“Shall I turn back?” asked Billy.

“You might as well,” nodded George.  “I would suggest that we circle the island once more.  Shut down as low as you can.  We must keep a sharp lookout.  There may be some way of getting a boat out of sight.  I am positive that they are about here somewhere.”

The encircling of the island was attended with no better results.  Not a trace of either Meadow-Brook Girls or “Red Rover” was discovered.  Disgusted and disappointed the boys headed the launch toward home.

“I’ll tell you what we will do,” declared George as they were landing.  “We will spread out and search the island.  I can’t get the idea out of my mind that they are not far away.”

“But what would they do with their boat?  It isn’t anywhere in the lake about here, and surely they couldn’t drag it ashore,” objected Billy.

“I don’t know.  I am beginning to think those girls can do almost anything they set out to do.  They are a clever lot.  I never knew them to start anything yet that they didn’t go through with, usually ending up by giving us the worst of it.”

Sam hopped ashore first and ran up to the tent.  He peered in, then uttered a yell.

“Somebody’s been here,” he cried.  “Wow!”

The boys hurried up to the tent.  The interior was in confusion.  The contents of the tent had been piled in a great heap in the middle of the floor.  A suit of khaki had been draped over sticks and leaned against the side of the tent, looking like a live man at first glance.  Outside an oven had been constructed of rocks, and a fire put under it.  On a flat stone the coffee pot stood ready.  The table had been set, the potatoes pared and sliced ready for frying, in fact everything was ready for the noon meal with the exception of the cooking.

The boys looked at each other then burst out laughing.

“We’ve had company,” grinned George.

“I wish they would come every day,” added Larry.  “They have sense whoever they are, even if they turn our tent topsy-turvy.  But wait.  We’ve got those girls now.  We know they are somewhere about, and we’ll find them if it takes all day and all night to do it.”

CHAPTER XIX

THE TRAMP CLUB FINDS A CLUE

“Hello!  What’s this?”

Larry, stooping over, picked up a piece of filmy linen.

“A handkerchief, isn’t it?” asked Sam.

“Let me see that, please,” demanded George Baker.  Larry handed it to him.  “It’s a girl’s handkerchief, boys.  And here are two initials in one corner.  Hello!  ‘H.B.’  What does that stand for?”

“It stands for ’Have Been’,” declared Larry.  “Meaning that they have been here.  But they needn’t have told us.  We know that.”

“Yes; they’ve been here,” replied George promptly.  “Those initials stand for ‘Harriet Burrell.’  They mean that the Meadow-Brook Girls have been here and turned our tent upside down.  But they made amends by getting our noon meal started.  I suppose we had better forgive them.  What do you say, fellows?”