“They may shrink,” said Grace doubtfully, carefully wiping a drop of water from her “knickers” with a square of lace handkerchief.
In spite of their plight, the sight appealed to the girls’ sense of humor.
They giggled, and Mollie, taking out her own rather soiled and grimy handkerchief, carefully and gravely wiped another spot from Grace’s suit.
“Stop your nonsense,” cried Betty, her eyes searching the gray and lowering sky. “If we don’t get busy we may all be drowned. Amy,” she added, in the tone of authority she always used when they faced an emergency, “get out those oars, will you? I’m going to give you some elbow work to do.”
As Amy obeyed, the girls thanked their stars for Betty’s thoughtfulness. They had laughed when she had first suggested the oars, asking “if she did not realize what a reflection it was on the Gem,” but Betty had insisted, just the same, and now it seemed as though the oars were to play a rather important part in their adventure.
The girls took turns rowing while Betty kept the wheel, steering a straight course along the shore, meanwhile edging in steadily closer to it. She was looking for the second land-mark Henry Blackford had suggested, a small inlet off the main lake, like the one near Triangle Island, in which it would be easy to run the Gem.
The cabin, Henry Blackford had assured them, was situated on a rise of ground directly over the inlet. Betty remembered his words perfectly.
“If you follow your nose straight up the hill,” he had said, laughing, “you can’t fail to find it. The house is situated in a small cleared space at the very top of the hill.”
And so Betty searched with anxious eyes for the inlet, now and then allowing her gaze to travel to the gray sky.
Luckily for them the storm seemed in no great hurry to overtake them. Although the clouds gathered blacker and more threatening every moment the rain reached them only in an occasional drop and Betty began to hope that they might gain the shelter of the cabin before the downpour overwhelmed them. Luckily they had brought the tarpaulin for the Gem so that the little boat should not suffer.