knew the way. She hurried Miss Jones
along until that young woman was almost out of breath. When they were
within a short distance of the place where she had found her boat
waiting for her in the early morning, she could bear it no longer.
With a murmured excuse she broke away from Miss Jones and started on a
run toward the willow tree. Her three chums were close behind her.
The branches of the willow tree seemed more impenetrable in the bright
sunlight. It was not so easy to see through them. Madge ran straight
past the tree, then uttered a shrill cry. She stopped short, her
cheeks turning first red, then white.

"What is it?" cried Phil, springing to her friend's side.

Madge pointed dumbly toward the water.

"Tell us!" said Eleanor, running up to Madge and lightly grasping her
arm.

"Our houseboat is gone!" gasped Madge. "It was right there, tied to
that very post along the shore early this morning! The man who brought
it down from Baltimore left a note for me describing the landing place.
He said he had to go back to Baltimore, but that he would come here
this afternoon to tow us. Now the boat has gone! O, girls, what shall
we do?"

The girls stared at the water in silence. Disappointment rendered them
speechless for the moment. "Let us look up and down the shore,"
suggested Phil comfortingly. "I suppose it is just barely possible
that the rope broke away from the stake, and the boat has floated off
somewhere."

The four girls ran up and down the bank, straining their eyes in
anxious glances out over the wide stretch of water. There was no
houseboat in sight. It had vanished as completely as though it had
really been a "Ship of Dreams."

"Perhaps you have made a mistake in the place, Madge," was the
chaperon's first remark as she joined the excited party.

Madge compressed her red lips. Miss Jones was so provoking. She was
utterly without tact. But now that she was to be one of the party it
would be wrong to say a single impolite thing to their chaperon the
whole six weeks of their holiday, no matter how provoking or tactless
she might he. Madge sighed impatiently, then turned to the teacher.

"No, I am not mistaken, Miss Jones. I can't be. You see, I came to
this very spot this morning and went aboard our boat. Then I have the
man's description of the landing place. I think we had better go back
to the village and see if we can get some men who know the shore along
here to come t