ave to go on short rations,"
but Ruth said it with a smile. "I guess we are not in any real danger of
starvation, however."

"Just the same, a joke can easily become serious when one is deserted on
a desert island."

"But you were looking for adventure," retorted Ruth.

"Well!"

"Now you have it," said Ruth, but soberly. "And worrying about it will
not help us a particle. Might as well be cheerful."

"You are as full of old saws as a carpenter's abandoned tool-chest," said
Helen smartly. "Oh! What is this I hear? The smuggler's boat again?"

They did hear a motor, but no boat appeared from the other side of the
Kingdom of Pipes. The sound drew nearer. The motor-boat was coming down
the river, through a passage between the island where the girls were and
the American side.

"Come on! I don't care who it is," cried Helen, starting to run through
the bushes. "We'll hail them and ask them for rescue."

But when she came in sight of the craft, to Ruth's surprise Helen did not
at once shout. Ruth only saw the bow of the boat coming down stream
herself; but suddenly she marked the small name-board with its gilt
lettering:

LAURIETTE

"Here's Chess, I do believe!" she cried.

"Humph!" grumbled Helen.

"Now, Helen Cameron!" gasped Ruth, "are you going to be foolish enough to
refuse to be taken off this island by Chessleigh Copley?"

"Didn't say I was."

"And don't be unkind to him!" pleaded Ruth.

"You seem so terribly fond of him that I guess he won't mind how I treat
him."

"You know better," Ruth told her admonishingly. "Chess thinks a great
deal of you, while you treat him too unkindly for utterance."

"He'd better not think of me too much," said Helen scornfully. "His head
won't stand it. Tom says 'Lasses never was strong in the deeper strata of
college learning."

Ruth was not to be drawn into any controversy. She called to the young
man when, dressed in flannels and standing at his wheel and engine, he
came into view.

"Hurrah! Here's good luck!" shouted Chess, swerving the bow of the
_Lauriette_ in toward the island instantly.

"Hurrah! Glad you think it's good luck," said Helen sulkily. "I guess you
never were marooned."

"That's navy blue you've got on--not maroon," said Chess soberly. "Do you
suppose I am color-blind?"

"Smarty!"

"Now, children, this is too serious a matter to quarrel over," admonished
Ruth, but smiling because her chum showed, after all,