in the box. The lid fitted tightly and, once in place, seemed quite likely to stay there for fifty years, if the box was not found before that time.

It was low tide, and Fred had to go out several yards before he thought it safe to fling the box. He threw it as far as he could and it fell with a satisfying splash.

"I wish I knew who was going to find it," sighed Carrie. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

"I don't think it makes much difference," Polly declared, and Fred said that he hoped an Eskimo found the box and ate the papers.

"Say," Artie remarked matter-of-factly, "there's somebody sitting at our fire."

Artie spoke as though it was the most ordinary thing in the world, but Carrie was at once excited.

"I left my sweater!" she cried. "If that's a tramp, he'll steal it."

Ella said nothing, but Polly remembered the little beaded bag she had seen.

"You left your purse, didn't you, Ella?" she asked.

"Oh, yes, but there's only ten dollars in it," Ella said calmly, though the others gasped at thought of this sum.

"Probably it's only some one who wants to get warm," Jess declared. "Come on—he'll go when he sees us coming."

But the tramp, if tramp he was, did not move at their approach. He merely stared, and the children stared back at him.

They saw an old man, stoop-shouldered and dressed in wrinkled, baggy clothes that were vaguely reminiscent of sailor's clothing. He wore a funny little peaked cap and he had a curly white beard.

"Evening," he said, as they did not speak.

"How—how do you do?" Polly stammered.

"I saw the fire and I thought I'd sit down and warm my old bones," croaked the tramp, in a hoarse voice. "You don't mind, do you?"

"Well, if you're warm, I should think you could go now," Carrie said, before any one else could speak.

She snatched her sweater from the ground, almost from under the old man's elbow.

"Oh, Carrie, how can you talk like that?" whispered Polly.

"Well, you never can tell what a tramp will take," Carrie said, taking no pains to keep her voice low.

"I wouldn't take anything, lady," the old man protested, with dignity.

"I'll bet he's hungry," Jess whispered to Polly. "Are there any sandwiches left?"

There were three or four, and a little shyly Polly offered them to the tramp who thanked her and ate them with evident appetite. Then Jess toasted him several marshmallows, and though he said he wasn't "any great hand for sweet things," he ate them without further protest.

Fred put more wood on the fire, and as he leaned over to prod it into a better blaze, he saw Ella Mooney slip her hand into the gaping pocket of the shabby jacket the old man wore.

"I'll bet she gave him some money," ran Fred's swift thought. "She's that kind of a girl—while all Carrie can think of is that she may lose her silly sweater."

Ella's eye caught Fred's, and she blushed violently. He shook his head to signify that he would not tell, and she seemed relieved. Meanwhile, Mattie Helms had been asking questions: Where had he come from? Where was he going? Was he a sailor?

"We just sent some messages off in a tin box," she chattered. "Do you suppose maybe sailors on a ship will pick them up, or people on shore?"

"Maybe a ship will sight your box," the old man said slowly. "It's hard to say. Then again, it may never be found—it may float for years and not be picked up."

"I don't see why he doesn't go," Carrie muttered disagreeably to Polly. "I don't think your mother would like us to be talking to an old tramp."

"Why, Carrie, maybe he isn't a tramp! How do you know he doesn't live near here?" expostulated Polly. "And if he is a tramp, what harm is there in letting him sit by our fire? I wish you wouldn't talk so loud—he might hear you."

"Captain Mooney is awfully particular," said Carrie, apparently on another track. "Everybody says he won't let Ella talk to hardly anybody. He won't like it if he finds you had a tramp come to your party."

"Maybe you think I'd better go, young lady?" the old man asked, getting to his feet slowly and painfully. "I'm not welcome here?"

Shy, quiet little Ella Mooney surprised them all by bursting into speech.

"Don't go," she urged earnestly. "We want you to stay."

"I think I'd better go," the old man muttered, and tugged at his beard with both hands.

Carrie shrieked and clutched at Fred.

"Look!" she gasped.

CHAPTER XVIII

SWIMMING RACES

BEFORE nine pairs of astonished eyes, the old man pulled off his curly white beard and let it drop to the ground. He threw off his cap, turned down the collar of his coat, and grinned pleasantly, a grin that strongly reminded them of Fred Williamson when he was in mischief.

"Mr. Williamson!" cried Carrie, and:

"Dad!" Margy shouted together with Fred.

Mr. Williamson's eyes were dancing.

"Well?" he asked, enjoying the variety of expressions on the amazed faces turned to his.

"It was a trick!" Carrie scolded. "I might have known. I suppose you knew who he was all the time."

"I thought it was somebody like Mr. Williamson," said Mattie Helms. "But of course I couldn't be sure."

Fred chuckled, for he had seen Mattie's face when his father removed the beard. If there was ever a surprised girl, Mattie had been surprised.

"You're mistaken, Carrie," said Mr. Williamson pleasantly. "No one knew I was going to play a trick like this—least of all myself. But the temptation to try and fool you all was too much; I couldn't resist it. I went up to the house and got into these duds and raked out the beard from Mrs. Meeker's attic. I think it must be a Hallowe'en trophy."

Carrie's face was red. She would have given anything to have acted differently.

"By the way, Ella, I'll return this to you now. I don't need it, but thank you for the kind little thought," said Mr. Williamson, handing Ella a folded bill he took from the pocket of his coat.

It was Ella's turn to blush, and she did vividly.

"I didn't think you saw me," she said diffidently, putting the five dollars back in her purse.

"I knew I was right," Fred said to himself, and when they covered the fire and made ready to go home, he was the one to suggest that they all walk to the hotel with Ella.

Ordinarily Fred troubled himself very little about social duties, and he had been known to go to some trouble to avoid them.

After Ella had been left at the hotel—where her father was waiting for her on the porch—Carrie and Mattie were escorted to the Helms' bungalow and then the Riddle Club enjoyed a moonlight walk over the deserted beach to their own comfortable cottage.

"Gee, Carrie never will get over the way you fooled us, Daddy," Fred said to his father.

"I'm sorry if I hurt her feelings," declared Mr. Williamson seriously. "It was all a joke."

Polly and Margy and Jess enjoyed talking things over the next day. They were sure that Ella Mooney had had a happy time and really enjoyed the party. When the next week a gracefully-worded little note, addressed to Mrs. Marley, but including every one at Meeker Cottage by name, arrived from Ella, the girls were made doubly sure.

"It was the nicest party I ever went to," wrote Ella. "And I told my father every single thing that happened. I wrote it all down in my diary, too, and some day I will show it to you."

The busy summer days marched along briskly after the beach party. Captain Mooney had asked Mr. Williamson to bring the "young folks" over to see Ella, but one thing and another conspired to put off the visit. Once the Captain even sent his car, but the cottage was closed and every one off on a picnic. Most of the time, the three fathers were at River Bend, and when they were away the car left in the barn was almost useless, since none of the mothers liked very much to run it.

Then, too, truth to tell, the members of the Riddle Club had always been able to amuse themselves in perfect contentment without outside influences. Perhaps, without knowing it, they had grown clannish. They liked Ella more than a little, but they did not miss her, and so Captain Mooney's invitation passed from their minds except when one of the girls happened to recall it by saying:

"I suppose we ought to go and see Ella Mooney next week."

"What do you think!" said Artie one morning at the breakfast table. "I met Albert Holmes, and Joe Anderson is coming down next week to stay another two weeks."

"Now that," Fred remarked, reaching for another muffin, "is my idea of good news! Do you know any more?"

"Yes, I do," the literal-minded Artie informed him. "There's going to be swimming races, and I'm going in 'em."

Ward choked over his oatmeal and Fred stared.

"Why, you can't swim, Artie," said Jess, who was apt to speak frankly.

"Yes, I can. I can swim some," Artie insisted. "I started to learn at Lake Bassing and I have learned some more here. The races are for everybody and they have gold pieces for prizes and I'll put mine in the Riddle Club fund."

He beamed upon them so generously, exactly, Fred said, as though he had already deposited the gold piece in the bank, that it was impossible to try to discourage him.

"But will such little boys go in the races, Artie?" Mrs. Marley asked anxiously.

"Oh, of course, Mother. And I'm bigger than you think I am," her son assured her.

"Is that why Joe Anderson came down?" demanded Margy. "He thinks he is a fine swimmer."

"Now, children, I don't want to hear you begin and pick Joe Anderson to pieces," Mrs. Larue announced half in earnest, half in fun. "I don't think you realize it, but every time Carrie Pepper's name is mentioned, or Joe Anderson's, some one is sure to think of an unkind comment and make it."

"You mean we knock 'em?" said Fred slangily. "Well, all right, I am afraid we do. Let's reform—but Joe Anderson is conceited; any one will tell you that."

Mrs. Larue laughed and said she thought the habit was too strong to be broken easily, but that she hoped they would try.

"We do talk rather—rather—well, you know," said Polly, when the children found themselves alone on the porch. "I'm going to try not to say a word about any one after this, unless it is something nice."

"Tell about the races, Artie," urged Jess. "When are they going to be and where?"

Artie explained that the races were an annual affair, that people paid to see them, and that the money was turned over to the life guards.

"Like a benefit," said Margy wisely.

There were "all kinds of classes," to quote Artie. The expert swimmers swam for distance and speed and tried to establish records. There were classes for beginners and for children under ten. There was a "novice" class for those who had never tried to swim a stroke. There was a class for fat swimmers. Artie suggested that Ward enter this.

"I'll bet it's a heap of fun," said Jess. "Lots of the swimming will be a joke and people just go in it for a good time and to make money for the life guards. I'll tell you what! Let's each one of us enter something. One of us ought to get some kind of prize."

"If six of us go in, we must surely win something for the Riddle Club," added Fred.

They found the rules and regulations for the meet posted in the post-office and an eager group studying them. As Jess had surmised, the swimming itself was more or less of a joke, and the funnier spectacle the swimmers made, the better the audience liked it. The prizes ranged all the way from a ten dollar gold piece for the fastest time in the expert class, to one dollar gold pieces for the children's events. A charge of ten cents was made for each registration, and Artie was so sure that he was going to capture a prize that he made Fred loan him the ten cents and arranged that it was to be counted as his "dues" for the next club meeting and not charged against him.

Ward, much against his will, was entered in the fat swimmer's class for children. Margy, who had resolutely refused to learn to swim, cheerfully entered the novice class. Polly and Fred were registered in the boys' and girls' classes, for swimmers of their age. Artie cast his lot with the youngest beginners, and Jess was to be in the floaters' race.

"Captain Mooney gives the prizes every year," said Carrie Pepper, whom they met as they were coming out of the post-office. "I'm going in and so is Mattie. Are you?"

They said they were, and Carrie volunteered the information that Joe Anderson expected to win the prize for the boys' class and that Albert Holmes was going to float.

"I suppose Captain Mooney will be a judge—some one said he had consented to serve this year," Carrie chattered on. "Have you seen Ella lately?"

"No, Captain Mooney sent his car over for us, but we weren't home," said Margy, who no more could help saying that with an air than Carrie could, had the opportunity been reversed.

"I could shake you, Margy Williamson!" Polly declared indignantly, after they had left Carrie. "You sounded positively boastful."

"But I didn't say anything mean about Carrie, did I?" said Margy, with obvious pride.

Until the day set for the swimming races, the Riddle Club practically lived in the water. Their mothers united in making this statement. Of course a certain amount of practice was necessary for all except Margy, who would have disqualified herself by practice.

"But I hope you are not going to turn into ducks," said Mrs. Marley, pretending to be anxious.

Margy, the neatest needlewoman of the three girls, took pains to see that the letters on their suits were restitched tightly in place. She said that she wanted every one to see "R.C." plainly and to ask what it stood for.

"SHE'S WON!" JESS SHRIEKED OVER AND OVER.

The Riddle Club at Sunrise Beach.      Page 175

"They'll say, 'Who is that boy who just won the race? He has R.C. on his shirt,'" said Artie.

"Artie, you mustn't set your heart on winning," Margy protested. "If you lose, you'll feel dreadful."

"But I won't lose," Artie assured her, with a sunny smile.

The day for the races was bright and cloudless and the banks of the inlet, where they were to be held, was crowded early in the afternoon with spectators. All sat informally on the grass, and the pretty dresses of the women and their bright-hued parasols made lovely splashes of color.

"Say, Captain Mooney isn't going to be a judge," Carrie Pepper announced, meeting Polly in the booth where the numbered badges that identified the swimmers were being distributed. "That is, he was supposed to be one of the judges, but they have just had word that he can't be here."

"I wonder why," mused Polly absently. "Maybe Ella will come and see the races."

"I haven't seen her," Carrie said. "There, they're signaling—we ought to go and line up."

The races followed in quick succession, for there was rather a long program to put through in the single afternoon allotted. One of the summer residents captured the prize for the expert class, and then there were four races for the older boys and girls in none of which the Riddle Club was vitally interested.

But when it came to the race in which Polly was to compete, they followed the event with closest attention. Polly was a fair swimmer, and she did her best evenly and seriously. She came in third, and finished with no other feeling than the one resolve that she would do better the next year.

Fred found it harder to take his defeat at the hands of Joe Anderson. If it had been any one else, he later told the others, he would not have minded. It must be confessed that Joe made the most of his opportunity to display his five dollar gold piece and he would brag a little more than was becoming to the victor, but Fred set his teeth, congratulated him, admired the prize, and set about encouraging Jess and Margy and Artie.

"Fred always expects to win," Carrie Pepper remarked in his hearing. "I guess he was surprised to find he can't come out ahead every time."

Carrie herself frankly said that she didn't mind losing as long as Polly Marley had also lost. If there was one thing, declared Carrie, she could not stand, it was to have the Riddle Club win any more prizes.

"Even if Albert loses, we're ahead," she told Joe gleefully. "You have five dollars and they haven't anything."

Carrie felt that Joe was upholding the honor of the Conundrum Club, despite the fact that he announced loudly he meant to spend his prize for himself.

The last events always attracted more attention and interest than the more serious races. When the novices started off, they were loudly cheered and the way they floundered and puffed and tried to run—at least Margy did—through the water, moved the "gallery" to loud laughter.

Margy, in her own way, was as determined as Artie, and, to gain her end, she simply shut her eyes and forged ahead. She galloped, she trod water, she pulled herself ahead with a sweeping motion. She sank, but she came up again, shook the water from her face and struck out blindly and doggedly.

"Go to it, little seal!" some one on the bank was roaring. "Go to it—you can make it. Just a little farther! Jump, little seal, jump!"

Margy had no idea the man was shouting to her, but she took the advice in good faith. Gathering the last ounce of energy she gave one tremendous hop forward—and came in first, the shouts of the audience ringing in her ears.

"She's won!" Jess shrieked over and over, jumping up and down. "Margy won the race! Girls! boys! did you see her?"

Polly had seen her, but she had also heard something. Back in the crowd a woman's voice was raised in excitement.

"Have you heard about Ella Mooney?" she was asking.

CHAPTER XIX

BAD NEWS

THE dripping Margy was quickly surrounded by a laughing, congratulating group, but even as Polly put her sweater around her, she was wondering about Ella Mooney. Had anything happened to her?

There was no time to ask questions, for there were still three races to be decided. Jess and Artie and Ward were eager to win a prize, and the "fat" class was the next event scheduled.

Just about the plumpest children you ever saw were entered in that race. The mayor of Sunrise Beach was heard to remark that it showed what the sea air could do—he gave the beach all the credit for the fat, healthy children who pranced out on the platform and announced that they were ready.

"Just as though Ward wasn't always fat!" the justly indignant Jess exclaimed. "He's fat in River Bend, the same as here."

At the word, the fat youngsters started, and in their way they were quite as funny as the novice class. They knew something of the swimming strokes, but in their desire to win they abandoned skill in favor of speed and in three seconds most of them were floundering hopelessly.

Ward paid no attention to any one. Desperately he struggled on, his breath coming in gasps, his face red with his exertions.

"All I thought about," he told his comrades afterward, "was keeping a straight line."

This was an excellent thought, in fact, for most of the swimmers went far out of their course and one ambitious competitor actually drifted out beyond the safety mark and had to be rescued by a watchful life guard.

"Go to it, Ward!" Fred shouted suddenly. "Straight ahead! Speed it up!"

Ward had been sure that he could not do another stroke, but now he opened his eyes and obediently "speeded up." A volley of cheers greeted his effort.

"Here, kid, you don't have to go on forever," some one said, reaching down and grabbing him by his belt. "You've won the race—let it go at that, can't you?"

"Gee! Did I win?" Ward's astonishment made his listeners laugh. "Do I get the prize?"

He was assured that he did, and when he saw Fred and Artie the precious gold piece was already in his hand.

"Have you heard about Ella Mooney?" some one in the crowd behind him was saying. "She——"

The rest was lost in the bellow of the announcer's megaphone. The floaters' race was to be run off.

"Wouldn't it be lovely if I should win, too?" said Jess, and they all agreed that it would.

Mrs. Marley thought that a floaters' race sounded "so peaceful," but the actual race was not exactly to be described in those words. True they started peacefully enough, half a dozen children floating gently on their backs, arms spread out as though the rolling swells were comfortable pillows. But alas, none was an experienced floater, and most of them were used to depending on some kind of water wings. One little girl sank from sight almost as soon as she started and was pulled out, choking and sputtering. Jess managed to keep floating for perhaps three minutes longer, and then, much to her surprise, her head went down and her feet went up, as feet sometimes will when one is floating, and the next thing she knew, she came up, far behind the others and feeling as though she had swallowed most of the ocean.

"Never mind, you floated lots longer than you ever did before," Margy told her in an attempt to be consoling.

Polly was aware that there was a great deal of whispering going on among the people on the bank, and an undercurrent of excitement that was vaguely disquieting. But the last race was now to be decided and Artie was so confident that he would win that he really infected the others with his optimism.

"That will make seven dollars for the Riddle Club fund," he announced, as he went to take his place. "The five dollars Margy won and the dollar Ward won and then mine."

It was impossible to argue with any one who was so sure of victory, and Polly found herself wondering what Artie would say or do if he did not win. She hated to see him so eager, for his disappointment would be correspondingly great.

"They say her father is almost crazy," a woman in a bright pink dress said clearly.

"Well, you can't blame him—Ella is all he has, you know," another voice chimed in.

Then the crowd moved closer to the mark where the swimmers were to come in and Polly heard no more.

"Goodness, I hope nothing has happened to Ella Mooney," she thought nervously. "Is that Artie? Why, he is leading—I do believe he is ahead!"

Artie might have retorted "Certainly I'm ahead!" He was not at all surprised to find himself in the lead. He had meant to be there.

But his plans were upset by the frantic appeal of Albert Holmes. He had not distinguished himself in the floaters' class—in fact he had doubled up like a jackknife and dropped out early in the contest, but nothing daunted, he had entered the race for beginners.

"I'm drowning!" gurgled Albert. "I'm drowning—Artie, what'll I do?"

Here he swallowed a generous mouthful of water and began to cry, half from fright and half from the unpleasant taste of the salty water.

Artie was exasperated. It was bad enough to have to swim his head off, so he thought irritably, without being called upon to stage a rescue. Still, he could not very well let Albert drown. He wished some one else would look after him, but the other children were intent on winning the race and they paid no attention to Albert's moanings. They had troubles of their own.

"I suppose I'll have to help him," groaned Artie. "I never can do anything I want to do. Hush up!" he added rudely to Albert, who was beginning to thrash around wildly. "If you don't keep still, I'll leave you where you are."

Artie would rescue Albert, if no one else would, but he was not the boy to let a little thing like that interfere with his first and foremost intention. He still planned to win the race.

"Keep kicking your feet," he ordered Albert and, with a sudden backward sweep of his arm, he grabbed the astonished lad by his hair.

The crowd laughed and cheered, but Artie paid no attention. He knew what he meant to do, and with grim determination he forged ahead, swimming a queer, one-sided stroke and dragging Albert along by main force.

It is doubtful if Artie could have won, had not the other swimmers allowed their attention to be distracted by his performance. But they were so interested to see what he was doing and Albert made so much noise, too, that they turned their heads and one or two stopped swimming and floated, the better to watch.

"Great guns, he's done it!" Fred cried, a few minutes later. "Artie's won the race!"

And Artie, "I told you so" in every line of his expressive face, held up Albert with one hand and took his gold piece with the other, quite as though he was accustomed to doing double duty.

"I said I was going to win," was all the comment he made when the other members of the Riddle Club descended upon him to congratulate him.

"Carrie Pepper is looking for you!" a girl in the crowd called to Polly, as, the races over, the audience began to break up and drift away.

"Well, you needn't look for Carrie Pepper," Fred said crossly, but Polly stopped him.

"Here comes Carrie now," she said. "I wonder what she wants?"

Carrie burst into speech as soon as she caught sight of the Riddle Club, all gathered in a bunch.

"Have you heard about Ella Mooney?" she cried.

Polly took a step forward.

"I heard people talking," she said anxiously. "Has anything happened to Ella?"

"Well, you know I thought there was something the matter as soon as I heard Captain Mooney didn't come to serve as a judge for the races," stated Carrie with evident enjoyment. She did so like to be the first to tell a piece of news. "Ella Mooney," went on Carrie, "has disappeared. She's gone, and no one can find her. They think she may have been kidnaped and will be held for ransom."

"Oh, my!" squeaked Artie, but Polly was too distressed to speak for a moment.

"What ever will her father do?" asked Margy. "He thinks there never was a girl like Ella."

"Is she really lost?" Polly said. "How long has she been gone?"

Carrie was now surrounded by a circle of interested faces, for her voice had carried and the mention of Ella Mooney's name always held interest for any of the Sunrise Beach folk.

"She's been missing since last night," said Carrie importantly. "That is, since yesterday afternoon, really. Her father saw her at lunch, and he hasn't laid eyes on her since. She took her pony out of the stable, and they found that tied to the post back of the post-office. But Ella has completely disappeared."

"How awful," said Polly. "I don't see what can have happened to her. You don't suppose any one thinks for a minute that she really has been kidnaped?"

"Her father does," said a man in the listening crowd. "I heard this morning he was going to have bills printed, offering a reward. There's Jim Collins now—I'll bet he is posting 'em."

The eyes of all followed the direction of his pointing finger. A man in overalls was pasting something on a telegraph pole across the road. With one accord, the crowd surged over to read the placard.

"It's offering one hundred dollars reward for information!" ran the quick whisper. "One hundred dollars for information that will lead to finding Ella Mooney. The Captain must be just about wild, for Ella is the apple of his eye."

Jubilant as the Riddle Club were over their success in the swimming matches, the news that Ella Mooney had disappeared saddened them and made them anxious. They knew that she had never spent a night away from home, and Polly, especially, could picture her vividly as lonely and frightened, perhaps held against her will by strange and cruel people who would demand a large sum of money for her return.

Little else was talked of that night, and the next morning Captain Mooney drove up in his car to the Meeker Cottage and asked if they had seen Ella the day she disappeared.

"She was so fond of you and she talked so much about the Riddle Club," the Captain said, "that I thought she might have ridden over to see you. I never knew her to leave the grounds without letting me know where she was going, but I had a conference that afternoon with several business men and I suppose Ella did not like to interrupt me."

Captain Mooney looked as though he had spent a sleepless night, and he went away as soon as he found that the Riddle Club could give him no news of his missing daughter. He did drink the coffee Mrs. Marley insisted on giving him, however, and he mentioned that he had heard of the three prizes won the day before. He said that Ella would be glad to know the Riddle Club had captured them.

"You wouldn't think he'd even remember any of us won a race, would you?" said Polly. "Every one says he is the kindest man. But what do you suppose can have happened to Ella?"

The boys and girls did not feel like going swimming that morning, but they went down to the beach and were idly picking up shells when the put-put of a motor boat sounded close inshore.

"That's Larry," Fred said. "I wonder where he is going? He chases up and down the coast exactly like a delivery wagon."

"It must be fun to sail in that old boat," said Jess idly.

Just then Larry hailed them gayly. He was a middle-aged man, known to half the town and all the fishermen. No one had ever seen Larry ill-tempered or in a hurry.

"Want a little trip?" Larry called cheerily. "I'm going up to Glen Haven and back—won't take long."

"Let's go!" urged Margy. "Mother won't care."

"Run down to the wharf and I'll take you on," Larry yelled good-naturedly.

They scampered for the old wharf some yards farther down the beach, and when the shabby motor boat came alongside, dropped one by one into the tiny hold.

"Too nice a day to stay on land," said Larry, whose weather-beaten face was wrinkled with smiles. "I have to take a picnic party out this afternoon, and I'm running up the coast for some special supplies."

"Where's the picnic going?" asked Polly, more as a reply than from curiosity.

"Blackberry Island—prettiest place around here," Larry answered. "If you haven't been there, that's one place you ought to see."

"Girls, why don't we have a picnic of our own?" said Jess eagerly. "Why don't we go to Blackberry Island?"

CHAPTER XX

POLLY SAVES THE DAY

THE more Jess thought about Blackberry Island, the surer she was that her happiness depended on a picnic there. The others were inclined to enjoy the present—the salty breeze blowing in their faces, the swift motion of the boat through the green water, and the sense of being quite cut off from the land, though they could see the shore line plainly.

"Wouldn't it be funny if we should pick up our own tin box?" giggled Jess. "You know, the one we put the messages in when we had our beach party."

"Poor Ella Mooney wrote a message, too," Polly sighed. "I guess we never thought then that she would disappear."

"Larry, what do you think has happened to her?" asked Fred curiously.

Of course Larry knew Captain Mooney and his daughter. He knew every one who lived within a twenty-five-mile radius of Sunrise Beach.

"What do I think has happened to her?" he repeated. "Well, I'll tell you. I think she has been kidnaped—that's what I think. Kidnaped and carried off, because her pa is rich and the kidnapers count on getting a mint of money from the Captain."

Larry was so confident that Ella had been kidnaped that the children accepted his theory without further speculation. They spent an hour in Glen Haven, while Larry made his purchases, and on the way home, Jess renewed her argument for a picnic.

"It's up to you," Larry declared. "If your ma is willing and says the word, I'll take you all over to the island and turn you loose. I can't hang around a whole day, but I'll take you early and come after you when you want to come home."

"Let's go," Jess urged again. "I want to see Blackberry Island. Mother will let us go, if we all say we want to."

And as soon as they were deposited on their own beach, she insisted that they go up to the cottage and see what the prospects were for a picnic at Blackberry Island.

"To-morrow would be a good day, because I'm hired for the rest of this week," Larry called after them. "If you can't go to-morrow, better put it off for a week."

Now Jess, like other girls, had no mind to wait a week for something she wanted very much indeed.

"It may pour rain all next week," she declared. "I'm going to ask if we can go to-morrow."

When the three mothers heard about Blackberry Island, they were just a bit dubious.

But Mr. Larue proved an unexpected ally. Both Mr. Williamson and Mr. Marley were in River Bend, but they were expected back that night.

"Let the kids have their picnic on Blackberry Island without any grown-ups to tag along and bother them," said Mr. Larue. "I know this Larry—he is absolutely trustworthy and nothing can happen to them under his care. Blackberry Island is a pretty place and safe, too. Then, with the children out of the way, what is to hinder a motor trip and picnic for the rest of us? I'm not so old that I can't enjoy an all day picnic."

"Well," said Mrs. Marley uncertainly, "if you mean to have two picnics to-morrow, I'd better see to putting the chicken on to cook."

Artie gave a joyous whoop and landed on the arm of his mother's chair.

"That means we can go!" he cried, kissing her. "When Mother begins to think about the eats, everything is as good as settled."

They all laughed, but they agreed with Artie.

And for the rest of the day Meeker Cottage was a very busy place indeed. One picnic, you know, is something to get ready for, but two simply doubles the excitement.

"I think we'll fix individual boxes of lunch," said Mrs. Marley to Mrs. Larue. "Then each will have something to carry, and it seems fairer than if one or two have to carry everything. I'm glad the children are going, because it will take their minds off poor little Ella Mooney."

Meanwhile Fred was busy giving advice to Artie.

"Now, whatever you do," he told him, "don't go publishing all over the place that we are going on a picnic to-morrow. Because, if you do, you know what will happen: Carrie Pepper and Mattie Helms will invite themselves and Joe Anderson and Albert Holmes will come along for good measure."

Artie was no more anxious for this calamity to befall their party than Fred, and he said so.

"Carrie says she would like to find where Ella Mooney is and get the hundred dollars," announced Artie.

"Huh, I'd like to find Ella Mooney and tell her father to keep his hundred dollars," Fred declared.

But Margy had already confided to Polly that she would like to find Ella "somewhere 'way off" and take her home and have the reward to put in the bank.

"In place of the money Mother wouldn't let me take for finding the diamond ring," Margy added.

Polly said little, but she thought more about Ella than any one, except perhaps her mother, suspected. She knew that Ella was quiet and rather timid and had been used to being taken care of all her life. She would, Polly thought, be afraid of strangers.

In the afternoon it happened that there was no one to go for the mail except Artie. Fred and Ward had gone to tell Larry to meet them at half past eight in the morning with his motor boat and the three girls were busy wrapping sandwiches.

Artie liked to go to the post-office, especially when, as in this instance, he had money for an ice-cream soda to cool the end of the long walk.

"I'll get my soda first," decided Artie, when he reached the town.

As luck would have it, two people were ahead of him at the soda fountain in the drug store. Carrie Pepper and Mattie Helms were discussing the merits of vanilla or chocolate ice-cream when in marched Artie and climbed up on one of the high stools before he recognized them.

"Hello, Artie!" Carrie greeted him, and Artie was so afraid that she would begin and ask him questions that he said "Hello" as briefly as possible and ordered his soda.

Carrie wanted to know how "all the folks were," and Artie answered her as though he had not a minute to spare.

But he was no match for Carrie Pepper, who was very observant. She guessed at once, from Artie's manner, that he was trying to conceal something.

"You haven't heard from Ella Mooney, have you?" she asked abruptly.

Artie shook his head.

"If Polly is going to be at home to-morrow, tell her Mattie and I will come over," Carrie said placidly.

This was dreadful and Artie floundered.

"She—she won't be at home," he stammered. "That is, I don't think she will be."

"Well, Jess or Margy will do," Carrie returned. "I want to ask them something."

"They won't be home, either," said Artie. "Nobody will be at home to-morrow."

"Won't your mother?" Mattie inquired curiously.

Artie shook his head.

"Are you going some place?" prodded Carrie.

"We're going on a picnic," poor Artie announced, swallowing an extremely cold spoonful of ice-cream before he was ready. "We're going to Blackberry Island."

Carrie merely said, "Oh," but he was sure she was thinking this information over. In a panic he slipped down from his seat and almost ran for the door. He dashed into the post-office, got the mail, and ran most of the way home.

"Where's Polly?" he demanded of his mother excitedly.

He found her out in the barn, hunting the lid of the vacuum bottle which Ward remembered leaving in the car.

"Polly, what do you think?" Artie cried unhappily, and then he told her of the meeting with Carrie.

Polly comforted him by saying that she was sure he would not have told Carrie if he could have helped it.

"But just the same, she and Mattie can't go on our picnic," Artie's sister declared firmly. "There isn't room enough in the boat and they'll spoil our fun. I must think up some way to make them stay at home."

Artie was sure his sister could be trusted to think up a way, and he felt better immediately.

"You didn't tell her what time we were going to leave, did you?" said Polly, when she had thought for a few moments.

No, luckily, that was one question Artie had not been asked.

"Then I know what we can do," returned Polly. "Come on and we'll find the rest and tell them."

There was a hurried and whispered conference out on the porch and an admonition from Polly, "remember no one is to say a word, except Margy to me," and then the picnic preparations went ahead with a rush.

Perhaps the older folks were a little surprised that evening after supper to see Carrie and Mattie come up the path. But the Riddle Club members were not surprised.

"We thought we'd come over for a little while," said Carrie blandly. "It is such a lovely evening, don't you want to take a walk on the beach?"

It was on the tip of Jess's tongue to say she was tired and that they expected to get up early in the morning, but she stopped in time. Margy spoke of the next day.

"I don't believe I'll go," she drawled lazily. "I'm tired from working so hard to-day, getting ready for to-morrow. I want to get to bed early."

Carrie said nothing, but she exchanged a glance with Mattie.

"You won't forget to call me, will you, Polly?" went on Margy clearly.

"No, I won't forget," Polly promised. "What time shall I call you?"

Margy appeared to be thinking. Fred pinched Artie gently as a reminder to keep still.

"Oh, if we don't leave till half past nine, I guess seven o'clock would be early enough," Margy decided.

Polly and Jess went for a walk with Carrie and Mattie, and not a word was said about picnics. Margy asked particularly, when her chums came back.

"But just the same, if Carrie Pepper gets down to the wharf at half past nine to-morrow morning, she won't find us," said Jess.

"Maybe she doesn't intend to go," Polly murmured dubiously.

And from the boys' room overhead came a derisive snort. They had been listening with the door open into the hall.

CHAPTER XXI

A CONTRARY ENGINE

"IT'S a bright morning and you're like it," Larry greeted the Riddle Club with enthusiasm at quarter past eight the next morning.

The Meeker Cottage had been early astir, and the zeal displayed by the younger members of the household was marveled at.

"Even though a picnic is to be the attraction, I never remember seeing such a concerted desire to be off," Mr. Marley remarked.

"Well, we can't be late," replied Ward, and all the Riddle Club giggled at some secret joke.

They were ahead of time, each with a large square box of lunch in one hand and a heavy sweater in the other. The mothers had insisted on the sweaters. The grown-ups had started in the car almost as soon as the Blackberry Island party left, and Polly felt relieved, for she believed that if Carrie's desire for a picnic was too strong, she might prevail upon the motorists to take her with them.

"And I do think they ought to have one day without any children to bother them," Polly confided to Fred and Jess.

"Especially Carrie," Fred agreed, with a grin.

Larry helped the girls and boys into the boat, and then made them nervous by tinkering with the engine.

"There's nothing the matter with it," he explained; "but I want it to run a bit smoother. We'll be off in a jiffy now."

Until the engine sputtered cheerfully, six pairs of anxious eyes kept watch on the wharf. Quarter past eight was not half past nine, but, as Ward said dismally, "you never can tell."

However, long before half past nine they were well out to sea and heading down the coast for the famous Blackberry Island.

"I suppose there are blackberries on it," mused Artie, who was always interested in names.

"It used to be a solid tangle of briars and bushes," Larry informed him. "Late years, it's been trimmed up and a stone fireplace built where you can do cooking. And before that, my father used to tell, the finest blackberries in the state was raised there. Big, cultivated ones—some man tried experiments and took the island because nobody could steal his secrets."

Jess wanted to know where he was now.

"Oh, I suspect he died and is buried and forgotten," Larry concluded cheerfully.

It was a hot day with a calm sea. Larry had grumbled at the start that he didn't like the looks of that sea.

"Why, there isn't a ripple on it," Fred said, surprised. "It's as smooth as glass."

"And the color of lead," declared Larry. "If the wind doesn't come up before night, I miss my guess."

Ward had put his lunch box with the others, but Polly detected him taking several looks at it, and once she saw him pinch the corners. Something had to be done to distract his attention, she felt sure.

"Ward," she said suddenly, "why must the model of a boat be always correct?"

Larry leaned forward, his oily rag poised in mid-air.

"That a riddle?" he demanded. "I used to be a great hand for riddles when I was young."

"You did?" Polly beamed. "Oh, perhaps you know some new ones. We have a Riddle Club, you know, and we love to hear new riddles."

Larry had to hear about the Riddle Club then and there, and even Ward forgot the tantalizing nearness of the lunches. Larry had never heard of a riddle club, but he thought it was a fine plan and said he would like to come to a meeting some day.

"We're not holding regular meetings this summer," Fred explained. "But if you ever come to River Bend, you be sure and come and see our clubrooms. We have two—a winter one and a spring and summer one."

Then Larry suggested that Ward had not answered the riddle Polly had given.

"Why must the model of a boat be always correct?" Polly repeated.

"So folks can sail it and not have it sink," said Ward.

"Now, is that any kind of an answer?" Polly demanded patiently.

"Well, I guess it is a hard one and I don't know the answers to hard ones," said Ward sadly.

Margy could not guess and Jess, after two wild attempts, also gave up.

"Let me think," said Artie, when it was his turn, and he went off into one of his thinking spells from which he emerged several minutes later with the suggestion that perhaps there was no answer.

"Isn't it a trick riddle?" he asked engagingly.

"Certainly not!" his sister announced coldly. "Do you know, Fred?"

Fred rose to his feet and bowed, not an easy thing to manage in a small boat going at high speed and trembling from bow to stern with the bursting energy of her busy engine.

"I have the honor, ladies and gentlemen," squeaked Fred, in a high voice, "to tell you the answer to the riddle. Why must the model of a boat be always correct? Because it must be shipshape."

"Ha-ha!" boomed Larry. "That's a good one. Because it must be always shipshape! Now I wonder who thought that up!"

As usual, Ward and Artie wanted an explanation.

"Shipshape means neat and tidy, in good order, nothing out of place," recited Fred obligingly. "Everything as it should be—correct, in other words."

"And you know what a model is," Polly reminded the two younger boys.

"Well, it's a queer riddle, but it may be all right," admitted Ward. "Now let Larry tell one."

Larry scratched his head and said he would have to take a little time. While he was thinking he tightened up several screws and nuts on the engine and changed the position of the rudder slightly.

"Ha!" he said at last, clearing his throat so deeply that he made Margy jump. "I recollect a good one now! What is the resemblance between a part of the year and a sailor?"

"Part of the year?" echoed Ward. "What part?"

"Any part you like," Larry answered promptly.

This was one of those deceiving riddles that sounded easy and was not. Margy was sure she had solved it, and she offered her answer before any one else was ready to report.

"Because they're both stormy?" she asked Larry.

Artie protested that a sailor wasn't stormy and Margy confessed that she had been thinking of the sea, not the sailor.

"Maybe it is because they have ragged sailors," Jess submitted. "I mean when the flowers come, you know," she hastened to explain. "And some sailors are ragged."

"If their wives don't mend 'em up, the way mine does me, they are ragged," said Larry. "But that isn't the way the answer goes, as I remember it."

Fred was frowning with his effort to solve the riddle.

"Not because they both wear blue?" he suggested. "Some flowers are blue, you know, and the hills are in the distance and the ocean—lots of times."

Larry shook his head and tapped a nut with his monkey wrench.

"She's knocking again," he muttered. "No, Fred, I begin to think you're a better fisherman than you are a riddle solver."

Polly almost had an idea—she opened her mouth and closed it again.

"I know exactly what it is," she said in a moment. "I'm just as sure I have it! Wait till I get it straight. Ocean—water—sea—that's it!" she cried in triumph. "Both are seasons! Isn't that it, Larry?"

Larry smiled at her proudly.

"They made no mistake when they put you at the head of the Riddle Club," he said admiringly. "'Tis right you are. Seasons—sea sons—is the answer."

"I thought of the four seasons," Polly explained. "Then I tried the water and ocean and all the words that mean the sea. I though of 'sea' last, and that was the word I wanted all the time."

"Tell another, Larry," begged Artie. "Tell an easy one that I can guess."

"What makes an engine stop when you count on her doing her prettiest?" Larry muttered half angrily. "It's dead she is."

Artie thought he was asking a riddle till he noticed that Larry was staring at the engine. That complicated affair of oily black plates and screws was coughing feebly, and as Artie looked at it that noise stopped. The boat began to drift.

"Dead!" pronounced Larry. "Well, I suppose I can start it with a little coaxing. Which one of you lads is after wanting to help me?"

All three of the boys and Jess hurled themselves forward with offers of help, but Larry selected Fred.

"The rest of you keep from falling overboard," he directed grimly. "I cannot be rescuing you in the middle of the ocean with a dead motor on my hands. If you fall over you have to sink or float without any help from me."

No one had the slightest desire to tumble into that lead-colored sea. It looked to be very deep where they were, and indeed they were out farther than they had ever been. The shore was a dim, indistinct line of gray.

Fred held Larry's tools for him, squinted obediently when told to "see if you can see where that screw has buried itself," and handed the oil can and waste rags as Larry demanded them.

"I don't know what's the matter with it, unless it is the heat," announced Larry, almost crossly. "Maybe she will start now."

But the engine refused to sputter or cough and the boat lay as calmly on the water as though it had been anchored.

"It's half-past twelve," said Larry, glancing at his watch. "I suppose we might as well have a bite to eat and then go at it again."

Polly reached out her hand for the lunch boxes, but to her surprise, he stopped her.

"I never go without some rations," he said. "And there is drinking water. But if you don't mind plain fare, I think you'd better eat my grub. Save that stuff in the boxes, because it is wrapped up and will keep."

"My goodness, to hear you talk, you'd think we were going to spend the summer on the Clara," Margy said lightly. "I'm so thirsty I could drink a barrel of water."

Larry brought out a store of cheese and crackers and passed them around, and when they had finished eating, he gave each one a small cup of water.

"Next time you can have more," he said gravely. "If we don't get started, food and water will keep you cheerful and it's better to go up in the world than to come down."

By this he meant that it would be easier for them to eat the plainer food first than to eat the best and then be forced to come to less attractive rations.

"But we won't have any time to stay at Blackberry Island, if we don't get there pretty soon," said Margy, after lunch.

Larry did not appear to hear. He was struggling into a heavy jacket that he took from a box on the floor.

"Better put on your sweaters," he advised quietly. "A blow is coming."

None of the children knew what a "blow" was, but they put on their sweaters and then looked in the direction Larry was staring.

"The ocean looks different over there. Is it the wind?" asked Polly.

Larry nodded. In a few moments they saw white caps scudding beyond them and then a murmur that was the wind rising rapidly.

"Here she comes!" cried Larry, seizing the rudder. "Hold fast!"

With a shriek, the wind pounced upon the boat and sent it scudding. Margy clung to Polly and Fred grasped Artie by the arm—he was actually afraid the lighter boy would be blown overboard. Polly opened her eyes in time to see something dark over her right shoulder. Larry shouted something she could not hear.

CHAPTER XXII

ALL ADRIFT

"WHAT is it?" Polly screamed against the wind. "What are you saying, Larry?"

Larry jerked his head backward and shouted again.

"I can't hear a word he says," protested Polly, as the three girls huddled closer together in the bottom of the boat.

"It's something about Blackberry Island," Jess said, as loudly as she could.

"Oh!" and Polly seemed to understand. "Perhaps the wind is blowing us toward the island," she added hopefully.

But when fifteen minutes later a huge wave broke over the boat and Larry set the boys to bailing with heavy tin cans, Polly learned that they were not blowing toward the island.

"That was Blackberry Island we passed back there, a little after the wind came up," Larry shouted, leaning across Fred to make them hear. "We're miles beyond it now, and no telling where we'll end up."

Margy was frightened and Polly was worried because she did not see how they were to get home if they were blowing farther off the coast all the time. To Jess, it was something of a daring adventure. None of them was really aware of the seriousness of the situation. It did not occur to them that a disabled motor boat might easily be blown out to sea and either be wrecked in the storm or drift beyond the reach of help. The supply of food and water—especially water—on board was not large, and many thoughts were racing through Larry's mind of which he made no mention.

They did not ship another wave, and by the time the boys had bailed the Clara fairly dry, it seemed to Fred that the wind was not blowing so hard. He spoke of it to Larry.

"Yes, she's slowing up, I reckon," admitted Larry. "But don't fool yourself that all the damage is done. When a wind gets started, seems like it has to blow all its tricks and do all the damage it can, then it goes off to find a new place to torment."

"Let's—let's ask riddles," suggested Polly, in a voice that to her dismay persisted in sounding shaky. "We can't have supper yet," and she managed a little laugh that coaxed a wavering smile to the serious faces surrounding her.

"Perhaps we'll have supper at home," Fred said, trying to cheer them up in his own way. "Won't Mother laugh when we come back with our lunches still in the boxes?"

Larry said nothing, but his eyes scanned the dark clouds anxiously.

"I'll ask you a riddle," Polly announced. "Now listen—it's a brand new one Daddy told me. When does the ocean resemble a horse that has broken loose from his stable?"

"Huh, when it kicks everything in sight," Ward said, scowling at the choppy sea.

Polly laughed and admitted that he "sounded right."

"But that isn't the answer," she declared firmly.

Fred turned around so that his back was to the wind.

"When it's on the rampage?" he inquired hopefully.

Larry chuckled at that, and said he thought there might be more than one answer to a riddle.

"Not more than one that really counts," Polly insisted.

"Well, tell us what it is," begged Margy. "I can't think how the ocean can possibly be like a horse."

Artie snickered and murmured that he had "read about sea horses in a book."

"The riddle answer is 'When the tied runs out,'" Polly explained. "The tide of the ocean, you see, and the horse that was tied."

"Who do you suppose invents riddles?" speculated Margy.

No one knew, but Ward was bursting with the desire to give them one.

"Who," he shouted, for the wind was still blowing steadily, "is the smallest man in the world?"

"Tom Thumb," said Artie, moving his feet to keep them out of a puddle.

"He was make-believe," said Margy scornfully.

"Well, maybe he wasn't," Jess demurred. "Some of the fairy stories must have been true."

Ward argued that if a fairy story was true, it wasn't a fairy story and Larry was inclined to agree with this point of view.

"Just the same, I think it was Tom Thumb," the obstinate Artie declared. "If it wasn't, who is?"

Margy pulled her sweater more closely around her. They were all thankful that they had brought the warm garments with them, though at the time they started a sweater had seemed quite useless.

"It's such a hot day we'll perish with the heat," Margy had grumbled.

"Who is the smallest man in the world?" mused Fred. "It must be some midget, but how are we going to tell?"

Ward shook his head so violently that he was almost dizzy.

"A midget has nothing to do with it," he announced. "You don't even have to think of midgets."

"If it isn't a midget, I don't know what it is," Margy said. "I give up."

Polly and Fred echoed her surrender reluctantly. They, too, could not think of an answer that might fit.

"I don't give up," said Artie. "But I can't think of the answer. That is, not in a hurry."

Jess was of the same mind, and Larry shook his head when appealed to.

Ward consented to give the answer after Fred insisted that they could not "wait forever" for Artie to think.

"The smallest man in the world," he informed them, "is a sailor. It's funny you couldn't guess that."

Five members of the Riddle Club sat up with a jerk. They were so indignant that they forgot to scold about the wind or the crippled motor.

"A sailor!" cried Jess. "I knew you'd forgotten the answer yourself!"

"A sailor isn't the smallest man in the world." This from Fred. "Look at Larry."

"Well, there's more to it," Ward admitted. "The whole answer is that the smallest man in the world is the sailor who sleeps in his watch."

Larry laughed loudly, though the others appeared to be mystified.

"Ha! ha!" chortled Larry. "That's a good one. If I had had my wits about me, I could have figured that out. Sleeps in his watch! Ha! ha!"

"Well, how could he?" Polly asked dubiously.

"There's a catch in it," Larry explained, still smiling. "A watch on shipboard, you know, doesn't mean the kind of timepiece you carry in your pocket."

"I know!" cried Jess eagerly. "It's the time sailors are on duty."

"Do they go to sleep then?" Margy wanted to know, and Larry said they didn't if they knew what they were about.

"I think that's a pretty good riddle," pronounced Fred judiciously.

"I always know good ones," Ward declared, and Artie fell over upon him with crushing effect.

Fred now made a discovery, a not unpleasant one.

"The wind is dying down!" he cried. "Say, it doesn't begin to blow the way it did."

"If I could get this pesky engine started, we might get home to-night, after all," Larry muttered.

Polly and Margy exchanged startled glances. They had expected to go home as a matter of course. But, now they stopped to think of it, if the engine refused to start, how were they to get back to Sunrise Beach?

"Get home to-night!" Jess echoed. "Oh, what will we do if we can't get home?"

"If we had a wireless, we could get help," said Artie.

"Never heard of a wireless on a plain motor boat," Larry declared. "Hardly ever go out of sight of land. Just the same, if I had a set and could work it, we might do better than we're doing now."

"Why!" said Polly, with a startled cry. "Look! We can't see— What is it?"

Something soft and dense and gray was fast closing in around them.

"Fog!" Larry said briefly.

There it was—like a blanket—and to their alarmed senses, almost as smothering.

"Suppose—suppose we run into something!" stammered Margy fearfully.

"Well, suppose we don't!" Larry retorted cheerfully. "I don't think there's much danger and, if you ask me, I should say the most important thing to think about is, 'what can we have to eat?' If you're as hungry as I am, you'll be opening those boxes in a minute or two. But better save a snack, in case we have to drift till breakfast time."

It seemed to the older children that Larry's tone sounded a bit forced, and he did not change his position at the tiller when they opened the lunch boxes. On his earnest advice, they ate lightly, though Ward in particular was hungry and said so.

"Never did believe in overeating," said Larry grimly. He had eaten one sandwich, and now gave them each a small cupful of water.

"What time is it?" asked Fred presently, wishing that he could stop thinking about the hot clam chowder their mothers always prepared if the night turned cool.

"Ten after six," Larry replied, glancing at his watch. "Looks as if we'll have to make a night of it."

"But—but—stay out on the ocean all night?" quavered Margy. "Without any beds or anything?"

"It won't be so bad," said Jess, trying her best to feel that this was only an exciting adventure, but failing utterly.

"I've got a couple of old blankets tucked away somewhere and they'll keep you warm. Now the wind's gone down, there's nothing to worry about," Larry assured her, with far more cheerfulness than he felt.

"But our mothers will worry," Margy objected.

"Well, of course, they'll wonder where we are," said Fred. "But I guess they can figure out that if Larry and his boat don't come back, we're somewhere all together. Here's a blanket, Polly; better wrap up."

The blanket smelled of oil, for it had been crammed into a small cupboard close to the engine, but its extra warmth was very welcome. The fog was cold and damp, and, deprived of the sun, the sea seemed cold and depressing.

Polly made Jess and Margy sit down close together and wrapped them in one fold. Then she twisted herself in beside them and Fred pulled the end over her. They were wrapped snugly, "like caramels," Jess said.

"Try to go to sleep," Larry advised. "I'm sorry there isn't room to stretch out, but I guess you can manage forty winks the way you are."

Margy was sure she could never sleep in her cramped position, but before long the three heads were nodding and the girls slept as serenely as though they had been in their comfortable beds at home. Ward and Artie, on the floor, pillowed their heads against their sisters' knees and slept also, but Fred sat beside Larry and watched.

When Polly awoke with a start, several hours later, she looked up into a sky thickly spangled with stars. The fog had lifted and the boat was drifting before a stiff breeze. As soon as her eyes became accustomed to the inky blackness, she made out two figures sitting erect and silent.

"Is that you, Fred?" she called softly. "Where—where are we?"

The shorter figure stirred, and Fred crawled stiffly across the narrow little seat to speak to her.

"It's midnight," he said. "Aren't the stars pretty?"

CHAPTER XXIII

ONE NIGHT AT SEA

POLLY was stiff and a little cold. Her neck hurt, for she had bent it forward while she slept as there was nothing against which she could rest it for support. Very cautiously she crawled out of the blanket and stood up.

"Isn't it still," she cried softly. "What are the little lights?"

There were two tiny lights lit on the Clara, a red and a green one.

"Starboard and port," Larry informed her, his good-nature as steadfast as ever.

"Is the engine still broken?" asked Polly, fearing that this was a delicate question, but anxious to learn.

"Dead as a door nail," Larry responded. "Can't raise a choke. I'm blest if I know what the trouble is. I cleaned the spark plug particular yesterday, so that can't be the answer."

He bent over the engine again and Fred held a flashlight for him.

"I never was up at midnight before," whispered Polly, a little thrilled in spite of her uncomfortableness. "Look how funny it looks way off there—like something white coming up."

"Fog," Larry said briefly. "Have to sound our horn this time, too. I don't know where we are. Suppose it will wake up the other kids?"

"What kind of a horn?" asked Fred eagerly. "I didn't know you had one! Let me blow it, Larry?"

"Have to have a fog horn—law says so," Larry jerked out. "The Clara's horn wasn't built for ocean work, so don't laugh when you hear it. Pull that cord there on your right."

Fred seized the bit of frayed cord and pulled with right good will. Something gave a funny squeak that woke up Margy and Jess and Ward and Artie so suddenly that it was a mercy they didn't tumble overboard.

"What was that?" cried Margy.

"Fog horn," Fred told her cheerfully. "Want to hear it again?"

"It sounds like a calf bawling," said Jess critically. "Let me make it go, Fred."

Larry nodded, and Fred relinquished the rope. Jess jerked it blissfully for a few seconds, and then Artie clamored for the honor.

"The more the merrier," was Larry's comment. "A fog horn is a good thing to keep going a night like this—morning, rather."

The soft white fog had shut down on them again, and the squeak of the little fog horn had a pitiful sound to Polly's sensitive ear.

"It sounds like a little lost boat, doesn't it?" she whispered to Jess. "As if a little boat was out at sea and was afraid."

Suddenly a long drawn-out, hoarse call drifted over the water to them. It sounded far off and yet powerful.

"Gee, that's a steamer, isn't it?" said Fred. "I'll bet that is one of the coastwise boats. Larry, could a boat come along and run us down before we knew it?"

"I wouldn't exactly say that," was Larry's careful response. "But I do know that if any getting out of the way was done, the other fellow would have to do it. As far as navigation is concerned, we're not in business."

"But that boat isn't very near, is it?" Margy urged fearfully.

"No. Miles off," was the cheerful answer. "We're not in much danger of being run down, though I fancy keeping that horn going won't be a bad thing in any case; we might get help that way."

The fact that it was after midnight captured Jess's fancy as it had Polly's.

"Is it really to-morrow morning?" she asked.

"This morning," Larry corrected. "To-morrow is another day now."

A low chuckle from Artie, who had given Ward the privilege of sounding the horn, surprised them all.

"Say, we might be worse off," he announced, as though he had recently made a discovery.

"I'm glad you think so," said Larry. "But, barring a great storm, I am the least bit inclined to doubt your excellent theory."

"Suppose—" Artie suggested, "just suppose we had Mattie Helms and Carrie Pepper with us!"

"My goodness, wouldn't they be furious!" cried Margy, laughing. "They would never forgive us in the world if we kept them out all night like this. Carrie would say that was a nice way to behave—invite her to a picnic and then have the engine break down."

"They'll be mad, anyway," Jess observed, "because we came off and let them think we were to leave an hour later."

"All I hope is that Mother doesn't worry," said Ward, and Polly silently wondered where Ella Mooney was and whether she had been found.

They were all rather silent for half an hour or so, each busy with his or her own thoughts. Jess was finally discovered in tears.

"My foot's asleep," she wept. "And I'm thirsty and I want to lie down to sleep—my neck hurts."

"I'll rub it for you," Polly offered.

"And there's no reason why you shouldn't all have a drink of water," said Larry kindly. "A sandwich, too, maybe, though if you'll take my advice, you will save the food that's left for breakfast."

He measured out the water for them to drink and not a sandwich was touched, though Ward whispered to Artie that he was sure he would starve to death before morning.

"Won't hurt you if you lose five or ten pounds," said Artie coldly.

"Now don't get scrappy," Larry intervened. "The real test of shipmates is whether they can stand bad luck and remain friends. It's easy enough to like the other fellow when you are warm and dry and comfortable. But if you like him and don't feel like tossing him overboard when you have a stiff neck and your shoes are wet and you're dead for the want of a good night's sleep—well, that shows you're not a fair-weather friend, but one to be trusted."

"Isn't it queer, it is so cold?" said Margy. "This is summer; but I do believe I would be comfortable in a fur collar."

"Always cool off shore and at night like this," Larry explained.

Polly sat down on the floor and threw an arm about Jess, pulling her chum's head to a rest on her shoulder.

"Crouch down here beside me, Margy, and see if you can go to sleep," she said.

Fred was nervously alert and had no wish to sleep, but Ward and Artie were almost dozing where they stood. Artie jerked the horn rope mechanically and Ward tried not to think of hot cakes.

"I keep remembering the way the butter melts on 'em," he told the others. "And the syrup—gee! I think hot cakes are the best food for breakfast I ever ate."

"Stop dreaming of hot cakes and help me spread the blankets over the girls," Fred directed. "They're all asleep. We'll stand watch with Larry, so we don't need to be covered up."

Fred was proud of his collection of nautical terms, and even Artie's sleep-drugged eyes opened a little wider at this announcement. He gave the rope a harder pull than usual.

"Why didn't you blow the horn when we ran through the first fog?" asked Fred, voicing a question he had been turning over in his mind for some time.

"Figured out we didn't need it," Larry replied. "Now we've blown so far over we must be near the track of the steamers. Don't aim to have a big brother come out of the clouds and walk through us."

The boys, by a desperate effort, managed to keep awake till three o'clock. Then, just as Artie was sure his eyes would not open again, they heard Polly stir uneasily.

"Fred?" she whispered. "Artie?"

"Right here," Fred said reassuringly. "What's the matter?"

"I can't get up," said Polly desperately. "I can't move. I feel as though I had turned to stone."

Fred tore off the blanket. Jess was asleep, her whole weight thrown against Polly, her head on her shoulder. Against the other arm slumbered Margy, resting heavily.

"Wake 'em up," said Fred. "You must be numb. What did you let them do that for?"

"Oh, I was asleep, too," Polly protested. "I wasn't one bit uncomfortable until I woke up and tried to move my foot. It feels like lead. There isn't one bit of feeling in my arms, either."

Larry had heard her, and he now came forward and lifted Jess gently. He put her on the narrow little seat that went around three sides of the boat and shook her awake slowly. Fred did the same for Margy, and when they understood that Polly was cramped and would have to get up, both were remorseful.

"I'm all right," Polly assured them, trying to get to her feet. "There's nothing the matter with me—oh!"

She pitched forward and would have fallen, if Fred and Artie had not braced her.

"I feel as though I was walking on stilts," poor Polly cried. "What do you suppose is the matter with me?"

"Rub her arms!" directed Larry. "She's about stopped the circulation in her arms and legs, sitting so long like that. It may hurt a little at first, Polly, but you'll be all right in a minute."

Polly was really a little frightened when she found that she could not raise her arms, but Artie rubbed one and Fred the other, while Margy and Jess rubbed her legs and ankles, and presently they began to feel better.

"I don't wonder you cried when your foot went to sleep, Jess," said Polly, managing a smile. "It's worse when you go to sleep all over."

At Larry's suggestion, Fred dropped down on the blanket for an hour's sleep, and though he was sure that he couldn't "do a wink," in less than a second he was fast asleep. The sound of the boat grating on something woke him.

"Is the engine going?" he asked, sitting up with a jerk.

"No such luck," said Larry grimly, pulling out his old-fashioned silver watch and looking at it in the glow of the green light.

"Three o'clock," he said. "It will be light soon. We've struck land, and I don't know anything else to do but go ashore."

"Land!" gasped Margy. "Where are we?"

Larry was already out of the boat, steadying it with one hand.

"If you'll be getting out now," he said politely, "so's I can haul this disreputable wreck a bit higher, I think perhaps I can tend to it, come daylight. My weather forecast for the morning is foggy—foggy and wet."

Dazed, the boys and girls tumbled out on the sand and all helped to push and drag the boat well up on the beach—if it was a beach upon which they walked. It felt like sand, but the nose of the boat rested in coarse stubble, as revealed by the flashlight.

"I don't see where it is," Margy marveled. "Larry, this isn't Blackberry Island, is it?"

"It doesn't look like it to me, but I've lost my bearings," said Larry, giving the boat a final haul. "No, this isn't Blackberry Island. If you ask me, I think we're on another island—Rattlesnake Island, they call it."

Jess screamed and ran for the boat. She reached it and scrambled over the side, falling head first across the seat.

"Polly! Margy!" she cried loudly. "Hurry! Don't stay there another minute! For all you know there are rattlesnakes all around you there in the dark!"

CHAPTER XXIV

A GREAT DISCOVERY

"SNAKES!" echoed Margy frantically. "Ow, snakes. I heard one rattle! Come on Polly! Snakes!"

And crying "snakes!" at every step, Margy rushed for the boat and climbed over the side and to safety.

Polly did feel creepy, she admitted it. But she found Margy's behavior funnier than the idea of snakes, and she joined in the shout of laughter the boys and Larry could not restrain.

"Shucks! I never heard of a snake on this island for the last twenty years," Larry drawled. "There's nothing in a name, Margy. Suppose I had landed you on Angel's Point, thirty miles south of here, would you be hearing wings rustling in the dark?"

"Just the same," replied the frightened Margy, "you'd better come in this boat, Polly Marley. You'll be sorry if a snake bites you."

"Better get in to keep the peace, Polly," Larry advised. "Anyway, we can't do a thing till it's light. I could start a fire, but there's no sense in going around in the dark for wood. This light's about played out, too."

The flashlight was flickering feebly, and it was plain the battery was nearly used up. The girls separated the blankets, giving one to the boys who spread it out on the ground, grateful for the room and unmindful of snakes and promptly went to sleep. Inside the boat the girls huddled together under the remaining blanket, and the last thing Polly remembered was the loud snoring of Larry who had gone to sleep almost before his head touched the ground.

Something crackling and snapping awoke Margy a few hours later. It was light, though the thick fog pressed in closely around them. Peering cautiously over the side of the boat, Margy saw a cheering sight. A fire was blazing a few feet away and the three boys sat cross-legged before it on the blanket.

"Hi, Margy!" Ward waved his hand to her. "Come on—we can eat, if you are awake."

His voice roused Jess and Polly and they sat up and looked about them. The fire made them forget the dampness, and they were quickly out of the boat and stretching their hands to its welcome heat.

"We got the wood," announced Artie proudly. "We picked up all the chips and twigs and old boards we could find. Larry had matches, and though some of the wood was wet, that was only on top. Soon as we got it going, it burned fine."

"Where's Larry now?" asked Polly, and Ward said he had gone to see if he could find a spring.

He came back presently and reported that though he was sure there was good drinking water on Rattlesnake Island, he had not been able to find it.

"We have some left in my cask, and before that is gone, I aim to be well on the way home," he declared cheerfully. "And now let's have some breakfast."

They toasted the sandwiches from the boxes, and with the fruit left over made a comfortable if not luxurious breakfast. There were several packages of crackers and a couple of buns not touched, and these Larry was careful to wrap in oiled paper and put in the locker of his boat.

"My goodness, I hope we don't have to make our lunch on that," said Margy, but she had to admit that it would be better than nothing at all to eat.

"Now if I can have an hour or so without being interrupted," said Larry significantly, when breakfast was over and he had measured out the drinking water, taking none himself, "I think perhaps I can fix this stubborn thing that's called an engine for want of a better name."

"We won't bother," Fred promised. "It's all right to go round and look a bit, isn't it? Maybe we can find the spring you spoke of, Larry."

"Don't go too far, though I don't know as you could lose your way," said Larry, getting out his tools and preparing to work at the engine. "As I recollect, it isn't more than four miles around the whole island. I guess I'll be right here when you get back."

They laughed a little at the joke, and, Fred and Ward in the lead, set out to explore the island. It did feel good to have firm ground under their feet and Jess said that never, never, never would she be a sailor!

"The fog is lifting a little," said Jess. "Look—you can see the water from here."

All looked and saw the ocean beneath the edges of the fog which was like a blanket.

"Come on down and walk on the rocks," urged Ward. "Maybe we can find conch shells wedged in. I'd like to take some home to Mother."

Fred observed that he thought if they got themselves home they would be doing well, but they obediently turned and went down to the rocks. The fog was gradually blowing out to sea, but so slowly that it was scarcely perceptible.

"Don't stumble!" Polly warned. "It wouldn't be any fun to fall on those jagged points. What's the matter, Margy?"

"I thought I heard something," said Margy. "Hark!"

"Maybe it is a snake—rattling," Artie giggled, a remark which had the effect of making Margy hold her skirts higher and look around her with alarm.

"There aren't any snakes, Margy—don't listen to him," said Jess crossly. "If there were any they— What in the world is that?" she broke off in quick surprise.

"That's what I heard before," Margy insisted. "What do you suppose it is? A—a laughing hyena?"

Polly was listening intently.

"Sounded more like crying, than laughing," protested Ward.

"Well, when a hyena laughs, it cries," Margy told him. "As Artie says, I read it in a book. So there!"

"There it is again," said Fred. "Now hush, and listen."

They stood quiet. A low sobbing note that ended in what might have been a shriek, came to them.

"It's around that bend," Polly declared, pointing ahead.

"It sounds like a person, but it may be an animal. Perhaps you girls had better stay here," suggested Fred.

"We're coming, too," declared Jess.

"If it is a wild animal, six of us will frighten him away. And if it is a person—well, anyway, we're coming," announced Polly.

Margy nodded bravely, though her teeth were chattering and she felt a wild desire to hold on to her brother's coat sleeve. They stepped silently from rock to rock, and in a few minutes were around the curve where, presumably, the creature they had heard was hiding.

"Why!" Polly voiced their astonishment. "Why, it's a girl!"

A forlorn little figure was crouched down beside a huge rock a few feet from the advancing sextet. She was clothed in tatters. Her face was hidden in her hands, and she was sobbing and moaning.

"We won't hurt you—don't be afraid," called Polly softly. "What is the matter? Do you live on Rattlesnake Island?"

The girl leaped to her feet and faced them, fear in every line of her tense body. As her hands fell away from her face, the Riddle Club members experienced a shock they would remember as long as they lived.

"Ella Mooney!" they shouted wildly. "Why, Ella Mooney!"

There was no mistaking her—the dark eyes and yellow bobbed hair were the same, though no one had ever seen Ella Mooney in a dress like this, or with her face scratched from briars and streaked with dirt and tears.

Polly ran to her and threw her arms about the little girl.

"Oh, Ella, darling, what has happened to you?" she cried. "Your father was sure you'd been kidnaped. He came to our house to ask if we had seen you. Are you hungry? How did you ever get here?"

Ella clung to Polly as though she never meant to let her go. In her loneliness and fright she had dreamed of friends coming to rescue her, and these dreams had vanished with her waking. She was half afraid that Polly, too, would fade away and leave her alone again.

"It's really you!" she kept saying over and over. "It's really you!"

The others crowded around her, and Ella laughed and cried and answered questions in a confused way. She had gone rowing, she explained, and had lost her oars and then drifted.

"Daddy was busy and I wanted some fun," she said, holding fast to Polly's hand even as she talked. "I got cook's picnic basket while she was upstairs after lunch, and I packed some things to eat in it. I was going to have a beach party like the one you had. But when I lost the oars I couldn't do anything with the boat, and though I screamed and took off my blouse and waved it, I couldn't make any one hear me or see me."

"How long have you been on Rattlesnake Island?" asked Fred.

"Oh, ever so long," Ella answered confidently. "I was out on the ocean till it was dark, and then just as it was getting light, I felt the boat bump and I jumped out and pulled it ashore. I thought some one might live here, so I started out and walked all around it, but there wasn't a single house!"

"And you were here all alone last night!" commented Margy, pityingly.

"Yes, and it was awfully dark and there were mosquitoes," Ella confided. "I ate up all the lunch, too. And I'm afraid of bugs and snakes and wild animals, so I walked as much as I could till I fell over a tree, and then I was afraid to walk any more."

"Aren't you starved?" demanded Polly. "And thirsty?"

"There's a nice spring a little way back there," Ella said, pointing over her shoulder. "I had all the water I wanted. I found it yesterday. But I am so hungry. I could almost eat you."

"Come on. We've got some things to eat," said Ward eagerly. "I'm sorry we ate as much as we did. But we didn't know we were going to find you."

"Did you come after me?" Ella asked. "Did Daddy come, too?"

Then they had to explain how they happened to be on Rattlesnake Island. All the time they were retracing their steps toward the motor boat and Larry.

"And it's lucky we were blown out of the way of Blackberry Island," finished Fred seriously. "You might have had to stay here for weeks."

"We may have to, anyway," Margy reminded him. "If Larry doesn't get the boat fixed, we'll have to spend the winter here."

Fred noticed that Ella was limping a little and taxed her with it.

"I blistered my heel," she admitted reluctantly, "walking so much. I kept hoping I'd find somebody, and I walked and walked. I guess I've been around the island a dozen times."

Polly and Fred were the tallest, so they made a chair with their hands and insisted that Ella must not walk another step. Carrying her, they fell behind the others, and when they came out on the beach where Larry was tinkering with his balky engine, he saw Jess and Margy and Ward and Artie first.

"All aboard!" he yelled cheerfully. "I've got her going—and you'll never guess what I found was the trouble."

"Look what we found!" Fred shouted, as he and Polly broke into a gentle trot. "Where are the crackers, Larry? Ella Mooney is starved to death."

"Great glory!" gasped the dazed Larry, dropping his monkey wrench and staring. "Where under the canopy did you find Ella? Wasn't she kidnaped?"

"Will the boat go?" Artie cried, capering about in a delirium of excitement. "Will it go, Larry? Won't the folks be surprised when they see us come back!"

CHAPTER XXV

THE TREASURER IS PLEASED

LARRY was so surprised that about all he could say was "Great glory," though when the Riddle Club explained in chorus that Ella was very hungry, he hurriedly brought out the buns and crackers he had so carefully put away.

"Great glory!" he ejaculated for the twentieth time, watching the famished Ella greedily eating the crackers. "It's a mercy there wasn't a rain storm—the exposure might have given you pneumonia."

"I'm all right," Ella said sunnily. "The Riddle Club found me. But how can we get home, if your boat is broken down?"

Before Larry could answer this question, he had to hear how Ella came to be on Rattlesnake Island and how long she had been there. As soon as she told him about the spring, he declared that he must fill his barrel.

"Then we'll go," he promised. "I reckon there's some folks back at Sunrise Beach will be kind of glad to see this party coming in."

"Yes, won't Ella's father be surprised?" Artie said eagerly.

"Guess your own father will be glad to see you, too," chuckled Larry. "Well, who's coming to help me fill these two pails with water? I can find the spring all right if one of you comes along to show me where you found Ella."

The three boys volunteered to accompany Larry and the girls stayed with Ella. Larry located the spring without trouble, and on the way back he explained that he had repaired his engine.

"It was the spark plug after all," he said. "Fouled. I didn't look at it before, because I'd just cleaned it. Soon as I scraped it with my knife, everything was all right. Turned the flywheel, threw in the clutch, and she began her song like a lady."

"Then we really can go home?" Ward asked.

"Just as soon as I sign up the crew," replied Larry, grinning. "We ought to be home for lunch, according to my way of figuring, though my watch stopped after we came ashore."

No one felt like lingering on Rattlesnake Island a moment longer than was necessary, and at a word from Larry the girls and Artie and Ward took their places in the boat while he and Fred pushed off. Almost breathlessly they watched while Larry spun the wheel, touched the clutch, and then—put-put-put—sounded the engine and a spontaneous cheer went up.

"Isn't it lovely!" cried Margy, her face glowing. "Isn't it too lovely to be going home!"

Ella forgot her tattered dress and her blistered heel in her delight at being found. She asked about her pony—whether it had been found.

"I never leave him tied long," she explained. "And all that night while I was drifting on the ocean, I wondered whether Duke would be fed and bedded down."

"What are you thinking about, Fred," Polly asked curiously.

Fred sat silent, and she could tell from the expression on his face that he had something he was turning over in his mind.

"Why," he said now, looking up, "I was thinking—Larry, if you could meet a boat with a wireless, or put in at a town with telephones, we could send word on ahead. Even if we make good time, the news would get there ahead of us and save an hour or two of worry, perhaps."

"For a boy, you sure have a level head," Larry declared approvingly. "I know I wouldn't want to be waiting much longer, after a night of wondering and hoping. Let's see—'tisn't likely we'll meet a ship with wireless, it's too early in the morning for the coastwise boats and we're too far in for the ocean-going vessels. Better to telegraph, anyway, Fred. Quicker. You write out a message and I'll see it gets sent."

Fred complained that he couldn't think in a hurry, so Polly and Jess helped him write a message on the back of an envelope Larry handed him.

"All safe. Coming home," ran the telegram. "Bringing Ella Mooney with us."

"Better send it to your folks, Fred," Larry advised. "Captain Mooney is likely to be anywhere up and down the coast, hunting. Somebody will be at Meeker's Cottage."

So Fred addressed the message to his father and Larry sent the boat spinning close to a long fishing pier that ran out far from land.

"Hi!" he called up to the faces bending down to peer at them. "This is North Beach, isn't it? Will some of you send a mighty important telegram for us?"

Half a dozen promised to send the telegram, and it was the work of a minute for Larry to fasten the message and a dollar bill to one of the fish hooks lowered to him on a long line. Then the boat sped on, without waiting to hear the shouts of the fishermen, some of whom had heard of Captain Mooney's missing daughter.

Put-put-put went the little boat, and once it sputtered as though it was going to stop. Larry looked worried and the boys and girls held their breaths, but nothing happened and the evenly timed put-put sounded again. Pretty soon they began to recognize the shore towns. Then they passed Glen Haven.

"There's the Sunrise Beach pier!" cried Fred.

"I see the bungalows!" Artie shouted.

"There's the hotel!" this from Margy.

"Don't go to the wharf, Larry," Ella begged. "I'm a sight. I'd hate to have people see me looking like this."

"Can't get through the surf, anyway," said Larry. "That wind yesterday kicked up a heavy sea. I'll have to run for the inlet."

That he would do so, must have been surmised by the little group of people standing on the right-hand bank as the Clara shot into the inlet waters and stopped at the floating wharf.

"Daddy!" cried Ella, almost leaping into the water as she tried to spring from the boat. "Oh, Daddy! Daddy! Did you worry about me?"

She was in her father's arms before she could finish her sentence. And tumbling from the boat with all her eagerness, the Riddle Club members found themselves held tightly in a circle of weeping mothers and of fathers who laughed as the safest way to keep from crying.

"Thought you'd play Robinson Crusoe, did you?" said Mr. Marley, lifting Artie to his shoulder. "Well, Larry, I'm afraid you've had more than you bargained for."

"How did you know we were on an island, Daddy?" asked Polly curiously.

"Didn't. Just made a guess at the Robinson Crusoe part," he answered her. "But we can't stand here—the whole town will be upon us. Come, Captain, we'll go up to the cottage and listen to the whole story. The children look as though they needed something hot to eat and then a good nap."

Captain Mooney was persuaded not to drive Ella home until she had had a good hot lunch, and Larry, too, was persuaded to go to the cottage. Every one talked very fast for an hour, for the fathers and mothers were anxious to hear everything that had happened.

Ella Mooney did not go home that night, for the little girl fell asleep in the midst of the story Larry told and Mrs. Marley put her to bed herself.

"While I never want to go through it again," concluded Larry, "I want to say this: I never saw a braver bunch of kids, or a bunch of better sports. They didn't one of 'em grunt or complain, and if they were afraid, they kept it pretty well to themselves. I'm proud to have had the Riddle Club on board the Clara and I hope to take 'em sailing many a day to come."

The telephone bell in the house next door began to ring that afternoon, and it rang till nearly midnight. All Sunrise Beach was asking for news—had the missing children really come home safe? Those who did not telephone came to see for themselves, and Carrie Pepper, Mattie Helms, Joe Anderson and Albert Holmes were among these.

"How funny you look!" said Carrie to Polly. "As if you were sleepy. But I'm awfully glad you weren't drowned," she added, and kissed her.

"I'm going to bed in a minute—we couldn't sleep much last night," Polly explained. "Ella is already asleep and so is Margy."

"Where did you find Ella?" asked Carrie, and nothing would do but she must have all the details.

"H'm—she ought not to be going around in boats by herself," Carrie commented at the end. "Say, you must have left awfully early yesterday. Mattie and I came down to see you off and you'd already gone."

Polly looked everywhere but at Fred, and was saved an answer by Mrs. Marley, who came in to insist that Polly must go to bed and rest.

In the morning—the Riddle Club members and Ella slept seventeen long blissful hours without waking—Captain Mooney drove up in his big car with an outfit of clothes for Ella. Fred was already dressed and down, and the Captain suggested that while he waited for his daughter he and Fred "take a turn on the beach."

"How queer Fred acts," said Polly to Jess, watching the two coming up the walk half an hour later.

In the excitement of saying good-by to Ella, Polly thought no more of Fred's behavior. He had had an air of suppressed excitement, she thought, "the way he acts on Christmas," Polly expressed it.

As no one felt up to any very strenuous form of exercise, Mrs. Marley suggested that they hold a session of the Riddle Club on the front porch.

"Before the callers descend," she added laughingly. "You're sure to have a good many to-day, friends who want to see for themselves that you are safe."

Polly called the meeting to order and was about to proceed by calling on Margy for a riddle when Fred interrupted.

"I have an announcement to make, as treasurer," he stated.

"No dues!" Ward warned him. "This is an—an informal meeting."

"This is once when I don't care a snap about dues," said Fred, his voice rising as it always did when he was excited. "Look at that—you fellows who squawk when I ask you for ten cents!"

He laid a slip of green paper in Polly's lap and the others crowded about her.

"A hundred dollars!" cried Polly, in amazement. "A check for a hundred dollars, payable to the Riddle Club. Why, Fred!"

"Captain Mooney gave it to me this morning and made me promise not to tell till he'd gone," Fred said. "It's the reward for the information about Ella, you know. He said he'd asked our fathers, and it's all right for us to have it. And, gee, won't the teller in the River Bend Bank open his eyes when he sees that!"

"Now I don't care if Mother wouldn't let me take the ring money," declared Margy contentedly. "This is lots nicer."

Jess rushed into the house to bring the three mothers out to admire the check. In the midst of their talk a small, barefoot boy came up the walk.

"I found this in the water this morning, and Larry opened it," he said shyly. "He says it's yours."

He handed the tin box to Fred, who jerked the cover off.

"It's the box we floated the night we had the beach party!" he chuckled. "Here's the messages, just as we wrote them. They didn't get to China, after all."

"Who cares?" said Polly recklessly. "Ella Mooney isn't lost, and we don't have to live on Rattlesnake Island, and we have a hundred dollars to add to our club fund! What do we care whether the Chinese read our messages or not?"

"I'd like the box to play with," the boy announced, so they gave it to him just as another visitor turned in at their gravel path.

"I thought I'd come see how you are," said Carrie Pepper. "What makes you look so excited—somebody leave you a fortune?"

THE END

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