INSPIRED by the prospect of candy, Mabel was eager for the campward trail. This trail was wide and clearly marked near Barclay's, so Mabel ran gaily ahead; but the others followed closely at her heels—it was too windy for much lingering on that exposed shore.
Mabel, with just one thought in her head, started heedlessly to run across the log that spanned the river. If a squirrel hadn't started at the same moment from the other end, Mabel might have rushed safely across. But, startled by the sudden, affrighted chattering of the surprised squirrel, Mabel stopped, staggered, swayed, and began to clutch wildly for support. She found it in the scarlet necktie of Henrietta's blouse.
Henrietta, clutched by the throat, as it were, seized Mabel with one hand and Marjory with the other in order to sustain her own suddenly disturbed balance. For a moment, all three swayed uncertainly. Then, there was a mighty splash. All three were gone!
The disturbed river bottom sent up bubbles of mud, a hand, a foot, then a bedraggled hair ribbon. Mr. Black, followed by courageous Jean, plunged to the rescue. In a moment, they had all three of the struggling, half-strangled girls on their feet. As the river bottom was of the softest of mud, no one was hurt; but the rescuers as well as the rescued were completely drenched.
"Now, see here, Mabel," said Mr. Black, wiping that subdued young person's dripping countenance with his own wet handkerchief, "you'll have this whole camp drowned if you don't look out. After this, you're to stick to solid earth. I'm in earnest about this, Mabel. You're not to attempt to cross this log again, unless I'm with you."
"You were here this time," complained the dripping culprit.
"It's a good thing I was. Jean would have had a fine time fishing the three of you out of that mud. Now, we'll just wade across here where it isn't so deep—we can't get any wetter than we are—and race home before we begin to feel cold."
They raced as well as they could, in clinging garments and water-soaked shoes; but they presented a curious sight as they trailed into the clearing. Mrs. Crane and Bettie advanced eagerly to greet them.
"Company!" warned Bettie, running ahead. "Two young men that drove up in a buckboard to spend the day fishing in our river—Mr. Saunders sent some letters by them. Thought I'd tell you so you could prink a little, Henrietta—my goodness! What's happened?"
"I've been fishing in the river myself," explained Mr. Black, "and this is what I caught—three very much speckled trout."
"My land!" exclaimed Mrs. Crane. "What an awful mess!"
"It's just mud," said Marjory. "A few of us landed head first in several inches of it. It was Mabel, of course, that pulled us in—she fell off the big log on the trail to Barclay's."
"Well, you're certainly a sight," laughed Bettie, turning back with her friends. "I don't know which of you looks worst."
"They all do," groaned Mrs. Crane. "And here was I just telling those two young men that we had with us as pretty a lot of children as they'd find in the state!"
The young men, seated on one of the benches, looked at the "pretty lot of children." Then, throwing back their heads, they laughed uproariously.
"We knew there were fish in the river," said one of the visitors, "but we hadn't been told about your mermaids."
"I've caught two lots this spring," said Mr. Black, "but this is my largest—and, I hope, my last—haul. This sort of fishing is hard on my limited wardrobe."
"Dear me," said Mrs. Crane, "these shivering scarecrows must get out of their wet garments at once. Here, Jean, you and Henrietta may dress in my tent—I'll bring your clothes. And, girls, throw all your wet garments outside—don't drop them on the blankets."
The visitors declined an invitation to dinner, as they had brought an ample lunch; but before departing they helped Mrs. Crane stretch a long clothesline between two trees in the clearing.
"These things should be washed," said Mrs. Crane, fastening the garments to the line with all the safety pins the camp afforded, "but we can't use the lake just now and it's a little too far to a place that is just the right depth in the river."
"Perhaps," suggested Bettie, helpfully, "most of the mud will brush off when the things are dry."
"The sand will, anyway. I hope those girls can find enough clothes to put on."
"They have the ones they came in," said Bettie, "and Jean's bundle was extra large."
The active castaways, clothed in dry garments, spent a busy if not particularly exciting afternoon exploring the trails that led from the clearing. They gathered flowers, mushrooms, firewood, birch bark, moss, ferns, and even a few wild strawberries. Dave, who was mysterious in his comings and goings, taught them how to make willow whistles and promised to show them some day how to catch chipmunks.
"I think," said Jean, when the campers had assembled for supper, "that this camp should have a name. We might call it 'Camp Comfort.'"
"Everybody that has a camp," objected Mr. Black, "calls it that. Let's have something truly poetic."
"We might," suggested Henrietta, "name it the Black Basin."
"That," demurred Bettie, "seems awfully pirate-y. Bob has a book about pirates that used to hide in a cave called the 'Black Basin'—I'd be afraid to go to bed nights in a Black Basin."
"Perhaps," offered Henrietta, "'The Crane's Cove' would sound safer."
"That doesn't work right," protested Marjory, wiggling her small pink tongue comically. "I'd always be saying 'Crane's Crove.'"
"Besides," said Jean, "that isn't romantic enough. We want something like 'Lover's Leap,' or 'Breezy Bluff,' or 'River's Rest.'"
Just then Dave approached with an offering for Jean—he had already given her his best willow whistle and a partridge wing. This time it was a fine speckled trout, bigger than any that Mr. Black had been able to hook.
"Where'd you catch him?" asked Mr. Black.
Dave shrugged his shoulders and replied evasively: "Pretty goo' fishin' groun' here at 'Pete's Patch.'"
"Where's Pete's Patch?" demanded Mr. Black, suspiciously.
"Right here," replied Dave, with a gesture that included Mr. Black's entire property. "He name after you—Ah name heem maself."
"That's nerve for you," breathed Henrietta.
"Pete's Patch!" murmured Mr. Black, who seemed decidedly taken aback. "Pete's Patch!"
Then the surprised gentleman caught Bettie's dancing eye and suddenly choked.
"What a lovely name," teased impish Henrietta. "So romantic! So poetic! I'm glad I came to Pete's Patch—I think I'll have to write some verses about it—something like this, for instance:
"If a trout or two you'd catch,
Or of mushrooms like a batch—
If a taste of heaven you'd snatch,
Hie away unto Pete's Patch."
"That's pretty bad," laughed Bettie, "but it goes pretty well with the name."
Of course the name stuck. Mr. Black tried a number of times to think of a more suitable or finer sounding name for his beautiful lakeside camp, but Dave's title was there to stay, so the amused castaways had to make the best of "Pete's Patch."
"Never mind, Peter," Mrs. Crane would say, "it's a nice place, anyway; and the name goes very well with our birch-bark stationery."