"Get out of my way! I have the right of the river! You must get out of my way! I can't avoid you!"

"Why don't they stop?" wailed Grace. "Then we wouldn't b.u.mp them so hard!"

As if in answer, there came echoing over the dark water the clang of the engine-room bell, that told half-speed ahead had been ordered. A moment later came the signal to stop the engines.

"Oh, if only Uncle Amos-- or some of the boys-- were here!" breathed Betty. "Girls, try once more!"

Together Mollie and Grace whirled the crank, and an instant later the motor started with a throb that shook the boat from stem to stern.

"There!" cried Betty. "Now I can avoid them."

She threw in the clutch, and as the Gem shot ahead she whistled to indicate her course. This time came the proper response, and a little later the motor boat shot past the towering sides of the river steamer. So near had a collision been that the girls could hear the complaining voice of the pilot of the large craft.

"What's the matter with you fellows?" the man cried, as he looked down on the girls. "Don't you know what you're doing?" Clearly he was angry.

"We got adrift, and the motor wouldn't start," cried Betty, in shrill tones.

"Pilot biscuit and puppy cakes!" cried the man. "It's a bunch of girls! No wonder they didn't know what to do!"

"We did-- only we couldn't do it!" shouted Betty, not willing to have any aspersions cast on herself or her friends. "It was an accident!"

"All right; don't let it happen again," cried the steersman, in more kindly tones. And then the Gem slipped on down the river.

"What are we going to do?" asked Mollie, as Grace steered her boat.

"If we're going to stay out here I'm going to get dressed," declared Grace. "It's quite chilly."

Can you find your way back to the dock?" Aunt Kate inquired. "Can you do it, Betty?"

"I think so. We left a light on it, you know. I'll turn around and see if I can pick it out. Oh, but I'm all in a tremble!"

"I don't blame you-- it was a narrow escape," said Mollie.

"I don't see how we could have gone adrift, unless some one cut the ropes," remarked Grace. "I'm sure I tied them tightly enough."

"They may have become frayed by rubbing," suggested Betty. "We'll look when we get a chance. What are you going to do, Amy?" for she was entering the cabin.

"I'm going to make some hot chocolate," Amy answered. "I think we need it."

"I'll help," spoke Aunt Kate. "That's a very sensible idea."

"I think that is the dock light," remarked Betty a little later, when the boat was headed up stream.

"Anyhow, we can't be very far from it," observed Grace. "Try that one," and she pointed to a gleam that came across the waters. "Then there's another just above."

The first light did not prove to be the one on the private dock where they had been tied up, but the second attempt to locate it was successful, and soon they were back where they had been before. Betty laid the Gem alongside the stringpiece, and Grace and Mollie, leaping out, soon had the boat fast. The ends of the ropes, which had been trailing from the deck cleats in the water, were found unfrayed.

"They must have come untied!" said Grace. "Oh, it was my fault. I thought I had mastered those knots, but I must have tied the wrong kind."

"Never mind," said Betty, gently.

CHAPTER XII

AT RAINBOW LAKE

Once the Gem was securely tied-- and Betty now made sure of this-- the tired and rather chilly girls adjourned to the cabin, and under the lights had the hot chocolate Aunt Kate and Amy had made.

"It's delicious," spoke Betty. "I feel so much better now."

"We must never let on to the boys that we came near running down a steamer," said Grace. "We'd never hear the last of it."

"But we didn't nearly run down a steamer-- she came toward us,"

insisted Betty, not willing to have her seamanship brought into question. "If it had been any other boat, not drawing so much water, she could have steered out of the way. As it was we, not being under control, had the right of way."

"It wouldn't have done any good to have insisted on it," remarked Grace, drawlingly.

"No, especially as we couldn't hoist the signal to show that," went on Betty. "Uncle Amos told me there are signals for nearly everything that can happen at sea, but of course I never thought of such a thing as that we'd get adrift. I must be prepared next time."

"I can't understand about those knots," spoke Grace. "Where is that book?"

"What book?"

"The one showing how to tie different kinds of knots. I'm going to study up on the subject."

"Not to-night," objected Aunt Kate. "It's nearly morning as it is."

"Well, the first thing to-morrow, then," declared Grace. "I'm going to make up for my blunder."

"Oh, don't be distressed," consoled Betty. "Any of us might have made the same mistake. It was only an accident, Grace dear."

"Well, I seem fated to have accidents lately. There was poor little Dodo---- "

"Not your fault at all!" exclaimed Mollie, promptly. "I'll not allow you to blame yourself for her accident. It was those motorists, if any-one, and I'm not sure they were altogether to blame. Anyhow, I'm sure Dodo will be cured after the operation."

"I hope so," murmured Grace.

The appetizing odor of bacon and eggs came from the little galley, mingled with the aromatic foretaste of coffee. Aunt Kate was busy inside. The girls were laughing out in the cabin, or on the lowered after-deck. It was the next morning-- which makes all the difference in the world.

"I'm afraid we're going to have a shower today," observed Amy, musingly, as she looked up at the sky. A light fog hung over the river.

"Will you ever forget the awful shower that kept us in the deserted house all night?" asked Betty, as she arranged her hair. "I mean when we were on our walking trip," she added, looking for a ribbon that had floated, like a rose petal, under her shelf-dresser.

"Oh, we'll never get over that!" declared Mollie, who was industriously putting hairpins where they would be more serviceable.

"And we couldn't imagine, for the longest time, why the house should be left all alone that way."

"Now I'm going to begin my lesson," announced Grace, who, having gotten herself ready for breakfast, took up the book showing how various sailor knots should be made. With a piece of twine she tied "figure-eights," now and then slipping into the "grannie" cla.s.s; she made half-hitches, clove hitches, a running bowline, and various other combinations, until Amy declared that it made her head ache to look on.

The girls had breakfast, strolled about on sh.o.r.e for a little while, and then started off, intending to stop in Dunkirk, which town lay a little below them, to get some supplies, and replenish the oil and gasoline.