"Or it's sunk," said the lugubrious Agnes.
"Now you stop that, Aggie Kenway!" cried Ruth, stamping her foot. "I won't have it. With Tom Jonah those children would not easily get into trouble."
"They could fall out of the boat," urged Agnes, wiping her eyes.
"They'd not be foolish enough to rock the boat. It's all right, I tell you. I _did_ expect to see the boat from this spot; but it's floated into some cove somewhere. The children are safe enough----"
"Keep still! Yes, I _do_ know--I know as well as I want to. But we'll have to ask for help to find them."
"We'll get Mr. Stryver's motorboat," said the oldest Corner House girl, with decision.
As they went back around the bend they heard a chorus of shouts from the camp. Agnes was startled, being in a nervous state, anyway.
"What is that, Ruth? The Gypsies?" she demanded.
"If it is, then the Gypsies have adopted the Milton high school yell. Don't you recognize it?" returned Ruth. "The boys have arrived."
"He will help us," cried the delighted Agnes, sure in the ability of Neale O'Neil to do almost anything.
"Well--I suppose he may," admitted Ruth, slowly.
Ruth had made no mistake in identifying the school yell of their boy friends. There was a crowd of boys at the two big tents reserved for Joe Eldred and his friends. They had just come on the auto-stage.
Already an American flag and the school pennant were being raised on the flag-pole before the tents. The scene at Willowbend Camp had been a most quiet one ten minutes before; now it seemed to be alive in every part, and the boys from Milton were all over it.
They were like a herd of young colts let loose in a new pasture. They got the flags up before the girls came back, and then began running races, and playing leap-frog on the sand. The midday heat made no difference to them.
"Doesn't that water look inviting?" shouted Ben Truman to Joe and some of the bigger boys. "When do we go in swimming, Joe?"
"_You_ can go when you like, Bennie," returned Eldred.
"I'd like right now," declared the youngster.
"Clothes and all, I suppose, Ben?" drawled Neale O'Neil.
"What's clothes? I'm not afraid to go in just as I am."
"I dare you, Ben!" shouted another of the boys, knowing the spirit of Truman.