ected.

"And the boys will be just as busy as they can be to-day," she said to
the other girls. "It's a wonder if everything they owned didn't get
soaked last evening.

"Now, we can't depend upon the Busters to give us any assistance just
now. Doubt if we see 'hide nor hair' of them to-day. But we need
somebody to make these floors properly. There! Bess has stuck a splinter
into her hand already."

"Plague take the old board!" snapped Bess, dropping it and sucking on a
ragged little wound in her hand.

"You see," Wyn said, quickly. "I'm going to get some help. Anybody want
to walk over to Jarley's with me?"

"Are you going to get that man to come here?" demanded Bess, sharply.

"Don't see what else there is to do--do you, Bessie?"

"Isn't there anybody else to help us around here? There must be other
squatters."

"I do not know of any. We chance to know the Jarleys----"

"Not I!" cried Bess, shaking her head. "_I_ don't know them--and I
won't know them."

"All right. You and Grace and Percy take the pails and try for some
berries in the woods yonder. I saw some ripe ones this morning. Fresh
picked berries will add nicely to our bill-of-fare; isn't that so, Mrs.
Havel?"

"Quite so, my dear," replied the widow, and buried herself in her book
again, for, as she had told the girls, she had not come here to work;
they must treat her as a guest.

"Are you going to stop with Mrs. Havel, Mina?" continued Wyn. "Then come
along with me, Frank. We'll go over and see if the Jarleys bite. Bess is
afraid they will!"

"She was telling us all about John Jarley," said Wyn's chum, as the two
left the camp on the green knoll. "Do you suppose he stole that motor
boat and the box of silver statuettes?"

* * * * *

"I don't _know_ anything about it," said Wyn, briskly. "But I know
that he and Polly are very poor, and with a motor boat and five thousand
dollars' worth of silver, it looks to me as though they would be very
foolish to suffer the privations they do. It's nasty gossip, that's all
it is."

"Well, Bess says the man stole from her father years ago----"

"I don't know much about _that_, either," interrupted Wynifred.
"But I think Bess is overstepping the line of exact truth when she says
John Jarley stole from her father. They were doing business together,
and Mr. Lavine accused Jarley of 'selling him out' in a real estate
deal.

"I asked my father about it. Father s