r boat?" asked Mollie. She stood on the bank,
nervously twining her fingers in and out, weaving them back and forth
as she always did when puzzled or alarmed. "Is it the current taking it
away, Betty?"

"But it's going against the current," Grace pointed out. "Some animal
must have become entangled in the anchor or painter, Betty. An
alligator, perhaps."

"That's it!" cried Mollie. "An alligator is running away with our boat.
Oh, Betty!"

"It may be that," admitted the Little Captain, as she gazed after her
craft. "I didn't think of it, but that's probably what it is. I don't
see the beast above the water, though. Do you, girls?"

There was nothing visible except part of the anchor rope that extended
from the ring-bolt in the forward deck, over the stem and slanting down
into the water.

"The alligator may be swimming just below the surface," was Mollie's
opinion. "He may come up pretty soon, and we can throw stones at it.
That's it, Betty. We must stone the creature and make it let go. Come
on!"

Betty laughed. The others looked at Mollie curiously.

"She--she's hysterical," murmured Grace.

"I am not!" protested Mollie indignantly.

"But the idea of throwing stones at an alligator!" cried Grace. "Why,
its hide will turn a bullet!"

"Oh!" exclaimed Amy blankly. "Then what can we do? We have no bullets!"

"It isn't going very fast," observed Mollie as she watched the boat
moving slowly up the river. "We can run along the bank after it, and
maybe the beast will let go, or run ashore with the _Gem_. Then we could
get it."

"Who--the boat or the alligator?" asked Betty, who seemed to be in
better spirits now, even in the face of trouble.

"The boat, of course."

"Then speak of the _Gem_ as 'her' and the alligator as 'it,'" Betty
directed. "But I believe Mollie's plan is the only one we can adopt. We
must follow along the bank. Only I hope, if the alligator does let go,
it won't be in the middle of the river, for then our boat would float
down, and it might lodge on the other shore. Then we would be as badly
off as we are now. Oh, what a predicament! We seem to be getting into
nothing but trouble of late."

"Never mind," consoled Amy. "Maybe this will be the last."

"It's a comfort to think so, anyhow," agreed Grace. "I wonder why an
alligator ran off with our boat?"

"A mere accident," was Betty's opinion. "Probably the creature was
swimming along shore, and became entangled in our anchor rope. It ma