kindly keeper greeted us first with three strokes of his deep-toned
bell. Gadabout responded with three of her bravest blasts.

It was not long before the sun got low, and with the late afternoon
something of a wind whipped up from the bay, and the wide, low-shored
river rolled dark and unfriendly. We found our thoughts outstripping
Gadabout in the run toward a harbour for the night.

That word "harbour" comes to mean a good deal to the houseboater who
attempts to make a cruiser of his unseaworthy, lubberly craft. A little
experience on even inland waters in their less friendly moods develops
in him a remarkable aptitude for finding holes in the bank to stick his
boat in.

Sometimes the vessel is seaworthy enough to lie out and take whatever
wind and waves may inflict; but that is usually where much of the charm
and comfort of the houseboat has been sacrificed to make her so. Then
too the houseboater is usually quite a landlubber after all; so that
even if the boat is strong enough to meet an angry sea, the owner's
stomach is not. And, over and above all this, is the fact that
miserably pitching and rolling about in grim battle with the elements
is not houseboating.

It is easy then to see that snug harbours count for much when cruising
in the true spirit of houseboating, and in the charming, awkward tubs
that make the best and the most lovable of houseboats.

So, as Gadabout was passing Barrel Point and the wind was freshening
and the waves were slapping her square bow, we were thinking not
unpleasantly of a small tributary stream that the chart indicated just