nmistakable. "I'll go and row it right over to you."

"We won't want it until about 11 o'clock," said Miss Ladd. "If you need
it between now and then you'd better wait."

"Oh we won't want it all day," James, Jr., returned reassuringly. "I'll
bring it right away."

"I hope he doesn't tip his boat over on his 'high C'," Hazel Edwards
said generously, as the caller disappeared in the timber. "He might be
drowned in the billows of his own voice."

"That's his name--High C," declared Estelle Adler enthusiastically. "I
refuse to recognize him by any other name. Dear me, girls, did you ever
in all your born days hear such a voice?"

"No," cried several in chorus.

"He's just the dearest thing I ever saw," declared Ernestine Johanson,
making a face as sour as the reputation of a crabapple.

At this moment the discussion of "High C" was dropped as suddenly as
"it" had appeared upon the scene. Another arrival claimed the interest
of the girls.

It was a little boy about ten years old, clad in steel-gray Palm Beach
knickerbockers and golf cap, but not at all happy in appearance. He was
a good looking youth, but there was no sprightly cheerfulness in his
countenance. He seemed nervous and on the alert.

"My goodness!" exclaimed Hazel Edwards; "that's Glen Irving, the little
boy we----"

Katherine, who was seated close to Hazel, cut the latter's utterance
short by clapping her hand over the speaker's mouth.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE RUNAWAY.

The boy was excited. Evidently he was laboring under anything but normal
conditions. He had appeared very suddenly around the north end of the
bluff which sheltered the camp on the east. "High C" or "Jimmie Junior,"
as the girls from now on referred to young Graham, had left the camp
around the south extremity of the bluff.

The youth in Palm Beach knickerbockers fairly rushed from the thicket
north of the camp and directly toward the girls, all of whom jumped to
their feet in astonishment. The newcomer did not slacken his pace, but
ran up to the group of startled campers as if seeking their protection
from a "Bogy Man." And as he stopped in the midst of the group which
circled around him almost as excited as he, the little fellow looked
back as if expecting to behold some frightful looking object bearing
down upon him.

"I ran away," were his first words; "so--so they couldn't beat me."

"Who wanted to beat you?" inquired Miss Ladd sympathetically, leaning
over and taki