to catch some
fish if they desired to do so.

"We shall be ready to go out about ten o'clock to-morrow morning,"
Mrs. Livingston told him. "If there is anything you wish us to do, you
might call to the young women who occupy the cabin there on the
Lonesome Bar. I am very glad you are going to remain aboard your boat,
for we are not equipped for putting up strangers. But if there is
anything you wish in the way of supplies, do not hesitate to send word
to me. We have quite a quantity. We are obliged to go beyond the
highway for our drinking water, and it is a trifle brackish."

"Hadn't we better go ashore and give the others a chance to come out?"
asked Harriet.

"You and I will remain here. The others may go," returned Mrs.
Livingston.

Several boatloads of excited girls were put aboard the "Sister Sue."
The girls were enthusiastic; they chattered and sang and made merry,
Captain Billy growing more taciturn and sour as the moments passed.
Finally, Mrs. Livingston said they must put off further visiting of
the boat until morning; that night was now upon them. They bade good
night to Captain Billy, and his man put them ashore, Mrs. Livingston
leaving the sloop last.

"He is a queer character," she declared after joining Harriet on the
beach later on. "What do you make of him?"

"I suppose he is like many of his calling, gruff and of few words. But
there is something beyond that which I can't quite make out."

"What do you mean? Do you think that he is untrustworthy?"

"I don't know, Mrs. Livingston. I do know that I dislike him. Isn't
that silly in me?" asked the girl laughingly. "I have no confidence in
him."

"I think you are in error. Mr. McCarthy would not send us a man who
was not trustworthy in every way. He is supposed to be a skillful
skipper, and from my observation I know he will behave himself, so we
don't care what he is beyond that. Shall you go back to the camp with
us, or direct to the cabin?"

"To camp."

The girls sat about the campfire, singing the songs of the Camp Girls
until ten o'clock that evening, after which the Meadow-Brook party
bade good night to their companions and strolled down to the bar,
thence out to the cabin. All were keenly alive to the pleasures that
awaited them on the following day, when they were to have their first
sail in the "Sister Sue."

Harriet made ready for bed with her companions, but she was not
sleepy. She lay on her bough bed near the door, where she r