The Motor Girls on Cedar Lake | Page 6

happened to the boys?" murmured Belle. "I am afraid
they are drowned."
"All of them?" and Cora could not repress a smile. "It would take a
very large sized whale to gobble them all at once, and surely they could
not all have been seized with swimming cramps at the same moment.
No, Belle, I have no such fear. But I am going right out to investigate. I
know Jack would never stay away if he could get here, especially when
he knew this would be your first evening at the lake. Why, the boys
were just wild to try my boat," and she threw her motor cape over her
shoulders. "Come on girls, down to the steamer landing. There may
have been some accident."
Belle and Bess were ready instantly. Indeed the twins seemed more

alarmed than did Cora, but then they were not used to brothers, and did
not realize how many things may happen and may not happen, to detain
young men on a summer day or even a summer night.
"Oh dear!" sighed Belle, "I have always dreaded the water. I did
promise mamma and Bess to conquer my nervousness and not make
folks miserable, but now just see how things happen to upset me," and
she was almost in tears.
"Nothing has happened yet, Belle dear," said Cora kindly, "and we
hope nothing will happen. You see your great mistake comes from
what Jack calls the 'sympathy bug.' You worry about people before you
know they are in trouble. I feel certain the boys will be found safe and
sound, but at the same time I would not be so foolhardy as to trust to
dumb luck."
"You are a philosopher, Cora," answered the nervous girl, her tone
showing that she meant to compliment her chum.
"No, merely logical," corrected Cora, as they walked along. "You know
what marks I always get in logic."
"But it all comes from health," put in Bess. "Mother says Belle would
be just as sensible as I am if she were as strong."
"Sensible as you are?" and Cora laughed. Bess had such a candid way
of acknowledging her own good points. "Why, we have never noticed it,
Bess."
"Oh, you know what I mean. I simply mean that I do not fuss," and
Bess let her cheeks glow at least two shades deeper.
"Well it is sensible not to fuss, Bess, so we will grant your point,"
finished Cora as they stepped on the boardwalk that led to the boat
landing. "Why, I didn't suppose they would light up with that moon,"
she said. "That's the old watchman over there."
A man was swinging a lantern from the landing. He held it above his

head, then lowered it, and it was plain he was showing the light to
signal someone on the water.
Cora's heart did give a quickened response to her nerves as she saw that
something must be wrong. But she said not a word to her companions.
"What are they after?" asked Belle timidly.
"Probably some fishermen casting their nets for bait," Cora answered
evasively. "You stay here, while I speak with old Ben."
Bess and Belle complied, although Bess felt she should have been the
one to ask questions. What if anything had really happened to the boys!
Jack was Cora's brother.
"Have you seen anything of some boys in a canoe?" Cora asked of the
man with the lantern. "They set out this afternoon, and have not yet
returned."
"Boys in a canoe?" repeated Ben, in that tantalizing way country folk
have of delaying their answers.
"Yes, my brother and two of his friends went out toward Far Island--"
"Fern Island?" interrupted the man.
"No, when we last saw them they were going away from Fern and
toward Far Island," said Cora.
"Well, if they're on Fern Island at night I pity them. There ain't never
been anyone who put up there after dark who wasn't ready to die of
fright, 'ceptin' Jim Peters. And the old boy hisself couldn't scare Jim.
Guess he's too chununy with him," and the waterman chuckled at his
joke.
"But you have not heard of any accident?" pressed Cora.
"I saw them young fellers myself. They was in a green canoe; wasn't
they?"

"Yes," answered Cora eagerly.
"Well, I asked Jim Peters if he had sawed 'em, and he said--but then
you can't never believe Jim."
"What did he say?" excitedly demanded Cora, as Bess and Belle
stepped up to where she was talking.
"He said they had tied their boat up at the far dock, and had gone on the
shore train to the merry-go-'round."
"But they were in their bathing suits!" exclaimed Cora.
"There! Didn't I tell you not to take any stock in Jim's news! I knowed