, the coxswain, "are we going to ask that boy
to get out the launch and follow us?"

"Oh, goodness me! No," said Helen, with assurance. "We don't want him
tagging us. Do we, girls?"

"Perhaps it might be better," Ruth said slowly.

But the chorus of the other girls cried her down. Besides, she did not
believe there was any danger. Of course, a rowing shell is an uncertain
thing; but she had never yet seen an accident on the lake.

All stepped in, adjusted their oars, and the coxswain pushed off. Having
adjusted the rudder-lines, Trix affixed the megaphone, and lifted her
hand. The eight strained forward, and the coxswain began to beat time.

Ruth set the pace in a long, swinging stroke, and the other seven fell
into time. The shell shot out from the landing just as the coach
appeared around the corner of Dare Hall, on her way down from the
gymnasium. She gave one glance at the sky, and then started to run.

"Those foolish girls!" she exclaimed. "Where's Johnny?"

The freshman eight was far out upon the lake when she reached the
boathouse, and she quickly saw that the old boatkeeper was not in sight.
She tried to signal the crew of the shell to return; but the girls in
the frail craft were too interested in their practice to look back
toward the shore. Indeed, in a very few minutes, they swept through the
slightly rough water at the eastern end of the island and disappeared
behind it. The coach, Miss Mallory, beckoned the assistant boatman and
ordered out the launch. But there was something wrong with the engine,
and he lost some time before getting the craft started.

Meanwhile, the cloudbank was rolling up from the west. The sun suddenly
was quenched. A breath of cold wind swept down the lake and fretted the
tiny waves. They sprang up in retaliation and slapped the bow of the
launch, which finally got under its sputtering way.

Then a squall of wind swooped down and Miss Mallory was almost swept off
her feet. The boatman steered carefully, but the engine was not yet
working in good fashion. The coach made a mistake, too, in directing the
launch. Instead of starting directly up the lake, and rounding the head
of the island to meet the freshman shell, she ordered the boatman to
trail the boat that had disappeared.

The launch was some time in beating around the lower end of the island.

CHAPTER XXIV

TREASURE HUNTING

The freshmen shell was well around the end of Bliss Island and behind
it, before