CHAPTER XVIII

CANOEING

Camp Natalie it was named, in honour of the bride, though she blushingly protested. But Sylvia and her chums insisted, and the name was built up in bark letters on a board, and suspended in the little open glade in front of the tents, which faced the blue waters of the lake.

The camp was a most complete and modern one. A man had been engaged to look after the putting up of the tents, and the arranging of all matters, so that the fun-lovers had really nothing to worry about. And the man had done his work well.

There were five canvas shelters in all, besides a small additional one near the cook tent, where slept the buxom woman who presided over the dishes, pots and pans.

A large tent that could be made open to the glorious breezes, or closed in case of stormy weather, served as the dining-room. The cooking was done in another tent, with a real stove, burning coal that was transported to camp in a wagon. For there is nothing more exasperating than to cook over a wood fire. Either it is too hot, or it has expired before the cook is aware of it, and has to be brought hastily to life again to the detriment of the viands. So coal solved the problem.

Then there were three sleeping tents, with ample accommodations and the most modern of cots. In fact it was a most comfortable camp, and the Nowadays Girls, as well as Natalie and her husband, pronounced it to be perfect.

After setting the camp to rights, which was no small task, even though the cook and her husband, a guide, helped, there followed a somewhat lazy period. The girls went for strolls in the balsam-odorous woods, or sat on the shores of the little lake, looking at the view. Sometimes, when Rose was particularly pensive, Hazel or Alice would ask:

"Can't you stop it?"

"Stop what?" she would ask, sometimes before she thought.

"Thinking of Roy."

"Oh!" and she would blush rosy-red.

"Well, I don't blame her for thinking of him, if he's as nice as his picture indicates," said Natalie--for so all the girls called her. "I shall like him myself!"

"Oh!" exclaimed Hazel.

"In a perfectly brotherly way," Natalie added, calmly. "In fact I almost think of him as a brother already."

"He _is_ awfully nice," declared Alice. "He is such a dear boy, and it was too bad that this trouble had to come to him."

"I do hope he will get over it," Natalie said.

"We all trust so," replied his sister. "It means so much to him in his success with that chemical firm. Roy really overworked, trying to solve some chemical problem, and that brought on a breakdown. Only that the doctor thought it best for us to keep away from him a little while, I should be with him now."

Rose did not say so, but doubtless she, too, wished she could help to minister to Roy. For between the two was a bond of more than mere friendship. And presently Rose went off by herself in the green and silent woods.

"Poor girl," murmured Natalie. "I know how she must feel. Bob was ill once----But there, you don't want to hear about the troubles of an old married couple!" and her merry laugh rang out.

There were glorious days in the woods, at Camp Natalie. The girls went fishing a number of times, and explored little-travelled trails through the forest. But they did not go far enough to get lost, and Mrs. Rachlin was almost as expert in the woods as was her guide-husband. She led forth the little parties, after her work in camp was done, and many were the hidden mysteries of the forest that she laid bare.

Aunt Theodora, too, enjoyed this life in the open.

"I think, really," she said, in her precise little way, "that this is more educating than some trips to Europe. One gets so tired of following in the beaten paths, even of knowledge. This is positively a revelation."

"I am so glad it isn't boring you," said Sylvia.

"Boring me! My dear, I would never be bored where you girls were!"

"Which is very nice for you to say, at any rate," laughed Hazel.

"Oh, I mean it!" declared "Guardy!" as the girls affectionately called Mrs. Brownley at times.

"Positively I'm ashamed of my appetite!" said Hazel, after one meal. "But, really, I never ate anything that tasted so good as the food does here. I think it must be the air."

"Or the cooking!" added Alice.

"The cooking certainly has much to do with it," declared Sylvia. "Mrs. Rachlin gets up some wonderful dishes. I really don't see how she does it with the limited means at her disposal."

"Oh, I'm used to rough cooking," said the person under discussion. "You girls are easy compared to lumbermen, and I've cooked for them when my husband has been in charge of a gang. They certainly can eat!" and she shook her head in remembrance.

The delights of the water added to the pleasure of the girls and their friends at Camp Natalie. They had sent for canoes, which were brought over on a wagon, and one day they set out to explore a small but rather rapid and turbulent stream connected with Shedd Lake.

The four Nowadays Girls, in two canoes, went off by themselves, for Mrs. Brownley would not trust herself in one of the frail craft, and Natalie and Bob voted for a quiet and rather solitary stroll through the woods.

"Now do sit quiet, Rose," begged Sylvia, who was in the bow of one craft, while Rose was in the stern. Hazel and Alice were in like positions in another canoe.

"Sit quiet! Don't I always?" Rose demanded.

"You do except when you see an old stump or floating log and think it's an alligator!" Sylvia chided.

"As if she didn't know, by this time, that alligators are unknown reptiles in the Adirondacks," laughed Alice.

So they started off in the canoes, threading their way in and out along the winding stream, now floating lazily under some overhanging boughs, and again moving rapidly down some little stretch where the waters bubbled and foamed over the stones in such a manner as to have that particular section designated as "rapids."

"Look out, girls!" Sylvia called back to Alice and Hazel, whose canoe had dropped astern. "Here's a bad passage just ahead."

"All right. We see it!" answered Hazel.

"Now do sit steady, Rose!" pleaded Sylvia.

"Steady it is!" Rose answered, plying her paddle carefully.

Whether she disobeyed the injunction, or whether she gave a wrong turn to the broad blade, will never be known, but just as the canoe was in the midst of the swirling water there was a sudden scream from Rose, echoing ones from Hazel and Alice, and the craft containing Sylvia and her chum rolled over, spilling them both out.