The Project Gutenberg EBook of Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid
by Amy D. V. Chalmers

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net


Title: Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid

Author: Amy D. V. Chalmers

Release Date: July 9, 2005 [EBook #16253]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MADGE MORTON ***




Produced by Al Haines










[Frontispiece: Their houseboat vacation had begun.]






Madge Morton,

Captain of the Merry Maid



By

AMY D. V. CHALMERS



Author of Madge Morton's Secret, Madge Morton's Trust, Madge Morton's
Victory.






PHILADELPHIA

HENRY ALTEMUS COMPANY




COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY HOWARD E. ALTEMUS






PRINTED IN THE

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA




CONTENTS

CHAPTER.

     I.  MADGE MORTON'S PLAN
    II.  CHOOSING A CHAPERON
   III.  THE SEARCH FOR A HOUSEBOAT
    IV.  THE FAIRY'S WAND
     V.  ALL ABOARD
    VI.  PLEASURE BAY
   VII.  THE UNKNOWN JAILER
  VIII.  AN ANXIOUS NIGHT
    IX.  THE GIRL ON THE ISLAND
     X.  AN EXCITING RACE
    XI.  AT THE MERCY OF THE WAVES
   XII.  A BRAVE FIGHT
  XIII.  LIFE OR DEATH?
   XIV.  MADGE COMES INTO HER OWN AGAIN
    XV.  A CALL FOR HELP
   XVI.  THE ATTEMPTED RESCUE
  XVII.  THE CAPTURE
 XVIII.  ON A STRANGE SHORE
   XIX.  FINDING A WAY TO HELP MOLLIE
    XX.  MADGE'S OPPORTUNITY
   XXI.  MOLLIE'S BRAVE FIGHT
  XXII.  THE EVIL GENIUS
 XXIII.  "MOTHER"
  XXIV.  FAREWELL TO THE "MERRY MAID"




List of Illustrations

Their houseboat vacation had begun . . . Frontispiece.

Madge and Tom went gayly down to the boat.

The girls ran down to the water's edge.

"I wish you to come and live with me, Madge."




Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid


CHAPTER I

MADGE MORTON'S PLAN

"I never can bear it!" cried Madge Morton excitedly, throwing herself
down on her bed in one of the dormitories of Miss Tolliver's Select
School for Girls.  "It is not half so bad for Eleanor.  She, at least,
is going to spend her holiday with people she likes.  But for Uncle
William and Aunt Sue to leave for California just as school closes, and
to send me off to a horrid old maid cousin for half my vacation, is
just too awful!  If I weren't nearly seventeen years old, I'd cry my
eyes out."

Madge was alone in her bedroom, which she shared with her cousin,
Eleanor Butler.  The two girls lived on an old estate in Virginia, but
for the two preceding terms they had been attending a college
preparatory school at Harborpoint, not far from the city of Baltimore.

Madge had never known her own parents.  She had been reared by her
Uncle William and Aunt Sue Butler and she dearly loved her old southern
home.  But just when she and Eleanor were planning a thousand pleasures
for their three months' vacation a letter had arrived from Mr. and Mrs.
Butler announcing that they were leaving their estate for six weeks, as
they were compelled to go west on important business.  Eleanor was to
be sent to visit a family of cousins near Charlottesville, Virginia,
and Madge was to stay with a rich old maiden cousin of her father.
Cousin Louisa did not like Madge.  She felt a sense of duty toward her,
and a sense of duty seldom inspires any real affection in return.  So
Madge looked back on the visits she had made to this cousin with a
feeling of horror.  Inspired by her Aunt Sue, Madge had always tried to
be on her best behavior while she was the guest of Cousin Louisa.  But
since propriety was not Madge Morton's strong point she had succeeded
only in being perfectly miserable and in offending her wealthy cousin
by her unconventional ways.

Madge had a letter from this cousin in her hand while she gave herself
up to the luxury of despair.  She had not yet read the letter, but she
knew exactly what it would say.  It would contain a formal invitation
from Cousin Louisa, asking Madge to pay her the necessary visit.  It
would suggest at the same time that Madge mend her ways; and it would
doubtless recall the unfortunate occasion when Mistress Madge had set
fire to the bedclothes by her wicked habit of reading in bed.

It was the study hour at Miss Tolliver's school, and all of the girls
except Madge were hard at work.  Eleanor had slipped across the hall to
the room of their two chums to consult them about a problem in algebra.
Madge at that moment was far too miserable to be approached in regard
to a lesson, though at other times she would have done anything for
Eleanor.

Finally Madge raised herself to a sitting posture.  It struck her as
rather absurd to have collapsed so entirely, simply because she was not
to spend the first part of her summer as she chose.  She knew, too,
that it was high time she fell to preparing her lessons.

With a little shiver she opened Cousin Louisa's letter.  Suddenly her
eyes flashed, the color glowed in her cheeks, and Madge dropped the
note to the floor with a glad cry and ran out of the room.

On the door of her chums' room was a sign, printed in large letters,
which was usually observed by the school girls.  The sign read:
"Studying; No Admittance."  But to-day Madge paid no attention to it.
She flung open the door and rushed in upon her three friends.

"Eleanor, Phyllis, Lillian," she protested, "stop studying this very
minute!"  She seized Eleanor's paper and pencil and closed Lillian
Seldon's ancient history with a bang.  Phyllis Alden had just time to
grasp her own notebook firmly with both hands before she exclaimed:
"Madge Morton, whatever has happened to you?  Have you gone entirely
crazy?"

Madge laughed.  "Almost!" she replied.  "But just listen to me, and you
will be nearly as crazy as I am."

Madge had dark, auburn hair, which was curly and short, like a boy's.
To her deep regret her long braids had been cut off several years
before, when she was recovering from an attack of typhoid fever, and
now her hair was just long enough to tuck into a small knot on top of
her head.  But when Madge was excited, which was a frequent occurrence,
this knot would break loose, and her curls would fly about, like the
hair of one of Raphael's cherubs.  Madge had large, blue eyes, with
long, dark lashes, and a short, straight nose, with just the tiniest
tilt at the end of it.  Although she was not vain, she was secretly
proud of her row of even, white teeth.

Phyllis Alden was the daughter of a physician with a large family, who
lived in Hartford, Connecticut.  Phil was not as pretty as her three
friends, and no one knew it better than Phyllis.  She was small and
dark, with irregular features.  But she had large, black eyes, and a
smile that illuminated her clever face.  Put to the vote, Phyllis Alden
had been declared to be the most popular girl in Miss Tolliver's
school, and Phyllis and Madge were friendly rivals in athletics.

Lillian Seldon was perhaps the prettiest of the four boarding school
chums, if one preferred regular features to vivacity and charm.
Lillian was of Madge's age, a tall, slender, blonde girl, with two long
plaits of sunny, light hair, a fair, delicate skin and blue eyes.  She
was the daughter of a Philadelphia lawyer and an only child.  A number
of her school companions thought her cold and proud, but her chums knew
that when Lillian really cared for any one she was the most loyal
friend in the world.  Eleanor, who was the youngest of the four school
friends, looked like the little, southern girl that she was.  She had
light brown hair and hazel eyes, and charming manners which made
friends for her wherever she went.

The three girls now waited with their eyes fixed inquiringly on the
fourth.  They were not very much excited; they knew Madge only too
well.  She was either in the seventh heaven of bliss, or else in the
depths of despair.  Yet this time it did look as though Madge had more
reason than usual for her excitement.  Eleanor wondered how she could
have changed so quickly from her recent disconsolate mood.

"What has happened to you, Madge?" Lillian inquired.  "Eleanor said you
were upset because you are obliged to spend the first of your vacation
with your hateful Cousin Louisa."

"Hateful?  Did I ever dare to say that my Cousin Louisa was hateful?
She is one of the loveliest women in this world!  Just think!  Cousin
Louisa has written to say that she can't have me, or rather won't have
me, visit her.  She is going to shut up her house, and is going to sail
for Europe.  I know it is just to escape my odious presence."

"Why, Madge, what will you do?" Eleanor asked.  "You've nowhere else to
go."  You know how you hate those awful children at Charlottesville."

"Wait, Eleanor Butler--wait!" Madge cried dramatically.  "You do not
know what has happened, nor why I now truly love and adore the same
Cousin Louisa whom I once thought I disliked.  Just look here."  Madge
waved a small strip of paper in the air.  "Cousin Louisa has sent me a
check for two hundred dollars!  She says I am to spend the money on my
summer vacation in any way I like, provided Aunt Sue and Uncle William
approve."

"But you can't go off traveling by yourself," objected Eleanor.  "I
should think you would hate to spend your summer alone."

"Alone!" Madge answered indignantly.  "Who said I meant to spend my
vacation alone?  I want you three girls to spend the six weeks with me.
Only last night Eleanor and I said that we four girls could never be
really happy anywhere without one another."

"Generous Madge," smiled Lillian affectionately.  "Two hundred dollars
seems quite a fortune.  Perhaps you ought not to spend it all.  Where
can we go, and what can we do?"

"Young ladies," a stern voice spoke just outside the door, "kindly
remember this is the study hour.  You are expected to keep silence."

An unusual stillness fell on the four offenders.  Only Madge's blue
eyes flashed rebelliously.  "It's that tiresome Miss Jones.  You might
know she would be somewhere about.  She is the crossest teacher in this
school."

"Sh-sh, Madge," Eleanor lowered her voice, "Miss Jones might hear you.
She is ill, I am sure.  That is what makes her so cross.  Phil and I
are both sorry for her."

"Oh, you and Phil are sorry for everybody.  That's nothing!  Thank
goodness, there is the bell!  It is the recreation hour.  Come, my
beloved chums, I simply must think of some way to spend our vacation
and I never can think indoors.  'It is the merry month of May,'"
caroled Madge.  "Come, Phil, let us go down to the water and take Nell
and Lillian rowing.  It is a dream of an afternoon, all soft and
sunshiny, and the river folk are calling us, the frogs, and the water
rats----"

"Dear me, Madge," teased Phil, "do hush.  We are glad enough to go
rowing without an invitation from the frogs.  We have two hours before
supper time.  Shall we ask poor Miss Jones to go with us?  She does not
have much fun, and you know it is her duty to make us keep the rules.
Miss Jones admires you very much, Madge.  She said you were clever
enough to do anything you liked, if you would only try.  But she knows
you don't like her."

"Then she knows the truth," returned naughty Madge.  "No, Phil, please
don't ask Miss Jones to come out with us this afternoon, there's a
dear.  I told you I wanted to think.  And I can think brilliantly only
when in the company of my beloved chums."

Phyllis Alden and Madge Morton were good oarsmen.  Indeed, they were
almost as much at home on the water as they were on land.  Each girl
wore a tiny silver oar pinned to her dress.  Only the week before Madge
had won the annual spring rowing contest; for Miss Tolliver made a
special point of athletics in her school, and fortunately the school
grounds ran down to the bank of a small river.

Phil and Madge rowed out into the middle of the river with long,
regular strokes.  They were in their own little, green boat, called the
"Water Witch."  Lillian sat in the stern, trailing her white hands idly
in the water.  Eleanor sat quietly looking out over the fields.

Suddenly Madge, who always did the most unexpected things in the world,
locked her oars across the boat and sat up in her seat with a jerk that
rocked the little craft.

"Girls, I have thought it all out!" she exclaimed.  "I have the most
glorious, the most splendid plan you ever heard of in the world!  Just
wait until you hear it!"

"Madge," Phil called in horror, "do sit down!"  The boat was careening
perilously.  Before Phil could finish her speech Madge had tumbled over
the side of the skiff and disappeared in the water below.

The girls waited for their friend to rise to the surface.  They were
not frightened, for Madge was an expert swimmer.

"I am surprised at Madge," declared Phil severely.  "The idea of
plunging into the water in that fashion, not to mention almost
capsizing our boat!  Why doesn't she come up?"

The second lengthened to a minute.  Still Madge's curly head did not
appear on the surface of the water.  Eleanor's face turned white.
Madge had on her rowing costume, a short skirt and a sailor blouse.
She could easily swim in such a suit.  But perhaps she had been seized
with a cramp, or her head might have struck against a rock at the
bottom of the river!

Lillian and Phil shared Eleanor's anxiety.  "Sit still, girls," said
Phyllis.  "I must dive and see what has happened to Madge.  If you are
quiet, I can dive out of the boat without upsetting it."

Phil slipped out of her sweater.  But Eleanor caught at her skirts from
behind.  "Sit down, Phil.  Here comes that wretched Madge, swimming
toward us from over there.  She purposely stayed under water."

The three friends looked in the direction, indicated by Phyllis.  They
saw Madge moving toward the boat as calmly as though she had been in
her bathing suit and had dived off the skiff for pure pleasure.  She
had been swimming under the water for a little distance and had risen
at a spot at which her friends were not looking.  As she lifted her
head clear of the water a ray of the afternoon sunlight slanted across
her face, touching its mischievous curves, until she looked like a
naughty water-sprite.

In an instant Madge's hands were alongside the boat, and Phil pulled
her into it.  "I am so sorry, girls," she explained, shaking the water.
out of her hair; "but I had such a wonderful idea that it really
knocked me overboard.  I was afraid I would throw you all into the
river, so I jumped.  But don't you want to know my plan?  We are going
to spend the summer on the water!"

"In the water, you mean, don't you?" laughed Phyllis, as she wrapped
her sweater about her friend.  "Madge, will any one ever be able to
guess what you are going to do next?"

"Just listen, girls," Madge went on with shining eyes.  "I have been
determined, ever since I got my letter from Cousin Louisa, that we
girls should do something original for our summer vacation.  And while
I was rowing peacefully along, without meaning to create a disturbance,
it suddenly came to me that the most perfect way to spend a holiday
would be to live out on the water.  First I thought we might just take
the 'Water Witch' and row along the river all summer, sleeping in
hotels and boarding-places at night.  But I know we must have a
chaperon; and meals and things would make it cost too much.  Then it
occurred to me that we could get a boat big enough to live in by day
and sleep in by night--a canal boat, or something----"

"Madge Morton!" cried Phil, clapping both hands, "you are a goose, but
sometimes I think you are a genius as well.  You mean you can rent a
houseboat with your money and we can truly spend our vacation together
out on the water.  I never heard of such a splendid plan in my life."

Madge gave a little shiver, half from the cold and half from happiness.
She was beginning to feel the chill of her wet clothing.

"Eleanor, Phyllis, Lillian," she said impressively.  "I hereby invite
you to spend six weeks of your vacation aboard a houseboat.  Now, the
next thing to be done is to find one."




CHAPTER II

CHOOSING A CHAPERON

Madge Morton walked into the school library with a grave expression on
her usually laughing face.  She had two letters in her hand, which she
intended putting into the school post-bag, that was always kept in the
library.  One of the letters she had written to her uncle and aunt,
explaining her houseboat scheme in the most sensible and matter-of-fact
fashion; for Madge knew that the fate of the four chums depended,
first, on what Mr. and Mrs. Butler thought of their niece's idea.  If
they disapproved, Madge was certain that she could never be happy
again, for there was no other possible way of spending Cousin Louisa's
gift that would give her any pleasure.  Madge's second letter was
directed to a boy cousin, who was at college in Baltimore.  She
explained that she expected to rent a houseboat for the summer, and she
asked her cousin to give her the address of places in Baltimore where
such a boat could be hired.  She wished it to cost the smallest sum of
money possible, for Eleanor had suggested that even houseboat girls
must eat.  Indeed, the water was likely to make them especially hungry.
If all the two hundred dollars went for the houseboat, what were they
to do for food?

Madge's sole fortune was just ten dollars a month, which she used for
her dress allowance.  Her uncle and aunt were not rich, but they were
paying for her education, and Madge knew she was expected to make her
own living as soon as she was old enough.  Mr. and Mrs. Butler had
hoped she would become a teacher, for they held the old-fashioned
southern belief that teaching school was the only avenue open to the
woman who was forced by necessity to make her own living.

Madge, however, had decided, a long time before, that she would much
rather die than teach.  She would do anything but that.  Just at
present her poverty was very inconvenient.  Madge was generous to a
fault, and she would have liked nothing better than to finance royally
their proposed trip.  She vowed mentally to rise to the occasion, even
though the way to do it was not yet clear.

Prudent Eleanor had also asked her whom she meant to invite to act as
their chaperon.  So it was of this chaperon that Madge was thinking
while she was in the act of mailing her letters.

Down in Virginia, on a big place next to her uncle's, was a girl whom
she had decided would make an ideal chaperon.  She was as fond of larks
as was Madge herself.  She could fish, ride, swim and shoot a rifle
when necessary.  Moreover, she was so beautiful and aristocratic that
Madge always called her the "Lady of Quality."  It was true she could
not cook nor wash dishes, nor do anything practical, and she was only
twenty-two.  Still, Madge thought she would be a perfectly delightful
chaperon and was sure the girls would love her.  Madge's red lips
unconsciously formed the letter O, and before she knew what she was
doing she was whistling from sheer pleasure.

"Miss Morton," the cold voice that was unpleasantly familiar to the
girl's ears came from behind a chair, "do you not know that whistling
is against the rules of the school?  You are one of the older girls.
Miss Tolliver depends on you to set the younger pupils a good example.
I fear she is sadly disappointed."

"You mean you are sadly disappointed, Miss Jones," replied Madge
angrily.  "Miss Tolliver has not said she was disappointed in me.  When
she is she will probably tell me herself."

Madge knew she should not speak in this rude fashion to her teacher,
but she was an impetuous, high-spirited girl who could not bear
censure.  Besides, she had a special prejudice against Miss Jones.  She
was particularly homely and there was something awkward and repellant
in her manner.  Worshipping beauty and graciousness, Madge could not
forgive her teacher her lack of both.  Besides, Madge did not entirely
trust Miss Jones.  Still, the girl was sorry she had made her impolite
speech, so she stood quietly waiting for her teacher's reproof, with
her curly head bent low, her eyes mutinous.

She waited an instant.  When she looked up, to her dismay she saw that
the eyes of her despised teacher were full of tears.

"I wonder why you dislike me so, Miss Morton?" Miss Jones inquired
sadly.

Madge could have given her a dozen reasons for her dislike, but she did
not wish to be disagreeable.  "I am dreadfully sorry I was so rude to
you," she murmured.

"Oh, it does not matter.  Nothing matters, I am so unhappy," Miss Jones
replied unexpectedly.  Just why Miss Jones should have chosen Madge
Morton for her confidante at this moment neither ever knew.  Miss Jones
had a number of friends among the other girls in the school; but she
and this clever southern girl had been enemies since Miss Jones had
first taken charge of the English History class and had reproved Madge
for helping one of the younger girls with her lesson.  Miss Jones's
confession had slipped out involuntarily.  Now she put her head down on
the library table and sobbed.

With any other teacher, or with any of the girls, Madge might have
cried in sympathy.  Somehow, she could not cry with Miss Jones.  She
felt nothing save embarrassment.

"What is the matter?" she asked slowly.

Miss Jones shook her head.  "It's nothing.  I am sorry to have given
way to my feelings.  I have had bad news.  My doctor has just written
me that if I don't spend the summer out-of-doors, I am in danger of
consumption."  Miss Jones uttered the dreadful word quite calmly.

Madge gave a low cry of distress.   She thought of the number of times
she had made fun of her teacher's flat chest and stooping shoulders and
of her bad temper.  After all, Eleanor had been right.  Illness had
been the cause of Miss Jones's peculiarities.

"Miss Jones," Madge returned, her sympathies fully enlisted, "you must
not feel so troubled.  I am sure you will soon be all right.  Just
think how strong you will grow with your long summer holiday
out-of-doors.  You must dig in the garden, and ride horseback, and play
tennis," advised Madge enthusiastically, remembering her own happy
summers at "Forest House," the old Butler home in Virginia.

Miss Jones shook her head wistfully as she rose to leave the room.  "I
am afraid I can't have the summer in the country.  I have only a sister
with whom to spend the summer, and she lives in a little flat in the
city.  She has a large family, and I expect to help her.  My parents
are dead."

"Then why don't you go into the country to board somewhere?" flashed
from Madge's lips unexpectedly.  A moment after she was sorry she had
asked the question, for a curious, frightened expression crossed her
teacher's face.

Miss Jones hesitated.  "I have had to use the money I have made by my
teaching for--for other purposes," she explained, in the stiff, cold
manner that seemed so unattractive to gracious, sunshiny Madge.  "I am
sorry to have worried you with my troubles," Miss Jones said again.
"Please forgive me and forget what I have told you.  I shall probably
do very well."

Madge went slowly back to her room in a most unhappy frame of mind.
She knew a way in which Miss Jones would be able to spend her summer
out-of-doors, and perhaps grow well and strong again.  She could be
invited to chaperon the houseboat party.  She knew her friends would
immediately agree to the idea.  They liked Miss Jones far better than
she did.  Even if they had not liked her, sympathy would have inspired
them to extend the invitation.  It was she alone who would hesitate.
Of course, she never expected to be as good as her friends.  So Madge
argued with herself.  It was too dreadful to give up the idea of asking
her adored "Lady of Quality" to act as their guardian angel.  Madge
decided she simply could not make the sacrifice.  Then, too, she did
not even know whether her uncle and aunt would consent to the houseboat
party.  It would be time enough afterward to deliver her last
invitation.

For two days, which seemed intolerably long to impatient Madge Morton,
the four friends waited to hear their fate from Mr. and Mrs. Butler.

On the third morning a letter addressed to Madge in Mrs. Butler's
handwriting was handed to her while she and her chums were at
breakfast.  In her great excitement her hands trembled so that she
could hardly finish her breakfast.  "Here, Eleanor," Madge finally
faltered, as the four girls left the dining room to go upstairs, "you
take the letter and read it to us, please do.  Positively I haven't the
courage to look at it.  I feel almost sure that Aunt Sue will say we
can't go on our houseboat trip."

Lillian put her hand affectionately on Madge's arm, while Phil stood
next to Eleanor.

"My dear Madge," the letter began, "I think your houseboat plan for the
summer a most extraordinary one.  I never heard of young girls
attempting such a holiday before.  I can not imagine how you happened
to unearth such a peculiar idea."

Madge gave a gasp of despair.  She felt that the tone of her Aunt Sue's
letter spelled refusal.  But Eleanor read on: "Like a good many of your
unusual ideas, this houseboat scheme seems, after all, to be rather an
interesting one.  Your uncle and I have talked over your letter and
Eleanor's.  We do not wish you and Eleanor to be separated, and we do
wish you both to have the happiest holiday possible, as we are quite
sure you have earned it.  So, if you can find a suitable chaperon, we
are willing to give our consent to your undertaking.  We had intended
to pay twenty-five dollars a month board for Eleanor with her cousins
at Charlottesville, so we shall be glad to contribute that sum toward
the provisioning of the house-boat."

There was a dead silence in the room when Eleanor at last finished
reading the letter.  For half a minute the four chums were too happy to
speak.  Then there was a united sigh of relief.

"Oh, I shall never be able to survive it!  It is too much joy for one
day!" cried the irrepressible Madge, dancing around in a circle and
dragging Lillian Seldon, whose arm was linked in hers, with her.

Lillian and Phyllis had received their parents' consent, by letter, the
day before and had already agreed that their respective monthly
allowances should be placed in the general fund.

"Be still, Madge," begged Eleanor.  "You are so noisy that you drive
all thought from our heads.  The first thing for us to consider is
where we shall find a chaperon."

"No; the first thing to do is to find the house-boat.  O Ship of our
Dreams! tell us, dear Ship, where we can find you?" cried Phyllis Alden
longingly.  She was looking past her friends with half-closed eyes.
Already she was, in the land of her imagination, in a beautiful white
boat, floating beside an evergreen shore.  The little craft was
furnished all in white, with dainty muslin curtains hung at the tiny
cabin windows.  Flowers encircled the decks and trailed over the sides
into the clear water.  And on the deck of the little boat, lying or
sitting at their ease, she could see herself and her friends.

"Wake up, Phil!  Come back to earth, please," teased Madge, giving her
usually sensible friend a sudden pinch.  "I am going downstairs now to
ask Miss Tolliver if we can go into Baltimore day after to-morrow.  We
must find our houseboat at once.  School is so nearly over Miss
Tolliver will be sure to let us go."

"But the chaperon, Madge," reminded Eleanor.  "We haven't decided on
one, you know."

"I have thought of a chaperon, if you girls are willing to have her,"
said Madge almost hesitatingly.

"Well," cried the other three voices in chorus, "who is it?  Tell us
sometime to-day!"

"Miss Jones!" declared Madge, a note of defiance in her voice.  "I'm
going to invite her now before I have time to change my mind.  I'll
explain later."  Springing from her chair, she ran from the room,
leaving her three friends to stare at each other in silent amazement.




CHAPTER III

THE SEARCH FOR A HOUSEBOAT

"Eleanor Butler, do hurry!" urged Madge two days later.  "If we miss
the train, I feel I shall never forgive you."  The two girls were
preparing for their trip to Baltimore.

"Let me alone, Madge," Eleanor returned.  "If you will stay out of the
room for ten minutes, I promise to be ready.  You've talked so much in
the last half hour that I haven't known what I was doing and I don't
know now.  You had better make another call upon Miss Jones.  She is
even more enthusiastic about your old houseboat scheme than you are."
Eleanor laughed as Madge disappeared in the direction of Miss Jones's
room.

"You must wish with all your heart that we shall find the houseboat
to-day, Miss Jones," declared Madge in her impulsive fashion.  "You
see, everything depends on our not having to waste any time.  The
sooner we find our boat, the sooner we can begin our delightful
vacation."

Miss Jones smiled.  She was beginning to understand the impetuous Madge
better than she had ever dreamed of knowing her, and she was very
grateful for her invitation.  Miss Jones was fairly well aware of how
much it had cost her pupil to ask her.  "Yes, I shall be thinking of
you girls every minute," she declared.  "Let me see.  This is the
twenty-fifth of May.  School will close in another week.  You girls
wish to spend a week at home with your parents and relatives; but just
as early in June as possible we are to go aboard our houseboat.  That
is our plan, isn't it, Madge?"

Madge nodded.  Then, as she heard Phil and Lillian calling her, she
waved a hasty farewell and darted from the room.

Madge had received a letter from the boy cousin who was at school in
Baltimore.  He had given her several addresses in Baltimore where there
was just a bare chance that she might find a ready-to-use houseboat.
He assured her, however, that houseboats were usually made to order,
and that she might find some difficulty in securing what she wished,
and must, therefore, not become easily discouraged.

Just before noon the four young women arrived in Baltimore on their
quest for a house-boat.  Lillian and Eleanor demanded their luncheon at
once, but Phil and Madge protested against eating luncheon so early.
"You can't be hungry already," argued Madge.  "As for me, I shall never
be able to eat until we find our boat."

For two hours the girls tramped about the boat yards in search of their
treasure.  They saw canoes and motor boats of every size and kind, and
models of private yachts, but not a trace of a houseboat could they
find.  The representatives of the various boat companies whom they
interviewed suggested the building of a houseboat at a cost of anywhere
from six hundred to a thousand dollars.

Lillian and Eleanor were the first to complain of being tired.  Then
Phil, who was usually the sweetest-tempered of the four girls, began to
show signs of irritability.  Madge, however, undaunted and determined,
would not think of giving up the search.

"Just one more place, girls," she begged; "then we can rest and have
our luncheon somewhere.  This is a very large ship-building yard we are
going to.  I am sure we can find our boat there."

Half an hour later the four chums turned wearily away from another
fruitless quest.  They were now in a part of Baltimore which none of
them had ever seen before.  A few blocks farther down the street they
could see the line of the water and the masts of several sailing
vessels that were lying near the shore.

"I tell you, Madge Morton," declared Phyllis Alden firmly, "whether or
not we ever find a houseboat, there is one thing certain: I positively
must have something to eat.  I am half starved.  What good would
finding the boat do me if I were to die of hunger before I have even
seen it?"

"Please don't be cross, Phil," soothed Madge.  "I am sure we are all as
hungry as you are.  I am awfully sorry.  We ought to have eaten
luncheon before we came here.  There isn't a restaurant in sight."

"I am sure I saw the sign of a funny little restaurant as we came by
the corner," broke in Lillian.  "It did look queer, but I suppose it
would not be any harm for us to go in there."

"We don't care if it does look queer," declared Phyllis stoutly.

Turning, the girls retraced their steps to the corner.

Outside the swinging door of the small restaurant they hesitated.  "I
don't think we ought to go in there," argued Eleanor, "it is such a
dreadfully rough-looking place."

It was indeed a very common eating house, where the men who worked on
the wharves, the fishermen and sailors, were in the habit of getting
their meals.  The one dirty window showed half a dozen live crabs
crawling about inside among the pieces of sea-weed.  A row of old pies
formed the background.

A moment later they had marched bravely up to the door.  Dainty Eleanor
shuddered as they crossed the threshold, and even Phil and Madge
hesitated as a man's coarse laugh greeted them once they were fairly
inside the restaurant room.

"Come on, children," said Madge, with a pretence of bravery she was far
from feeling.  "We are going into this restaurant to get something to
eat.  Don't look as if you thought you were going to be eaten.  It is
rather horrid, but perhaps they will let us have some bread and milk."

The quartette seated themselves at the first table they saw vacant.
Just across from it were a number of men with rough, hard faces.  They
were evidently sailors from the nearby boats.  The girls kept their
eyes on the table, and Madge gave their order for tea and sandwiches in
a low tone to the German boy who came forward to wait on them.

When the boy had departed with their order a silence settled upon the
little group of girls.  In each girl's mind was the thought that it had
been unwise to enter the restaurant.  By this time they had come to a
realization of the fact that they were the only women in the room.

"We ought never to have come here," whispered Lillian, clutching
Madge's arm.

"Nonsense," returned Madge bravely, "we have as much right here as any
of these men."

"But I'd rather not stay," persisted Lillian.

"Didn't you say you were hungry?" asked Madge pointedly.

"Ye-es," hesitated Lillian, "but I just can't stay here."

"Nor I," chimed in Eleanor.

Madge looked appealingly at Phyllis, who shook her brown head
deprecatingly.  "I don't believe we ought to stay here, Madge."

"You, too, Phil!" exclaimed Madge impatiently.  "All right, Misses
'Fraid Cats,' we'll go.  Here comes our luncheon, too."

The girls glanced quickly at the rosy-faced lad who came up at that
moment with their order on a tray.

"I'm so hungry," sighed Phil.  "Perhaps we'd better----"

"So glad you've changed your mind," commented Madge rather satirically.
"But what about you, Lillian and Eleanor?"

"Let's stay this once, but next time we'll be more careful where we
lunch," smiled Eleanor.

"I take back all I said about 'Fraid Cats,'" laughed Madge.  "We'll
hurry through our luncheon and leave here the moment we finish.  After
all, as long as we are to become seasoned mariners we shall have to
learn to accustom ourselves to the vicissitudes of a sailor's life."

"But we can't be 'seasoned mariners' until we find our houseboat,"
reminded Lillian.  "It doesn't look as though we'd find it to-day,
either."

"We must," was Madge's emphatic response.  "Here we have been worrying
like mad about this restaurant not being a proper place in which to eat
our luncheon, while the really important question of where we are to
find our boat hasn't troubled us.  We must go out of here saying, 'We
shall find it, we shall find it,' and then I believe we can't help but
run across it."  Madge's blue eyes were alight with purpose and
enthusiasm.

"Good for you, Madge," laughed Phil.  "Come on, girls.  Let us finish
our tea and renew our search."

It was half-past three in the afternoon when they left the little
restaurant.  The four girls were to spend the night in Baltimore with a
friend of Miss Tolliver's, who kept a boarding-place.  As they were in
the habit of staying with Miss Rice when they came into Baltimore to do
their shopping, Miss Tolliver had, for once, after many instructions,
permitted the girls to go into town without a chaperon.

"Miss Rice said we did not have to be at her house until half-past five
o'clock," Phil volunteered, "so what shall we do?"

"There is a little park down there near the water," Lillian pointed
ahead.  "Suppose we sit down there for a few minutes until we decide
where to go next?"

It was a balmy, sunshiny May day.  While the girls rested on the park
benches they could see, far off, a line of ships sailing up the bay and
also the larger freight steamers.  They were near one of the quiet
canals that formed an inlet from the great Chesapeake Bay.  Lining the
banks of the canal were numbers of coal barges and canal boats.

On the deck of a canal boat a girl came out with a bundle of clothes in
her arms.  She was singing in a high, sweet voice as she hung them on a
line strung across the deck of the boat.

The girls watched her silently as she flitted back and forth, and she
sang on, unconscious of her audience.  She was singing a boat song
which the men chant as they row home at the close of day.  The pathos
in the woman's voice was so exquisite, its notes so true, that Madge's
blue eyes filled with tears.  None of the four friends stirred until
the song was over, and the girl in her faded calico dress and bare feet
had disappeared into the cabin of the boat.

"We call those boats shanty boats down in Virginia," Eleanor said; "I
suppose because the little cabin on the deck of the canal boat looks so
like a shanty."

"People live on those shanty boats," announced Madge.

"Yes, we have noticed it, my dear girl," Phil responded dryly.  But
there was a question in her eyes as she looked at Madge.

"Shanty boats do not look exactly like house-boats," went on Madge
speculatively.

"I should say not," returned Phil.  "There is considerable difference."

"But they might be made to look more like them.  Don't you believe so?"

Phil nodded.

"They are awfully dirty," was dainty Lillian's sole comment.

"Soap and water, child, is a sure cure for dirt," replied Madge, still
in a brown study.  Then she sprang to tier feet and almost ran out of
the little park, nearly to the edge of the canal.  Her friends followed
her.  There was no doubt that Madge had an idea.

"Girls!" exclaimed Madge fervently, pointing toward one of the shanty
boats, "first look there; then shut your eyes.  With your eyes open you
see only an ugly canal boat; with them closed, can't you see our
houseboat?"

"Not very well," replied Lillian without enthusiasm.

"Well, I can," asserted Madge with emphasis.

Then her quick eyes wandered toward a man who was coming slowly up the
path along the canal.

"Please," she asked breathlessly, stepping directly in front of him,
"do you know whether any of the people along here would be willing to
rent me a canal boat?"

The man stared in amazement at this strange request.  "Can't say as I
knows of any one," he answered, "but I kin find out fer ye.  It may be
some of the water folks goes inland for the summer.  If they does,
they'd like as not rent you their boat."

"Then I will come down here to-morrow at nine o'clock to find out,"
arranged Madge.  "Please be sure to be here."

"What did I tell you!" exulted Madge as they left the little park a few
minutes later and made their way to the street car.  "I am going to
draw a plan to-night to show how easy it will be to turn one of these
old canal boats into our beautiful 'Ship of Dreams.'  By this time next
week we'll know something about the 'vicissitudes' of a sailor's life
or my name is not Madge Morton."




CHAPTER IV

THE FAIRY'S WAND

"You are a direct gift of Providence, Jack Bolling," declared Madge the
next morning, shaking hands with her cousin, in the parlor of Miss
Rice's boarding house.  "How did you happen to turn up here?"

"Well, I unexpectedly had a day off from college," explained Jack.  "So
I just telephoned to Miss Tolliver to ask whether I might come to see
you, like the well-behaved cousin I am.  She replied that you were in
town and that I might come to see you.  So here I am!  What luck have
you had?"

"None at all at the old places you recommended," Madge returned
scornfully and in a most ungrateful fashion.

"Oh, I knew a girl couldn't find the right sort of boat without a
fellow to help her," Jack teased, knowing Madge's aversion to the idea
that a girl couldn't do anything she liked, unless with the help of a
boy.

"Just you come along with us, Jack, and we will show you what we have
found," invited Madge.  "I think the girls are ready.  We are.  Here
come Eleanor and Lillian.  Miss Lillian Seldon, I wish to present my
cousin, Mr. Jack Bolling.  Where is Phil?"

While Lillian, looking unusually lovely in her gown of pale lavender
organdie, with a cream-colored hat covered with violets, was shaking
hands with Jack, Phyllis Alden came down the hall with a slight frown
on her face.

Hadn't she and Madge vowed within themselves and to each other never to
ask a man's help in anything they planned to do?  And here was Madge
introducing her cousin into their plan the very first chance she had.
But in this Phil was mistaken.

Madge had made no explanations to Jack, and her cousin asked her no
questions as the party started on their walk.  When they came to the
line of canal boats that the girls had seen the afternoon before a halt
was made.

"There is our houseboat!" cried Madge, waving her hand toward the half
dozen disreputable looking canal boats huddled close together.

"Where?" asked Jack in amazement.

"Oh, I don't know just exactly where," returned Madge with twinkling
eyes.  "Everyone look here, please."  She took two large squares of
white paper out of her bag.  "You see, it is this way, Jack: We found
that to rent a houseboat takes such a lot of money that we decided
yesterday, to try to turn one of these old canal boats into a
houseboat, and I have drawn the plans of what I think ought to be done."

Madge, who had a decided talent for drawing, had sat up late into the
night to make her two sketches.  One pictured the shanty boat as it
was, dingy and dirty, with a broken-down cabin of two rooms at the
stern.  In the second drawing Madge's fairy wand, which was her gift of
imagination, had quite transformed the ugly boat.  The deck of the
canal boat was about forty feet long, with a twelve-foot beam.  To the
two rooms, which the ordinary shanty boat contains, she had added
another two, forming an oblong cabin, with four windows on each side
and a flat roof.  The flat roof formed the second deck of the
prospective houseboat.  It had a small railing around it, and a pair of
steps that led up from the outside to the upper deck.  Madge had
decorated her fairy ship with garlands of flowers that hung far over
the sides of the deck.

Jack Bolling looked at the drawing a long time without saying a word.

"Don't you think it can be done, Jack?" inquired Madge eagerly.  "You
see, this old boat could be cleaned and painted, and any good carpenter
could put up the extra rooms."

"Right you are, Madge," Jack answered at last, making a low bow.  "Hats
off to the ladies, as usual.  Who is that queer-looking customer coming
this way?"

"He is the man who is to see about our canal boat," answered Phil, as
though they were already in possession.

Madge had gone forward.  "Have you found the boat for us?" she
inquired.  "I simply can't wait to find out."

The man grinned.  "There is one towed alongside of mine that you might
be able to git.  I had a hard time finding it."

"That is all right," declared Jack, stepping forward, "you will be paid
for your work.  Will you please take us out to look at the boat?"

"Got to cross my shanty to git to it," the man replied, leading the way
across a rickety gang-plank.

There were three or four dirty children playing on the deck of his boat
and a thin, yellow dog.  At the open door of the shanty kitchen stood
the figure of a girl.  She had on the faded calico dress of the day
before; she was barefooted and her hair was ragged and unkempt.  But as
Jack Bolling and the four girls glanced idly at her a start of surprise
ran through each one of these.  Jack stopped for an instant, and
instinctively took off his hat.  Phil Alden whispered in Madge's ear,
"I never saw any one so beautiful in my life," and Madge mutely agreed.

The girl was smiling a wistful, far-away smile that was very touching.
Her hair was the color of copper that has been burnished by the sun,
and her eyes were the deep blue of the midsummer sky.  The wind and sun
had tanned the girl's cheeks, but her skin was still fine and delicate.
There was a strange, vacant expression in her eyes and a pathetic droop
to her whole figure.

"Git you back in there, Moll," the owner of the shanty boat called out
roughly.  The girl started and quivered, as though she expected a blow.
Jack's face turned hot with anger.  But what could he do?  The man was
talking to his own daughter.

"Why did you speak to the poor girl like that?" asked Madge sharply.

"She ain't all right in the top story," the man answered.  "She is kind
of foolish.  I have to keep a close watch on her."

Madge turned pitying eyes on the demented girl, then as they stepped
aboard the other canal boat, for the time she forgot the lovely
apparition she had just seen.

"How much will the owner rent this boat for?" Madge asked at last,
trying hard to conceal her enthusiasm.  The boat was dirty and needed
renovating, but it was well built of good, strong timbers.

"My friend is willing to sell this here boat for a hundred dollars,"
said the fisherman, Mike Muldoon, hesitating as he mentioned the sum.

It was all Madge could do to keep from clapping her hands for joy.  One
hundred dollars for the boat--that left another hundred for painting
and remodeling and for other necessary expenses.

Just as Madge was about to close with the man's offer a look from Jack
Bolling interrupted her.

"The boat is not worth a hundred dollars," he declared decisively.
"The young lady will give you fifty dollars for it, and not a cent
more."

The man laughed contemptuously.  "I can't do it," he said.  "That boat
is cheap at a hundred dollars."

"At fifty, you mean," retorted Jack stubbornly.

The girls stood back quietly and allowed Jack to drive the bargain,
which he did with so much spirit that the coveted boat was at last made
over to him at his price, fifty dollars.

For the rest of the day the four girls spent their time interviewing
carpenters and painters.  At last they found a man who promised to
deliver the boat, rebuilt according to Madge's idea, at a little town
several miles farther down the bay.  The man owned a motor boat.  He
was to take the houseboat to a landing, where the girls could load it
with the necessary supplies, and then to tow them farther down the bay,
until they found the ideal place for their summer holiday.

"I declare, Madge, dear, I was never so tired, nor so happy in my
life," declared Eleanor Butler late that afternoon, as the quartette
were on their way back to their school at Harborpoint.  "I can see our
houseboat, now, as plainly as anything.  At first, Lillian and I
couldn't quite believe in your idea."

Madge had heard Eleanor's comments but vaguely.  She was doing a sum in
mental arithmetic.  "Fifty dollars for the old shanty boat,
seventy-five for remodeling it, fifteen to the man for towing."  Here
she became confused.  But she still knew there was quite a large sum of
money left for buying the little furniture they needed and their store
of provisions.

Phyllis Alden, too, had been busy calculating.  "I think we can do it,
Madge," she said, leaning over from the back seat to speak to her
friend.

"Of course we can.  We shall have whole lots of money," announced Madge
triumphantly.

Phil shook her head.  "I am afraid we won't.  There is one thing we
must buy that will be expensive."

Lillian straightened up.  She had been leaning against the back of the
seat, utterly worn out.  The three girls gazed at Phil in
consternation.  What was this new item of expense that threatened to
eat up their little capital?

"Don't keep us in suspense, Phil," laughed Eleanor.  "What have we
forgotten to buy?"

"A kitchen stove!" cried Phil dramatically.  "And I know they must be
awfully expensive."

"What a goose you are, Phil," said Lillian in a practical tone.  "We
don't want a kitchen stove.  It would take up too much room.  We need
an oil stove or something like that."

"Then I appoint you as a special committee to look into the stove
question, Lillian," laughed Madge.

"I accept the appointment," bowed Lillian, "and I won't waste our
capital on kitchen ranges of elephantine proportions, either."

During the next five days the four friends found plenty to occupy their
time.  Then Miss Tolliver's school closed, and Phil Alden hurried home
to her family in Hartford, Connecticut; Lillian returned to her home in
Philadelphia, while Madge and Eleanor departed to spend a week with Mr.
and Mrs. Butler in their old home in Virginia.  Miss Jones, however,
remained at the school.  She made one hurried trip into Baltimore, and
on another occasion had a visitor, but the rest of the time she sewed
industriously; for on June the eighth a new experience was to be
hers--she was to begin her duties as chaperon to four adventurous girls
aboard their longed-for "Ship of Dreams."




CHAPTER V

ALL ABOARD

Blue waves lapped idly against the sides of a little, white palace that
had risen out of the waves of the bay overnight.  One side lay close
along a quiet shore.  Overhead the leaves of a willow tree stirred in
the wind, and the birds twittered in its branches.  The rosy flush was
just fading out of the sky.  Dawn had come only a short time before,
and the wind, the waves and the birds were the only things stirring so
early in the morning.  There was not a sound or a movement aboard the
odd vessel that was moored to the shore.

Along the shore sped the slender figure of a girl.  It was a part of
the morning.  Her blue frock was the color of the sky and her auburn
hair had been touched by the sun, and on her radiant face lay the glory
of youth.

Of course, it was Madge!  She did not stop when she first spied her
houseboat between the branches of the willow tree.  She gave a little
gasp, and ran on faster than ever.  A moment later she came alongside
her boat, which was only about three feet from the shore.  Madge had
not practised running and jumping in the gymnasium at school and on the
old farm in Virginia for nothing.  She gave one flying leap and landed
on the deck of her houseboat.  Then she stood perfectly still, a little
song of gratitude welling from the depth of her happy heart.

"Perhaps it was not fair in me to have run away from Eleanor," she
mused.  "But then Nellie is such a sleepy-head, she never would have
wished to get up so early.  And I did want to see the boat alone, just
for a moment.  I am not going to look into the cabin, though.  I am
going to wait for the other girls----"

A stone went whizzing by Madge's ear at this moment, causing her
soliloquy to come to an abrupt end.

She glanced toward the shore.  A small boy stood grinning at her, with
his hands tucked into a pair of trousers so much too long for him they
had to be turned up from the ankles to the knees.

"Hello," he remarked cheerfully, eyeing Madge owlishly.

"Hello yourself," returned Madge.  "Do you usually begin the day by
throwing stones at peaceful strangers?"

"Yes'm," the small boy responded calmly.  "Where'd you and that come
from?"

"I came from my home in Virginia, and if by 'that' you mean my boat, it
is a 'Ship of Dreams' and was towed up here from Baltimore yesterday
afternoon.  What do you think of it?"

"She isn't a dream, she's a peach," was the prompt retort.

"I'm glad you like her," smiled Madge in a winning fashion that caused
the lad to smile in return.  "Why are you up so early in the morning?"

"Driving home the cows," was the laconic answer.

"I don't see any cows," teased Madge.  "Wait a minute.  I have
something for you to do.  Would you like to earn a quarter?  If you
would, then come back here about nine o'clock.  We are going to load
our boat with some furniture and provisions, and we would like to have
you help us."

"All right, I'll be here," promised the boy, and ran off into the
bushes with a derisive grin which Madge did not see.

A few moments later Madge went back to Eleanor to have breakfast at the
little boarding house where she and her cousin had spent the night.
Miss Jones, Lillian and Phil had not yet arrived, but they were
expected by the early train that came from Baltimore.  The little
village from which they intended to go aboard their houseboat was only
about half an hour's ride from the city, and was situated on one of the
quiet inlets of the bay.

Fifteen minutes before the train was due Eleanor and Madge were
impatiently waiting at the station.  The newcomers were so surrounded
by bags, suit cases and mysterious packages that it took all the men
about the depot to land them safely on the platform.  Madge gave the
order to the expressman to bring all their luggage to the houseboat
landing near the willow tree.  Then the party started out to find the
boat, without losing a minute by the way.

Madge slipped her arm through that of Miss Jones and walked beside her
dutifully, though she secretly longed to be with her chums.  Lillian,
Phil and Eleanor joined hands and ran ahead, without being in the least
degree affected by the idea that they were no longer children.  Madge,
however, was the only one who knew the way.  She hurried Miss Jones
along until that young woman was almost out of breath.  When they were
within a short distance of the place where she had found her boat
waiting for her in the early morning, she could bear it no longer.
With a murmured excuse she broke away from Miss Jones and started on a
run toward the willow tree.  Her three chums were close behind her.
The branches of the willow tree seemed more impenetrable in the bright
sunlight.  It was not so easy to see through them.  Madge ran straight
past the tree, then uttered a shrill cry.  She stopped short, her
cheeks turning first red, then white.

"What is it?" cried Phil, springing to her friend's side.

Madge pointed dumbly toward the water.

"Tell us!" said Eleanor, running up to Madge and lightly grasping her
arm.

"Our houseboat is gone!" gasped Madge.  "It was right there, tied to
that very post along the shore early this morning!  The man who brought
it down from Baltimore left a note for me describing the landing place.
He said he had to go back to Baltimore, but that he would come here
this afternoon to tow us.  Now the boat has gone!  O, girls, what shall
we do?"

The girls stared at the water in silence.  Disappointment rendered them
speechless for the moment.  "Let us look up and down the shore,"
suggested Phil comfortingly.  "I suppose it is just barely possible
that the rope broke away from the stake, and the boat has floated off
somewhere."

The four girls ran up and down the bank, straining their eyes in
anxious glances out over the wide stretch of water.  There was no
houseboat in sight.  It had vanished as completely as though it had
really been a "Ship of Dreams."

"Perhaps you have made a mistake in the place, Madge," was the
chaperon's first remark as she joined the excited party.

Madge compressed her red lips.  Miss Jones was so provoking.  She was
utterly without tact.  But now that she was to be one of the party it
would be wrong to say a single impolite thing to their chaperon the
whole six weeks of their holiday, no matter how provoking or tactless
she might he.  Madge sighed impatiently, then turned to the teacher.

"No, I am not mistaken, Miss Jones.  I can't be.  You see, I came to
this very spot this morning and went aboard our boat.  Then I have the
man's description of the landing place.  I think we had better go back
to the village and see if we can get some men who know the shore along
here to come to help us look out for our boat.  There is no use in
having our furniture brought here if we haven't any houseboat,"
finished Madge, her voice trembling.

"Come along, then; I will go back with you," volunteered Phil.  "Miss
Jones, you sit under the tree.  Lillian, you and Nellie keep a sharp
look-out.  If any one comes along in a boat, ask him about ours."

"Do you think our boat has gone forever, Phil?" asked Madge dejectedly
as the two companions walked wearily back over the road they had
traveled so gayly a short time before.

"I don't know," replied Phil.  "I should say it depended entirely upon
who had taken the trouble to spirit it away."

While the two girls stood gazing moodily out over the bay a hard, green
apple landed with a thump on top of Madge's uncovered head.  Madge and
Phil looked up simultaneously.  There in a gnarled old apple tree
directly above them appeared the grinning face of the small boy whose
acquaintance Madge had made earlier in the morning.

"Lost your boat, ain't you?" he asked cheerfully.

Madge nodded and walked on.  She was not anxious to renew conversation
with the mischievous youngster.

Phil, however, was seized with an inspiration.  "Have you been about
this place very long?" she inquired casually.

"Yep," the boy returned.

"Then, perhaps, you know what has become of our boat," suggested Phil.

"Yep," answered the voice from the tree, "I know all about it."

"Then tell us this minute what has become of it!" ordered Madge.  "I
knew the moment I saw you that you were the very imp of mischief.  Tell
us where our boat is at once."

"I won't tell," the urchin spoke firmly.

"You shall," declared Madge, her eyes flashing.

"I'd like to see you make me tell," dared the boy.  "A girl can't climb
a tree."  The grin on his impish face widened.

"I'll show you that a girl _can_ climb a tree, young man," exclaimed
Madge hotly, making her way toward the tree.  "I have climbed a good
many more trees than you have ever climbed in your life."

"Listen to me, Madge," admonished Phil, laughing at her friend, "you
can't have a fight with a small boy in the top of a tree or shake him
out of it.  Don't allow him to tease you.  Let's go on into the village
and get a policeman.  Then, if the boy really knows anything about the
disappearance of our houseboat, the policeman will make him tell us."
Phil tried to make her voice sound as threatening as possible when she
mentioned the word "policeman."

"I won't be here when you git back," was the imp's cheerful response.

Madge and Phil paid no further heed to him.  They went on toward the
town.  A few yards farther on they heard the patter of bare feet.
"Can't you wait a minute?" a voice pleaded.  "I was only teasing you.
If you promise you won't give me away, I'll tell you what became of
your old boat.  My pa took it."

"Your pa?" cried Madge in surprise.  "What do you mean?"

"When I told Pa I'd seen a new-fangled kind of a boat hitched to our
post, where we most generally ties up our own boat, he said you hadn't
no right to be there.  So he just hitched up our mule and he come down
here and untied your boat and dragged it up shore.  I run after him
until I got too tired.  Then I come back here to tell you," ended the
boy.

"Where is your father?" Phil asked quietly.  Madge's eyes were flashing
dangerously, her temper was rising.

"He's cutting hay," the boy returned.  "I'll show you the field and
then I'll run."

Lillian and Eleanor had now joined the two girls to find out what was
delaying them.  Miss Jones still waited, disconsolate, under the willow
tree.  The four girls started out behind the one small boy, who
answered to the name of Bill Jenkins, Jr.  It was evident that Bill
Jenkins, Sr., was the name of the boat-thief.

"What shall we say and do when we find the man?" asked Eleanor
anxiously.  "I suppose we had no right to tie our boat up at his
landing place without asking permission."

Madge shook her head angrily.  "Right or no right, I shall certainly
tell him my opinion of him," she said tensely.

"You must not make the man angry, Madge," argued gentle Eleanor, who
knew Madge's fiery, temper and stood in awe of it.  "Perhaps, when he
sees we are girls, he will be sorry he took our boat away and will
bring it back for us."

"Let us go and see him at once," was Madge's sole response.

After all, it was Eleanor's gentleness that won the day!  She told the
farmer, whom they found in the hay field, the whole story of the
houseboat, and how they hoped to spend their holiday aboard it.

"I declare, I'm real sorry I moved your houseboat," he apologized.  "If
I'd 'a' known the pretty toy boat belonged to a parcel of young girls
like you, I'd never have laid hands on it.  You kin stay along my shore
all summer if you like.  But no one asked my permission to tie the boat
to my post.  And soon as I seen it, I just thought the boat belonged to
some rich society folks who thought they owned the airth.  I hid the
boat up the bay a piece.  But don't you fret.  I'll go git it and tote
it back in no time."

"I am so sorry," explained Madge prettily, ashamed of her bad temper
and how near she had come to displaying it.  "I thought, of course, the
engineer who towed our boat out here from Baltimore had asked your
permission before he made a landing.  I suppose he was in such a hurry
to get back to the city that he neglected it."

While the girls and their chaperon waited for the return of their
houseboat they ate an early luncheon out of the hampers that Phil and
Lillian had brought from their homes to provision the travelers for the
day.

The houseboat finally did appear, much as the girls had pictured her.
She was painted white, with a line of green showing just above the
water.  The four rooms in the cabin, which was set well toward the
stern, opened into each other, and each room had a small door and
window facing on the deck.  The two bedrooms had six berths set along
the walls.  One room was intended for the kitchen and the fourth, which
was the largest, was to serve as the dining room, sitting room, work
and play room for the houseboat party on rainy days, when it was
impossible for them to be out on deck.

While the men were unloading the barrels and boxes on the boat the
girls ran in and out the doors of their cabin rooms like the figures in
a pantomime, bumping into each other and stumbling over things.  Miss
Jones at last sent Eleanor and Lillian to the kitchen to drive nails
along the wall and to hang up their limited display of kitchen
utensils, while Phil and Madge helped with the unpacking.  There was
one steamer chair, bought in honor of the chaperon, and a great many
sofa cushions, borrowed from their rooms at school, to be used as deck
furniture.  A barrel of apples, a barrel of potatoes and two Virginia
hams were donations from the farm in Virginia.  Mrs. Seldon, Lillian's
mother, had also sent a store of pickles and preserves.

Phil, too, had brought a big box from home, while Madge's own purchases
for the houseboat included a small table, five chairs, besides the
necessary china and some of the bedding.  The rest of the outfit the
girls managed to secure from their own homes.

Miss Jones, Phil and Madge were industriously turning the berths into
beds when a sharp scream from Lillian, who was working in the kitchen,
filled them with terror.  Miss Jones arrived first at the kitchen door,
with her heart in her mouth.  Had some horrible disaster overtaken
them, just as they were about to start on their adventures?  There
stood the two girls, Lillian and Eleanor, their faces, instead of
showing fright, apparently shining with delight.  The men who had been
setting up the little stove, which they had bought for a trifling sum
after all, had disappeared.  The girls were now in full possession of
their domain.

"What is it, children?  What has happened?" implored Miss Jones, with a
white, scared face.  Lillian pointed ahead of her, but only the kitchen
stove was to be seen.  Madge and Phil, who had followed close behind
their chaperon, were equally mystified.

But hark!  What was the noise they heard all at once?  A gentle
crackling, a roar, a burst of flame, and a puff of smoke up through the
long stove pipe!  The pipe went through a hole cut in the side of the
wall.  "A fire, a fire!" exclaimed Lillian joyously, wondering why the
others looked so startled.

There was really a fire burning in the stove of the houseboat kitchen!
And as a fire is a first sign to the pioneer that he is at last at
home, so the little company felt themselves to be the original girl
pioneers in houseboat adventures, and felt the same thrill of peace and
pleasure.

Madge seized the shining new tea-kettle and filled it with water from
the big bucket that rested on a shelf just outside the kitchen door.

  "Madge, put the kettle on,
   Madge, put the kettle on,
     We'll all take tea,"

She sang in a sweet, high, rapturous voice.

Toot, toot, toot!  a motor boat whistle sounded out on the water.  The
four girls rushed on deck to call a greeting to the engineer who was to
tow their houseboat down the bay, until it found an anchorage in a cove
in the bay near a stream of clear water.

Four weary but happy girls sat out on deck on cushions as the engineer
made fast to their boat preparatory to starting.  The chaperon was
installed in the solitary grandeur of their one steamer chair.

There was a heavy tug at the great rope that bound the houseboat to the
little motor tug.  The motor boat moved out into the bay, and with
almost no perceptible motion and no noise, except the gentle ripple of
the water purling against the sides of the craft, the houseboat
followed it.  The longed-for vacation on the water had begun.




CHAPTER VI

PLEASURE BAY

Just before twilight the boat reached a spot that seemed especially
created for the travelers.  For two hours they had been silently
drinking in the beauty of the sun-lit bay and the green earth.  They
were not in the main body of the great Chesapeake Bay, but in one of
the long arms of the bay that reaches into the Maryland coast.

"Look ahead of you, girls, to the left," called Phyllis Alden, as they
glided slowly along.

Miss Jones and the three girls looked.  There, in a curve of the land,
was a low bank, with great clusters of purple iris growing along it,
among the slender, long, green stems of the "cat-tails."  An elm tree
stood close to the edge of the water, spreading its branches out over
the miniature sea.  It was so strong, so big and enduring that it gave
the home-seeking girls a sense of protection.  The elm's branches could
shelter them from the sun by day, and at night their boat could be tied
to its trunk.  Farther up the bank the girls could see a comfortable
old, gray, shingled farmhouse.  The farm meant water, fresh eggs, milk
and butter.

Madge looked inquiringly at their chaperon, who nodded with an
expression of entire satisfaction.  Next, Madge glanced about the
semi-circle of eager faces.  "Shall we cast our anchor in Pleasure
Bay?" she asked, and thus the pleasant little inland sea was named.

Madge signaled to the motor boat ahead, and the engineer stopped.  He
had several passengers on board his motor boat, but the men had been
inside the saloon most of the time, and no one on board the houseboat
had noticed them.

Before the houseboat anchored Madge and Phil ran up the hill to ask at
the farmhouse for the privilege of making a landing.  They had learned
a lesson they were not likely to forget.

Too tired to begin work, the girls ate their supper out of the luncheon
baskets, then sat about on deck, singing and talking until the stars
came out and twinkled down on their little houseboat with a million
friendly eyes; then, urged by their chaperon and their own heavy eyes,
they crept into their berths.

It was still night when Madge awakened with a start.  She thought she
heard some one talking.  "To whit! to whoo!"  It was only the call of a
friendly owl.  Yet the night seemed curiously lonely.  It was strange
to be asleep on the water instead of on the land!  There was another
weird sound, then something stirred outside on the deck of the boat.
From her cabin window Madge could see the line of the shore.  It was
quiet and empty.

This time she heard the sound of a voice.  Another voice answered it.
Could it be possible that the second voice sounded like that of Miss
Jones!  What could have happened?  Without pausing to put on her shoes
Madge slipped into the next room.  Eleanor lay breathing quietly in the
upper berth and Miss Jones seemed to be asleep in the lower one.  But
the cover was drawn up almost to where her ears should be and Madge
could not see her face.

She crept over to the chaperon's berth.  It was necessary to waken Miss
Jones and tell her of the mysterious sounds.  She slipped her hand
along the pillow in the dark.  There was no response.  She groped
deeper under the covers.  Still no movement or sound.  Miss Jones was
not in her berth.  She was out on deck, talking to some one.  Madge
returned to her room.  She did not intend to call the other girls until
she knew what was the trouble.  Phyllis was always brave and so were
Lillian and Eleanor, but in this instance they could do nothing.

The girl stole softly to the cabin window and peeped out.  She could
just catch the outline of two figures that were standing well up toward
the bow of the boat.  One was a woman's figure, with a shawl thrown
over her head, but Madge was sure that she recognized the chaperon.
Hurrying back to her berth she slipped on her steamer coat and
slippers.  She was trying every moment to fight down the distrust and
dislike she had felt toward Miss Jones ever since their first
acquaintance.  She was trying to tell herself that she had invited
their teacher to act as their chaperon from other motives, as well as
from sympathy.  But the finger of suspicion seemed to point plainly
toward the teacher.

Madge walked quietly, and without any fear or hesitation, out on the
deck of the houseboat, straight toward the two shrouded figures in the
bow.  Neither of them heard her coming, but she heard Miss Jones's
distressed plea: "Won't you go away, and never come here again.  I tell
you, I can not do it.  I simply can't----"

"Miss Jones," Madge's voice, clear and cold, sounded almost in her
chaperon's ear.

The young woman turned so white that Madge could see her pallor in the
moonlight.

The figure with her was shrouded in a long, black coat which was pulled
up about its face.  At the first sound of Madge's voice it made for the
extreme end of the boat.  With a quick turn, Madge ran after the
escaping form.  As it poised itself for a leap toward the shore, Madge
caught at the cloak and dragged it away from the face, and for a brief
instant she saw the face of a boy a little older perhaps than she was.
It was a wild and elfish face, while a pair of ears, ending almost in
points, stuck up through the masses of thick, curly hair that covered
his head.  But before she could get a distinct impression of his face
the young man was gone, racing up the low embankment with great leaps,
like a hunted deer.

Madge turned to their chaperon, waiting for the latter to offer some
explanation.  Miss Jones said nothing, but regarded Madge with
distressed eyes.

"Who was your visitor?  I did not know that any one knew we were
anchored here.  We did not know, ourselves, that we were to land here
until we spied the place.  Was that boy a stranger to you?  Why didn't
you call one of us if he frightened you?"  Madge's tone was distinctly
unfriendly.

Miss Jones only shook her head.  Big tears were rolling down her
cheeks.  She was trembling so that Madge, much against her will, took
her by the arm and assisted her across the deck.

"I can tell you nothing, Madge," was the teacher's husky reply.  "I am
perfectly aware that you have a right to know.  Still, I simply can't
tell you.  But I can go away, if you like, and I will, as soon as you
can get some one else to chaperon you.  Only I must ask you not to tell
the other girls what has happened to-night, or why I must leave you.
You see, dear," Miss Jones ended wistfully, "the other girls are fond
of me.  You never have been.  I can not bear to lose their faith and
trust."

There was a significant silence after this remark.

"Did you really see who it was with me?" Miss Jones questioned
anxiously.  "Would you know the face if you saw it again?"

"I don't know," was Madge's stiff reply, "but I believe I should."

"Won't you promise me that you will not tell the other girls?" Miss
Jones whispered, as they crossed the deck and came to the door of their
little cabin.  "I am not asking you to do anything wrong, only asking
you to trust me and believe that I do not think I am doing a wrong by
not taking you into my confidence."

"Very well, I will keep your secret," returned Madge slowly.  "I do not
wish you to leave us, Miss Jones.  I wish you to stay and take care of
us, just as you planned to do."

"You are only saying that, dear, because you know I have no other place
to go for my holiday, and you are afraid my health will suffer.  You
must not think of my health.  I can not stay with you just for my own
sake."

"Then stay for ours," said Madge shortly, and without further words she
went into the cabin and climbed into her berth.

Sleep was far from weighing down her eyelids.  She lay awake for some
time, wondering why clouds and distrust should so often spring up among
human beings when everything seemed arranged for their perfect
happiness.

She generously made up her mind, however, never to trouble their
chaperon with questions about her mysterious visitor, but she
determined to discover for herself who that boy was, and whether he had
come aboard the boat to rob them.




CHAPTER VII

THEIR UNKNOWN JAILER

"Madge Morton, what do you mean sleeping until seven o'clock, the first
morning we are on our houseboat?" cried Phil, poking her head in the
cabin door.  "I would have awakened you before now, only Miss Jones
would not let me.  Lillian and Eleanor have been waiting for you in
their bathing suits for a long while.  Do let's have a salt water
plunge before breakfast."

Springing from her berth, Madge made a dash for her bathing suit, which
she had laid out the night before.

The girls were over the side of the boat in a hurry, swimming about in
the water with gleeful shouts.  The odor of frying bacon, which was
presently wafted to their nostrils from the door of the houseboat
kitchen, was something the bathers were too hungry to resist, and with
one accord, they swam toward their boat.

It had been arranged that Miss Jones was to get the breakfast, Lillian
and Eleanor the luncheon, and Phil and Madge, who were the most
ambitious of the cooks, though not the most proficient, were to cook
the dinner.

Madge noticed that Miss Jones looked whiter than usual, but the other
girls saw no difference in their chaperon as they clambered up over the
side of the boat to get ready for breakfast.

"Girls," Miss Jones remarked, as she put down a big plate of corn
muffins before her hungry charges, "Phil accused me once of being
mysterious and never talking about myself.  Well, I am going to make a
confession about myself at once."

Madge raised her eyes in surprise.  After all, was Miss Jones going to
tell of last night's adventure?  But the chaperon was not looking at
her.  She was smiling at Phil, Lillian and Eleanor.

"Well, out with it, Miss Jones," laughed Phil.  "What is the
confession?"

"It is a foolish one, perhaps.  I hate the name of 'Jones.'  I have
despised it all my life.  There, that is my confession.  Won't you
girls please call me something else while we are having our holiday
together?  I know Madge can find a name for me."  She looked rather
timidly at Madge.

The girl blushed, though she felt vastly relieved at Miss Jones's
confession.  "What do you wish us to call you?  I saw your initials in
some of your books, 'J. A. Jones,' so we might call you Jenny Ann
Jones, because, when Nellie and I were children, we used to play an old
nursery game: 'We're going to see Miss Jenny Ann Jones, Miss Jenny Ann
Jones, and how is she to-day?'"  Madge's explanation ended with a song.

Miss Jones laughed.  "My name is worse than Jenny Ann, it is Jemima
Ann."

"It isn't pretty," agreed Phyllis, with a shake of the head.  "Girls,
what shall we call our chaperon?  And we have never named our
houseboat, either.  We have a day's work ahead of us.  We must think of
names for both of them."

"Wouldn't 'Miss Ann' do?" Eleanor asked.

"I think Ann is such a pretty name."

"I would rather you had a more individual name for me.  I have often
been called Ann."

"You might be the 'Queen of our Ship of Dreams,'" laughed Lillian.

"That sounds altogether too high and mighty," objected Phyllis.  "We
ought to have something nice and chummy."

"We might call you 'Gem,' because it is short for Jemima, and in honor
of these corn muffins, which we call 'gems' in our part of the world,"
added Phil.  "We'll think of a name yet.  Come on, girls, we must get
to work; there is so much to be done.  Lillian, you and I must go up to
the farmhouse to get some supplies this morning.  Suppose we take a
long walk this afternoon and explore the woods back of us?"

"We will think of the prettiest name we can for you and another for our
houseboat," declared Lillian as the four girls rose from the table to
go about their various tasks; "then we shall make our report to-night."

It was nearly four o'clock in the afternoon when the four churns
started on their walk.  Miss Jones did not go with them.  She was tired
and wished to sit out on the deck of the boat in the sunshine.

"Be back before dark, children," she called out gayly as the girls
climbed up the little embankment.  "Remember, you don't know your way
in this country, as you do at old Harborpoint.  I shall be uneasy about
you if you aren't back on time."

There were several scattered farmhouses at the top of the hill that
sloped down to the cove of the bay, but back of the farmlands lay a
long stretch of forest.  The ground was covered with a carpet of wild
flowers and a few late violets.

Once the chums were fairly in the heart of the woods they did not meet
another traveler.  They seemed to have the forest to themselves.  They
had no thought of danger in the quiet woods, and Madge and Eleanor, who
had been brought up in the country, were careful to watch the paths
they followed.

They had been in the woods for an hour or more when Lillian, who was
stooping over a clump of big, purple violets, thought she heard a
peculiar sound resembling light footsteps, Whether there was a human
being or an animal near them she could not tell.  The footsteps would
run rapidly and then stop abruptly.

"Phil," called Lillian, "I thought I heard something.  Did you?  Listen
once more.  There, did you hear that?"

Phil listened.  "Not a sound, Airy Fairy Lillian.  It must have been
your fancy."

But Lillian was not convinced.  Several times she believed she heard
the noise again.  However, she did not mention it.

As the girls came out of the woods to a little clearing Phil, who was
in the lead, ran forward.  "Madge, Eleanor," she called, "come here,
quick!  I am sure this must be a regular, old-time log cabin."

Before them the girls saw an old cabin that looked as though it had
been empty for a quarter of a century.  It was strongly built of logs,
and the chinks between the logs were filled with mud that had hardened
like plaster.  There were no windows in the cabin, except in the eaves.
The heavy door was half open, but it had an old-fashioned wooden latch
on the outside.

"The old cabin looks rather creepy, doesn't it, Madge?" asked Eleanor.
"It is built more securely than our cabins farther down south, too.
This place seems more like a prison."

"It looks interesting.  Let's go in to see it." Phil suggested.

The cabin stood in front of a stream of clear water.  Close around it
grew a number of dark old cedar trees.

Phil and Madge shoved open the heavy door.  Inside, the one large room
looked gray and dark, as the only light came from the two small windows
so far overhead.

"I would rather not go in, Madge," protested Eleanor, hesitating on the
threshold after Lillian had followed the other two girls inside.

"Don't be a baby, Eleanor," scolded Madge.  "There is nothing to hurt
you."

Once inside the old house, Eleanor was as much interested as her chums.
There was no furniture in the place, but a few faded pictures were
tacked up on the walls, and the corners of the room were thick with
mysterious and inviting shadows.

As they clustered in a group under an old magazine picture of a darkey
with a fiddle in his hand there was an unexpected sound just outside
the door, and the big room grew suddenly darker.

The four girls turned simultaneously.

The heavy door through which they had entered the cabin, and which was
the only entrance, had been shut fast.  At the same instant there was
the sound of a heavy, sliding bolt, then the rush of flying feet.

For the moment no one of the girls realized the seriousness of what had
happened.

"Some one must have locked us in for a joke," declared Phil stoutly.

Madge ran to the door and shook it with all her strength.  It was built
of heavy logs, and, though the girls could see the daylight through the
cracks between the timbers, the door showed no sign of opening.

"Don't work so hard, Madge," remonstrated Phil.  "Whoever shut us in
will come back in a moment to unfasten the bolt."

The girls waited a long time.  No one returned.

"Perhaps the person who closed the door did not know there was any one
in the cabin," suggested Eleanor faintly.

"But we were all talking, Nellie.  No one but a deaf person could have
failed to hear us," Lillian insisted.

Eleanor realized the truth of the words.

"Don't be frightened, Nellie," begged Madge remorsefully.  "Let's all
push against the door at the same time.  I am sure we shall be able to
break the bolt.  One, two, three!  Now--all together!"

The four girls shoved with all their might, until their arms ached and
their faces perspired from the exertion.  Still the old door resisted
them.  Perhaps Eleanor was right and the log house had been built as a
prison.

"I think we had better call for help," was Phil's practical suggestion.
"If we all scream together, we ought to make considerable noise.  I am
afraid Miss Jones may become worried about us before any one comes to
let us out."

The girls called and called, until their voices were hoarse, but no one
answered them.  Each girl remembered that she had not met a single
person in her journey through the woods.

Then the prisoners made a trip around the big room, poking and peering
about to see if there were any other possible method of escape.

"If I could only get up to one of those windows, I could easily break
the bars and try to jump out of it," speculated Madge aloud.  "But,
alas, I am not a monkey!  I can't climb straight up the side of a wall."

"You shall not try it, either," retorted Eleanor determinedly.  "You
would break your neck if you tried to jump from one of those high
windows.  Thank goodness, you can't climb up to them!"

"You were the wise one, Nell, and we wouldn't listen to you."  Madge
eyed Eleanor mournfully.  She had an overwhelming desire to burst into
tears.

"Don't take it so to heart, Madge," comforted her cousin.  "Some one is
sure to come this way finally, if we only call long enough."

But the afternoon shadows lengthened and no one came.  Gradually the
twilight fell, enveloping the big, bare room in hazy darkness.  The
prisoners huddled together with white and weary faces.  They thought of
their cosy houseboat with the little lamps lit in the dining room, and
the big lantern hanging in the bow, and of Miss Jones, who by this time
was no doubt anxiously waiting and watching for their return.

It was perhaps eight o'clock, although to the girls it seemed midnight,
when Lillian whispered:

"Girls, I hear some one coming this way.  Phil was right; it was a
joke, after all.  Whoever locked the door has come back to unlock it."

The girls smiled hopefully.  After all, their experience did not amount
to anything.  They would be back inside the houseboat in another hour.

The footsteps now sounded plainly just outside the cabin door.

"Won't you please unbar the door for us?" called Phil and Madge in
chorus.  "Some one has locked us inside."

An elfish laugh answered them.  Or was it the wind?  Perhaps they had
heard no one after all.  They strained their ears but heard no further
sound.  Then the last bit of twilight vanished and night came down in
reality.




CHAPTER VIII

AN ANXIOUS NIGHT

Huddled together in the darkness, Phil and Madge endeavored to relieve
the strain of the situation by talking, but the very sound of their
voices dismayed them and they became silent.  Finally Eleanor, who had
been leaning against Madge's shoulder, laid her head in her cousin's
lap and went to sleep.  A little later Lillian, after receiving Madge's
assurance that she and Phil intended to keep watch, went to sleep also.

"Madge," Phil's voice trembled a little, "what do you suppose poor Miss
Jones will think?  She won't have the least idea in which direction to
look for us.  Goodness knows how long we may have to stay here.  We may
never get out."  Her voice sank to a whisper.

"Why, Phil," Madge feigned a hopefulness which she did not feel, "I am
surprised at you.  You haven't given up hope.  It is just the darkness
and being hungry that makes things appear so dreadful.  I have been
thinking about our plight, and when daylight comes I am going to try to
climb up the wall to the window.  The mud has broken away between some
of the logs, so that I can get my foot in the opening.  We shall have
to dig it away in other places too."

"But what can we dig with, Madge?  We haven't a knife."

"With our fingers and hairpins, if we must, Phil.  Sh-sh, Nellie is
waking.  I want her to sleep on till daylight."

Toward morning, however, the two girls' eyes closed wearily.  In spite
of their resolve to keep awake, the gray dawn creeping in at the
windows found them fast asleep.  It was Phil who first opened her eyes.
She touched Madge, who sat up with a start, then springing to her feet
exclaimed, "I'm so glad it's morning.  Now for my great circus stunt."

"You can't possibly climb up there without hurting yourself, Madge.
You will surely fall," expostulated Eleanor.  "Please, please don't try
it."

"Please don't discourage me, Nellie.  It is the only way I know to get
out of this dreadful place.  Phil, if you will try to brace me, I can
climb up and dig in the mud farther up."

Eleanor was feeling down in her pocket.  Suddenly she gave a little cry
of surprise.  "O, girls!  I have something that may help.  Here is a
little pair of scissors.  You can dig with them, Madge."

The girls hailed the scissors with exclamations of joy.  They were very
small embroidery scissors, but they were better than nothing.

Lillian, who was bent on a foraging expedition around the room, came
back a moment later with a few big, rusty nails and an old brick she
had picked up out of the tumbled down fireplace.  "If you can hammer
these nails in the wall, Madge, you will have something to hold on to
as you climb."

For two hours Madge alternately dug and climbed.  In each hole that she
made between the big logs she would set her foot, then hammer a nail
above her head and dig a new opening.  At last she actually did climb
up the side of the wall, but her hands were scratched and bleeding, and
her hair and face were covered with mud.  She had taken off her dress
skirt, too, as she could climb better in her petticoat.

The three girls below held their breath when she came to the final
stretch, and let go the last rickety nail to fling herself on to the
window sill.

"Eureka, girls!" she called down cheerfully, when she got her breath.
She was holding tightly to the window frame with both hands and
endeavoring to make her voice sound gay, though she was nearly worn out
with the fatigue of her dangerous climb.  "Now I shall surely find a
way out for us.  Please don't be frightened, Nellie, darling, if I have
to jump.  It is not so bad."  She gave a little inward shudder as she
looked through the tiny window frame.  She could easily wrench the
broken bars away.  That was not the trouble.  But the window was so
small and the sill so narrow that Madge realized she could not get into
the proper position for a forward spring.  However, she had made up her
mind; she might break her leg, or her arm, but she would open that
barred door if she died in doing it.

With determined hands she wrenched at one of the window bars.  It gave
way.  She seized hold of another, clinging to the sill with her other
hand, her feet in their insecure resting places.

"It's all right, chilluns," she smiled, as she swung herself up to the
window, "I'm going to jump."

Eleanor had closed her eyes.  Phil and Lillian watched their friend,
sick with apprehension.

Madge gave one look down at the ground, at least fourteen feet below
her.  Then she uttered a quick, sharp cry, and dropped back to her
resting place, her feet, almost by instinct, finding the open spaces in
the wall.

"Come down, Madge," called Phil sharply.  "I was afraid you'd find the
distance too great.  Don't try it again."

"No, no, it is not that," replied Madge, gazing through the window.  "I
don't believe I shall have to jump.  I am sure some one is near."

Sniffing the ground, near the side of the cabin, she had spied a dog
with a soft brown nose, a shaggy, red brown body and a tail standing
out tense and straight.  It was a brown setter, and Madge knew he was
probably hunting for woodchucks.  Surely the presence of the dog meant
a master somewhere near.

Her tired, eager eyes strained through the thick foliage of the woods
they had traversed so happily only the afternoon before.

Yes, there was a man's figure!  He was coming nearer.  A young man in a
hunting jacket, with a gun swung over his shoulder, was tramping along,
with his eyes on the ground.

A pleading voice apparently came from the sky: "Please unbar the door
of this old cabin.  We are locked inside."

The young man stopped short.  He took off his cap and ran his hand
through his thick, light hair.  He was too old to believe in fairies or
elves.  But he heard the voice again even more distinctly.  "Oh, don't
go away!  Do open the log cabin door."

The young man looked up.  There was a little, white face as wan and
pale as the early daylight, with an aureole of dark red curls around
it, staring at him through the broken window frame of the old log cabin
that he had seen deserted a dozen times in his hunting trips through
these woods.

"If there is some one really calling to me, please wave your hand three
times from that window, so I will know you are not a spook," called the
young man, "otherwise I may be afraid to open the door."

"I can't wave.  I shall fall if I let go the window sill," answered
Madge, trying to keep from bursting into tears.  "Please don't wait any
longer.  We have been locked in all night."

The stranger drew back the heavy wooden bolt.  He started when he saw
three white-faced girls staring at him.  But the face he had seen at
the window was not among them.  Clinging to the old window frame, her
slender feet stuck in the cracks between the logs, was the witch who
had summoned him to their rescue.

"Won't you please come help me down, Phil?" asked a plaintive voice.

"Just let go the window frame and drop," ordered the stranger quietly.
"Don't be afraid.  It is the only possible way."

Without hesitating Madge did as directed.  "Thank you," she said
coolly, when she got her breath.  Then she staggered a little, and
Phyllis and the young man who had come to their rescue caught her.

"We have been locked in so long," explained Phil.  "No, we have not the
least idea who could have played such a trick on us.  We arrived in
this neighborhood only yesterday afternoon."

Phil gave a short history of the houseboat, introducing her three
friends and herself to him.  "We must return to our chaperon at once,"
she added.  "The poor woman will be dreadfully worried.  Do you girls
feel strong enough to walk?  You see"--this time Phil turned to their
rescuer--"it is not only that we have been shut up here for nearly
fourteen hours, we are so hungry!  We have had nothing to eat since
yesterday at luncheon."

"Your poor, starving girls!" exclaimed their liberator, reproachfully.
"At last I am convinced you are not fairies.  And for once I am glad
that my mother is always certain that I am on the point of starving."

He reached back into his pocket and brought out a package and a flask.
"Here is some good, strong coffee.  I am sorry it is cold, but it is
better than nothing."  He turned to Madge, who looked exhausted.

She shook her head, though she gazed at the flask wistfully.  "I won't
drink first.  I don't need it as much as the other girls."

Eleanor took the bottle from his hands and held it to Madge's lips.
The exhausted girl took a long drink.  Then the others followed suit,
while the young man watched them, smiling with satisfaction.  He was
tall and strong, and not particularly handsome, but he had fine brown
eyes, a firm chin and thick, curly, light hair.  After the girls had
finished the coffee he broke open his package of sandwiches and found
exactly four inside.

"Please take them," he urged, handing the open package to Lillian.

"We mustn't take them from you," protested Lillian.  "We thank you for
the coffee.  That will do nicely until we get back to our boat."

The stranger laughed.  "See here," he protested, "not an hour ago, when
I left the hotel, where my mother and I are spending the summer, I ate
three eggs, much bacon, four Maryland biscuit and drank two cups of
coffee.  Fragile creature that I am, I believe I can exist on that
amount of refreshment for another hour or so.  But whenever I go out on
a few hours' hunting trip, my mother insists that the steward at the
hotel put me up a luncheon.  She is forever imagining that I am likely
to get lost and starve, a modern 'Babe in the Woods,' you know.  By the
way, I haven't introduced myself.  My name is Curtis, Thomas Stevenson
Curtis, if you please, but I am more used to plain, everyday Tom."

The girls acknowledged the introduction, then by common consent they
began walking away from the cabin.

A short distance was traversed in silence, then Madge said abruptly,
"Who do you suppose locked us in, Mr. Curtis?"

"I don't know," answered Tom Curtis darkly, clenching his fist.  "But
wouldn't I like to find out!  Have you an enemy about here?"

Madge shook her head.  "No; as I said, we came to the neighborhood only
yesterday.  We have met only the farmer and his wife, who allowed us to
land."

"I'll make it my business to find out who served you such a dastardly
trick, Miss Morton," Tom returned.  "I expect to be in this
neighborhood all summer.  My mother isn't very well, and we like this
quiet place.  Our home is in New York.  I was a freshman last year at
Columbia."

Only the day before Tom Curtis had informed his mother that he found
the neighborhood too slow, and that if she didn't object he would be
glad to move on.  But a great deal can happen in a short time to make a
young man of twenty change his mind.

"Thank you," replied Madge sedately.  "I'll be on the lookout for the
wretch, too.  Now we must hurry back to our chaperon, Miss Jones.  I
won't ask you to come with us this morning, but we shall be very glad
to have you come aboard our boat to-morrow.  We haven't named her yet,
but she is so white and clean and new looking that you can't possibly
mistake her.  She is lying on an arm of the bay just south of these
woods."

"I'll surely avail myself of the invitation," smiled Tom Curtis as they
paused for a moment at the edge of the woods.  Below them the blue
waters of the bay gleamed in the sunshine.  And yes, there was their
beloved "Ship of Dreams."

"Oh, you can see her from here!" exclaimed Madge, her eyes dancing with
the pride of possession.  "See, Mr. Curtis, it is our very own 'Ship of
Dreams' until we give her a real name."

"She's a beauty," said Tom Curtis warmly, "and I really must have a
closer look at her."

"Then come to see us soon," invited Phil audaciously.

"I will, you may be certain of it.  Good-bye.  I hope you won't suffer
any bad effects from your strenuous night."  The young man raised his
cap and, whistling to his dog, strode off down the hill.

"What a nice boy," commented Lillian.

Madge, however, was not thinking of Tom Curtis; her mind dwelt upon
their chaperon, and the long, anxious night she had spent alone on the
houseboat.

Poor Miss Jones!  Her vigil had indeed been a patient one.  From the
time the hands of the little cabin clock had pointed to the hour of six
she had anxiously awaited the girls.  She had cooked the dinner, then
set it in the oven to warm.  At seven o'clock she trudged up the hill
to the farmhouse to make inquiries.  No one had seen the young women
since they passed through the fields early that afternoon.  At nine
o'clock a party of farmers scoured the country side, but the extreme
darkness of the night had caused the young men to discontinue their
search until daylight.

At dawn Miss Jones flung herself down on her berth, utterly exhausted.
She would rest until the search party started out again, then she would
hurry to the nearest town and inform the authorities of the strange
disappearance of the girls.  As she lay with half-closed eyes trying to
imagine just what could possibly have happened to her charges, a
familiar call broke upon her ears that caused her to spring up from her
berth in wonder.

"We've come to see Miss Jennie Ann Jones," caroled a voice, and in the
next instant the bewildered teacher was surrounded by four tired but
smiling girls.

"We were locked up all night in a log cabin in the woods," began Madge.
"Do say you are glad to see us and give us some breakfast, Miss Jennie
Ann Jones, for we were never so hungry in all our lives before, and as
soon as we have something to eat, we'll tell you the strangest story
you ever heard."

With her arm thrown across the teacher's shoulders Madge made her way
to the houseboat, followed by her friends.  At that moment, to the
little, impulsive girl, Miss Jennie Ann Jones seemed particularly dear,
in spite of her mysterious ways, and Madge made mental resolve to try
to believe in their chaperon, no matter what happened.




CHAPTER IX

THE GIRL ON THE ISLAND

"Phil, it looks like only a little more than half a mile over to the
island.  Do you think we can make it?" asked Madge, casting speculative
eyes toward the distant island.

"Of course we can," declared Phyllis.  "I'm sorry that Eleanor and Miss
Jones did not come with us.  But they have become so domestic that they
can't be persuaded to leave the houseboat.  Nelly told me she
positively loved to polish kettles and things," Phil replied.

Lillian, Phyllis and Madge were in their own rowboat, the "Water
Witch," which had been expressed to them from Harborpoint.  They were
no longer in the quiet inlet of the bay, where their houseboat was
anchored, but rowing out toward the more open water.  On one side of
them they could see the beach in front of a large summer hotel.  Across
from it lay a small island, to which they were rowing.

"Miss Jones doesn't like to have us start off alone this way.  She has
grown dreadfully nervous about us since our experience in the cabin,"
remarked Lillian.  "That is why she didn't approve of Madge's plan this
morning."

"I thought Madge was going to fly into little bits when Miss Jones
suggested it was not safe for us to row about here in our own little
'Water Witch,'" teased Phil.

"Phil, please don't discuss my temper," answered Madge crossly.  "If
there is one thing I hate worse than another, it is to hear people talk
about my faults.  Of course, I know I have a perfectly detestable
temper, but I hardly said a word to Miss Jenny Ann.  Please tell me
what fun we could have on our holiday if we never dared to go ten feet
away from the houseboat?"

"None whatever," answered Lillian, "only you needn't be so cross with
Phil and me.  We were not discussing your faults.  You are altogether
too ready to become angry over a trifle."  There was indignation and
reproof in Lillian's tone.

Madge plied her oars in silence.  She knew that she had behaved badly.
"Isn't it exactly like me?" she thought to herself.  "If I am sweet and
agreeable one minute, and feel pleased with myself, I can surely count
on doing something disagreeable the next.  Now I have made Lillian and
Phil cross with me and probably have hurt Miss Jenny Ann's feelings and
spoiled this beautiful day for us all."

Eleanor's soft voice broke in upon her self-arraignment.  "Don't
squabble, girls.  The day is altogether too perfect.  None of you are
really cross.  Now, are you?"

Three pairs of eyes met hers, then the little dispute ended in a
general laugh.

Madge and Phil rowed faster than ever after this little falling out.
They could see the shores of Fisherman's Island not far ahead, with
several dories and small fishing craft anchored along the banks.  They
were heading toward an open beach, where there was no sign of life.

"Girls, look out!" warned Lillian.  She was sitting in the bow of their
skiff, and could see another rowboat moving toward them, the two pairs
of oars rising and falling in perfect accord.  The boat was so close to
them that Lillian was afraid Phil and Madge might cross oars with it.
But as the other boat glided smoothly up alongside of their skiff, the
oars were drawn swiftly inboard, almost before the girls knew what had
happened.

"I suppose you don't speak to people on the water whom you might be
persuaded to notice on land," called Tom Curtis reproachfully.

"O Mr. Curtis! how do you do?" laughed Madge.  "You see, we are not
possessed with eyes in the backs of our heads, or we should have
recognized you.  Goodness gracious!  If there isn't my cousin, Jack
Bolling!  I never dreamed you knew him.  Why didn't you tell me?  Jack,
where did you come from?"

Tom looked at Jack, and Jack looked at Tom.  "Age before beauty, Mr.
Curtis," bowed Jack.  "You answer first."

"To tell you the solemn truth, I did not know your cousin until this
morning," Tom explained.  "But when I saw a not specially bad-looking
fellow mooning about our hotel as though lost I went over and spoke to
him.  It wasn't long before I found out he knew you young ladies.  I
told him about meeting you in the woods the other day, and we shook
hands on it.  Now, Bolling, it is your turn.  How did you happen to
turn up in this particular place?"

Jack was apparently looking at Lillian and Madge, but he had really
glanced first at Phyllis Alden, to see how she had borne the shock of
his presence.  Jack had guessed correctly that Phyllis did not like
him.  To tell the truth, she looked anything but pleased.  She did not
like boys.  She could do most of the things they could, and they were,
to her mind, a nuisance.  They were always on hand, trying to help and
to pretend that girls were weaker than they were in order to domineer
over them.  The worst of it was, Madge, Lillian and Eleanor might think
the newcomers would add to the fun.  So, though Phyllis did not mean to
be rude either to Tom or to Jack, she was far from enthusiastic, and
could not help showing it.

"Of course, I had to come down to see what your houseboat looked like
after I got your note telling me where you were," explained Jack.  "I
knew there was a hotel near here, so, as soon as school closed, I ran
down for a few days to see how you were getting on.  You see, I was
really very much interested in the houseboat."  Jack made this last
remark directly to Phyllis.  She merely glanced carelessly away in the
opposite direction.

"We rowed up from the hotel to the houseboat, but we couldn't see a
soul aboard.  'The ship was still as still could be,'" declared Tom.
"Then we started for a row and found you."  There was no doubt that Tom
was looking straight at Madge.

"We are rowing over to the island," remarked Lillian graciously.

"How strange!  We were going over there, too, weren't we, Mr. Bolling?"
quizzed Tom.

"Then catch us if you can!" challenged Phyllis.  With a sign to Madge
the two girls began rowing their boat through the water with the speed
of an arrow.  The first spurt told, for the island was not far away,
and the girls' boat grated on the beach before the boys had time to
land.  But Tom and Jack did jump out and run through the water to pull
the "Water Witch" ashore, much to Phil's disgust.

"I really have an errand to do on this island, Miss Morton," continued
Tom, as the party started up the beach.  "I wanted first to ask you if
I could bring my mother to call on you and your chaperon this
afternoon?  I am awfully anxious to have an all-day sailing party
to-morrow.  And I thought perhaps you and your friends and chaperon
would go with us?  There is an old fellow over here who takes people
out sailing, and I am anxious to have a talk with him.  Don't think I
am such a duffer that I can't sail a boat myself, but my mother is so
nervous about the water that I take a professional sailor along to keep
her from worrying.  She has had a great deal to make her nervous," Tom
ended.  "I wonder if you and your friends would mind walking over to
the other side of the island with me to see this man?  It is not a long
walk."

The party started off, Phyllis keeping strictly in the background.
Madge walked with Tom and Lillian with Jack, so she felt a little out
of it.

"If you don't mind," she proposed, after the party had walked a few
yards, "I will sit down here on the beach and wait until you come back
from your talk with the sailor man.  I will stay right here, so you can
find me when you return."

Phil found herself a comfortable, flat rock, and sat looking idly out
over the bay.  Gradually she fell into a little reverie.

A sudden cry of pain roused Phil from her daydream.  Springing to her
feet, she rushed down the beach, seeing nothing, but following the
direction of the cry.  Rounding a curve of the beach she came upon a
dirty, half-tumbled down tent.  In front of it stood a burly man with
both hands on the shoulders of a young girl, whom he was shaking
violently.  So intent was he upon what he was doing, he did not notice
Phil approaching.  She saw him shove the girl inside the tent and close
the outside flap.  "Now, stay in there till you git tired of it," he
growled as he turned and walked away.

A sound of low sobbing greeted Phil's ears as she came up in front of
the tent and stood waiting, hardly knowing what to do.  The sobs
continued, with a note of pain in them that went straight to Phil's
tender heart.  The sight or sound of physical suffering made a special
appeal to her.  It was Phyllis's secret ambition some day to study
medicine, an ambition which she had confided to no one save Madge.
Although the figure she had seen was almost that of a woman, the
sobbing sounded like that of a child.  There was no other noise in the
tent, so Phil knew the girl was alone.

"Won't you please come out?" she called softly, not knowing what else
to do or say.  "Tell me what is grieving you so.  I am only a girl like
yourself, and I would like to help you."

"I dare not come out," the other girl answered.  "My father said I must
stay in here."

Phil opened the flap of the old tent and walked inside.  "What is the
matter?" she inquired gently, bending over the figure lying on the
ground and trying to lift her.

The girl sat up and pushed back her unkempt hair.  She had a deep,
glowing scar just over her temple.  But her hair was a wonderful color,
and only once before Phil remembered having seen eyes so deeply blue.

"Why," Phil exclaimed with a start of surprise, "I have seen you
somewhere before.  Don't you remember me?"

The girl shook her head.  "I do not remember anything," she answered
quietly.

"But I saw you on the canal boat.  Your father was the man who helped
us secure our houseboat.  What are you doing here?"

"We have come here for many years, I think," the girl answered
confusedly.  "In the early spring my father catches shad along the bay.
Then all summer he takes people out sailing from the big place over
there."  She pointed across the water in the direction of the hotel.
"Our boat is on the other side of the island."  The girl clasped her
head in her long, sun-burned hands.  "It is there that it hurts," she
declared, touching the ugly, jagged scar.

Phil gave a little, sympathetic cry and put her hand on the girl's
shoulder.

"When I work a long time in the sun my head hurts," the girl went on
listlessly.  "I have been washing all day on the beach.  I came up here
to hide, and my father found me.  He was angry because I had stopped
work."

"Did he strike you?" Phil cried in horror, gazing at the slender,
delicate creature and thinking of the rough, coarse man.

"Not this time," the girl replied.  "Sometimes they strike me and then
I am afraid.  Only there is one thing I shall never, never do, no
matter how much they beat me.  I can not remember everything, but I
know that I will not do this one thing."

"What is it?" asked Phil.  "Whom do you mean by 'they,' and what do
'they' wish you to do?"

The girl shook her head.  "I can not tell you."  She shuddered, and
Phil felt she had no right to insist on knowing.

"I like to hide in this tent," the girl went on sorrowfully.  "I come
here whenever I can get away from the others.  I would like to stay
here always.  But, now he has found me, there is no place where I can
rest."

"Have you a mother, or brothers and sisters?" Phil asked.

"There is the man's second wife, but she is not my mother.  She has
many little children.  I think I must be very old.  I seem to have
lived such a long time."

"Can't you remember your own mother?" Phil inquired.

The girl shook her head mournfully.  "I can remember nothing," she said
again.  "Don't go," she begged, as Phil rose to leave her.  "I have
never known a girl like you before."

"I must go," answered Phil regretfully.  "My friends will be waiting
for me up the beach, and they will not know where to find me.  Won't
you come to see me and my friends?  We are spending our holiday on a
houseboat not very far from here.  We would love to have you come."

"I am not allowed to leave the island or to go among people," the girl
replied.  "My father says I have no sense.  So, if I wander away, or
talk to strangers, people will think that I am crazy and shut me up in
some dreadful, dark place."

Tears of sympathy rose to Phyllis's eyes.  She wished Madge and the
other girls were with her.  It was too dreadful to think of this lovely
creature frightened into submission by her cruel father.  "We will come
to see you, then," she said gently.  "And I will bring you something to
keep your head from aching.  My father is a physician, and he will tell
me what I must give you.  I will bring my friends to the island with
me.  Whenever you can get away, come to this tent and we will try to
find you.  We shall have good times together, and some day we may be
able to help you.  You know how to write, don't you?  Then, if you are
ever in trouble or danger, leave a note under this old piece of carpet.
Now good-bye."

The girl stood in the door of her tent to watch Phyllis on her way.
She stared intently after her until her visitor turned the curve of the
beach and was lost to view, then, leaning her head against the side of
the tent, she burst forth into low, despairing sobs.




CHAPTER X

AN EXCITING RACE

Eleanor and Miss "Jenny Ann," as the girls seemed inclined to call
their chaperon, had not remained on the houseboat merely to polish the
pots and pans.  They had a special surprise and plan of their own on
hand.

It was all very well for Phyllis to dream of a houseboat, with its
decks lined with flowers, and for Madge to draw a beautiful plan of it
on paper.  Flowers do not grow except where they are planted.

So it was in order to turn gardeners that Eleanor and Miss Jones stayed
at home.  Flowers enough to encircle the deck of a houseboat would cost
almost as much money as the four girls had in their treasury to keep
them supplied with food and coal.  But the gently sloping Maryland
fields were abloom with daisies.  A farmer's lad could be hired for a
dollar to dig up the daisies and to bring a wagon load of dirt to the
boat.  The day before Eleanor had engaged the services of a carpenter
to make four boxes, which exactly fitted the sides of the little upper
deck of the houseboat above the cabin.  An hour or so after the girls
departed on their rowing excursion the daisies were brought aboard,
planted, and held up their heads bravely.  They were such sturdy, hardy
little flowers that they did not wither with homesickness at the change
in their environment.

But still Eleanor was not entirely satisfied.  In Phil's dream and
Madge's picture of the boat vines had drooped gracefully over the sides
of the deck, and Eleanor had no vines to plant.  Eleanor had a natural
gift for making things about her lovely and homelike.  So she thought
and thought.  Wild honeysuckle vines were growing in the fields with
the daisies.  They were just the things to clamber over the white
railing of the deck and to hang gracefully over the sides.  Their
perfume would fill the little floating dwelling with their fragrance.

By noon the transformation was complete.  Eleanor persuaded Miss Jones
to go for a walk while she got the luncheon.  Madge, Phil and Lillian
had solemnly promised to be at home by one o'clock.  Another surprise
was in store for them.  In the bow of their boat Eleanor had hung up a
flag.  On a background of white broadcloth, stitched in bands of blue,
was the legend "Merry Maid."  This was Eleanor Butler's chosen name for
the houseboat, and had been voted the best possible selection, while
Madge had been unanimously voted captain of their little ship.  Eleanor
had sent to the town for the flag, and even their chaperon was not to
know of its arrival.

One would hardly have known Miss Jenny Ann Jones--a week in the fresh
air had done her so much good.  Then, too, Phil and Lillian had
persuaded her to cease to wear her heavy, light hair in an English bun
at the back of her neck.  Lillian had plaited it in two great braids
and had coiled it around her head like a dull golden coronet.  She had
a faint color in her cheeks, and, instead of looking cross and tired,
she was as merry and almost as light-hearted as the girls.  The lines
of her head were really beautiful, and her sallow skin was fast
becoming clear and healthy.  For once in her life Miss Jones looked no
older than her twenty-six years.  Eleanor watched her as she started
off on her walk dressed in white, carrying a red parasol, and decided
that Miss Jones was really pretty.  Since her advent among the girls
she had begun to look at life from a different standpoint.  She had
almost ceased worrying and she meant to grow well and strong if she
could.  Since her mysterious visitor the first night she spent aboard
the boat nothing had happened to disturb her.  She walked slowly on, so
occupied with her own thoughts she did not notice that she was in a
lane between two fields enclosed by fences.   Some one called to her.
She could not distinguish the voice.  It called and called again.  She
thought it must be one of the girls who had come out in the field to
meet her.  As there was no one looking, Miss Jones managed to climb
over the rail fence, and now she walked in the direction from which the
sound of the voice came.  After a time the voice ceased.  It was a
shorter stroll to the boat across this field, so the teacher went
leisurely on.  In a far corner of the meadow she saw an odd object
unlike anything she had ever seen.  It consisted of two sticks that
looked like the legs of a scarecrow which had a square board fastened
in front of them.  From between the sticks were two other brown
objects, long and thin, and behind it sat a young man busily engaged in
transferring the peaceful scene to canvas.  Miss Jones was gazing
curiously at this object, with her red parasol hung over her shoulder,
so that it was impossible for her to see anything behind her.  But she
did hear an unusual noise--a snort, then a bellow--the sound was
unmistakable.  With a sense of sickening terror she gave one horrified
glance behind her.  She had been mysteriously lured into a field where
a bull was loose.  It never occurred to Miss Jones to throw away her
red parasol.  She ran on, waving it wildly over her shoulders,
maddening the enraged animal behind her.  Miss Jones did not believe
she could run fast.  Usually her breath was short, and even a rapid
walk fatigued her.  Now she ran on and on.  Once again she half heard a
mocking voice cry after her, but she paid no attention to it.  In her
fright she was also oblivious to the fact that the strange object in
the corner of the field fell to the ground with a bang, while a man
sitting on a stool behind it rose to right his overturned canvas.
"Drop it, drop it!" he shouted, running after Miss Jones and repeatedly
urging her to throw away her bright red parasol.

Madge, Phil and Lillian had come back to the boat.  After dancing in a
circle around Eleanor to express the rapture they felt in the
transformation she had wrought in their beloved houseboat, they stood
together on the deck, looking for the return of their chaperon along
the shore.

Miss Jones thought there was a gate at the end of the field in which
she was running.  She made for this gate, as she knew she would not
have time to get over the fence before the animal would be upon her.
In her terror she had but one idea, one hope, that was to reach the
safety of the gang-plank and to climb aboard the houseboat.

While Miss Jones was running for her life the four chums were lingering
about the deck of the "Merry Maid" watching for her return.  They
decided to take a short walk with the idea of meeting her and, leaving
their boat to take care of itself, strolled through the lane that led
to the very field Miss Jones had entered.  All at once Lillian called
out in terror:

"O girls! look!  It's Miss Jones, and a bull is chasing her!"

The four chums stood rooted to the spot.  What could they do?  They
felt powerless to help, yet not one of the girls believed Miss Jones
could save herself.

Madge was the first to act.  In her hand was a large white and green
striped umbrella.  The girls had lately bought two of them to use out
on deck as a protection from the sun, and Madge had caught up one of
them as they started out.  In the next instant she had climbed the
fence that separated her from the field in which the teacher was
running and was making for the frightened woman at the top of her speed.

But by this time Miss Jones was completely exhausted.  Summoning all
her will power, she staggered a few steps, then dropped to the ground,
with the bull not more than four yards behind her.

On it came, its head lowered almost to the ground.  Then a huge green
and white monster loomed up before the animal, and with a snort of
mingled rage and horror the bull stopped short in its tracks.  The
strange green and white object now lunging at full tilt was far more
terrible than the small, red, flame-like object that fled its approach.
Rage conquering fear, the bull gave a dreadful roar and made a quick
lunge at Madge.  She sprang to one side but managed to thrust her
umbrella full in the animal's face.  With a rumble of defiance the bull
dodged the umbrella and made another lunge at Madge.  Its lowered horns
never reached her.  A rope swung skilfully forward caught the animal by
the leg just in time.  One swift pull and the bull went down.  The
owner of the animal had witnessed its charge upon Miss Jones and,
rushing across the field, had roped it.  The artist who had attracted
Miss Jenny Ann's attention had also come to the rescue, but it was
really Madge with her green and white umbrella who had saved their
chaperon from the bull's horns.

Miss Jones, who had raised herself to a sitting position, stared wildly
about her, still firmly clutching the red parasol.

The artist sprang to her side and raised her to her feet.  "It was this
that made the mischief," he said, touching her parasol.  "I shouted to
you to drop it."

"But I didn't hear you," defended the teacher faintly.  Her two long
braids of fair hair had become unfastened and were now hanging down her
back, giving her the appearance of a girl.  "I heard some one calling
to me, or I would never have entered that dreadful field."  Miss Jones
eyed the artist reproachfully.  "Was it you who shouted my name?"

"Was it I?" repeated the young man in astonishment.  "Certainly not.  I
do not know your name."

"My name is 'Jones,'" Miss Jenny Ann faltered weakly.  She was still
feeling dazed and weak.

"And my name is 'Brown,'" the artist answered, with an expression of
solemn gravity.  But the corners of his lips twitched in amusement.

There was a faint chuckle from Madge that went the round of the group
and, despite the fact that the chaperon's narrow escape had been far
from ludicrous, the whole party burst into laughter.

"I am sorry," apologized the artist.  "Please forgive me for laughing."

The farmer had in the meantime led the bull away, and now Eleanor and
Lillian came running toward the group to see if Miss Jenny Ann were
truly hurt.  When they saw the whole party shaking with laughter, the
two girls exchanged curious glances.  "Luncheon has been waiting half
an hour," Eleanor declared rather crossly.  "Do come and eat it.  We
would not have come after you if we had known that you were having such
a good time."

Madge glanced at their chaperon, then at the artist.  He was evidently
a gentleman, and she recognized that he was possessed of a keen sense
of humor.  It would seem rude and ungrateful to run away and leave him
just as their luncheon was announced, when he had raced all the way
across the meadow to assist in the rescue of their Miss Jenny Ann.

"Won't you come and eat luncheon with us?" asked Madge boldly, fearing
their chaperon would be dreadfully shocked.

The artist shook his head.  "I'd like to accept your invitation if Miss
Jones will second it," he replied, looking at Miss Jenny Ann.

"You would he delighted to have Mr. Brown take luncheon with us, Miss
Jenny Ann, wouldn't you?" Madge turned coaxing eyes upon their teacher.

"I should be very ungracious if I were not," laughed their chaperon,
the color rising to her brown cheeks.  "Mr. Brown will be a welcome
guest."

And five minutes later Mr. Brown was triumphantly escorted aboard their
beloved "Merry Maid."




CHAPTER XI

AT THE MERCY OF THE WAVES

"Don't you think it would be perfectly lovely to have a mother as rich
and beautiful as Mrs. Curtis?" asked Madge, as she tied a black velvet
ribbon about her auburn curls and turned her head to see the effect.
She and Phil were dressing for Tom Curtis's sailing party, to which he
had invited them the day before and which was to start within the next
hour.

"Almost any mother is pretty nice, even if she isn't rich or
beautiful," answered Phil loyally.  She was wearing a yachting suit of
navy blue while Madge was dressed in white serge.  Eleanor, Lillian and
Miss Jones, clad in white linen gowns, were ready and waiting on the
houseboat deck for the arrival of the sailing party.  True to his word,
Tom Curtis had brought his mother to call on the four girls the
afternoon of the day before.

"I know," answered Madge slowly.  "But sometimes, when I was a very
little girl, I liked to think that perhaps I was a princess in
disguise, and that Uncle and Aunt had never told me of it.  I used to
look out of the window and wonder if some day a carriage would drive up
to hear me away to my royal home.  That doesn't sound very practical,
does it?  But, when one has no memory of father or mother, one can't
help dreaming things.  Don't you think Mrs. Curtis is simply
beautiful?" Madge abruptly changed the subject.  "Her hair is so soft
and white, and she has such a young face, but she looks as though she
were tired of everything.  Persons who have that wonderful, world-weary
look are so interesting," finished Madge, with a sigh.  "I am afraid I
shall never have that expression, because I never find time to get
tired of things."

"Come on, Madge," laughed Phil.  "You can mourn some other day over not
having an interesting expression."

"Girls," called Lillian, "the Curtis's boat is coming."

"In a minute," answered Madge, giving a final pat to her curls.

"Do hurry along, children.  The sailboat is nearly here."  This time it
was Miss Jenny Ann's voice.  "They signaled us several minutes ago.
They have several other persons on board."

Mrs. Curtis and Tom signaled as they approached the "Merry Maid."
Their guests were the artist, whom the girls had met the day before,
Jack Bolling, and one or two strangers from the big summer hotel.  Mike
Muldoon, the owner of the boats, had another sailor on board to help
him.  Tom soon transferred the girls and their chaperon from their
craft to his.  The party intended to sail down the coast to a point of
land known as Love Point and to eat their luncheon somewhere along the
shore.

Mrs. Curtis sat across from Madge during their sailing trip, but every
now and then she would look over to laugh at one of the young girl's
amusing sallies.  It was evident that the little captain of the "Merry
Maid" had found favor in her eyes.  Mrs. Curtis had planned a dainty
luncheon, to which the steward at the hotel had given special
attention, even to the sending of a man to serve it.  There were
delicious sandwiches of various kinds, chicken and Waldorf salads,
olives, salted nuts, individual ices sent down from Baltimore and
bonbons.  It was quite the most elaborate luncheon the girls had ever
eaten and they were rather impressed with both it and the service.

After luncheon the party sat for a long time on the clean, white sand,
laughing and talking gayly.  It was a perfect day and everyone was in
the best possible spirits.  Later on they divided into little groups.
Lillian and Phil wandered off with Jack Bolling.  Eleanor found a
congenial companion in one of the young women guests from the hotel,
while Tom, Miss Jones and Mrs. Curtis sat under a tree with the artist,
watching him sketch.  Madge, alone, flitted from one group to another,
a little, restless spirit.

"Why don't you take Miss Morton for a sail, Tom?" suggested his mother.
"You will have time to go a short distance out.  We shall not start for
the hotel until four o'clock."

"A good suggestion.  Thank you, Mother," cried Tom.  "Come on, Miss
Morton."

Madge and Tom went gayly down to the boat.  Tom's big setter dog,
Brownie, dashed after them, pleading so hard to be taken aboard that
Tom at last consented to have him, though he gravely assured the animal
that three was a crowd, to which statement Brownie merely gave a joyful
yelp and darted on board without further ceremony.

[Illustration: Madge and Tom went gayly down to the boat.]

It was a glorious day with a stiff breeze blowing.  The water was
fairly choppy, but the boat sped along, occasionally dashing the spray
into the two young faces.  Madge wore a white cloth c