From the hill on which the Blair home stood they looked down on the shore of Lake Dubar with its half dozen boat landings, each with two or three motorboats awaiting the arrival of the first special excursion train.
Mrs. Blair called them to breakfast and they were getting up to go inside when Margaret’s exclamation drew their attention back to the lake.
“Am I seeing things or is that the old Queen?” she asked, pointing down the lake.
Tom and Helen looked in the direction she pointed. An old, double decked boat, smoke rolling from its lofty, twin funnels, was churning its way up the lake.
“We may all be seeing things,” cried Tom, “but it looks like the Queen. I thought she had been condemned by the steamboat inspectors as unfit for further service.”
“The news that ‘Speed’ Rand is going to be at Sandy Point is bringing hundreds more than the railroad expected,” said Helen. “I talked with the station agent last night and they have four specials scheduled in this morning and they usually only have two.”
“If they vote the paved roads at the special election next week,” commented Tom, “the railroad will lose a lot of summer travel. As it is now, folks almost have to come by train for the slightest rain turns the roads around here into swamps and they can’t run the risk of being marooned here for several days.”
The Queen puffed sedately toward shore. They heard the clang of bells in the engine room and the steady chouf-chouf of the exhaust cease. The smoke drifted lazily from the funnels. Bells clanged again and the paddle wheel at the stern went into the back motion, churning the water into white froth. The forward speed of the Queen was checked and the big double-decker nosed into its pier.
“There’s old Capt. Billy Tucker sticking his white head out of the pilot house,” said Tom. “He’s probably put a few new planks in the Queen’s rotten old hull and gotten another O. K. from the boat inspectors. But if that old tub ever hits anything, the whole bottom will cave in and she’ll sink in five minutes.”
“That’s not a very cheerful Fourth of July idea,” said Margaret. “Come on, let’s eat. Your mother called us hours ago.”