n keel again, the
squall drumming on the ropes and stays. "You've sailed a boat before,
young lady."

"Nothing more than a canoe and a house boat."

"You've got the instinct, just the same. I'll have you sailing this
'Sister Sue' before you're a week older, and sailing it as well as I
could sail it myself. Where do you wish to go!" turning inquiringly to
Mrs. Livingston.

"Up and down the coast, not far out."

The skipper tacked back and forth a couple of times to clear the bay,
then laid his course diagonally away from the coast. The day was an
ideal one, the sloop lay well over and steadily gained headway as she
forged ahead with white water spurting away from her bows.

"Gul-lor-ious!" cried Margery.

"Love-a-ly!" mocked Crazy Jane.

Tommy eyed Buster quizzically.

"Yeth, but thith ithn't the real thea. You will be singing inthide
inthtead of outthide when we get out on the real othean. It won't be
the gul-lor-iouth then."

"All we need now to make us a real ship is a wireless machine," said
Harriet, with apparent innocence.

The skipper shot a quick look at her from under his heavy red
eyebrows, but Harriet's face was guileless.

"Would it not be possible to put a wireless outfit on a boat of this
kind, Captain?"

"Yes, if you wanted to. But what good would it do you?"

"I don't know, except that we might talk with ships far out at
sea--ships that we could not see at all. Why don't you put a wireless
machine on your little ship? I think that would be fine," persisted
the Meadow-Brook girl, with feigned enthusiasm. The skipper growled an
unintelligible reply and devoted himself to sailing his boat. Then
Tommy took up the subject, discussing wireless telegraphy with great
confidence, but in an unscientific manner that would have brought
groans of anguish from one familiar with the subject.

Harriet Burrell through all of this conversation had been watching the
skipper without appearing to do so. That he was ill at ease she saw by
the scowl that wrinkled his forehead, but otherwise there was no sign
to indicate that their talk had disturbed him.

They sailed for two hours, then the sloop returned to the bay, where
most of the girls were put ashore and another lot taken aboard. The
Meadow-Brook Girls and Mrs. Livingston remained on board. Harriet,
during the time the captain was engaged in assisting his passengers
over the side, where they were rowed ashore by Jane and Hazel, looked
over the "Sister