nd started back up the
Kittewan, Gadabout went with them.

After a while the creek began to shallow rapidly and we kept the sailor
on ahead in a shore-boat sounding, while we tried to keep the houseboat
from running over him. The southerly breeze was gradually freshening
and Gadabout began to show a corresponding partiality for the northern
bank of the stream. But, on the whole, she was behaving very well and
apparently the mutinous spirit of the day before had entirely
disappeared. We had to stop just before coming to an island standing in
a sharp turn of the little waterway.

"Looks like we can't make this bend, sir," called the sailor from the
shore-boat. "There's a sure enough bar 'cross here."

By keeping at it, he managed to find a channel for going round on the
port side of the island. Then he came aboard, started an engine, and we
moved on again. But Gadabout had been deceiving us; she still had no
notion of going up the creek. We were just starting to go around the
island when she suddenly transferred her allegiance from the
steering-wheel to the wind, and sidled off in the marshes till she
brought up hard aground. There was nothing to do but to wait for the
rising tide.

Nautica got out the chart again to see where we were. At Weyanoke there
are two plantations, an upper one and a lower one; and for a while she
was busy measuring between the stream and the little black dots that
indicated the plantation buildings. At last, after a final counting up
on her fingers, she announced, "If we can get around six more bends of
this curly stream, we shall be within less than half a mile of the
house at Lower Weyanoke."

As the water rose around the houseboat, we threw out a kedge anchor,
hauled off, and got under way again. Now, Gadabout started at once to
go around the island--but (mutiny again!) she was going around on the
wrong side. The Commodore and the sailor, with long poles, pushed
frantically in the mud striving to set the unruly craft in the way she
should go; but she was determined to take the wrong channel and was
slowly getting the better of us.

"She's gittin' away from us, sir," called the sailor.

"I see she is," said the Commodore, "and I don't believe she can get
around the island on this side."

But away she went, wind and tide carrying her up the wrong channel.
Laughing at the amusing persistence of the craft, all we could do was
to keep her away from the marshes and let her go.

The cree