Page:Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake.djvu/124

112 "Where's your charts?" he asked, suddenly.

"Charts?"

"Yes, how are you sailing? Have you marked the course since last night and posted it? Where are your charts—your maps? How do you expect to make Rainbow Lake without some kind of charts? Are you going by dead reckoning?"

"Why, Uncle, all we have to do is to keep right on down the river, and it opens into Rainbow Lake. The lake is really a wide part of the river, you know. We don't need any charts!"

"Don't need any charts? Have you heaved the lead to see how much water you've got?"

"Why, no," and she looked at him wonderingly.

"Well, well!" he exclaimed. "Oh, I forgot this isn't salt water. Well, I dare say you will stumble into the lake after some fashion—but it isn't seaman-like it isn't seaman-like," and the old tar shook his grizzled head gloomily.

Betty smiled, and shifted her course a little to give a wide berth to some boys who were fishing. She did not want the propeller's wash to disturb them. They waved gratefully to her.

The sun was declining in the West, amid a bank of golden, olive and purple clouds, and a little breeze ruffled the water of the river. The