"Wait till you see that old cabin, that's what!" called out another, in a mysterious way that somehow caused Bandy-legs to look uneasy, Max thought.
He knew that if there was going to be a weak link in the chain it would lie in that quarter; for the short chum had a few silly notions concerning certain things, and was not wholly free from a belief in supernatural happenings. But with the backing of four sturdy chums, Bandy-legs ought to brace up, and show himself a true boy of nerve.
"Look at that Shack Beggs making faces after us!" remarked Steve, who, as usual, threatened to take the lead in the push up the Evergreen current.
"I noticed him hangin' around all the time," added Bandy-legs; "and every now and then he'd seem to grin, and shake hands with himself, like he felt nearly too good to keep the thing quiet. Whatever ails him, d'ye think, Max?"
"Well, as I never stood for a mind reader, I can't tell you," was the reply of the one addressed; "but as we know he belongs to that Ted Shafter crowd, it's easy to understand that he just believes something terrible is going to happen to us up on Catamount Island."
"Oh! I hope he's barking up the wrong tree, then!" exclaimed Bandy-legs.
"Just what he's doing, take my word for it," Owen put in, from the stern of the big war canoe, which he and Toby were urging against the flowing current with lusty strokes, and evident keen enjoyment.
"How does it go?" asked Max, who was in a sixteen-foot canvas canoe like the one Steve handled so dexterously; while Bandy-legs, fearing to trust to anything so frail, had insisted on getting one of the older type lapstreak cedar boats, that were so marvelously beautiful in his eyes.
"Fine as silk!" announced Steve, from up ahead.
"Ditto here!" echoed Toby, and Owen added his words of praise.
"It seems like bully good fun!" declared Bandy-legs, who was puffing a little, his boat being somewhat more weighty than the other two single canoes, and who consequently was
Prev.
Back
Top