"The item is dated from Winterhaven, but it says that the girls started from some place near Lake Kissimmee."

"Oh!" cried Ruth, pausing with the comb half way through a thick strand of hair, "suppose it should be those two girls we met?"

"I don't imagine it could be," reasoned Alice. "They did not look like girls who would be bold enough to go off after swamp blooms. But think of the poor girls, whoever they are, out all alone at night, with maybe alligators around their boat! Oh, I hope we don't have to go too far into the wilds."

"We may," remarked Ruth, uneasily, as she reached for the paper to read for herself the disquieting item.

CHAPTER IV

FIRE ON BOARD

Ruth sat for some moments in silence after she had read in the paper the short account of the missing girls. She had come to a pause in arranging her luxuriant hair for the night and, with it only half combed, leaned back in the small chair the stateroom afforded. Alice was reclining on her berth.

"Does it worry you, Ruth?" the younger girl finally asked.

"A little, yes." Ruth was unusually quiet, and there was a far-away look in her deep blue eyes.

"Oh, don't take it so seriously," rallied Alice, in her vivacious way, though at first she, too, had been affected by what she read.

"But it is serious."

"Oh, it may be only one of those 'newspaper yarns,' as Russ calls them."

"Alice, your language, of late--"

"There, sister mine! Please don't scold--or lecture. I'm too sleepy," and she finished with a yawn that showed all her white, even teeth.

"I'm not scolding, my dear, but you know I must look after you in a way, and--"

"Look after yourself, my dear. With your hair down that way, and that sweet and innocent look on your face, and in your eyes--you are much more in need of looking after than I. Someone is sure to fall in love with you, and then--"

"Alice, if you--"

"Don't throw that hair brush at me!" and the younger girl covered herself with a quilt, in simulated fear. "I--I didn't mean it. I'll be good!" and she shook with laughter.

Ruth could not but smile, though the serious look did not leave her face.

She was very like her father. The least little matter out of the ordinary affected him, and usually on the sad, instead of on the "glad" side. He, like Ruth, was of a romantic type, inclined to antic.i.p.ate too much. Alice was more matter of fact, not to say frivolous, though she could be very sensible at times.

"Well, I suppose we must go to bed," sighed Ruth at length. "But I'm afraid I sha'n't sleep."

"On account of thinking of those girls?"

"Yes, just imagine them out all alone in some dismal swamp, perhaps, without a light, hungry--afraid of every sound--"

"Please stop! You're getting on my nerves."

"I didn't mean to, my dear," was the gentle answer.

"I know you didn't, and it was mean of me to talk that way," and a plump, bare arm stole around the other's neck, while a hand was run through the golden hair. "But, don't let's think so much about them. Perhaps they are not those two girls we met, after all."

"Oh, I don't believe they can be," Ruth agreed. "That would be too much of a coincidence. But they are two girls--"

"Not necessarily. Maybe it's only an unfounded rumor. Russ says newspaper men often 'plant' a story like this off in some obscure place, and then use it as the basis for one of those lurid stories in the Sunday supplements.

"I shouldn't wonder a bit but what this was one of those cases. So, sister mine, go to sleep in peace, and in the morning you'll have forgotten all about it. Only don't let's tell any one, for some of the company, like Mr. Sneed, might make trouble for Mr. Pertell, saying alligators were there."

"Well, there are."

"Perhaps. But who cares? I'd like to get one ordinary-sized 'gator."

"Why, Alice! What for?"

"I've always wanted an alligator bag, and I never could afford it. Now's my chance. But we may never get far enough into the interior for that. By the way, where did it say those girls started from? I didn't half read it."

"From Sycamore, near Lake Kissimmee."

"Well, Mr. Pertell did mention that we might get to the lake, but he didn't specify Sycamore."

"No, and now I'm going to try and do as you said, and forget all about it," and Ruth laid aside the paper and resumed putting up her hair for the night.

"I wonder what will happen to-morrow?" mused Alice, as she slipped into her robe, and thrust her feet into bath slippers.

"What do you mean?" Ruth's voice was rather m.u.f.fled, for her hair was over her face now.

"I mean Mr. Towne fell in to-day, and--"

"Gracious, I hope you don't infer that it's someone else's turn to-morrow!"

"Hardly!" laughed Alice. "Hand me that cold cream, please, the salt air has chapped my face. Oh, say, did you notice how much color Laura had on to-day? If ever there was a 'hand-made' complexion hers was!"

"You shouldn't say such things!"

"Why not? When they're true! And such eyes as she made at poor Mr.

Towne!"

Ruth slipped a rosy palm over her sister's lips, but Alice pulled it away, and laughingly added:

"She found that her glances failed to reach Paul, and so she's trying her 'wireless' on--"

"Alice, you _must_ stop. Someone may hear you!"

"Can't! Daddy has the stateroom on one side, and Mr. Pertell the other, and they're both sound sleepers. But I've finished anyhow. You put out the light," and with a bound, having completed her toilette, Alice was in her berth.

Ruth sighed, and then sat again staring off into s.p.a.ce. It must have been some little time, too, for when she turned to look at her sister, Alice was breathing deeply in sleep.