The Rival Campers Ashore

rom the city, at a little station that overlooked a pond, lying clear and sparkling at the base of some low, wooded hills. An old-fashioned, weather-beaten house, adjacent the station,

cattered across the fiel

came to a dead stop at the station; but, as though to show its realization of the insignificance of Spencer's, continued to snort and throb impatient

cted. Then, through the open doorway, there appeared the shapely, graceful bow of a canoe. Whatever treatment this might have received, left to the tender mer

ood with arms upreached to catch the end of the canoe, "let me get ho

the larger youth relinquished to him, while the latter stepped to the car door a

the station agent resumed his interrupted pipe. Soon the only sounds that broke the stillness of the place were the clickings of a single tele

me great patches of cloud that flecked the sky. All about them, as far as eye could discern, stretched the c

ming down along past Spencer's, invitingly from the fields and hills. It was the principa

say?" said the larger boy.

"I feel like paddling a mile a minut

-when the station agent, welcoming even this trifling

yours," he remarked, eying it

ams to Benton," replied the elder boy. "

a long jaunt, though-twenty-five or thirty mi

think it was quite so far as that, though. How far do y

s-ask Spencer. He know

with a jack-knife and a shingle, "allowed" the distance to be a matt

mpanion, laughing. "Tom and Bob said 'twas a mile. Probably everyone we'd ask wou

rasses to the stream. The buoyant craft rested lightly on its surface; they stepped aboard, Henry Burns in the bo

ome in foggy, and the mist was slow in burning off from the hills. Often, at intervals, it hung over the water like a thin curtain. But the mystery

en, as they approached, an abrupt swerving of the stream one way or the other, opened up the course anew f

ide his paddle for a moment and peeling off a somewhat dingy sw

raced, steadily, once more; when he, too, laid his paddle across the gunwales and stripped for the work. "I don't just like the looks of t

he port bow. Never mind the cow? All right, on we go. If it rains hard, we'll run ashore and hunt for a b

ain in to Benton till night. Fancy spending the day at Spencer

haps either Tom Harris or Bob White, of whom Henry Burns had spoken, might have wielded the paddles with a bit more of skill, have kept the course a little straighter, or skimmed the turns a trifle more close; but neith

hose muscles, while not so pronounced, played quickly and easily; and whose whole m

only with practice, they would have perceived more clearly the speed with which they were trave

gth. "I haven't seen anything that looked like the land-arks

ed them at least three-quarters of a mile back. But there wasn't an

hit it up a little harder; b

kipper," sai

ompact, heavy cloud wheeled directly overhead and poured its contents upon them, while, afar off, the field

le; "it's only a cloud-bank that's caught us. We'll wo

the stream they were following divided into two forks; the one at the right coming down from higher land, broken in its course, as far as they could see,

e the brook, to the right, and the other doesn't look as though it led anywhe

"It's rainy-day luck. We've got to go up to that

use for more than half a

going up through the grove," said Henry Burns. "We'll

bank, slumped into the ooze, pulled the

see it now. There was a tiny bit of a cove, a lot of rushes growing there, and two houses back about a quarter o

by this time,"

re we," said Henry

and brake, almost waist high. These, dripping with rain, drenched them as they pushed their way through. Some fifteen minutes of

Harvey. "We're in for it, thou

is time, and it was still raining. But they came up to the house soon, and, the big barn door standing open

Well, I guess it's only a shower. What's that? The brook

oked at each other helple

t's almost a joke

" replied Henry Burns. "Guess we won't tell much about this part of the trip to

ow if every drop of rain was as big as a base-ball. I'll

aid Henry Bu