The High School Boys in Summer Camp | Page 9

sure that I thought of that," Prescott answered. "I don't want to defraud any man. But birch bark suitable for canoes is getting to be a thing of the past in this country. Our friend, Hiram Driggs, the boat builder, told me that a birch bark canoe, nowadays, is simply worth all one can get for it. But, after Mr. Eades had written the check and handed it to me, he said: 'Now, the trade is made and closed, Prescott, what do you really consider the canoe worth?' I answered him a good deal as I've answered you, and offered to return the check if Mr. Eades wasn't satisfied. Fellows, for just a moment or two my heart was in my mouth for fear he'd take me up and ask for the return of his check. But Mr. Eades merely smiled, and said he was satisfied if I was."
"I'll bet he'd have gone to a two hundred dollar price," declared Hazelton. "Dick, weren't you sorry, afterwards, that you didn't hold out flat for two hundred dollars?"
"Not I," young Prescott answered promptly. "If I had been too greedy I'd have deserved to lose altogether, and very likely I would have lost. Fellows, I think we can be well satisfied with the price we've obtained."
"I am!" declared Dave Darrin promptly. "We've realized a hundred dollars above my wildest dream."
Incidentally it may be mentioned that Mr. Eades found, from his friends, that he had a prize, indeed, in the fine old war canoe. The grounds committee of another country club offered two hundred and fifty for that same canoe a month later.
"Now, fellows," Dick went on, "suppose we leave here and decide how we're to lay out this money for our summer camp?"
The vote was carried instantly. With a whoop of glee the chums started for Dave's house.

CHAPTER III
THE HUMAN MYSTERY OF THE WOODS
"Now, get to work!" shouted Dick Prescott. "Destruction to all shirkers!"
"Please may I beg off for five minutes?" begged Danny Grin, raising one hand.
"Why?" queried Prescott sharply.
"I want to take that much time to convince myself that it's all true," replied Danny.
"You'll know that it's all true when you wake up to-morrow morning," laughed Dick. "But it won't look half as real if any fellow shirks any part of his work now. All ready, fellows?"
"Ready!" came the chorus.
"Tom Reade will make the best foreman, won't he?" appealed Prescott. "Tom has a knack for just such jobs as this, and it's going to be a tough one."
The boys stood in the middle of a half acre clearing in the deep woods, five miles past the town of Porter. Here the woods extended for miles in every direction. As these young campers glanced about them it seemed as though they possessed a wealth of camping material---far more than they had ever dreamed of owning.
The tent, twelve feet by twenty, and eleven feet high at the ridgepole, with six-foot walls, was their greatest single treasure. It had cost thirty-five dollars, and had been bought from the nearest large city.
"We'll get the tent up first," called Reade.
"Of course," smiled Dave. "That's all you're boss of anyway, Tom."
"Come on, then, and spread the canvas out," Tom ordered. "Bring it over this way. We want it under the trees at the edge of the clearing. Dan, you bring the longest poles."
Under Tom's further direction the canvas was spread just where he wanted it. Then the ridge-pole was secured in place across the tops of the highest two standing poles.
"Run it in under the canvas," Tom directed. "We'll get the metal tips of the poles through the proper roof holes in the canvas. There, that's right. Dick, you and Greg stand by that long pole; Dave, you and Dan by the other. Now, then---raise her!"
Up off the ground went the two uprights and the ridge-pole, the canvas hanging shapelessly from the ridge-pole.
"Bring that wooden sledge over here, Harry," was Foreman Reade's next order. "Now, drive in this stake while I hold it. Remember to hit the stake, not my hands."
The stake being soon driven into place Reade slipped the loop of a guy-rope around it, partly tightening the rope. Then he slipped to the next corner, where the process was repeated.
"Hurrah!" burst from Danny Grin, as the fourth corner stake was driven, and now the tent began to take shape.
"You fellows holding the poles may let go of them now," called Tom. "Come and help with the other stakes and guy-ropes."
As soon as the ropes along a given side of the tent had been made fast the side wall poles were stepped into place. At last the task of tent-raising was completed, save for the final tightening of all the ropes. Now Dick and Dave, under their foreman's orders, began to drive the shorter stakes that held