It was quite late in the afternoon when Dee appeared at the hotel, red of face, his clothes soiled and wet.

“Well, we got the old thing,” was his greeting.

“Is the boat here?” inquired the guardian coldly.

“Yes, Miss Elting.  It’s down at Johnson’s dock this very minute.  You can go down there and look at it.  I’ve got some business to—­”

“Please go with us.  There will be things about it which we shall wish to ask you.  Does the boat leak much?”

He shook his head.

“It’s all right,” he said.  “I can’t spare the time to go to-day.”

“If I might venture to offer to pay you for your trouble,” suggested the guardian, not certain whether he would resent her offer of money.  Dickinson, however, was not easily insulted.

“Of course, if—­if you wish, I—­yes, of course,” he mumbled.

Miss Elting handed him two dollars.  Dickinson led the way down to the dock, though without enthusiasm.

“There’s the tub,” he said, pointing toward what appeared, at first glance, to be a huge box.  “That is it.”

The girls walked out on the dock and stood gazing at the boat.  In the first place, the “Red Rover” was not red at all.  It had once had a prime coat of yellow paint, but this had succumbed to storm and sunshine.  The windows had been boarded up; and the exterior of the craft bore out all that Dee Dickinson had said of it.

“Thirty feet on the water line,” explained the man, for want of something better to say.

The boat, originally, had been a scow used for the purpose of towing the effects of summer residents of the island across the lake.  Bert Elting had bought it for a small sum of money, and had built the house over it.  He and a friend, had spent many days and nights aboard, anchored out on the fishing grounds.  When they desired to change their location a launch usually could be found to tow them about.

At each end of the house there was a cockpit some three feet long.  In other words the house did not extend the full length of the boat.  At the rear there was a long-handed tiller.  The boat was flat as a floor.

“If the inside is as handsome as the outside, we shall have the nightmare all the time,” declared Margery.

“We had better look at the inside,” reflected Miss Elting.

There were doors at each end.  The girls entered by the rear door.

“Mercy!” exclaimed the guardian.  “How warm it is in here.  Mr. Dickinson, is there any glass in those windows?”

Dickinson shook his head.

“Then please knock out the boards.”

Harriet already was doing this.  She succeeded in ripping off a few planks, letting in the fresh air and sunlight.  What they saw then did not please them.  The floor was covered with rubbish.  There was food scattered about, the walls were greasy.  At one side stood an old stove, red with rust, its pipe dented in, and the ashes heaped high on the floor where the last occupant had left them.