"Then I don't see but that we're just as badly off as ever," sighed
Greg. "We're out eighteen dollars and the fine canoe that we
expected would provide us with so much fun."

"The paddles look all right, anyway," spoke up Harry Hazelton,
lifting one out of the canoe and looking it over critically.

"Oh, yes, the paddles are all right, and the river is close at
hand," spoke Dave Darrin vengefully. "All we need is a canoe
that will float."

"If it were a cedar canoe we might patch it easily enough," Prescott
declared. "But I've heard that there is so much 'science' to
making or mending a birch bark canoe that an amateur always makes
the job worse."

"Haw, haw, haw!" came boisterously from Fred Ripley. He and Mr.
Dodge were now standing before the table of the auctioneer's clerk.
Fred was paying down the remaining twenty-six dollars on the
price he had bid for the handsome chestnut pony.

"Yes, you're laughing at us, you contemptible Rip!" scowled Dave,
though he spoke under his breath. "You can afford to lose money,
for you always know where to get more. You knew this canoe was
worthless, and you deliberately bid it up on us---you scoundrel!"

"Shall we make Colonel Grundy a present of this canoe?" suggested
Danny Grin dolefully.

"The poor old man hasn't money enough to get the canoe away from