“The item is dated from Winterhaven, but it says that the girls started from some place near Lake Kissimmee.”

“Oh!” cried Ruth, pausing with the comb half way through a thick strand of hair, “suppose it should be those two girls we met?”

“I don’t imagine it could be,” reasoned Alice.  “They did not look like girls who would be bold enough to go off after swamp blooms.  But think of the poor girls, whoever they are, out all alone at night, with maybe alligators around their boat!  Oh, I hope we don’t have to go too far into the wilds.”

“We may,” remarked Ruth, uneasily, as she reached for the paper to read for herself the disquieting item.

CHAPTER IV

FIRE ON BOARD

Ruth sat for some moments in silence after she had read in the paper the short account of the missing girls.  She had come to a pause in arranging her luxuriant hair for the night and, with it only half combed, leaned back in the small chair the stateroom afforded.  Alice was reclining on her berth.

“Does it worry you, Ruth?” the younger girl finally asked.

“A little, yes.”  Ruth was unusually quiet, and there was a far-away look in her deep blue eyes.

“Oh, don’t take it so seriously,” rallied Alice, in her vivacious way, though at first she, too, had been affected by what she read.

“But it is serious.”

“Oh, it may be only one of those ‘newspaper yarns,’ as Russ calls them.”

“Alice, your language, of late—­”

“There, sister mine!  Please don’t scold—­or lecture.  I’m too sleepy,” and she finished with a yawn that showed all her white, even teeth.

“I’m not scolding, my dear, but you know I must look after you in a way, and—­”

“Look after yourself, my dear.  With your hair down that way, and that sweet and innocent look on your face, and in your eyes—­you are much more in need of looking after than I. Someone is sure to fall in love with you, and then—­”

“Alice, if you—­”

“Don’t throw that hair brush at me!” and the younger girl covered herself with a quilt, in simulated fear.  “I—­I didn’t mean it.  I’ll be good!” and she shook with laughter.

Ruth could not but smile, though the serious look did not leave her face.  She was very like her father.  The least little matter out of the ordinary affected him, and usually on the sad, instead of on the “glad” side.  He, like Ruth, was of a romantic type, inclined to anticipate too much.  Alice was more matter of fact, not to say frivolous, though she could be very sensible at times.

“Well, I suppose we must go to bed,” sighed Ruth at length.  “But I’m afraid I sha’n’t sleep.”

“On account of thinking of those girls?”

“Yes, just imagine them out all alone in some dismal swamp, perhaps, without a light, hungry—­afraid of every sound—­”

“Please stop!  You’re getting on my nerves.”