"Oh, stop! stop! you make my head ache!" cried Grace. "Has anyone a chocolate cream?"
They all laughed.
"You'll soon understand it," said Betty.
"It's worse than remembering to turn the steering wheel the opposite way you want to go," objected Mollie. "But we are young--we may learn in time."
The Gem was all ready to start, and the girls, reaching Mollie's house, in the rear of which, at a river dock, the boat was tied, went aboard.
"Have you enough gasoline?" asked Amy, as she helped Betty loosen the mooring ropes.
"Yes, I telephoned for the man to fill the tank this morning. Look at the automatic gauge and see if it isn't registered," for there was a device on the boat that did away with the necessity of taking the top off the tank and putting a dry stick down, to ascertain how much of the fluid was on hand.
"Yes, it's full," replied Amy.
"Then here we go!" cried Betty, as the other girls shoved off from the dock, and the Little Captain pushed the automatic sorter. With a throb and a roar the motor took up its staccato song of progress. When sufficiently away from the dock Betty let in the clutch, and the craft shot swiftly down the stream.
