Chapter XXIX: The Sunken Treasure

Wyn and Frank were in despair when they saw the last of the flames wink out and the balloon of smoke sail away upon the breeze. They were too far away to be able to see the men struggling in the water--if they were still there.

"Oh! suppose Mr. Jarley doesn't reach them in time?" cried the captain of the girls' club.

"He must! he must!" groaned Frank, beating the water as hard as she could with her paddle.

"You'll have your canoe over!" exclaimed Wyn. "Look out, Frank!"

"I don't care! I don't care!" repeated the good-hearted Frances. "Oh, dear me! Suppose Mr. Lavine should be drowned? What would Bessie do? And they so much to each other!"

The girls saw the catboat round to suddenly, and Mr. Jarley drop the sail. The _Coquette_ seemed to drive straight across the spot where the burned motor boat had gone down.

They saw the boatman bend over the rail once--and then again. Each time he lifted in--or helped lift in--some object; but whether it was the men he picked up, or some of the floating wreckage, the girls could not see.

They drove their canoes on, however, and Mr. Jarley saw them when he brought the catboat about. So he sailed down to pick them up likewise.

"Did you get them? Did you get them?" shouted Wyn, resting on her paddle.

Frankie was crying--and she was not a "weepy" girl as a general thing. But the peril seemed so terrible that she could not control herself for the moment.

Mr. Jarley--whose figure was all the girls could see in the catboat--leaned over and waved his hand to the girls. Was it meant to be reassuring? They did not know until the _Coquette_ tacked so as to run down very close to them.

"Is that his girl with you, Miss Mallory?" demanded Polly's father.

"No. She did not come. She doesn't know," cried Wyn. "Oh, Mr. Jarley! is he all right?"

At that Mr. Lavine's head and shoulders appeared above the rail.

"We're alive, girls," he called, hoarsely. "This brave fellow caught us just in time. Where's Bess?"

"She doesn't even know it was you in the burning boat," cried Wyn. "But Frank and I started out for you."

"You'd been awfully wet before ever we could have reached you, though, Mr. Lavine," choked Frank, quickly turning from tears to laughter, as was her nature.

Mr. Jarley had dropped the sail again, and beckoned the girls to approach.

"Come aboard," he said, gravely, "and I'll tow your canoes behind us. Shall I take this gentleman to your camp, Miss Mallory?"

But Wyn was thinking to good purpose. She saw that Mr. Jarley, like his daughter, wished to have nothing to do with the Lavines. She knew that now Mr. Lavine would be doubly grateful to the boatman and that the time was ripe for the old friends to come to a better understanding.

"Why, Mr. Jarley," she said, "we haven't a thing at the camp he can put on--or the other man. No, sir. I don't know what we should do with them there."

Jarley's face flushed and he glanced back at the Forge. But it was near sunset already, and the Forge was much farther away than his own landing. The case was obvious.

"Well," he said, "I can take them home. Polly will find something for them to put on while their clothing is being dried. Yes! that may be best."

"And you take us girls right along with you and we'll paddle home from the landing," declared Wyn.

Wyn wanted to see Polly. After all, she believed, it lay with the boatman's daughter to make friends between the Jarleys and the Lavines. The captain of the Go-Ahead Club felt as though her long and exciting vacation under canvas would come to a very happy conclusion if she could see the two men who had once been such close friends, reunited.

Wyn was the first one ashore when the bow of the catboat touched the landing. Polly came running from the cottage, for she had spied their approach.

"Oh, Wynnie!" she cried, "what was it? Did father get them safely?"

"He saved them both--the most wonderful thing, Polly Jolly!" cried Wyn.

"Not so wonderful," corrected Polly, with pride. "My father has saved the lives of people from the lake before."

"But it _is_ wonderful," quoth Wyn, "because one of the men saved is Bessie's father."

"Mr. Lavine!" gasped Polly.

"Yes. Now he owes his life to your father, just as Bess owes hers to you."

"Don't talk so, Wyn," begged Polly. "It's nothing."

"Nothing! It's everything! Don't stand in the way of your father and Bessie's being good friends again."

"Why, Wynnie!" gasped Polly, with a deeper color in her cheek.

"Don't you dare to act 'offish,'" warned Wyn. "The Lavines feel very kindly toward you--you know it. And now I am sure Mr. Lavine will feel more than kindly toward your father. Bring them together, Polly."

"You talk as though _I_ could do anything," responded the boatman's girl.

"You can. You can do everything! Show your father that you feel kindly toward Mr. Lavine. That will break down _his_ coldness quicker than anything," declared the inspired young peacemaker.

Wet and bedraggled, Mr. Lavine and his companion stepped ashore.

"Hi, Polly!" shouted her father. "Take Mr. Lavine up to the house and see if he can wear some of my things while his clothes are drying. I can find something at the shed here, for Bill."

Polly hesitated just a moment. The eager Wyn gave her a little push from behind. The boatman's girl ran forward to greet Mr. Lavine.

"Oh, sir!" she cried, timidly, "I am _so_ sorry you had this accident."

"I don't know yet whether I am sorry, or not," said Mr. Lavine, grasping her hand.

She turned and walked beside him and her other hand sought his arm in a friendly way. John Jarley stood on the landing and followed them with his eyes. The expression upon his face pleased Wyn immensely.

She beckoned Frank away. "Come on! let's hurry back to the camp before it gets dark. Mrs. Havel will be worried about us."

"And leave Mr. Lavine here?" queried Frank.

"He couldn't be in better hands; could he?"

"I don't know that he could, Wyn!" cried her friend, suddenly. "What a smart girl you are!"

But Wyn would not accept that praise without qualifying it. "The accident was providential," she declared, gravely. "And without _my_ assistance I am sure Polly knows how to do the right thing."

Perhaps Polly did. At least she gave much attention to their visitor, and her father could not help but see that Polly and Mr. Lavine were very good friends.

In half an hour Mr. Lavine appeared from the cottage dressed in Mr. Jarley's best suit of clothes. He shook hands with Polly, and then suddenly drew her to him and kissed her on the forehead.

"You are a dear girl, Polly," he declared, with some emotion. "I have to thank you for my little girl's life; and now I am going to thank your father for _mine_."

He walked straight down to the landing where Mr. Jarley was apparently very busy.

"Bill, here, says he will row you over to that camp if you care to go, Mr. Lavine," said the boatman.

"I don't want to see Bill, John," said the real estate man. "I want to see _you_. I am going to take advantage of my position as your guest, John. You cannot turn me off, or refuse to talk with me. You always were a gentleman, John, and I am sure you will listen to me now."

Mr. Jarley looked at him a good deal as Polly had looked (at first) at Wyn Mallory.

"Come! don't hold a grudge, John, just because _I_ have been wicked enough to hold one all these years. I was wrong. I freely admit it. Come and sit down here, old man, and let's talk all that old matter over and see where our misunderstanding lay."

"Misunderstanding?"

"Aye," said the other, warmly. "Misunderstanding. For I am convinced now that a brave and generous man like you, John Jarley, would never have knowingly done what--all these years--I have held you to be guilty of!"

He had put his arm through the boatman's. Together they walked aside and sat down upon an upturned skiff. And they were sitting there long after it grew pitch dark upon the landing, with only the glow of Polly's lamp in the kitchen window and that uncertain radiance upon the lake which seems the reflection of the distant stars.

Finally the two men stepped into a skiff and Mr. Jarley rowed it over to Green Knoll Camp. They did not reach the camp until nearly bedtime, and they came so softly to the shore that the girls did not hear the scraping of the boat's keel.

Lavine seized his old friend's hand before leaping ashore.

"Then it's understood, John? You're to get out of this place and come back to Denton? I'm sorry Dr. Shelton is ahead of me in giving Polly something substantial; but you and I are going to begin just where we left off in that Steel Rivet Corporation deal, John.

"About next month I'll have a bigger thing than _that_ in sight, and you shall have the same share in it that you would have had in the old deal. You used to be mighty good in handling your end of the game, John; I want you to take hold of it in just the same way again. Will you agree, old man?"

And Mr. Jarley gave him his hand upon it.

The girls put their visitor to sleep in the cook tent that night and the next morning the whole party went over to Gannet Island to see the work of raising the sunken motor boat carried on. The Busters were as excited as the girls themselves over the affair, and Cave-in-the-Wood Camp was a lively place indeed that day.

Tubby Blaisdell was the only person in the party who wore an aggrieved air. At first he could hardly be made to believe that the girls had not "sicked" the goat upon him two days before when he had stolen away from the other boys for a nap in the woods. Tubby walked lame and could have displayed bruises for several days.

The derrick barge had been towed over to the place where the _Bright Eyes_ was sunk, the evening before. The boys helped put the chains around the hull of the sunken boat, for they were all good divers--save the fat youth, who remained on the invalid list.

Before noon the lost boat was raised to the surface and lashed to the side of the barge. Mr. Jarley very quickly tacked a tarpaulin over the hole in her bottom, and then she was pumped out. Further repairs were made and by night the _Bright Eyes_ was riding safely to her own anchor and Mr. Jarley pried open the rusted lock of the cabin.

Dr. Shelton had come over in the _Sunshine Boy_ and received from Mr. Jarley the box containing the silver images intact. It made Polly Jarley very happy to hear what the quick-tempered doctor said to her father; and it made Wyn Mallory blush to listen to what they _all_ said to her!

"You can't get out of it, girlie!" laughed Frank Cameron. "What they say is quite true. If it hadn't been for you they never would have found the boat, and of course the images would have remained hidden. You're _it_, Wyn Mallory--no getting away from that!"