"Well, if we're all lost together it won't be so bad," declared Alice. "But I should hate to be lost all alone."
"Don't speak of it!" begged Ruth, with a shudder.
After two or three days of fretting, because the boat he had ordered did not come, Mr. Pertell finally received word that it was on its way up the Kissimmee River.
The Magnolia, which was the name of the steamer, arrived two days later. It proved to be an old, comfortable craft, with a wheezy engine, burning wood. At the stern was a paddle wheel, so placed because of the character of the waters to be navigated. The boat only drew about a foot, and could go in very shallow streams.
There were sleeping and cooking quarters aboard, and on the upper deck a place to promenade, or to sit in the shade of an awning.
"It's like a house-boat!" cried Alice in delight, as she and Ruth inspected it. "Oh, I'd just like to live aboard this all the while."
"You will be on it a good deal," observed Russ. "We've got a number of dramas planned, of which the boat is the background."