The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle Part 9

"They are awaiting our answer in St. Pierre," said her father. "And if we are favorably disposed we are to go over with the launch tomorrow and fetch them back."

"The die is cast," said Uncle Teddy gravely. "Now for the fireworks!"

CHAPTER V

THE DeBUT OF EENY-MEENY

"The person who invented tan khaki," remarked Katherine, "ought to have a place in the hall of fame along with the other benefactors of humanity. It's as strong as sheet iron, so it doesn't tear even on a barbed wire fence; it doesn't show the mud; gra.s.s stains and green paint are positively ornamental. What more could be desired?"

Katherine and Slim were sitting on the bluff looking idly over the lake.

Around them there was a great silence, for the island was practically deserted. All the other Winnebagos and Sandwiches had gone over to St.

Pierre in the launch with Mr. Evans and Uncle Teddy to fetch the Dalrymple Twins. Katherine had been wandering around the island in one of her absent-minded fits when they were ready to start and did not appear when called, and Slim had fallen asleep under a tree and they didn't have the heart to wake him. After they were gone Katherine stumbled upon Slim in the course of her wandering and dropped an acorn down the back of his collar. Slim woke up grumbling that he never could have a moment's peace, but readily accepted Katherine's invitation to sit on the bluff and throw pine cones at the floating signal which marked the suck hole. Katherine, with her usual heedlessness, had slid down part of the gra.s.sy embankment, and, as a result, the hem of her skirt was decorated at uneven intervals with large gra.s.s stains. She eyed the combination of tan and green thus affected with unconcealed admiration. It was then that she made the remark about the inventor of tan khaki being a benefactor of humanity.

Slim tactfully agreed that the gra.s.s stains added to the artistic effect of the dress, and added that he thought tan and green were Katherine's special colors. It had just occurred to Slim that Katherine might be persuaded to make a pan of fudge while they waited for the others to return. He leaned back at a comfortable angle and waited for her to digest the compliment. The lake seemed enchanted today, an iridescent pool where fairies bathed. The water had a pale, silvery green tinge, with here and there a great bed of deepest purple encircling a center of bright blue--those contrasts of color which are the marvel of our northern lakes.

"Where do those purple places come from?" asked Katherine, with a rapturous sigh for the sheer loveliness of it. "There isn't a cloud in the sky to throw a shadow." To Katherine's eyes, accustomed to unending stretches of prairie, browning under a scorching sun, this blue, cool lake was like a dream of Eden.

"Maybe the color comes from below," said Slim, yawning as the light on the water made him sleepy again. "Wouldn't I like to go down underneath the water and lie there, though," he continued dreamily. "On a bed of nice soft sand that the fellows couldn't make collapse, and where you couldn't come along and shove burrs down my neck."

"It was an acorn," corrected Katherine serenely.

"Wouldn't I have a grand sleep, though," continued Slim, not heeding her interruption. "I'd stay there a week; maybe a month."

"Yes," said Katherine, "and come up all covered with moss and with binnacles hanging all over you."

Slim suddenly sat upright and shouted. "Binnacles!" he repeated. "That's good. You mean _barnacles_, don't you? Glory! Wouldn't I look great with binnacles hanging all over me!" And Slim leaned against the tree at his back and laughed until he was red in the face.

"Well, take whichever you please," said Katherine with dignity, and turned her back on his mirth.

Slim saw his dream of fudge fading and realized that he had made a misstep in laughing so loudly. "Don't get mad," he said pleadingly to the back of her head, "I won't tell any of the others what you said. But it was so funny I _had_ to laugh," he said in self-defense.

Katherine kept her head turned the other way and remained deaf to his apologies. Slim sat back and looked sad. He hadn't meant to offend Katherine and he wanted her to make fudge. He cudgelled his fat brain for something to say, which would appease her. "Oh, I say----" he began when Katherine turned around so suddenly he almost jumped.

"What's that floating out there in the lake?" she said abruptly.

"Where?" asked Slim, sitting up.

"Out there." Katherine pointed her finger.

Slim looked in the direction she pointed. "I don't see anything."

"It seems to have gone under," said Katherine, searching the surface for the thing she had seen the moment before.

"There it is again," she said excitedly. "It just came up again.

"Slim!" she shrieked, springing to her feet and dragging him up with her. "It's--it's a person, and it looks like a woman. It's red. A woman in a red dress. She's drowning. She went down when she disappeared and now she's come up again. Hurry! The little launch! Come on! Hurry!"

She dragged Slim down the path so fast it was a miracle they both didn't go head over heels, untied the launch from the landing and sent it flying across the lake in the direction of the drowning woman. Katherine could run the launch as well as Uncle Teddy himself. Slim, panting and speechless, hung over the side trying to keep his eye on the red spot in the s.h.i.+mmery green water.

"She's got one arm thrown up for help," he cried above the thumping of the engine. Slim was so softhearted he could not bear to see a creature in distress, and the sight of that arm thrown up in a wild gesture filled him with a quivering horror. He could not bear to look at it and turned his eyes away.

Fairly leaping through the water, the launch came on the scene and Katherine stopped the engine. "Don't give up, we're coming," she shouted at a distance of fifteen feet.

Slim stood up and prepared to drag the woman over the side. Then he and Katherine began to stare hard. Then they looked at each other. Then they quietly folded up in the bottom of the launch and went into spasms of mirth.

"It's--it's----" began Slim, and then choked, while tears of laughter ran down his face.

"It's--it's----" began Katherine, and choked, likewise.

"It's a wooden lady!" they both shrieked together, with a final successful effort at breath.

"Oh, oh, doesn't she look real?" giggled Katherine. "With her arm sticking up like that!"

Slim remembered how that arm had nearly given him heart failure a minute ago and shook anew.

"She's an Indian lady," said Katherine, leaning over the side to inspect the floating damsel.

"She's a cigar store Indian," said Slim.

"But she certainly did look real," said Katherine, "bobbing around out here and going under the way she did. Look at her one foot sticking up, too. She certainly had me fooled."

"We ought to rescue her, anyway," said Slim gallantly. "It isn't right to let a lady drown under your eyes if she is only a wooden cigar store Indian."

In a moment they had her on board and were speeding back to Ellen's Isle. She lay out stiffly in the boat, her painted eyes open in a fixed stare. They carried her up the path and set her against a tree.

"She must be having a chill after being drowned," said Slim. "We ought to build a fire and set her beside it." Slim's mind was still on its first idea. It was only a step from fire to fudge.

Katherine took up the ridiculous play with alacrity. "You build the fire while I get the blankets," she ordered.

A few minutes later Mrs. Evans, who had been spending the afternoon on her bed with a sick headache, opened her eyes to see Katherine standing beside her with an excited, anxious face. "What is it?" she asked quickly.

"Oh, Mrs. Evans," said Katherine in an agitated voice, "we just saw a woman drowning in the lake and we brought her in in the launch and we've got blankets and a fire, and, oh! will you please come quickly?"

Mrs. Evans sprang to her feet and followed Katherine out of the tent at top speed. Sure enough, in the "kitchen" there was a big fire built, and beside it on the ground lay a figure rolled in blankets.

"I'll get some brandy," said Mrs. Evans, turning and running into the tent. She reappeared in a minute with a bottle from the First Aid chest and a spoon.

"Here, hold up her head," she commanded Katherine.

Katherine lifted up one end of the still figure and turned back the blanket.

Mrs. Evans, stooping with the spoonful of brandy in her hand, recoiled with a little scream and sat down heavily, spilling the brandy all over herself. Then Katherine introduced the rescued lady and Mrs. Evans laughed till she cried and declared that her headache had been completely scared out of her. She stood the figure upright and called the others to witness the lifelike att.i.tude.

"With her hand stretched out like that, she looks just as though she was counting 'Eeny, meeny, miny, mo,'" she said.