CHAPTER IV

UP THE RIVER


"Are you all ready?" called Rand, who was stroke. "Pull!"

The boys bent to their work in earnest, and but few words were
spoken while they sent the boat along, mile after mile, until they
had gone some half dozen miles up the river.

"Phew!" exclaimed Pepper at length, "what is the matter with stopping
here?"

"Tired?" asked Donald.

"Well, I feel as if I had been doing something," replied Pepper,
resting on his oar.

"I suppose there isn't much choice in the matter," remarked Rand;
"one place is probably as good as another."

"Only some of them are better," put in Jack.

"And this is one of them," asserted Pepper, "and there is a nice
green place over there on the shore where we can put in and cook
some fish for dinner."

"If we have any to cook," suggested Donald. "You know you have
first to catch your fish before you can cook them."