of us?"

Betty looked over the bow. Then she said grimly:

"We've run on a sand bar--that's all. Run on it good and hard, too. I
wonder if we can get off?"

CHAPTER X

DOUBTFUL HELP

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.

"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 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,