The words were scarcely out of her mouth when two craft running neck and neck and driven recklessly slipped out from behind a sailboat and drove directly down upon the _Gem_. It seemed impossible that the Outdoor Girls could escape disaster. CHAPTER VI. NEARLY WRECKED The girls did not scream. Perhaps they were too frightened or perhaps it was just natural pluck. They did jump to their feet though as if with some wild thought of leaping overboard. But there they remained, staring with fascinated eyes at the fate that was bearing down upon them. As for Betty, after one breath-taking minute when all the blood in her body seemed to rush to her head, she simply sat there and tried in the second that was given her to think what to do. Almost automatically, she wrenched the wheel around, nearly capsizing the boat with the sudden turn. At almost the same second, as though the thing had been prearranged, the boys in the racing craft swung around in the opposite direction. A slight scraping as the side of the _Gem_ slid along the side of the nearer of the racing craft, and they were safe, with no harm done with the exception of a little paint scraped from the side of the boat. It was a moment before the girls could realize what had happened to them. Then a voice hailed them from the boat alongside. In a glance the girls perceived that the voice belonged to no other than Percy Falconer himself. “Hello,” called Percy, adding boisterously as he recognized the girls: “Well, by all that’s holy, if it isn’t the Outdoor Girls! Thought you never came over to this side of the river.” “We don’t,” Betty answered, the hand that still gripped the wheel shaking nervously now that the danger was over. “And I don’t believe we ever will again, either!” “I say, your teeth are chattering,” cried Percy, looking at Betty in open admiration. In the old days, Percy had tried hard to win favor in Betty’s eyes, but the latter had always treated him with a good-natured indifference not unmixed with contempt that had been very hard for the young dude to bear. During the years he had still admired Betty from afar and hated Allen Washburn for being the “lucky one.” So now he hastened to make the most of what he thought was an opportunity. “Come on over to the Point with me and Derby here,” indicating the young fellow in the other racing craft who had drawn his boat up close to them and was looking on with interest. “We will get you something to steady your nerves a bit. We had a pretty narrow squeak that time, and it’s no wonder it upset you a little.” He was supposedly addressing all the girls, but his eyes were only for Betty. As for her, she suddenly had a startlingly clear mental picture of what her father would think were some one to tell him that his daughter and her chums had been seen at the “Point” with Percy Falconer and a friend of his.