CHAPTER XVII

ON WILD GOOSE ISLAND

“My!” Tess gasped, sitting in the stern of the drifting boat, “how fast the shores go past, Dot! We’re going up the river awfully quick.”

“And so j-j-jerky!” exclaimed her sister, clinging to the Alice-doll.

“You aren’t really afraid, are you, Dot?”

“No-o. Only for Alice. She’s always been weakly, you know, since that awful time she got buried alive,” said Dot, seriously. “And if she should get wet and catch her death of cold——”

“But you mustn’t drop her overboard,” warned Tess.

“Do you s’pose I _would_, Tess Kenway?” demanded Dot, quite hurt by the suggestion.

“If she did fall overboard, Tom Jonah would save her, of course,” went on Tess.

“Oh! don’t you say such things,” cried Dot. “And _do_, please, stop the boat from jerking so!”

“I—I guess it wants to be steered,” Tess said.

The tiller ropes were at hand and Tess had observed Ruth and Agnes use them. She began experimenting with them and soon got the hang of using the rudder. But as the boat was propelled, only by the tide, it _would_ “wabble.”

Tom Jonah watched all the small girls did with his keen eyes. But he scarcely moved. The boat floated on and on. Tess did not know how to work the boat ashore—indeed, caught as the craft was in the strong tide-rip, it would have taken considerable exertion with the oars to have driven it to land.

There chanced to be no other boats beyond the bend on this day. On either hand there were farms, but the houses were too far from the shores for the dwellers therein to notice the plight of the two small girls and the big dog in the bobbing cedar boat.

The shores at the river’s edge were wooded for the most part, as was the long and narrow island in the middle of the river, not far ahead. This latter was called Wild Goose Island, as Tess and Dot knew.

“Maybe the boat will go ashore there,” said Dot, more cheerfully.

“There are berries on that island,” cried Tess. “Only they were not ripe when we were there last week.” She was beginning to feel hungry; it was past midday.

“But we can’t walk back to the tent from there,” objected Dot.

“No-o,” admitted Tess. “It’ll be land, just the same!”

But the tide swept the cedar boat out from the lower end of the island and up the northern channel. It was this fact that hid the drifting boat from the anxious eyes of Ruth and Agnes when they came around the bend, expecting to see the missing craft. The island hid it.

Wild Goose Island was more than half a mile long. In the channel where the boat floated, the current of the river and the inflowing tide began to battle.

There were eddies that seized the boat and swept it in circles. The surface of the channel was rippled by small waves. The boat bobbed every-which-way, for Tess could not control the rudder.

“Oh, dear me!” gasped Dot. “I—I am afraid my Alice-doll will be sick. Do—don’t you s’pose we can get ashore, Tess?”

But Tess did not see how they could do that, although the boat was now and then swept very close to the shore of the island.

The island was a famous picnicking place; but there were no pleasure seekers there to-day. The shore seemed deserted as the girls were swept on by the resistless tide.

Suddenly Dot stood right up and squealed—pointing at the island. Tom Jonah lifted his head and barked.

“There’s somebody, Tess!” declared Dot.

The bigger Corner House girl had seen the face break through the fringe of bushes on the island shore. It was a dark, beautiful face, and it was a girl’s.

“Oh! oh! Let’s call her,” gasped Tess. “She’ll help us.”

The two small Kenways had a strong belief in the goodness of humanity at large. They expected that anybody who saw their plight would come to their rescue if possible.

For fully a minute, however, the girl in the bushes of Wild Goose Island did not come out into the open. Tess and Dot shouted again and again, while Tom Jonah lifted up his head and bayed most mournfully.

If the girl on the island did not want general attention attracted to the place, it behooved her to come out of concealment and try to pacify the drifting trio in the cedar boat.

Her face was very red when she reappeared in an open place on the shore. The distance between her and the boat, which was now caught in a small eddy, was only a few yards.

“What’s the matter with you?” she demanded, in rather a sharp tone.

“We—we can’t stop the boat,” responded Tess.

“We want to get ashore,” added Dorothy,

“How did you get out there?” asked the strange girl. She was older than Ruth, and although she was very pretty, Tess and Dot were quite sure they did not like her—much!

“We got in it, and it floated away with us,” said Tess.

“Where from?” asked the girl on shore.

“Oh! ’way down the river. ’Round that turn. We live at Willowbend Camp with Ruth and Aggie.”

“Ruth _Who_?” the other demanded, sharply.

“Our sister, Ruth Kenway,” said Tess.

The girl on the island was silent for a moment, while the boat turned lazily in the eddy. It now was headed up stream again, when she said:

“Is that dog good for anything?”

“Tom Jonah?” cried Tess and Dot together. “Why, he’s the best dog that ever _was_,” Dot added.

“Does he know anything?” insisted the strange girl.

“Uncle Rufus says he’s just as knowin’ as any human,” Tess said, impressively.

“Does he mind?” pursued the girl on the shore.

“Oh, yes,” said Tess. “He’ll sit up and beg—and shakes hands—and lies down and rolls over—and——”

“Say! those tricks won’t help you any,” cried the other. “Can you make him swim ashore here?”

“Why—ee—I don’t know,” stammered Tess.

“We wouldn’t want to let you have Tom Jonah,” Dorothy hastened to explain.

“Goodness knows, _I_ don’t want him,” said the big girl, still tartly. “But if he can swim ashore with the end of that rope you have coiled there in the bow of your boat, tied to his collar, he may be of some use.”

“Oh, yes!” cried Tess, scrambling toward the bow at once.

“See that the other end is fast to your boat,” commanded the girl on the island.

It was. Tess quickly knotted the free end of the long painter to Tom Jonah’s collar.

“Now send him ashore, child!” cried the big girl.

Tom Jonah was looking up at Tess with his wonderfully intelligent eyes. He seemed to understand just what was expected of him when the rope was tied to his collar.

“Go on, Tom Jonah! Overboard!” cried Tess, firmly.

“He—he’ll get all wet, Tess,” objected Dot, plaintively.

“That won’t hurt him, Dot,” explained her sister. “You know he loves the water.”

“Come on, here!” cried the girl on the island, snapping her fingers. “Push him overboard.”

But Tom Jonah did not need such urging. With his forepaws on the gunwale of the boat he barked several times. The boat tipped a little and Dot screamed, clutching the Alice-doll tighter to her bosom.

“Go on, Tom Jonah!” shouted Tess. “You’re rocking the boat!”

The big dog leaped over the gunwale into the river, leaving the light craft tossing in a most exciting fashion. Some water even slopped over the side.

“Come on, sir! come on!” shouted the girl ashore.

Tom Jonah swam directly for the beach where she stood. The line uncoiled freely behind him, slipping into the water. It was long enough to reach the shore where the big girl stood; but none too long.

The sag of the rope in the water began to trouble Tom Jonah, strong as he was. Quickly the girl drew off her shoes and stockings and waded in to meet the laboring dog.

“Come on, sir! now we’ll get them!” she urged, laying hold of the line.

The dog scrambled ashore, barking loudly. The line was taut and the boat had swung around, tugging on the other end like a thing of life.

“Now we have them!” cried the girl.

She pulled hard on the rope. Tom Jonah, seeing what she was doing, caught the rope in his strong jaws, and set back to pull, too. Tess and Dot screamed with delight.

As the big girl slowly drew in the rope the dog backed up the beach, and so the cedar boat, with its two remaining passengers, came to land.

“Oh, dear me! Oh, dear me!” gasped Dot, standing in the bow of the boat. “I’m so glad to get ashore. And so’s my Alice-doll,” she added, seriously.

Tess helped her sister to jump down upon the sand and then followed, herself. Tom Jonah dropped the rope and bounded about them, barking his satisfaction. But the strange girl was looking up and down the river, and over at the opposite shore, with a mind plainly disturbed.

“Come on, now!” she said, sharply. “Unfasten the rope from that dog’s collar. We’ll keep _that_. It may come in handy.”

“Don’t you want it to pull the boat up on the beach?” asked Tess, as she obeyed the command.

The strange girl was already unfastening the rope from the ring in the bow of the boat. She threw the line ashore and then pushed the boat off with such vigor that she ran knee deep into the river again.

“Oh! oh!” squealed Dot. “You’ll lose our boat.”

“I want to lose it,” declared the girl, coming back very red in the face from her exertions. “I got you kids ashore, ’cause you might have been tipped over, or hurt in some way. I’m not going to be bothered by that boat.”

“But that’s Ruthie’s boat,” exclaimed Tess.

“I can’t help it! You young ones go into the bushes there and sit down. Keep quiet, too. Take the dog with you and keep _him_ quiet. Don’t let him run about, or bark. If he does I’ll tie him to a tree and muzzle him.”

“Why—why, I don’t think that’s very nice of you,” said Tess, who was too polite, and had too deep a sense of gratitude, to say just what she really thought of this conduct on the part of the strange girl. “We might have saved the boat for Ruth.”

“And it would give me dead away,” declared the big girl, angrily. “You children be satisfied that I took you ashore. Now keep still!”

“I—I don’t believe I like her very much, Tess,” Dot whispered again.

The older Corner House girl was not only puzzled by the strange girl’s

## actions and words, but she was somewhat frightened. She and Dot sat

down among the bushes, where they were completely hidden from the river and the opposite shore, and called Tom Jonah to them.

He lay at their feet. He had shaken himself comparatively dry, and now he put his head on his paws and went to sleep.

“Well,” sighed Tess, caressing the dog’s head. “I’m glad we have him with us.”

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