with terror. Miss Jones arrived first at the kitchen door,
with her heart in her mouth. Had some horrible disaster overtaken
them, just as they were about to start on their adventures? There
stood the two girls, Lillian and Eleanor, their faces, instead of
showing fright, apparently shining with delight. The men who had been
setting up the little stove, which they had bought for a trifling sum
after all, had disappeared. The girls were now in full possession of
their domain.

"What is it, children? What has happened?" implored Miss Jones, with a
white, scared face. Lillian pointed ahead of her, but only the kitchen
stove was to be seen. Madge and Phil, who had followed close behind
their chaperon, were equally mystified.

But hark! What was the noise they heard all at once? A gentle
crackling, a roar, a burst of flame, and a puff of smoke up through the
long stove pipe! The pipe went through a hole cut in the side of the
wall. "A fire, a fire!" exclaimed Lillian joyously, wondering why the
others looked so startled.

There was really a fire burning in the stove of the houseboat kitchen!
And as a fire is a first sign to the pioneer that he is at last at
home, so the little company felt themselves to be the original girl
pioneers in houseboat adventures, and felt the same thrill of peace and
pleasure.

Madge seized the shining new tea-kettle and filled it with water from
the big bucket that rested on a shelf just outside the kitchen door.

"Madge, put the kettle on,
Madge, put the kettle on,
We'll all take tea,"

She sang in a sweet, high, rapturous voice.

Toot, toot, toot! a motor boat whistle sounded out on the water. The
four girls rushed on deck to call a greeting to the engineer who was to
tow their houseboat down the bay, until it found an anchorage in a cove
in the bay near a stream of clear water.

Four weary but happy girls sat out on deck on cushions as the engineer
made fast to their boat preparatory to starting. The chaperon was
installed in the solitary grandeur of their one steamer chair.

There was a heavy tug at the great rope that bound the houseboat to the
little motor tug. The motor boat moved out into the bay, and with
almost no perceptible motion and no noise, except the gentle ripple of
the water purling against the sides of the craft, the houseboat
followed it. The longed-for vacation on the water had begun.

CHAPTER VI

PLEASURE BAY

Just before tw