So I have engaged a good-sized,
flat-bottomed stern-wheeler, and we can spend several days at a time on
her if need be."
"Oh, how lovely!" cried Alice, clapping her hands in girlish enthusiasm.
"Won't it be fine, Ruth?"
"It sounds enticing."
"To think of steaming along these quiet and mysterious streams, under the
palms," exclaimed Alice. "Oh, I'm so glad I came."
"Huh! Yes. Suppose we get lost, as those two girls are?" demanded Mr.
Sneed, who was the only one, you may be sure, who would make such a
disquieting suggestion.
"Well, if we're all lost together it won't be so bad," declared Alice.
"But I should hate to be lost all alone."
"Don't speak of it!" begged Ruth, with a shudder.
After two or three days of fretting, because the boat he had ordered did
not come, Mr. Pertell finally received word that it was on its way up the
Kissimmee River.
The _Magnolia_, which was the name of the steamer, arrived two days
later. It proved to be an old, comfortable craft, with a wheezy engine,
burning wood. At the stern was a paddle wheel, so placed because of the
character of the waters to be navigated. The boat only drew about a foot,
and could go in very shallow streams.
There were sleeping and cooking quarters aboard, and on the upper deck a
place to promenade, or to sit in the shade of an awning.
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