Now, just ahead of us where the chart had a little asterisk, the river had a little lighthouse perched high over the water on its long spindling legs.  Gadabout ran just inside the light and quite close to it.  It is an old and a pretty custom by which a passing vessel “speaks” a lighthouse.  In this instance perhaps we were a trifle tardy, for the kindly keeper greeted us first with three strokes of his deep-toned bell.  Gadabout responded with three of her bravest blasts.

It was not long before the sun got low, and with the late afternoon something of a wind whipped up from the bay, and the wide, low-shored river rolled dark and unfriendly.  We found our thoughts outstripping Gadabout in the run toward a harbour for the night.

That word “harbour” comes to mean a good deal to the houseboater who attempts to make a cruiser of his unseaworthy, lubberly craft.  A little experience on even inland waters in their less friendly moods develops in him a remarkable aptitude for finding holes in the bank to stick his boat in.

Sometimes the vessel is seaworthy enough to lie out and take whatever wind and waves may inflict; but that is usually where much of the charm and comfort of the houseboat has been sacrificed to make her so.  Then too the houseboater is usually quite a landlubber after all; so that even if the boat is strong enough to meet an angry sea, the owner’s stomach is not.  And, over and above all this, is the fact that miserably pitching and rolling about in grim battle with the elements is not houseboating.

It is easy then to see that snug harbours count for much when cruising in the true spirit of houseboating, and in the charming, awkward tubs that make the best and the most lovable of houseboats.

So, as Gadabout was passing Barrel Point and the wind was freshening and the waves were slapping her square bow, we were thinking not unpleasantly of a small tributary stream that the chart indicated just ahead, and in which we should find quiet anchorage.  There seemed something snug and cozy about the very name of the stream, Chuckatuck.  In this case the pale-face has left undisturbed the red man’s picturesque appellation; and we knew that we should like—­Chuckatuck.

Just before we reached the creek, two row-boats put out from the river shore filled with boys and curiosity.  A cheery salute was given us as the houseboat passed close by the skiffs, and we thought no more of them.  But after a while footsteps were heard overhead and we found that we had a full cargo of boys.  They had made their boats fast to Gadabout’s stern as she passed, and were now grouped in some uncertainty on the upper deck.  A nod from Nautica put them at ease, and in a moment they were scattered all over the outside of the boat, calling to one another, peering into windows, and asking no end of questions.

The boys proved helpful too.  They were fisher-lads, well acquainted with those waters, and were better than the chart in guiding us among the shoals and into the channel of the creek.