"PETER," queried Mrs. Crane, "what time is it? I'm starved."
Mr. Black looked at his watch, at first expectantly, then ruefully.
"The thing's stopped," said he, shaking it. "I dropped it out a couple of times when I was under the Whale, and once it struck a boulder. It stopped at half-past twelve."
"An hour ago?"
"It might be two hours—or even three! Girls, did you bring a watch—any of you?"
"I did," said Henrietta, "but I wound it to practise by without setting it, so it's probably wrong—it usually is. It says quarter to nine!"
"It certainly is wrong. I know it's dinner time—or worse. Sarah——"
"Build a fire, Peter—there's plenty of wood on the beach. I brought a coffee pot and you'll find a box of matches in it. Jean, spread the cloth that's in one of those hampers—the ground's nice and smooth right there at your feet. You'll find wooden plates and tin cups under the cloth. Marjory, you can fish for the sugar and cream and the salad. Mabel, you—no, I'll cut the bread myself; you can pick up bits of wood for the fire."
"There are two big apple pies and some cheese in my basket," said Jean, "and—yes, a bag of cookies!"
"Here are my sandwiches," said Henrietta. "Just loads of them; and a big veal loaf—— Oh! It smells so good!"
"Aunty Jane sent a huge crock of beans and some cold ham," said Marjory, "and here's a jar of something—pickles, I guess."
"There's a box of things," said Mr. Black, "fruit, cookies, crackers, sardines, peanut butter, and a thing or two in cans still aboard the Whale, but I guess, with all this good home cooking, we won't need it just yet—anyway, I'd rather look at the lake than go after it."
"Can't I take off my shoes and wade out for the coffee water?" pleaded Mabel. "I love to wade."
"Of course you can," replied Mrs. Crane. "Here's the pail—I'll take the doughnuts out of it."
"What's this?" asked Mr. Black, holding up a flat, heavy parcel.
"A piece of bacon—I thought we might need bacon and eggs in addition to our salad—I brought a flat pan to fry them in. And here are salt and pepper."
"Well!" laughed Mr. Black, as parcel after parcel came out of the tightly packed hampers, "I guess we'll have to set up a grocery store and sell stuff to the squirrels—we can't possibly eat all this at one meal."
"Don't be too sure," warned Bettie. "I'm pretty hungry. Mother put in a can of cocoa and a little saucepan to cook it in—and here's a pint of milk."
"We'll make the cocoa and coffee," decided Mrs. Crane, "and eat the sandwiches and other ready-made things. We won't bother to do any other cooking; and, I must say, I'm glad we don't need to. I never was so hungry."
Everybody it seemed was on the verge of starvation. The Whale's passengers ate and ate and ate. Even Ambrosial Delight, the three-colored cat, drank milk as if he had always lived on the lake shore and dined from wooden plates. After dinner, every one, except Bettie, who was compelled by solicitous Mrs. Crane to curl up with the kitten under a tree for a nap, went exploring.
That was great fun, for exploring is interesting, anyway, even if you haven't anything bigger to explore than your own back yard. But when you have a whole wilderness, with a little of every kind of landscape there is dotted about, here and there; and always so unexpectedly that you don't know what you're coming to next, exploring becomes just the very jolliest pursuit there is.
In the first place, there was the large, grassy clearing where they had eaten dinner. This place was almost circular in shape and as big, Bettie said, as a whole city block. In it were a few scattered trees; but, for the greater part, it was open and almost perfectly level. On one side was the lake; the other three sides were walled in by most attractive forest.
A number of little trails led from the clearing into the woods. Each one, they found, pointed toward some definite object. One, for instance, carried them to a tiny spring of clear, gurgling water. Another led them to what was evidently a good fishing spot on the river. A third brought them to a tiny unsuspected lake, dotted with lily pads.
"This," said quick-eyed Marjory, pointing northwestward, when the explorers had returned for the third time to the sunny clearing, "is the widest trail of all."
"For my part," said Mr. Black, "I don't know why there should be any trails here at all. No one has lived here for four years. Sometimes fishermen come here in gasoline launches for a few days in the spring, or hunters for a week or two in the fall, but never in sufficient numbers to make as marked a trail as this—we must certainly investigate this one."
This wider trail led them for perhaps a hundred feet through a dense thicket of shrubbery; then, with a suddenness that was startling, the explorers found themselves in another clearing, about half the size of the first. In it stood a curious structure with a rounded top. It was built of bent strips of wood, covered with large sheets of rough birch bark, bound in place with willow withes, and sewed in spots with buckskin thongs. It was blackened with age and smoke.
"It looks," said Henrietta, "like the top half of a big balloon. And mercy! How horrible it smells."
"What is it?" asked Mabel. "Is it a bear's den? Ugh! I hope Mr. Bear isn't home."
"It's a birch-bark wigwam," replied Mr. Black, "and somebody has occupied it recently. See the bed in the corner?"
Sure enough, there was a bed—some balsam boughs covered with a dingy blanket and some rags that had once been a quilt. On an upturned box was a burlap bag containing potatoes and a few perfectly sound onions. A deer-skin was stretched to dry against one rounded side of the wigwam and just opposite the doorway of the queer hut were a number of blackened stones, evidently a rude fireplace. Hanging against a convenient tree-trunk were some sooty and most uninviting cooking utensils; a camp kettle, a frying-pan, a lard pail or two, a big iron pot, a long-handled spoon.
"It isn't a great while," said Mr. Black, frowning perplexedly, "since these things were used. But who, I'd like to know, used them?"
"Wild Indians," offered Marjory, glancing fearfully over her shoulder.
"Pirates," shuddered Mabel.
"A wild man of the jungle," suggested imaginative Henrietta.
"Perhaps you're all partly right," admitted Mr. Black. "I believe these things belong to a filthy half-breed, trapping game out of season. If I catch him at it, it will be some time before he has a chance to try it again. Perhaps he'll come back this afternoon. Now, girls, let's go back to the lake—this place certainly does smell 'injun-y'—there's no other smell quite like it."
"Can't we all go in wading?" demanded Mabel. "The water's pretty cold, but it's nice—makes your toes all pink."
"Of course you can. There isn't any danger, because the water is shallow for a long, long distance; and the sand is as hard and clean as the very cleanest thing you can think of."
"Marble!" cried Mabel.
"Aunty Jane's house!" shouted Marjory.
"Yes," laughed Mr. Black, "even as clean as that. Now, away with you all. But keep within hearing distance. I'm going to rest awhile under this pleasant tree."
"And I," murmured Mrs. Crane, drowsily, "am going to take a nap under this tree—I can't stay awake a moment longer."
Presently Bettie, the kitten, and Mrs. Crane were all sound asleep; and, from Mr. Black's leafy shelter, a sound closely resembling gentle snores proved most interesting to a puzzled chipmunk, who had a pantry in that tree. The chipmunk even perched on Mr. Black's toe to listen; but the good, weary gentleman slumbered unheedingly.
Jean, Marjory, Mabel, and Henrietta were having a glorious time in the rippling blue lake. When they were tired of splashing about to scare the abundant minnows, they built wonderful castles in the sand. Mabel's were square and solid, like Mabel herself; Jean's were lofty with aspiring towers and turrets, and Henrietta's were honeycombed with fearsome dungeons. Marjory built long streets of tiny, modern, and excessively neat dwellings.
After that, they discovered that the beach near the river's mouth was strewn with pebbles of every hue known to pebbles. There were agates, bits of glittering quartz and granite, and many brown, green, or yellow stones threaded prettily with a network of white. They wanted to gather them all to carry back to Bettie, but contented themselves with about a bushel—all that their four skirts would hold. But they found to their surprise that they were anchored to the ground; that it wasn't possible to rise with the heavy burden. As for carrying the glittering hoard, that was clearly impossible, too; so they heaped their treasure on the sand and ran to look at the river where it joined the lake.
Never was there a more companionable river. At the mouth it was only a yard wide and just deep enough to cover one's ankles. A little way up, it spread out as wide as a street, but there it barely covered one's toes. Farther up, there were big, moss-covered stones and the water grew perceptibly deeper—up to one's knees. Still further, and the river grew wide and deep and darkly mysterious, where great trees cast brown and green shadows over the russet surface.
"Ugh!" shuddered Henrietta, at this point, "let's go back—I like it better where it's narrow."
"So do I," agreed Jean. "If there were crocodiles in this part of the country, that's where they'd live."
"Let's build a bridge across the narrowest place," proposed Marjory.
All about were stones and driftwood. The girls built a beautiful bridge and sat afterwards on the beach to admire their handiwork; but very soon the quiet water stealthily washed the sand away from the foundation stones and in a little while the river's mouth was twice as wide as it had been before the bridge, now floating lakeward, was built.
"I could stay here forever," said Henrietta, "there are so many things to do—nice, foolish things, like sand-castles, bridges that float away, and stones that look like diamonds when they're wet and like just stones when they're dry. I'd like to live here."
"So would I," agreed Jean.
"Wouldn't it be nice," asked Marjory, "if we could come here to camp?"
"We're here now," returned matter-of-fact Mabel. "Let's pretend we really are camping."
"Look at the lake!" exclaimed Jean, suddenly. "It isn't blue any more—it's all gray and silver."
"And all the ripples are gone," observed Henrietta. "See how flat and smooth it is and how lazy it is along the edges. And the sand is turning pink!"
"Hush!" warned quick-eared Marjory. "I think Mr. Black's calling us—yes, he's waving the tablecloth!"
After they had picked their way rather painfully over the bed of sharp pebbles, the barefooted girls ran gaily along the hard, smooth beach—they were surprised to find themselves so far from their foot-gear.
"Mr. Black seems excited," remarked Jean. "I wonder if anything has happened."
"Perhaps," said Henrietta, soberly, "it's time to go home."
"It can't be," protested Mabel. "We've only just come—anyway, it seems so."
"That," explained Jean, sagely, "is because this is the very nicest spot that ever grew."
"Hurry!" shouted Mr. Black; "don't wait to put on your shoes—just bring them along."