The Outdoor Girls in a Winter Camp Part 9

"But I know, no matter what happens, that Mr. and Mrs. Stonington will always care for me," Amy went on. "If it were not for that I don't know what I'd do. Now let's talk of something else--something more pleasant."

"Oh, this isn't unpleasant for us!" Betty hastened to a.s.sure her chum.

"Only of course we know how you must feel about it. If we could only help you in some way!"

"I'm afraid you can't," said Amy softly. "It's good of you, though."

"It's like one of those queer puzzle stories, that end with a b.u.mp, in the middle, and leave you guessing--like 'The Lady or the Tiger,'"

a.s.serted Mollie. "I can't bear them. I get to thinking of the solution in the night and it sets me wild."

"Yes, it is like that," agreed Amy gently. "But I don't see how it can ever be known on which baby the envelope belonged."

"What became of the other baby?" asked Grace.

"I never heard, and the man who rescued me did not know either,"

answered Amy. "He turned us both over to the relief authorities, and, a.s.suming that I belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Stonington, because of their address on the envelope, on my sleeve, they sent for--for my uncle, as I suppose I ought to call him, though he may not be--and he has kept me ever since."

"But there is just as much chance that you were the baby on whom the paper was pinned, as to think that you were not," came somewhat positively from Betty.

"Yes, I suppose so," Amy agreed. "But, please, let's talk about going camping. I want to forget that I may be a--n.o.body."

"You'll never be that, Amy--to us!" declared Mollie, positively.

"Thank you, dear."

"The question still to be settled," broke in Betty, determined to change the conversation, "is how are we to go to camp. Shall we skate or sled or----"

"Ice boat!" cried the voice of Will Ford at the door. "Ladies, excuse me, but I have arrived at a most propitious time, I observe. I overheard what you said. Allow me to suggest--an ice boat!"

They looked at him with rather startled glances, and he added:

"Shall I explain?"

"As it seems to be an unguessable riddle--do," urged his sister. "Did you bring any chocolates?"

"I did."

"Pay as you enter," said Mollie, laughingly.

CHAPTER VII

OFF FOR CAMP

Will entered with the air of one conferring a favor, and successfully evaded the efforts of his sister to take away a certain box he was carrying.

"Have patience, little sister mine!" he mocked. "Have patience, and you will get your desires."

"You mean thing! and I haven't had a chocolate all day. How did you come to bring them?"

"Amy asked me to," he said boldly.

"Oh, Will Ford! I did not!" and Amy blushed a "lobster red," as the lad ungallantly informed her.

"Well, anyhow take them, and dole them out," he added, tossing the box of confectionery into her lap.

"Oh, Amy, I always loved you!" confided Grace, "shooting" a look of wonder at her brother.

"And while Amy pa.s.ses the treat, perhaps you will kindly elucidate the riddle of the ice boat for us," suggested Mollie, catching a marshmallow chocolate which Amy deftly threw across the parlor.

"Nothing very complicated about it," replied Will, himself munching on some candy that he produced from a hidden source--likely one of his seemingly innumerable pockets. Betty said she never could understand how a boy could remember all the pockets he had--fourteen she once counted, when she had Allen Washburn enumerate them for her.

"It's this way," went on Will, with tantalizing slowness, but Grace knew better than to try to hurry him. "Allen and Frank and I have bought a big ice boat."

"You have?" cried Grace. "You never told me a thing about it." She looked her keen reproaches.

"Well, I'm telling you now," said Will. "It is a second-hand one, and used to belong to the Chacalott Club, down the river. They bought a new one for racing purposes, and Allen heard of the chance to get this one.

He told me, I told Frank, Frank told--told----"

"Oh, spare us the horrible details!" protested Grace. "Where do we come in?"

"In the ice boat, of course. Where else did you expect?" and Will grinned at her like a Ches.h.i.+re cat.

"Provoking!" murmured Grace. "Do go on."

"Yes, do," urged Mollie. "We've got so much to do yet!"

"Well, as I said, we have a big, roomy ice boat," went on Will. "It isn't as comfortable as your _Gem_, Betty, and has no cabin."

"No cabin!" cried Amy. "I thought all boats had to have cabins."

"An ice boat is like a pair of stilts, crossed," explained Will.

"There's no room for a cabin, but there is a sort of c.o.c.kpit on this one. It will hold ten when they aren't spilled out on the way."

"Spilled out?" queried Mollie. "That sounds interesting."

"It is--when you're not spilled," said Will. "You see in a stiff breeze the ice boat sort of rears up on its hind legs, like an auto going around a curve on two wheels, and there the spilling begins.

"As I said, the c.o.c.kpit of the _Spider_ will hold about ten comfortably, and if half spill out, why so much the more comfort for those who succeed in holding themselves in."

"But what about us?" asked Grace.

"Oh, we'll hold you in," volunteered Will, cheerfully.

"No, I mean do you really intend for us to use it to go to camp?"

insisted his sister.