Arden remarked. "Maybe--"

"Exactly what I had in mind," Terry said. "You're positively uncanny, Arden, the way you read people's minds. We don't need to mention it to Mother, though."

It was after breakfast, and the girls were sitting on the bottom step of the porch, idly watching tiny ants rebuild their houses that had been washed away in the storm.

"Let me row, Terry, will you?" Sim asked. "I'm going to start in training this very day, and when we go back to Cedar Ridge in the fall I'll be the champion swimmer of the college," she bragged.

"You can row, all right, I've no desire to raise blisters on my lily-white palms," Terry answered her, and going to the door of the house she called: "Mother, we're going for a little row in the bay. The girls want to take a look around. Yes, we'll be careful. 'Bye!"

On the bay side an old though seaworthy rowboat was moored, covered with a canvas which had kept out the rain. They quickly pulled off the cover, and Terry took the oars from their place. With a few uncertain pushes, they finally made one strong enough to get started.

They were wearing shorts with sneakers, and bright handkerchiefs knotted at their throats; no hats, but Sim had tied a ribbon like Alice in Wonderland around her head to keep her short curls in place. It was becoming, too, and perhaps Sim knew that.

"Now let's see how good you are, Sim," Terry suggested. "Hail the champion--"

"I'm not good at all, but I will be. Arden, you get in the what-do-you-call it-stern-the back, and, Terry, you sit there, too, then you can watch me and tell where we're going." Sim found a place to brace her heels and grasping the oars began to back water until they could turn.

"Don't just row down there and b.u.mp into the houseboat. Pretend we're going some place else," Arden suggested. "We don't want to appear so curious."

"It won't make much difference; the wind is taking us there, anyway.

Oh-ouch!" Sim exclaimed. "I caught my fingers between the oars." She shook her hands quickly to "throw off" the pain.

"Well, don't let the oar go, silly!" Terry cautioned quickly. "Oh, Sim, you lovely chump, there it goes!"

The oar, as though pulled by the water, slipped out of the oarlock and floated away entirely unconcerned.

"Here, give me the other one, I'll paddle," Terry cried, reaching for the one faithful remaining oar.

Sim tried to hand it to her and in so doing gave Arden a little b.u.mp on the head.

"Oh, Sim, you're hitting me," Arden squealed.

"Sorry!" grunted Sim.

"Fine bunch of sailors you are. You can't paddle against this wind. Look where we're going!" Arden was indicating the sh.o.r.e line. The houseboat was only a few hundred feet away now, in a little cove, down the bay from Terry's house, the distance being about a half mile.

"We're going right toward it. What'll we do?" Sim wailed. "We'll hit it in a minute!"

"Oh, hush, Sim! We can't help it. Stick out the oar, Terry, so we don't b.u.mp too hard," Arden ordered.

Terry tried her best, but the oar slipped to one side, and the boat rammed the houseboat with a little b.u.mp that, to the girls, sounded like a crash.

Instantly there was a ferocious barking, and the girls could hear a call: "Tania! Tania!" and then a rush of words uttered in a soothing tone.

They sat quite still, an embarra.s.sed little group, while their lazy old craft hugged the side of the houseboat.

"Sim Westover," Arden hissed, "I could cheerfully duck you, clothes and all. What will the man think?"

"But, Arden--" began Sim, and then stopped as she heard footsteps on the upper deck of the boat near them.

Dimitri Uzlov had come on deck and was gazing down at them silently. They looked back, uncertain how to explain their presence. Arden spoke:

"We're sorry to have disturbed you, but we lost an oar and the boat drifted over here."

"I let it slip," Sim added a little nervously. "I'm not very good at rowing, I'm afraid." She smiled up at him apologetically.

He still looked down at them, saying nothing, half amused and half angry, apparently.

"If you could lend us an oar we could row over and get ours," Terry suggested. "We'd bring yours right back."

Suddenly the young man burst out laughing, and they all felt better, so much better that they joined in the laugh themselves.

"You are char-r-rming," he chuckled. "Of course you may take my oar; I will get it for you," and he disappeared from sight as if he had dropped down a hatchway.

"See!" Arden whispered gleefully. "Isn't he nice?"

Then they heard him call: "Can you push down to this end of my castle? My rowboat is moored here."

Terry poled the boat in the shallow water, for the houseboat was tied up at the sh.o.r.e, to the place Dimitri indicated.

There was a boat similar to theirs fast to the larger craft. Dimitri handed Terry the oar, smiling.

"Do you think you can recover your own?" he asked.

"Oh, yes, easily," replied Terry. "I'll row this time."

Sim climbed to the stern a little humbly and sat panting while Terry, with long strokes, pulled toward the deeper water where their oar was bobbing about in the sunlight.

"Grab it, Sim," she called when they reached it, "and don't murder anyone with it!"

Sim grabbed and recovered the dripping wooden shaft successfully and also gratefully.

"Now we'll take his back," Terry went on, and turned their craft toward the houseboat.

Tania once more barkingly announced their arrival, and Dimitri appeared at the signal.

"Will you come on board and rest for a minute?" he invited hospitably.

"It was unfortunate that you lost your oar."

"I don't know whether we ought--" began Terry but Arden, seeing his smiling face take on an embarra.s.sed look, interrupted with:

"We'd love to, for just a second. I've never been on a houseboat."

Terry tied their boat up near his, and the three girls went around to the stern of the houseboat over a little boardwalk and up the rickety stairs to the deck of the floating old craft.

There they hesitated. Tania was keeping up a barrage of barking, showing her fangs and growling at intervals.

"Please, if you will come with me," Dimitri said. "I will impress on her that you are my friends."