The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat | Page 2

Dickinson. "Do
you know where Johnson's dock is?"
The guardian hesitated. She was regarding the man with some
suspicion.
"It's at the foot of the second street beyond, down that way. I'll have the
boat down there in a couple of hours. I've got to get a motor boat, or
something of the sort to tow it down. It probably will leak some, not

having been in the water this season until yesterday. You had better go
over to the hotel and get your dinner. I'll come up and let you know
when the scow is ready. Go right over and make yourself at home. I'll
do the best I can. Bert's an old friend of mine."
Dickinson hurried away, without further words. The girls looked at
each other and laughed.
"Well, if Dee Dickinson is a friend of your brother, I must say I don't
admire your brother's friends," declared Harriet.
"That ith what I thay," agreed Grace Thompson.
"Tommy, you shouldn't have said that," reproved Hazel Holland.
"She didn't. Harriet said it," retorted Margery.
"Buster is right," laughed Jane McCarthy. "Come on, girls! Let's go to
dinner, as the shifty-eyed gentleman advised. I hope it is dinner. I never
could get used to luncheon in the middle of the day when Nature
intended that a girl should have a full meal of the real food. Where is
the old hotel?"
"I don't know, Jane. There is something strange about this affair. I am
sure that Bert must have known what he was about, or he wouldn't have
sent me the message he did. However, we shall see. There is no need to
borrow trouble. We shall know how to deal with it when we meet it
face to face. Let's go and look for this hotel that our friend, Mr. Dee,
has recommended."
Getting into the automobile Jane started her car, and they drove through
the town in search of the hotel, which they found after a few inquiries.
The prosperous village of Wantagh was located on the shore of Lake
Winnipesaukee. It was there that Miss Elting's brother had begun to
practice law, but after one year's practice in the little village had
listened to the call of the West. He had left in Wantagh the old scow,
dignified by the name of "houseboat" to which was attached the further
title of "Red Rover." It was in this lumbering craft that Miss Elting and

her young friends, the Meadow-Brook Girls, had planned to spend part
of their summer vacation. Their meeting with Dickinson, in whose care
the boat had been left, was quite discouraging. Dee was not a
prepossessing fellow; what impressed them most unfavorably about
him was his shifty eyes. He seldom permitted himself to meet the gaze
of the person with whom he was talking.
Some inquiry, after reaching the hotel, developed the fact that Dee
Dickinson was a notary, did a little real estate business, and drew a few
papers for his neighbors, thus managing to eke out a precarious living.
So far as the girls were able to find out, Dickinson's character was
above reproach. Miss Elting chided herself for having formed a wrong
opinion of the man. Still she could not overcome her irritation at his
evident reluctance in getting the boat ready.
It was quite late in the afternoon when Dee appeared at the hotel, red of
face, his clothes soiled and wet.
"Well, we got the old thing," was his greeting.
"Is the boat here?" inquired the guardian coldly.
"Yes, Miss Elting. It's down at Johnson's dock this very minute. You
can go down there and look at it. I've got some business to--"
"Please go with us. There will be things about it which we shall wish to
ask you. Does the boat leak much?"
He shook his head.
"It's all right," he said. "I can't spare the time to go to-day."
"If I might venture to offer to pay you for your trouble," suggested the
guardian, not certain whether he would resent her offer of money.
Dickinson, however, was not easily insulted.
"Of course, if--if you wish, I--yes, of course," he mumbled.
Miss Elting handed him two dollars. Dickinson led the way down to the

dock, though without enthusiasm.
"There's the tub," he said, pointing toward what appeared, at first
glance, to be a huge box. "That is it."
The girls walked out on the dock and stood gazing at the boat. In the
first place, the "Red Rover" was not red at all. It had once had a prime
coat of yellow paint, but this had succumbed to storm and sunshine.
The windows had been boarded up; and the exterior of the craft bore
out all that Dee Dickinson had said of it.
"Thirty feet on the water line," explained