The Outdoor Girls at Ocean View | Page 9

long as I do not have to buy their candy!"
"Here comes Percy Falconer!" interrupted Roy, and the little conference, one of many held whenever the friends met--broke up.
While the girls were getting ready with trunks of clothes, the boys were no less busily engaged. They had completed their plans for a series of cruises along the coast, in the motor boat Pocohontas, loaned to Allen Washburn by a wealthy gentleman for whom he had done some law business, though Allen was not as yet admitted to the bar.
"I'll have a chance to practice this summer, getting the boat off a sand-bar!" he had jokingly said.
And finally trunks were packed, tickets had been purchased, word had come from Ocean View that the cottage was in readiness, and at last, on a beautifully sunny June morning, the outdoor girls stood at the station, ready to take the train.
The boys were there, also, as might have been guessed.
"And when are you coming down in the boat?" asked Betty.
"In about a week," Allen said. "We're having the engine overhauled, a new magneto put in and some other things done."
"I'm coming in the auto," broke in Percy Falconer. "Father did not want me to make the boat trip, but the chauffeur will bring me down to the shore in the car."
"Pity he wouldn't use a feather bed," murmured Roy Anderson.
"Oh, here comes the train!" cried Mollie. "Girls, I'm almost sure I've forgotten half my things."
"Good-bye, girls!" chorused the boys.
"Good-bye!" came the answer.
"Oh, Grace!" called Will to his sister.
"Yes," she answered.
"That secret of mine."
"Oh, yes. What is it? Do tell me! I haven't a second----"
"I'll tell you--when I come down!" his words floated to her as she was borne along the platform with her chums to the train that was to take them to Ocean View.
CHAPTER V
OLD TIN-BACK
"Isn't he provoking!" murmured Grace, sinking into a seat beside Mollie, as the train slowly pulled out.
"Who?" asked Mollie, leaning toward the window to wave to the boys on the platform.
"My brother Will. He's up to something--he has a secret and he won't tell me!"
"Don't let him know you care, and he'll tell you all the quicker. Boys are that way," declared Mollie, with the accumulated wisdom of--say--seventeen years.
"Yes, I suppose so," agreed Grace, and then she began a hurried search among the various articles she had deposited on the seat between herself and Mollie.
"What is it--lost something?" asked the latter.
"My bag of--oh, here they are," and Grace, with a look of contentment, began munching some chocolates.
"It is awfully nice of you, Mrs. Nelson, to ask us down for the summer," said Amy Blackford to her hostess when they were settled in the speeding train. "I do so love the seashore."
"Then I think you will like it at Ocean View," remarked Betty's mother. "And we think Edgemere a pretty place."
"I'm sure it must be from what Betty has told me."
"Do you like lobsters?" asked Mr. Nelson, looking over the top of his paper, with a twinkle in his eyes.
"Lobsters?" repeated Amy, questioningly. "I haven't eaten many."
"It's a great place for lobsters at Ocean View," went on Betty's father. "That's one reason I decided on it."
"The idea!" cried his wife. "To hear you talk anyone would think you never ate anything else, and you know if you take too much a la Newburg you don't feel well the next day."
"I'm going to take only the plain boiled, and salads," declared Mr. Nelson. "But there's an old lobsterman--Tin-Back, they call him--near Edgemere in whom I think you girls will be interested," he went on. "He's quite a character."
"Why do they call him Tin-Back?" asked Amy. "Has he really a----"
"A tin back? How funny that would be?" laughed Betty.
"You must ask him," declared her father. "I didn't have time when I came down to see if everything was all right."
"Oh, what lovely times we'll have, girls!" sighed Mollie, when, a little later, the four chums were conversing. "We can go sailing, bathing and sit on the sands and watch the tide come in."
"And perhaps find buried pirate-treasure in some cave," added Betty, with a laugh.
"Can we, really?" asked Amy, perhaps the most unsophisticated of the quartette.
"Really what?" asked Grace, silently offering her bag of sweets. The habit was almost automatic with her.
"Find buried treasure," said Amy, eagerly. "I should love to do that. I've often read----"
"That's all you can do--read about it," spoke Mollie, regretfully. "There isn't any romance left in this world. If there was a pirate's cave it would be lighted with electricity and an admission fee charged. And yet the New England coast ought to contain some treasure. Some pirates used to land there."
"Did they, Mr. Nelson?" asked Amy, catching sight of Betty's father again glancing over the top of his paper.
"Did pirates ever land on the coast near