Miss Elting instantly recalled the message from her brother. The
telegram was in her pocket at that moment, "If you have any trouble, Dee
Dickinson will see that you are protected," read the message. It was Dee
Dickinson who had spoken to her that moment.

Dee had made a distinctly unfavorable impression on Miss Elting, the
guardian and companion of the Meadow-Brook Girls. Her brother's fishing
boat had been left in the care of this man by her brother Bert, who had
now turned it over to his sister and the Meadow-Brook Girls for their
summer vacation.

"Why not?" questioned the young woman in answer to his words of warning.
"Isn't the boat in good condition?"

"Oh, yes. That is, it isn't by any means in a sinking condition."

"Then why do you advise us not to use it?"

"The lake gets rather rough at times, you know," he replied evasively.

"My brother wrote you that we were coming up here, did he not?"

"Oh, yes. But you see it's been a year since he used the old scow. She
is a year older, now, and--"

"I am quite sure that my brother would not have permitted us to take the
houseboat were it not perfectly safe for us to do so. Please tell me
what is the matter with it?"

"There's nothing the matter with it, I tell you, except that it's an old