inging up, the wind outside having
veered until it blew directly into the cove. The girl waited for the
return of the "Sister Sue" until long after midnight, then went to
bed. The sky had become overcast and a spattering of raindrops smote
her in the face. The prospect was for a drizzly night.

When the camp awakened next morning the sloop was at her anchorage.
What time she had come in Harriet had not the slightest idea, but it
must have been early in the morning, because the skipper was just
furling the mainsail as the girl emerged from the cabin. The sail was
so soaked that he had difficulty in bending it to the boom to which he
was trying to house it. But Harriet Burrell said nothing of her
discovery at breakfast that morning. Later in the day she confided the
secret to Tommy. The latter twisted her face, grimaced and winked
wisely. The two girls understood each other.

Captain Bill did not mention having been out with the boat, though
Harriet gave him an excellent opportunity to do so that same day. A
drenching drizzle fell all day long. Of course, this did not interfere
with the camp work. The Camp Girls never ceased their labors for rain
or storm of any kind. Later on in the day the Meadow-Brook Girls went
aboard the sloop with their guardian, principally for the reason that
Harriet wished to take further lessons in seamanship. She had learned
her compass card well and earned the praise of the grizzled old
skipper, but she was ambitious to accomplish greater things.

Several days passed, during which the drizzle scarcely ceased for a
moment. But during all this time the young woman was not idle, so far
as her new interests were concerned. She had asked questions,
inquiring the names of things and their uses until she knew them
intimately. The ropes and stays, from a mass of complex, meaningless
cordage, had resolved themselves into individual units, each of which
had its use and its purpose; the compass was no longer a mystery, and,
during a lull in the drizzle, when the sun had come out on the fifth
day, Harriet was permitted to take an observation with the sextant,
the instrument with which mariners take sights to determine their
positions at sea.

Harriet was instructed to catch the sun at its zenith, which she did,
noting the figures on the scale of the sextant and from which, under
the instruction of the captain, she figured out the latitude of the
sloop. He allowed her to do all the figuring herself. Th