journeying for an hour and a half on the train. Arriving at Porter
the boys had eaten luncheons brought along with them. Then they
had hunted up a farmer, had bargained with him to haul their stuff
and then had tramped out to their camping place.

But the camp looked as though bound to prove a success. It was
their camp, anyway, and they were happy.

"I'm glad enough of one thing," murmured Dick as he rested, mopping
his brow.

"I'm glad of several things I can think of," rejoined Darry.

"The thing I refer to," chuckled Prescott, "is Fred Ripley."

"It never occurred to me to feel glad about Ripley," muttered
Tom dryly.

"I mean, I'm glad that he has gone to Canada with his father this
summer," Dick continued. "We shan't have a lot of things happening
all the time, as we did last summer. Rip was a hoodoo to us last
summer. This year we know that he's too far away to be troublesome."

"It will seem a bit strange, at first," assented Reade, "to return
to our camp and not discover that, while we were away, Rip had
been along and slashed the tent to ribbons, or committed some
other atrocious act."

"Let's not crow until we're out of the woods," suggested Darrin.
"Rip might come back from Canada, you know."