"Oh, by the way, have you any matches?" asked Harriet. "We need some coffee this morning, but we have nothing with which to build a fire."
"Sam, you make a fire."
"The oil stove may work," suggested Miss Elting. They tried it, but there was still too much water in the tanks, so Sam built a fire on shore, and shortly after Harriet and Jane were busily engaged in getting breakfast, while the boys worked steadily in the houseboat. Finding nails, saw and hammer, they patched up the broken door and hung it back in place. Then they removed all the supplies that had been left aboard and began cleaning up. They bailed the remaining water out, also shoveling out the gravel and the sand, after which they scrubbed the floor and the walls to a height of about three feet from the floor, where the water had left a dark line on the white woodwork.
An hour after the visiting boys had begun their work the cabin was ready for occupancy again, but the quilts, sheets and blankets were still wet. A larger fire was built. The boys rigged a clothes line about the campfire and assisted the girls to hang up the wet bedding. By this time the lads were hungry. They readily accepted the invitation of the Meadow-Brook Girls to sit down with them to breakfast. The table and chairs had been brought ashore, and there in the cove, with the trees and bushes for a background, the Meadow-Brook Girls and the Tramp Club sat down to breakfast. There was plenty of good cheer, though the faces of the girls were pale, and Harriet and Jane looked particularly tired.
"I'll tell you what you must do," declared Captain George during breakfast. "When you wish to shift your position, let us know, and we'll tow you about. Did your rope break?"
Harriet confessed that she had not looked. The captain said he would look into the matter after breakfast. The first thing to be done, after getting the equipment back on board, would be to tow the "Red Rover" off the shore. To do this they arranged to pass a rope to the launch, the launch to pull ahead while some of the boys pushed on the houseboat.
In the meantime, while waiting for the equipment to dry out, George and his friend, Billy Gordon, who owned the launch, took Harriet and Jane to town, where Jane wished to go to renew some of their supplies, as well as to purchase a couple of flatirons with which to press their wet clothing that had hung in the cabin when the deluge came.
During the trip George had drawn out the story of their previous disaster when they had drifted ashore, though Harriet refrained from mentioning the fact that their anchor rope had been cut on that occasion. From George's questions it was plain that he suspected something was wrong, though Harriet failed to gratify his suspicions by direct answers to direct questions.
George explained, during the trip to the town, that the Tramp Club had been invited by Billy Gordon, who owned the launch, to spend a few weeks with him on the lake. He was to furnish the launch for their cruises, while the boys supplied the camp equipment. Billy knew the lake and they knew how to camp, and now that they had renewed acquaintance with their old rivals, the Meadow-Brook Girls, the Tramp Club were glad they had accepted Gordon's invitation.
The trip to town was quickly made, and the two girls completed their purchases with little loss of time, and were back on board the launch within an hour from the time they had started.