that same morning.

"Stop paddling! Back water! Stop backing!"

With deft movements of his own paddle, Dick swung the canoe in
gently against the float.

Out of the boathouse near by came Bob Hartwell.

"I've been watching you fellows," he called.

"That's fair enough," Dick answered.

"You're doing some better than you did this morning," Hartwell
went on. "You've almost got our stroke."

"Almost?" repeated young Prescott, raising his eyebrows. "Haven't
we improved a good deal on your Preston High School action?"

Bob Hartwell began to laugh.

"You fellows from Gridley are always world beaters, aren't you?"
he demanded good-humoredly. "At first, I thought it was all brag
on your part, and that you fellows were suffering from enlarged
craniums complicated with bragitis. But now I begin to see that
you talk confidently just in order to convince yourselves that
you can't be beaten at anything. And I don't know that it's such
bad 'dope,' either, as the sporting writers put it."

"Let's hear you try some," urged Dick.