"What is?" Dave inquired.

"Debt---and its consequences."

"My father has a horror of debt," Tom announced.

"Well, I guess the black side of debt shows only when one doesn't
intend to make an effort to pay it," Dick suggested. "The whole
business world, so we were taught at high school, rests on a foundation
of debt. The man who doesn't contract debts bigger than he can
pay, won't find much horror in owing money. We owe Hiram Driggs
twenty dollars, or rather we're going to owe it. But the bark
we're going to take in to him to-day is going to pay a part of
that debt. A few days more of tramping, blistered hands and aching
backs, and we'll be well out of debt and have the rest of the
summer for that great old canoe!"

"Let's make an early start with the bark," proposed Tom. "I want
to see if the stuff feels as heavy as it did late yesterday afternoon."

"Humph! My load doesn't seem to weigh more than seven ounces,"
Darrin declared, as he shouldered one of the piles of bark.

"Lighter than air this morning," quoth Tom, "and only a short
haul at that."

When Hiram Driggs reached his boatyard at eight o'clock he found
Dick & Co. waiting for him.

"Well, well, well, boys!" Mr. Driggs called cheerily. "So you