anything. I wished it was me instead of Artie, I know that. I ought to
have been satisfied to escape without getting the Ravens to do that--I
mean send that message for me. Anyway, I made up my mind I'd be the one
to tell Mr. Ellsworth about it, and Artie's people too, and I'd take all
the blame.

I guess nobody said anything more all the way up, until we came near the
Field Club landing. The shore is like low cliffs here and after we got
her over against it, a couple of the fellows got out and towed her along
with ropes, till we came to the long float.

"Are we going to tie her at the float?" Connie Bennett asked, very sober
like. Gee, it sounded funny to hear someone speak. Doc Carson said,
"Yes." He was kind of like head of the three patrols now, because he
has the most sense of all of us, I guess, and Tom Slade, who is head
of the Elks, is away and I decided, all of a sudden, that I wasn't much
of a patrol leader, and Artie--he was--he wasn't there.

"Look out for that canoe," somebody said, just as we were coming
alongside the float. "They shouldn't have left it there," Connie said;
"that's no place for a canoe." I guess we were all kind of nervous and
cranky like. Then I saw that there was a black figure sitting on the
lowest step of the boathouse. I was just going to call "Who's there?"
when Doc said, "Pull that canoe out of the way before we smash it in."

So I jumped off onto the float and grabbed the canoe, and g-o-o-d night!
it was my Indian dugout.