Two Little Women

"Somebody has swiped it!" cried Elmer Holmes, angrily. "All our grub is gone! I say, fellows, what shall we do?"

"Do! Go after them and get it back!" cried Jack Norris, and then a chorus of shouts went up; "the coffee pot's gone!" "All the bacon and eggs are gone!" "And the bread, too!"

"They sure made a clean sweep," said Bert Fayre. "Who do you s'pose did it?"

"Some other crowd of fishing chaps," said Bob Rose, confidently, "but it doesn't often happen, – a thing like that. No decent fellows would do it."

The girls, only a few rods distant, were peeping through the bushes and shaking with silent laughter at the discomfited boys. Such looks of chagrin and dismay as they showed! and such belligerent determination to hunt the marauders and duly punish them.

"Just you wait till I get hold of the thieves!" cried Elmer Holmes, "I'll give them what for!"

"You won't catch them," said Bert; "they're probably miles away by this time, and they've probably eaten up all our snacks. Wow, but I'm hungry!"

"So say we all of us!" chorused the boys, as they flung themselves around in disconsolate attitudes.

"Not a snip-jack of anything," Jack went on, peering vainly into a few empty baskets that Sam had left behind him. "The nerve of them, to steal our coffee and then take our coffee pot to make it in! Honest, fellows, I never knew such a thing to happen before. I've been up here a lot of summers and I never struck a crowd that would do such a thing as this."

"That's so," agreed Bob Rose, "why, often a lot of strange chaps will share their grub with you, but I never knew 'em to hook it! Must be an awful mean crowd."

"Well, all the same," said Bert, "what are we going to do for lunch? I rousted out at sunup, and to be sure, I had my breakfast, but it's forgotten in the dim past."

"We can cook our fish," said one of the boys "but we'll miss the coffee and potatoes and bread and such various staffs of life. We haven't such a lot of fish anyhow."

"No; we depended on bacon and eggs for our mainstay. I move we go home."

"S'pose we'll have to," and Bob looked rueful, "We can't put in a whole afternoon on empty stomachs. What do you say, shall we cook the fish, or light right out for home?"

"Here's a cracker they dropped," cried Bert, who spied a soda biscuit on the ground and brushing it off, began to eat it.

"Aw, give a starving comrade a bite," and Guy held out his hand eagerly.

"By jiminy, here's another!" and Jack found another cracker farther along.

Now this was part of the plan, and it was at Dolly's directions that Long Sam had carefully planted a few crackers at intervals to lure the unsuspecting boys to the surprise that awaited them.

Dolly and Dotty, with their arms around each other, were peeping through the trees, and they shook with glee as they saw the boys eagerly hunting for the stray crackers.

"Funny how they came to drop 'em along," said Guy and Elmer responded, "Must have been eating them on their way. But say, they've left a trail; let's follow it."

The group of boys – there were eight of them – moved slowly along toward where the girls were hidden. The trail of crackers had been adroitly arranged to bring them finally within sight of the appetising luncheon so daintily set forth.

As the boys came nearer to the little clearing, and as the sight of the feast must in a moment burst upon their eyes, the girls scampered to hide behind trees to watch the astonished faces.

Nor were they disappointed. In a moment more the boys came in sight of the luncheon and stopped suddenly.

"By gum!"

"Well, what do you know about that!"

"Jiminy crickets!"

"Ah there, my size!"

And various other boyish exclamations gave voice to surprise and delight on the part of the onlookers. But they paused several steps away from the feast.

"That's a girls' layout," said Bert Fayre, nodding his head sagaciously; "no fellows ever set up that dinky business! But it looks good to me!"

"Good!" exclaimed Jack; "I'd face a term in State's prison to nab that loot! Wonder who owns it!"

"Certainly not the people who stole our grub; so we can't claim this in return. Oh, I smell coffee! 'M-mm!"

Unwilling to intrude further on what was so evidently a girls' picnic, and yet equally unable to tear themselves away from the enticing scene, the boys stood, a comically eager crowd, looking vainly about for signs of the picnic party.

"Seems 'sif I must grab one sandwich," said Bob, rolling his eyes comically toward the piled-up dishes.

"Well, you won't," said Bert, who had no fear that Bob would be guilty of such a thing, but he wasn't quite so sure of some of the other boys, and so they stood like a lot of hungry tramps, a little bewildered at the situation and greatly tantalised by the sight of the feast and the odour of steaming coffee.

"Nothing doing," said Bob, at last. "We can't touch other people's property, and we might as well go on home. But if the ladies belonging to this church sociable would show themselves, I'd sit up and beg for a bone of that fried chicken over there."

"Maybe we all wouldn't!" commented several, and then, at a signal from Dolly, the girls sprang from their hiding-places and stood laughing at the crowd of hungry boys.

"Oh, you Dotty Rose!" cried Jack Norris, as he caught Dotty's dancing black eyes, "I might have known you were at the head of this!"

"No more than Dolly Fayre," cried Dotty, "and all the rest of us. Are you hungry, boys?"

"Are we hungry? We should smile! We've been hungry all the while!" came in chorus from the famished tramps.

"Would you care to come to lunch with us?" said Dolly, her blue eyes dancing as she put the question.

"Would we care to!" and Jack grinned at her. "We're hungry enough to eat you girls; but, alas! kind ladies, we're obliged to regret your invitation as we're not in proper society garb."

Suddenly the boys became aware of their flannel shirts and old hats and general fishermanlike appearance.

"We'll forgive that for once," cried Dotty; "we'll pretend we're a rescue party and you're a lot of starving soldiers, so we won't mind your tattered uniforms."

"Rescue party!" cried Bob; "I like that! Aren't you the sly ones who raided our commissariat department? Own up, now!"

"What makes you think so?" And Edith Holmes looked the picture of injured innocence.

"Oh, yes! 'What makes us think so!' What makes us think that's our coffee boiling in our coffee pot! Fair ladies, we invite you to lunch with us, on our coffee and our bacon and eggs. And if you'll wait a few minutes, we'll cook our trout for you."

"Well, I'll tell you what," and golden-haired Dolly settled the question; "we'll eat our luncheon now, as it's all ready, and then, if you like, you can cook your fish afterward."

"That suits me," said Bob, "and I'm free to confess that I can't wait another minute to attack this Ladies'-Own-Cooking-School Lay Out! Take seats, everybody – I mean you girls sit down, and us chaps will wait on you."

"All right," laughed Dolly; "we resign in your favour. I can tell you girls get hungry, too."

So the girls sat around, and the boys quickly passed plates and napkins and then the dishes of delicious food.