The Outdoor Girls Around the Campfire

PLANS

“Putt—putt—putt!” came the rhythmic throb of the motor as the little motor boat sped over the glassy surface of the lake, stirring up the water on either side of it and leaving a frothy white trail in its wake.

“How’s this for speed?” chortled the girl at the wheel, a pretty, dark-haired girl with dancing brown eyes. “I reckon we could beat any other boat on this old lake.”

“And then some!” agreed Mollie Billette, slangily. “I wish some one would come along and challenge us to a race.”

“It would provide some excitement, anyway,” sighed Grace Ford, as she lounged in the bow of the pretty little boat. “Looks like a pretty dull summer to me, so far.”

“How do you get that way, Grace Ford?” cried Betty Nelson, she of the dark hair and

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 dancing eyes whom the girls fondly called “Little Captain.” “Tell ’em, Amy,” she added, to the quiet, sweet-faced girl who lounged beside Mollie Billette. “Tell ’em what you told me a little while ago.”

Grace Ford sat upright, a chocolate half-way to her mouth, while Mollie Billette’s black eyes regarded the “Little Captain” severely.

“Betty Nelson, what have you been holding back from us?” she demanded, but Betty was still looking at Amy Blackford.

“Tell ’em, Amy,” she repeated. “The news is too good to keep.”

“I’ll say it is,” agreed Amy, a smile lighting up her quiet face. “When Henry spoke of it to me at first I thought it was too good to be true. I supposed he was joking.”

“Told you what?” cried Mollie Billette, in an exasperated tone. “If you are not the most aggravating——”

“Hold your horses, old dear,” drawled Grace Ford, quietly helping herself to another piece of candy. “Amy has the floor——”

“The deck, you mean,” murmured Amy, then added hastily, as the girls threw impatient glances her way: “I’ll tell you just how it happened if you give me a chance. You see, Henry,” Henry was Amy’s older brother, “had a chance to take

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 over an old shack near the upper end of Rainbow Lake in part payment for a debt. And now that he has the shack, he doesn’t know what to do with it.”