“Nobody wants you to,” flung back Jane, as she started her car ahead.  “We’ll do all the before-breakfast work, and we’ll have the real appetites when we get to the food.  You watch us.”

They watched her skid around a sharp corner and heard her car for some few moments thereafter, but that was all.  They were too well used to Crazy Jane McCarthy, by this time, to be surprised at anything she might do or say.

The drive to Johnson’s dock was a short one.  The two girls made it in a few moments.  As they turned into the street that led down to the river they opened their eyes a little wider, but neither spoke.  Nor was there a word said until they had driven out on the pier and halted the car.  Then both girls burst out in exclamations of amazement at the same instant.

That which they discovered filled the hearts of the Meadow-Brook Girls with alarm.  The “Red Rover” was nowhere in sight.  The shore end of the rope, with which it had been secured to the dock when they anchored it out in the lake, was still securely tied to the string piece at the outer side of the dock.

“What is it, darlin’?” questioned Jane, with eyes wide and wondering.

“It looks to me very much as though our ‘Red Rover’ were at the bottom of the lake, Jane.  Oh, what shall we do if she has sunk?  Something has been going on here.  Something occurred the first day we were here, to excite my suspicion.  And now this strange thing has happened.  There’s the rowboat.  Let’s go out and look around.  Oh, this is too bad, too bad!”

CHAPTER II

CRAZY JANE MAKES A DISCOVERY

“Wait!”

Jane sprang forward, and grasping the rope, lifted it from the water and began hauling in on it.  She uttered a shout of joy.

“There’s no ‘Red Rover’ on the other end of this rope, Harriet,” she cried.

“Then it has broken away and sunk,” answered Harriet gloomily.  “Let’s get into the rowboat and go out yonder.”

“In a minute.  I want to see what is at the other end of this rope, Harriet, dear.  There’s nothing like beginning at the right end.  This is the right end; after we get the rope in we will move on to the other end.  We may have to dive, but you and I know how to do that, don’t we darlin’?”

Harriet nodded.  The long rope came in dripping, so cold to the touch as to make Jane’s fingers numb.

“There!” exclaimed Jane, slamming the rope down on the wharf.  “There’s the old thing.  Didn’t I tell you there was no ‘Red Rover’ on the end of it.”

“Then we had better take to the rowboat.  I don’t understand this at all,” said Harriet, in a troubled voice.

“Just a minute, Harriet.  Will you look at this and tell Jane McCarthy the meaning of it?” She extended the end of the rope toward Harriet.  The latter took it, permitting the dripping rope to lie across the palm of one hand for a minute.  Harriet glanced up at her companion with troubled eyes.