AN hour later, with a splendid lot of glistening mushrooms, Mabel and Henrietta returned to camp. As they neared the clearing, Mrs. Crane could be seen in the doorway of her tent, frantically waving a large towel.
"Oh," cried Mabel, quickening her pace, "the boy's awake! She wants me—I'm to be first—I'm to be——"
"If you plunge in that way," admonished Henrietta, running lightly beside Mabel, "you'll scare him to death. Do stop long enough to wash your face—he'll think you're a murderous young squaw coming with another dose of Dave's medicine."
Five minutes later, when Mabel, very red and very shining from a hasty application of laundry soap and cold water, looked in at the tent door, a pair of big, bright blue eyes smiled at her from the low, balsam bed.
"Hello!" said the boy, "are you the kid they call Mabel? They tell me you picked me up on the beach, along with some driftwood, when I was drowned."
"Yes," admitted Mabel, bashfully. "And I guess you were drowned, too—almost. I'm glad you've come to, at last. When are you going to get up?"
"I tried to just now, but my head's made of lead—it won't come up."
"I guess your neck's weak—Bettie's was. What's your name?"
The laughter and the light suddenly faded from the boy's eyes.
"I don't know," said the boy, blankly. "I—it's queer, isn't it? That lady with the broth asked me once before, I think——"
"I asked you yesterday," corroborated Mrs. Crane. "But don't worry, my dear. You've been very ill and your mind is as weak as your body, no doubt. They'll both be stronger in a few days. All you need to remember is that we are your friends."
"And your real name doesn't matter, anyway," added Mabel, noting the troubled expression that still clouded the boy's countenance. "I'm going to call you Billy Blue-eyes—I used to know a goat——"
The boy's expressive face suddenly brightened, the blue eyes actually twinkled with fun.
"The very thing," cried Mrs. Crane. "We'll call him Billy Blue-eyes. I told him this morning that, when he came out of the lake, he must have brought some of the color with him. His eyes are certainly blue. Shall we call you Billy?"
"Sounds all right to me," agreed the boy; "but—but I hope I wasn't that goat."
"You weren't," assured Mabel, earnestly. "I liked him, but he butted so many people that Grandma Pike—he belonged to her—had to have him chloroformed and stuffed. The stuffed-animal man wanted him. They didn't have any real glass goat eyes to put in him so they used blue glass marbles. But how did you get in the lake—or out of it, Mr. Billy?"
Again the boy looked troubled.
"I don't know," said he, after a long pause.
"Don't ask any more questions," warned Mrs. Crane. "There'll be plenty of time for that later. Mr. Black sent a notice to the Lakeville paper, by Dave, so his folks'll know he's alive—we described him as well as we could. I even measured him with my tape-measure. He isn't as wide as he ought to be for his length, poor lamb."
"He'll get fat on camp fare," promised Mabel. "Look at me!"
Billy Blue-eyes looked and the troubled expression gave way to one of amusement.
"Phew!" said he, "I'd better not be fed so often—I guess I'll wait awhile for that broth—I've only one suit of clothes, the broth lady says. If I outgrow that——"
"You can borrow mine," laughed Mabel. "My gray sweater would fit you splendidly."
"He'll need it, too," said Mrs. Crane, "when he sits up to-morrow. That is, I think I'll let him sit up to-morrow—he hasn't had a scrap of fever for quite awhile."
"Perhaps," suggested Mabel, "Dave's medicine really did cure him. Did you taste it, Billy?"
"Once," said Billy, "but I don't know when, I drank something like red-hot coals, flavored with tobacco and vinegar and ink—was that it?"
"Yes," laughed Mabel, "that must have been it."
"There's a queer taste in my mouth yet," declared the boy. "It's all puckered up—like choke-cherries."
"I guess you'd better run along, Mabel," advised Mrs. Crane, noting that the boy's eyes, in spite of his best efforts, were closing wearily. "He doesn't stay awake very long at a time."
"Good-by," said Mabel, cheerfully.
"Come again," breathed the boy, sleepily.
Of course Mabel felt very important indeed when the other youthful castaways, waiting impatiently just outside the tent, seized her and wanted to know all about it.
"He's awfully thin," said Mabel, condescending finally to answer some of the eager little girls' questions. "And his eyes are perfectly huge and sort of twinkly. And blue; yes, bluer than Marjory's. I think we're going to like him; but he can't remember his own name."
"Can't remember his own name!" exclaimed Henrietta. "Perhaps he doesn't want to. Perhaps he's an escaped convict trying to hide from the police. Perhaps he's a burglar——"
"He isn't either," snorted Mabel, indignantly. "Do you s'pose I'd rescue anybody like that? Besides, you can tell. He wants to remember and can't."
"But what," demanded sympathetic Bettie, "will that poor child do for a name? Are we to call him 'that boy' forever? And shout 'Say, Boy' when we want him?"
"Of course not," said Henrietta, promptly. "We'll name him ourselves. Vincent de Manville Holmes would be nice—or Neptune something, because he came out of the sea."
"That was Venus," corrected Jean.
"Oh, well," amended Henrietta, cheerfully, "Ulysses might be better. Still, I always did like Reginald. Or Percival—Percival Orlando de Courcy."
"You go home," blurted indignant Mabel, no longer able to listen in triumphant silence. "His name's Billy. He's my boy and I named him; and that's enough."
"What?" demanded Marjory. "Just Billy?"
"Billy Blue-eyes."
"My!" teased Marjory. "Just like a paper doll!"
"Never mind," soothed tactful Jean, "I think Billy's a beautiful name."
"For a goat," scoffed Henrietta.
There's no knowing what would have happened if Mr. Black, gently shooing a strange object before him, had not appeared just then, from the woods back of the clearing.
"Hi there, girls," he shouted, "I'm bringing you a pet!"
At that the girls, all differences forgotten, raced toward Mr. Black.
"Stop! Stop!" he shouted. "You'll scare him away. Stand where you are. That's right. Now, Marjory, you run for the clothesline—we'll try to get a noose about his neck."
"Goodness!" gasped Henrietta, backing away as the pet waddled toward her; "what is it? It looks just like a bad dream."
"I know," laughed Jean. "It's a porcupine. Just see how his quills stick out—Mercy! Look out, Bettie!"
"Ouch!" squealed short-skirted Bettie, as the clumsy beast hurtled past her. "My legs!"
"Why!" cried Mabel, "there's quills in your stockings!"
"In me, too," giggled Bettie. "I guess nobody'll pet that pet very much."
"Perhaps we don't want him," said Mr. Black, rather apologetically; "but I thought you might enjoy studying a porcupine at close quarters."
"Not too close," laughed Bettie, rubbing her shin.
"They're easily tamed," said Mr. Black, "and they'll eat most anything. I found this one on the river bank. He seemed willing enough to run, but it took quite a while to get him going in the right direction."
Mr. Black succeeded presently in getting a noose fastened about the porcupine's neck. Then, because there happened to be a convenient tree at that point, the other end of the rope was made fast to a sturdy maple near the path that led to the beach.
"We'll name him Percival Orlando de Courcy," declared Henrietta.
"No," said Mr. Black, "this is Terrible Tim, the watchdog. Stationed at this point, he'll keep all intruders at bay."
Terrible Tim, however, looked the mildest of beasts by this time, for with quills lowered, he was cowering bashfully among the shrubbery.