"Two o'clock," remarked Dick, looking at his watch. "Suppose we take a spin up the lake?" "Or go back to camp, to make it more ship shape?" suggested Tom Reade. "What's the use?" inquired Prescott. "We fixed everything as well as we could before leaving there this morning. As to the safety of the camp, Harry's dog, Towser, can be depended upon to look after that." So Dick & Co. headed up the lake in their canoe. CHAPTER XIV THE LIAR HAS A LIE READY "That's an odd sight, over yonder," announced Dave, pointing shoreward with his paddle. They were now nearly three miles above the hotel landing. They had entered a section of the country given over to truck gardening. "Women gathering in the produce," said Dick, after a glance. "I don't like that," uttered Dave in disgust. "I thought we had progressed too far, and had become too civilized. Years ago I know that women used to work in the fields, but I thought we were above that sort of thing." "Perhaps the farmer's sons' were all girls," suggested Danny Grin. "I don't like it, anyway," retorted Dave. "Nor I," agreed Tom. "To have women at work in the fields makes it appear as though the men are too lazy." The sight on shore was not interesting enough to claim long attention, so the young canoeists proceeded on their way. At a little after four o'clock, however, they were back at the landing. Not long after, eight young women were sighted riding along in a farm wagon, while Dr. and Mrs. Bentley and Mrs. Meade strolled down one of the paths. The wagon reached the pier first, just as a launch in charge of one of the hotel employs came puffing out of a boathouse near by. "Come here, boys, and help us unload the wagon," called Susie Sharp. 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.