boys will be home in time to join us at Wild Rose Lodge? Then think of the
fun!"

"Oh, Betty, if we could only believe that!" they cried.

"Well," said the Little Captain stoutly, "you never can tell. Stranger
things have happened, you know."

"But nothing so joyful," added Mollie.




Chapter V

Betty Takes a Dare



It would be a week or two before Wild Rose Lodge would be ready for the
girls' occupancy, and as a relief for their impatience they filled in the
time in hiking, motoring and put-putting up and down the Argono in their
natty little motor boat.

But whatever it was they were doing, their conversation almost invariably
returned to one of two subjects--the return of the boys and the good time
they would have at Moonlight Falls.

They spoke often of Professor Arnold Dempsey. They took a real interest in
the queer little old man, both because of the service he had done them and