So the helmsman waited, grumbling quietly to himself.

Some twenty of the high school girls had chartered the launch
for a morning ride up the river. Dainty enough the girls looked
in their cool summer finery. They formed a bright picture as
they stood grouped about Dick & Co. and the other male members
of the party.

"You fellows can say all you want to," mumbled Dan, "but the canoe
is gone for good and all! We won't have any more fun in it this
summer."

"Was that what ailed you, Dan?" teased Darrin. "You felt so badly
over the loss of the canoe that you tried to stay on the bottom
of the river with it?"

"My foot was caught, and I couldn't get it loose," Dan explained.
"I was trying to free myself, like mad, you may be sure, when
all at once I didn't know anything more. You fellows must have
had a job prying my foot loose."

"It was something of a job," Dick smiled, "especially as our time
was so limited down there at the bottom with you. The river
must be twenty feet deep at that point."

"All of that," affirmed Hiram Driggs.

By this time the high school girls had divided into little groups,
each group with a member of Dick & Co. all to itself. The girls
were engaging in that rather senseless though altogether charming