"Somehow, I didn't think of that when you came along," he
admitted.

"But don't you really know where the canoe is?"

'Why, it disappeared around that point, just before I saw your
boat. I really ought to get it again, because Mr. Skeels--that's
the name of the man who owns it--isn't it great? I tried to make
up a poem about him as I came down the river, but I couldn't get
any farther than:

There was an old person named Skeels,
Who lived upon lobsters and eels,--

and he did look as if he lived upon lobsters and eels, too. Or
WITH them. Anyhow, he'll be down to Mr. Pike's tomorrow, asking
for the canoe. And my bag, and suit-case, and all my clothes are
in it, too. So I suppose I'll have to find it. Will it go out to
sea?"

"It can't," said the Captain, "not till the tide turns. We'll
overtake it 'fore long,--you see if we don't."

Sure enough, we did overtake it. We had hardly passed the point of
land when Jimmy Toppan, who spent most of his time standing in the
bow, peering ahead like Leif Ericsson discovering Vinland, sang
out that he had sighted the canoe. It had drifted into some eel-
grass, near the shore, and we had no trouble in getting it. Beside
the bags, there were in the canoe some large sheets of paper, torn