Dick & Co. sprang in answer to her summons.

“Why, what on earth have you here?” demanded Dave, opening his eyes wide as he saw the contents of the wagon.

There were dozens of ears of corn, a sack of new potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes, a dozen big watermelons and a bushel of early summer apples.

“Sh!” warned Laura mysteriously.  “Didn’t we promise you we’d rob some farmer for the feast?  Did you think that boys are the only ones who can go foraging for a country picnic?”

“You girls didn’t go foraging—–­did you?” gasped Dick Prescott.

“We surely did,” retorted Susie Sharp.

“Didn’t we say we would do so?  And doesn’t all this stuff prove it?”

“Then you paid the farmer for it,” guessed Tom Reade wisely.

“We didn’t do any such thing,” Miss Sharp insisted.  “Did we, girls?”

Seven other young feminine heads shook in vigorous denial.

“We didn’t pay the farmer, and we didn’t make any arrangement with him,” said Laura quietly, her eyes twinkling with mischief.  “We simply drove out along the road until we came to the field, and-----”

“-----Ravaged it,” supplemented Belle Meade demurely.   “We went
through that field like war, famine and pestilence combined!”

“Hurry!” called Susie peremptorily.

So the boys made haste with the vegetables and fruit, transferring everything to the bow of the launch, where it was neatly stacked.

“What do you think of that?” Tom demanded of Dick in a whisper at the first opportunity.

“The girls are chaffing us,” Dick answered knowingly.  “Stole the stuff, did they?  That is, stole it in earnest?  Nonsense!  They’re too nice girls for that!  But I guess even nice girls, like some decent fellows, find enjoyment, once in a while, in making believe they are doing something desperate.  Of course they didn’t really steal this stuff.”

“If they did,” muttered Tom, “they’d be the kind of girls we wouldn’t want to know.”

“It’s all right,” Dick assured him.  “Sooner or later the truth of this joke of theirs will all come out.  There are no finer girls in the country than they.”

By this time the older people had joined them.  Dr. Bentley’s party embarked in the launch, taking up all the room there was.

“Pass us your bow-line, and we can just as well give you boys a tow,” proposed the doctor.  “There is no use in your paddling.”

“Thank you very much, sir,” Dick answered, “but paddling is just the fun for which we bought this canoe.  We do it because we like it.  And we’ll show you how fast we can get across the lake.”

With a toot of the whistle the launch started.  Dick gave the word to his chums.  At first the canoe, even under moderate paddling, went ahead of the launch, though gradually the launch drew up.

“You boys look as if you were working,” called Dr. Bentley.