Betty\'s words caused her three chums to stare at her in wonder. Then, by glancing over the side of the boat themselves, they confirmed what she had said.

"A—a sand bar," faltered Grace, sinking back among some cushions that matched her dress wonderfully well. Mollie said later that Grace always tried to match something, even if it was only her chocolates.

"A plain, ordinary sand bar," repeated Betty. "One of the men at the dock warned me about them, and even told me how to locate them, by the peculiar ripple of the shallow water over them. But I forgot all about it. Oh dear!"

"Well, it can\'t be so very bad," spoke Mollie, who was idly splashing the water with one hand. "We can\'t sink, that\'s a consolation."

"Don\'t do that!" exclaimed Amy quickly. She had "cuddled" closer to Betty following the shock as the boat came to a stop on the concealed bar.[83]

"Don\'t do what?" asked Mollie wonderingly.

"Put your hand in the water. There may be alligators, you know. I think—I\'m not sure—but I think I saw something like the head of one a moment ago."

Mollie pulled in her hand so suddenly that she flirted a little shower of drops on all in the boat.

"Stop it! You mean thing!" cried Grace.

"Oh, I beg your pardon," spoke Mollie with elaborate politeness. "I didn\'t think your sailor suit would spot—mine doesn\'t."

"It isn\'t that—no indeed. I meant Amy—for bringing up such a topic as alligators at this moment, when we can\'t move. And the ugly creatures always come out on a sand bar to sun themselves; don\'t they?"

"Not on this sand bar," asserted Betty. "It\'s under water. If it had been out I should have seen it."

"I\'m sure I didn\'t mean to make you uncomfortable, Grace," said Amy humbly, "but really I did not think it was safe for Mollie to put her hand in the water."

"Of course it wasn\'t, you dear!" soothed Mollie, patting Amy softly on the shoulder. "I wasn\'t thinking of what I was doing."

"And I didn\'t mean anything, either," added Grace, thinking that perhaps she and Mollie had[84] not treated Amy with just the deference due a hostess, for Amy did figure in that role.

"Oh, that\'s all right," said Amy with a smile that seemed always full of warm fellowship and feeling. "I know just how you feel."

"Well, I feel wretched—there\'s no denying that," spoke Betty with a sigh. "To think that I should run you girls on a sand bar, almost on our first trip. Isn\'t it horrid?"

"Well, we\'ll forgive her if she\'ll run us off again; won\'t we, girls?" asked Grace, searching among the cushions.

"Here it is," said Amy with another of her calm smiles, as she produced the box of candy for which Grace was evidently searching.

"Thanks. Well, Betty, are you going to get forgiven?"

"Which means am I going to get you off this bar? Well, I\'m going to do my best. Wait until I take a look at the engine."

"What\'s the matter with it?" asked Mollie quickly, a new cause for alarm dawning in her mind.

"Nothing, I hope," replied Betty. "But we ran on the bar so suddenly that it may be strained from its base."

"Is it a baseball engine?" asked Grace languidly. She seemed to have recovered her com[85]posure now. Whether it was the fact of her chocolates being safe, or that there was no immediate danger of sinking, or that no alligators were in sight, was not made manifest, but she certainly seemed all right again.

"It\'s enough of a ball game to have a base, and to be obliged to hold it," said Betty with a smile, as she bent over the machinery, testing the bolts and nuts that held the motor to the bottom of the boat.

"I guess it\'s all right," she added with a sigh of relief. "Now to see if it will operate. But first I think we\'d better see if we can push ourselves off with the oars and boat hook," for Betty, knowing that the best of motors may not "mote" at times, carried a pair of long sweeps by which the Gem could laboriously be propelled in case of a break-down. There was also a long hooked pole, for landing purposes.

"Mollie, you take one of the oars, and I\'ll use the other," directed Betty, for she realized that she and the French girl were stronger than the others. "We\'ll let Grace and Amy use the hook. Then if we all push together we may get off without further trouble. If that won\'t answer, we\'ll try reversing the engine." The machinery had been shut down by Betty immediately following the sudden stop on the bar.[86]

About the stranded craft swirled the muddy river. Bits of driftwood—logs and sticks—floated down, and sometimes there was seen what looked to be the long, knobby nose of an alligator, but the girls were not sure enough of this, and, truth to tell, they much preferred to think of the objects as black logs, or bits of wood. It was much more comforting.

"Are you all ready?" asked the Little Captain as she took her place on one side, well up in the bow, Mollie taking a similar position on the other side. Each held one of the long oars.

"All ready," answered Amy, who had taken up the boat hook.

"Wait a minute," begged Grace, looking for something on which to cleanse her hands of the brown smudge of chocolate. "This candy is so sticky!"

"There\'s the whole river to wash in," said Mollie. "\'Water, water everywhere,\' and not any solid enough to go ashore on," she concluded with a laugh.

"I\'ll never dip my hands in this water—not until I can see bottom," declared Grace, finally selecting a bit of rag that Betty used to polish the brass work of the engine.

"As if it would hurt to take hold of the boat hook with chocolate fingers," spoke Mollie a bit[87] sharply. "At any rate one could wash the pole without fear if its being nipped by an alligator."

"Don\'t be silly," directed Grace with flashing eyes.

"Well, don\'t eat so much candy then."

"Come, girls, if we\'re going to get off the bar it\'s time we tried it," suggested Betty with a smile. She did not want the two tempers, that seemed often on the verge of striking fire, one from the other, to kindle now. There was enough of other trouble, she reasoned.

The oars and pole were thrust into the water ahead of the boat. Bottom was found within a fe............