While the girls talked Tom, Jack and David had been quietly at work.

They had secured the houseboat to the launch by means of their towing ropes. Tom put on all speed. His motor launch tugged and strained forward. The "Merry Maid" did not move. She was a fairly heavy craft, with her large cabin and broad beam. Miss Betsey Taylor and Miss Jenny Ann joined the crowd of anxious watchers on the houseboat deck. Instead of gliding up a peaceful river, gazing at fruitful orchards and lovely old Virginia homesteads through the oncoming twilight, the houseboat crew would have to remain ignominiously on a sand bank until a larger boat came along to pull her off.

Tom tried again. Once more the "Sea Gull" went bravely forward--the length of her towing rope.

The girls were almost in tears. Suddenly Madge laughed. Eleanor and Lillian looked at her reproachfully.

"I don't see anything to laugh at," expostulated Eleanor.

"I don't either, Nellie," agreed Madge. "We ought to cry, we are such geese. Tom! David!" she cried. "You have never pulled up our anchor. Of course we can't get off the sand bank. We forgot to tell you that the captain on the little tug anch.o.r.ed us here to keep us from drifting away. I am so sorry."

In a little while Tom Curtis's motor launch, followed by the "Merry Maid," entered the Rappahannock from the Chesapeake Bay. It was Tom's intention to tow the houseboat along several of the Virginia rivers during their vacation. It looked as though they might have a peaceful excursion with nothing to mar its serenity. But there were five boys and four girls aboard the boats, besides the two older women.

The voyagers did not journey far the first day. It was about sundown when they came along sh.o.r.e near a wonderful peach orchard and it was here that they decided to spend the night. The crew of the "Merry Maid"

entertained the crew of the "Sea Gull" at dinner, the young folks spending the evening together. As Tom was about to bid Madge good night she said almost timidly, "Thank you so much, Tom, for being so good to David. I hope he hasn't disappointed you?"

"Oh, he is all right," replied Tom. "He is a queer fellow, though; never has much to say. He has asked me to let him have an hour or so to himself every day that we are on sh.o.r.e. Of course, it is only fair for him to have the time, but why does he wish to go off by himself?"

"I don't know." Madge shook her head disapprovingly. Then she adroitly changed the subject, but she could not help hoping that David would not incur the displeasure of the boys by his mysterious ways. It looked as though the boy she had determined to trust was to prove very troublesome.

CHAPTER VI

WANDERl.u.s.t

"Miss Jenny Ann, I don't think I can endure her," declared Madge mournfully.

It was late afternoon. The houseboat was gliding serenely along the river bank. Several yards ahead of her puffed the motor launch. Harry Sears and George Robinson were in the kitchen of the houseboat, helping Lillian and Eleanor wash the dinner dishes. Phil sat comfortably in the motor launch, having her usual argument with Jack Bolling. Tom Curtis was steering his launch, with a cloud over his usually bright face.

David Brewster was looking after the engine. He was silent and sullen.

But unless he was at work this was his ordinary expression.

"You can see for yourself, Miss Jenny Ann," continued Madge, her lips trembling with vexation, "that nothing I can do pleases Miss Betsey. I am just as polite to her as I know how to be, but she just hates me.

According to what she says, everything that goes wrong is my fault. I have a great mind to leave the houseboat and let you and the other girls take the trip. It isn't much fun for the rest of the party to have Miss Betsey and me quarrel all the time. It is unpleasant for everyone, isn't it?"

Miss Jenny Ann did not answer. Madge caught hold of her impulsively.

"Do scold or preach, whichever you like, Jenny Ann," she pleaded, "but please answer me. It is not polite to be so silent."

"What is it now?" Miss Jenny Ann inquired teasingly.

The little captain's face sobered. "It isn't a little thing this time, like my putting the sheet on Miss Betsey's bed wrong side up. It's very important. Miss Betsey says," whispered Madge in Miss Jenny Ann's ear, although they were standing some distance away from any one else, "that nearly every day for the past week some of her money has disappeared out of her wretched old money bag. Not very much at a time. First she noticed that three dollars had gone, then five, and now it's ten. She seems to think that I ought to know how it happens. She doesn't want to worry you about it. Of course, I know she is mistaken," cried Madge indignantly. "She just does not know how much money she had. There hasn't been a single person on this boat this whole week except our party."

Miss Jenny Ann looked serious. "Does Miss Taylor suspect any one?" she asked carelessly, not glancing at Madge.

Madge's cheeks reddened. "Miss Betsey says she does not suspect any one, but she spoke darkly of poor David Brewster. She says he never took anything that she knows of when he was on her farm, but that his father was almost a tramp. He came up to New England from goodness-knows-where, and every now and then he disappears and is gone for months at a time.

Miss Taylor believes that when Tom ties up our boats in the afternoons, and David goes off and leaves everybody, it is his vagabond blood showing in him. Isn't it cruel to make the poor fellow responsible for his father's sins? I am going to stand up for him through thick and thin. Coming, Miss Betsey," answered Madge cheerfully, in response to a call from the tyrannical old spinster.

Miss Jenny Ann remained by herself a few moments longer. She wondered why Miss Taylor required more attention from poor Madge than she did from any of the other girls. It was certain that she liked her least.

But Miss Jenny Ann shrewdly suspected that prim Miss Betsey thought that their impetuous captain needed discipline and had set herself to administer it to her. About David Brewster Miss Jenny Ann was more worried. She did not like the lad. No one did. He was the discordant element in their whole party. Lillian and Eleanor fought shy of him.

Phyllis was kind to him but had little to say to him, and the boys in the motor launch, except Tom, treated him with a kind of scornful coolness. The boy was neither a gentleman nor a servant. It was small wonder that generous-hearted Madge championed him. Miss Jenny Ann understood, from Madge's allusion to David's father, one reason why Madge was kind to the boy.

Miss Jenny Ann Jones and Miss Betsey Taylor shared one of the houseboat staterooms. The four girls, to their great joy, bunked together in the other.

It was exactly a half hour before Miss Betsey would let Madge come out on deck again. She wished her money carefully counted and a new place discovered for concealing it. Madge was strangely patient, for she had had a long talk with Dr. Alden before she left Hartford. He had told her that she would have a good deal to bear from Miss Betsey. Yet, if she wished to give the pleasure of the houseboat trip to her friends and to herself, she must remember the tiresome old adage, "What is worth having is worth paying for." So far Madge had paid with little grumbling.

This afternoon, as she reappeared on deck, her red lips were pouting and her cheeks were a deeper color. Her resentment against Miss Betsey was at its height.

No one noticed the little captain standing alone on deck. Usually she would have thought nothing of it, but this evening she was tired and cross. It did not seem fair for her to have to take all the trouble with their houseboat boarder on her shoulders. She could hear Lillian, Nellie, Harry Sears and George Robinson singing on the upper deck of the little houseboat. Phyllis was talking busily to Jack Bolling and did not even glance over toward Madge from her seat on the launch. Madge knew that Tom was angry because she had not joined him in the motor boat earlier in the afternoon, when the boats had put in to the sh.o.r.e. She had not been able to go on account of Miss Betsey, but she certainly had no intention of explaining anything to Tom. He could think what he chose.

The two boats were in the habit of landing several times during a day's cruise. Ordinarily they went ash.o.r.e just before sunset, and the boys and girls had their dinner together in some sequestered place. They then spent the night with the houseboat and motor boat at anchor. But this evening it was so lovely, gliding along the face of the river, with its hills on one side and meadows and orchards on the other, that Miss Jenny Ann requested Tom not to land until just about bed-time.

Madge stood looking at the sunset for a few minutes. There was nothing to do and no one wished to talk to her. She would go to bed. A little later she tumbled into her bed and shed a few tears, she was so sorry for herself. She did not waken until the other three girls came in for the night at about ten o'clock.

"Is there anything the matter, Madge?" whispered Phil before she crept into the berth above her chum. "We missed you dreadfully."

Madge gave Phyllis a repentant kiss. She knew that she had been absurd.

But now that Phyllis had awakened her, she could not go back to sleep again. It was a hot August night, with a moon almost in the full. Not a breath of air was stirring along the river. The moonlight shone through the little cabin window, flooding the room with its radiance. Madge felt that if she could only get a breath of air, she might be able to go to sleep. Just now she was suffocating. Yet the other girls were breathing gently. She slipped softly into her clothes, put on a long light coat, tucked her hair under a boy's cap and stole silently out on the houseboat deck. All was solemn and still. She was the only person awake on either of the two boats. An almost tropical heat made the moon look red and ominous. Madge was oppressed by its mysterious reflection on the water. The sh.o.r.e seemed peaceful, deserted. She went noiselessly down the gang plank. She walked up and down the bank, keeping the boats in sight. However, the sh.o.r.e was not quiet. The ceaseless hum of the August insects set her nerves on edge.

"Katy did, Katy did," the noise was insistent. To Madge's ears the name was transposed. "David did, David did," it rang. Yet she did not really believe that David had stolen Miss Betsey Taylor's money. If not David, who else? Surely the money could never be found in the new hiding place where she and Miss Taylor had stored it that afternoon. It was quite secure from thievish fingers.

It was lonely along the river bank. The sudden hooting of an owl sent her flying toward the houseboat. She waited a second before going aboard. The "Water Witch" was floating peacefully on the water, tied to the rail of the "Merry Maid!"

All at once the pa.s.sionate love which Madge felt for the water, that she believed to be an inheritance, woke in her. It was wrong and reckless in her, yet the desire to be alone out there on the river was uncontrollable. She went swiftly to their little rowboat, and without making a single unnecessary sound she rowed straight out into the moonlight that streamed across the water.

No one heard her or saw her leave the shelter of the two boats. Only David, who was also awake, thought for an instant that he caught the splash of a pair of oars skimming past the motor launch. He supposed it to be some idle oarsman who lived along the river, and he never glanced out of his cabin window.

Madge rowed for more than an hour in the golden moonlight, meeting no one. A cool breeze sprang up. Her restlessness, impatience and suspicion pa.s.sed away. She felt that she would like to move on forever up this silent river, near her well-loved Virginia sh.o.r.es. It never dawned upon her how far she had gone, or that she might be missed, or that the river would be dark when the moon went down. Neither did she consider that she was not familiar with the spot where the houseboat and motor boat were anch.o.r.ed. Tom had chosen the landing place for the night after she had gone into her stateroom.

For a long time Madge rowed on, regardless of time. She was dreaming of her own father. To-night she felt that she would find him. The night seemed trying to convey to her the message, "He lives."

It was nearly one o'clock when the moon went down. Madge felt, rather than saw, the darkness on the water. She was so oblivious to time that she believed for a few minutes that the moon had only gone behind a cloud. At last she realized that it was now time for her to turn back.

She had been rowing in the middle of the river, where the water was deep, and she was unfamiliar with the line of the sh.o.r.e. Yet she knew that here and there along either bank of the river there were shoals and shallow places where rocks jutted out of the water. Once or twice Tom steered them past places in the river where there were falls and swift eddies in the current. Now she awoke to the fact that she was in danger.

She could go down the river in the center of the stream as she had come up. But in the black darkness she could not pull in close to the river bank without nearing perilous places. Yet, unless she kept near the sh.o.r.e, how could she ever spy either the houseboat or the motor launch?

Madge rowed slowly and cautiously along. She tried to keep at a safe distance from the land while she strained her eyes for a glimmer of light that might come from either one of their boats. She was growing tired, for she was beginning to feel the effects of her long row. Her arms and back ached. All at once she became stupidly sleepy. She wondered dimly what on earth Miss Jenny Ann and the girls would do if they discovered that she had disappeared. What would Miss Betsey Taylor think of her now, when she learned that she, Madge Morton, had gone out on the river alone at night without a word to any one?

Madge sleepily pulled on her oars. She wished that she had persuaded Phil to come out on the water with her. Now the loneliness of the deserted river began to oppress her. She could have fallen over in the boat from sheer exhaustion. Through the darkness she suddenly saw a flickering light. Thank goodness, she was home at last! The light came from the left bank of the river, where their boats were moored. Madge rowed joyfully toward it. A little further in she saw that the light was on land. She had seen only its reflection in the water.

After another half hour's steady pulling Madge believed that she must have pa.s.sed by their boats. Surely she could not have gone so far up the river as she had rowed down. She turned her boat and began to retrace her way, then drew in a few yards nearer the sh.o.r.e. Danger or no danger, she must not pa.s.s the houseboat by again. She wondered if she would have to stay out on the water until the dawn came to show her the way home.

She would have to cease rowing and let the boat drift. She was too tired to keep on. She was growing so drowsy. All at once the "Water Witch" trembled violently. It gave a forward leap in the dark and went downward. Madge was thrown roughly forward. But she kept a firm grasp on her oars. She could not see, yet she knew exactly what had happened. Her boat had gone over some falls in the river. There was nothing for her to do but to try to stay in her boat. The "Water Witch" might overturn, or else right herself, at the end of her downward plunge.

The little skiff did neither. At the end of the falls she was caught in a swift whirlpool. Crouched in the boat, with her teeth clenched and her eyes watching the white spray that she could see even in the darkness, Madge felt her boat rotate like a wheel. She had never let go her oars.

Now she braced herself with all her strength and gave one forward, final pull. The "Water Witch" leaped ahead. It was safely out of the eddy and in the current. But Madge's oar struck against a rock. It snapped in two and the lower half went floating with the stream. There was a grating sound, then she felt her boat ground between two rocks and stick fast.

Ahead the river seemed to gurgle and splash alarmingly. There might be other falls and whirlpools in her course. Madge had sense enough to know when she was beaten. If she pushed out from the rocks, where her boat was caught, with her single oar, she might find herself in far worse danger. She was grateful that the "Water Witch" had run aground.

Madge lay down in the bottom of her boat. She would wait until the daylight came and see what was best to be done. She did not mean to go to sleep, for she realized her peril. She idly watched a single star that shone through the clouds, then her heavy eyelids closed and she fell asleep to the sound of the water beating against the side of her skiff.