This had probably been going on for some time before Nan and her chum were assisted aboard the Bargain Rush. Walter seemed to be pretty well disgusted with the railroad magnate’s daughter.
“Don’t tell your father till you get ashore, Linda,” he advised.
“You’re just as horrid as you can be!” gasped Linda.
“Don’t mind him, Linda,” begged peace-loving Grace. “And, really, it isn’t his fault.”
“You’re just as bad as he is, every whit!” snapped the unpleasant girl. “You both were determined to come out here when I wanted to go ashore.”
“Why!” gasped Grace, showing some pluck for once, “you wouldn’t have had Walter leave Nan and Bess to drown, would you?”
“And now we’re all going to be drowned!” was Linda’s response, but hastily leaning over the rail again, her voice was stifled.
“If—if I ever get to shore alive,” she finally wailed, “I’ll never even go in wading again.”
Had the situation really not seemed so tragic, Nan would have laughed. Bess had joined Linda at the rail, being just as sick as the other. Grace looked green about the lips, herself; but she was plucky. Nan felt no qualms.
“Let me take the wheel, Walter,” she said to Grace’s brother. “I know how to steer.”