As soon as his business was concluded, Hartson Brant planned to drive to Steve's, where the Brants and the two girls would join Rick and Scotty for a vacation on the houseboat. There was plenty of room. The _Spindrift_ was thirty feet long and ten feet wide, and had two cabins. Four could sleep in the forward cabin, and two amidships where the galley, dinette, and bath were located. Steve had agreed to drive the Brant car to Spindrift on his next trip to New York. The houseboat, with the full clan aboard, would travel leisurely back to the home island. Rick was delighted with the arrangements. The Brants--and that included Scotty, who had become one of them after his discharge from the United States Marine Corps--were a close-knit family whose members enjoyed doing things together. Rick considered Jan Miller, Barby's dearest friend, a welcome addition to the party. "Range light ahead," Scotty said. Rick nodded. The light was set atop a black piling. The color meant he would have to pass it to port, then pick up the red beacon at the entrance to the Narrows, passing the red beacon to starboard. This was in accordance with the old sailors' rule: _red right returning_, which means keep red markers and buoys on the starboard, or right, when returning from seaward. It was fun navigating in strange waters. He had never heard of Knapps Narrows a few days before, or of Tilghman Island, where the Narrows were located. Nor had he heard of the Choptank River, which lay just below the island. The houseboat plowed ahead, its twin outboards purring. Its bow, rounded like the front of a toboggan, slapped into a slight swell. Rick passed the range light and headed for the red tower that marked the opening of the Narrows. In a few moments they were in the Narrows, passing lines of docked crab, oyster, and clam boats. There was a bridge ahead, with a gasoline dock in its shadow. Rick gauged wind and current and decided how he would maneuver into place. The current was heavy in the channel, running in the direction in which he was headed. "I'll nose in, and you jump off with a bowline," he directed Scotty. "We'll let the stern swing around with the current. That will leave us facing the way we came, so we won't have to turn when we leave." In a short time the maneuver was completed. Rick edged the rounded nose of the houseboat against the seawall as Scotty stepped ashore carrying the bowline. He snubbed it tightly around a piling and held fast while the ungainly boat swung with the current. Rick stepped to the seawall with the stern line as the craft swung completely around, and the boys made the boat fast. "Now," Scotty said, "let's gas up and eat."