sh
hard, Flossie. Let's go fast and make believe we're a steamboat."

That suited Flossie, and they were soon pushing the boat along the shore
quite fast. They went out past a little point on the island, some
distance away from their own camp, the white tents of which they could
see.

"Oh, how nice the wind is blowing!" cried Flossie, after a bit. "I don't
hardly have to push at all, Freddie."

"That's good," he said. "We'll be a sailboat instead of a steamboat. If
we only had a sail now!"

"Maybe you could hold up your coat," suggested his sister. "Don't you
remember that shipwreck story mother read us. The men in the boat held
up a blanket for a sail. We haven't any blanket, but if you held one end
of your coat and I held the other it would be a sail."

"We'll do it!" cried Freddie, as he slipped off his jacket. It was
small, but when he and his sister held it crosswise of the boat, the
wind, which had begun to blow harder, sent the boat along faster than
the children had been pushing it.

"Oh, this is fine!" Freddie cried. "I'm glad we played this game,
Flossie."

"So'm I. But look how far out we are, Freddie!" Flossie suddenly cried.
"We can't reach shore with our sticks."

Freddie looked and saw that this was so.

"I wonder if we can touch bottom out here," he said. "I'm going to try."

He let go of his coat, and as it happened that Flossie did the same
thing, the little jacket was blown into the water.

"Oh!" cried Flossie. "Oh! Oh!"

"I can get it!" excitedly shouted Freddie. "I'll reach it with my
pushing stick."

He managed to do this, taking care not to lean too far over the edge so
the boat would not tip. Then he caught the coat on the end of the stick
and pulled his jacket into the boat.

"Oh, it's all wet!" cried Flossie.

Freddie did not stop to tell her that every time anything fell into the
water it got wet. Instead, he began to search in his pockets.

"What's the matter--did you lose something?" asked Flossie.

"I guess we can eat 'em after they dry out," said Freddie, after a bit,
pulling out some soaked sugar cookies.

Freddie spread them out on one of the boat-seats where the sun would dry
them, and then he wrung from his coat as much water as he could. Next he
spread the jacket out to dry, Flossie helping him.

All this time the children failed to notice where they were going, but
when they had seen that the soaked cookies were getting dry and had
eaten them, Freddie looked