The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat | Page 2

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 the man, for want of something better to say.
The boat, originally, had been a scow used for the purpose of towing the effects of summer residents of the island across the lake. Bert Elting had bought it for a small sum of money, and had built the house over it. He and a friend, had spent many days and nights aboard, anchored out on the fishing grounds. When they desired to change their location a launch usually could be found to tow them about.
At each end of the house there was