The three girls walked to the spot where Mr. Jarley was engaged upon his boat. He was not at all the sort of a person whom the girls from town had expected to see. The boatmen and woodsmen who sometimes drifted into Denton were rough characters. This man, after being ten years and more in the woods, savored little of the rough life he had followed. He was a small man, very neat in his suit of brown overalls, with grizzled hair, a short-cropped gray mustache, and without color in his face save the coat of tan his out-of-door life had given him. There was a gentle, deprecatory air about him that reminded Wyn strongly of Polly herself. But this manner was almost the only characteristic that father and daughter had in common. Mr. Jarley was low-spoken, too; he listened quietly and with an air of deference to what Wyn had to propose. "Surely I will come around and do all I can to aid you, Miss Mallory," he said. "You shall pick out the stores you think you will need, and we will take a boat around to your camp. Your stores will be perfectly safe here--if you wish to risk them in my care," he added. "Of course, sir. And we expect to pay you for keeping them. If we have a long spell of rainy weather the dampness would be bound to spoil things in our tents." "True. This corrugated iron shack will keep the stores dry, and the door has a good padlock," returned Mr. Jarley. "Now, you young ladies pick out what you wish carried over to the camp and I will soon be at your service." "Isn't he nice?" whispered Wyn to Frank, when Polly had run into the house for something, and Mr. Jarley himself was out of hearing. "Why! he is a perfect gentleman!" exclaimed Frank. "How can Bess talk as she does about him? I am surprised at her." "And these other people about here, too!" declared Wyn, warmly. "What an evil tongue Gossip has! That man--Shelton, is his name?--at the other end of the lake, who has accused Mr. Jarley of stealing his boat and the silver statues, ought to be punished." "Well--of course--we don't _know_ anything more about the Jarleys than these other people," observed Frank, doubtfully. "I judge people by their appearance a good deal, I suppose," admitted Wyn. "And mother tells me that is a poor way to judge. Just the same, I _feel_ that the Jarleys are being maligned. And I would love to help them." "Well! there isn't much chance to do that unless you can prove that he _is_ honest, after all," remarked Frank. "I know it. Everything is going to tell against him unless the lost boat and the images can be found. I wonder where it was sunk? Do you suppose Polly would tell us just where the accident happened?" "Ask her." "I will, if I get a chance," declared Wyn. "And wouldn't it be fine if we girls could find the sunken boat and the box belonging to Dr. Shelton, and clear up the whole trouble?"