paid him.

There was not much need of an introduction, although Dorothy did call
down from the porch, "Bert that's Hal; Hal that's Bert," to which
announcement the boys called back, "All right, Dorothy. We'll get
along."

"Have you been on the lake yet?" Hal asked, as they started down the
green stretch that bounded the pretty lake on one side, while a strip
of woodland pressed close to the edge across the sheet of water.

"No," Bert answered, "we have had so much coming and going to the
depot since we came down, I couldn't get a chance to look around much.
It's an awfully pretty lake, isn't it?"

"Yes, and it runs in and out for miles," Hal replied. "I have a canoe
down here at our boathouse. Let's take a sail."

The Bingham property, like the Minturn, was on a cliff at the front,
and ran back to the lake, where the little boathouse was situated.
The house was made of cedars, bound together in rustic fashion, and
had comfortable seats inside for ladies to keep out of the sun while
waiting for a sail.

"Father and I built this house," Hal told Bert. "We were waiting so
long for the carpenters, we finally got a man to bring these cedars in
from Oakland. Then we had him cut them, that is, the line of
uprights, and we built the boathouse without any trouble at all. It
was sport to arrange all the little turns and twists, like building a
block house in the nursery."