Onward chugged the Gem and the sudden acceleration in the heart-beats of the girls seemed to keep time with the staccato exhaust of the motor.

"Lost!" faltered Grace.

"And night coming on," echoed Amy.

"Oh, you two!" cried Mollie. "I wish I were a boy!"

"Why?" asked Betty, as she guided her craft to the center of the stream. It was lighter there, for they were not so much under the overhanging trees with their festoons of moss. "Why, Mollie, dear?"

"Then I could use slang, such as—oh, well, what\'s the use? I don\'t suppose it would do any good."

"But are you sure we are lost?" asked Amy. "What makes you say so, Betty?"

"Because this place doesn\'t look at all like any part of the river we came down before. The trouble was that we let Tom steer, and we didn\'t[164] notice the course very much, as we should have done on coming in a new channel. But I\'m sure we are lost."

"It isn\'t a very pleasant thing to be sure about," said Mollie grimly, "but we may as well face the worst. Grace, let\'s you and I look to our stock of provisions."

"What for?" asked Grace, who had found a few stray pieces of candy in a box, and was contentedly eating them.

"Well, if we\'re lost that doesn\'t mean we\'re not going to eat, and if we have enough for supper and breakfast——"

"Breakfast!" cried Grace. "Are we going to be here for breakfast?"

"And stay out all night?" added Amy.

"There may be no help for it," said Betty as calmly as she could. "We have slept aboard before this, and we can do it again."

"But you\'re not going to give up without trying to get back to the grove; are you?" asked Mollie, who, after the first shock, was her own brave self again, as was Betty.

"Of course I\'m going to try," replied Betty. "But that doesn\'t mean we\'ll get there. Often, after you\'re lost, trying to find your way back again only makes you lost the more—especially with night coming on."[165]

"But what are we going to do?" queried Grace blankly. She had ceased eating candy now.

"Well, it\'s very evident that we\'re not going the right way," went on Betty. "The farther we go the more sure I am that we were never on this part of the stream before. So I think we had better turn back, and, if necessary, start over again from where we had lunch.

"We may be able to see the right turn by starting over once more. Then we will be all right. Once I am started on the right track I think I can follow it. We have a compass, and I noticed, in a general way, which direction we came, though I was not as careful as I should have been."

"But it will be very dark," objected Amy. "It is getting darker all the while."

"That will be the worst of it," admitted Betty frankly, "and if we find we can\'t go on, we shall have to tie up for the night. We might do worse."

"But anchor far enough from shore so that nothing can—get us," pleaded Grace. "No alligators, I mean."

"Don\'t worry—they won\'t come aboard," declared Betty.

"These rivers are split up into a lot of side brooks, ............