"We can try it now," suggested Dick.

Getting a good hold, Dick & Co. raised the war canoe to their
several shoulders. They found they could accomplish the feat,
though it wasn't an easy one.

"We'll have to give up that idea," Tom remarked rather mournfully.
"Without a doubt we could carry the canoe to Lake Pleasant, if
we had time enough. But I don't believe we could make five miles
a day with it. So to get the canoe up to Lake Pleasant on our
shoulders, and then back again would take over two weeks."

Dick was unusually thoughtful as the boys strolled from Driggs'
yard up to Main Street. Lake Pleasant was a fine place to visit
in summer. He knew that, for he had been there on one occasion.

On one side of the lake were two hotels, each with roomy recreation
grounds, with piers and plenty of boats. On this same side there
were four or five boarding houses for people of more moderate
means.

Boating was the one great pastime at Lake Pleasant. Indeed, a
canoe club had been started there by young men of means, and the
boathouse stood at the water's edge on the Hotel Pleasant grounds.

Then, too, there may have been another reason for Dick's desire
to go to Lake Pleasant. The following week Dr. and Mrs. Bentley
were going to take charge of a party of Gridley high school girls,
at Lake Pleasant, and Laura and Belle Meade would be of the number.