They were off at nine o’clock the next morning, Jeffrey and Poke in one canoe and Jim and Gil and Hope in another. The basket of luncheon reposed between Jeffrey and Poke, the latter declaring that it was needed as ballast. Their canoe was not a very good one and was the smaller of the two, and Poke had only secured it, from two juniors who were in possession of it when he arrived at the boat-house, by his moving eloquence. It was a fine autumn morning, warm and sunny, and it seemed that the whole school had elected to spend the forenoon on the river. For the first quarter of a mile the stream was alive with canoes and skiffs. Then the throng dwindled and soon the voyagers had the river to themselves.

Poke was making hard work of paddling, although all that Jeffrey required of him was “push,” as he put it. “Just stick your blade in, Poke, and push it back. I’ll look after the steering.”

“That’s all very well,” answered Poke, “but I keep skinning my knuckles on the side of the canoe.”

“Then put your left hand higher up on the paddle,” Jeffrey laughed. “And when you get tired, change over to the other side.”

“I’m not comfortable,” Poke grumbled presently. “This thing you call a seat is as hard as a rock. Why don’t they have cushions in canoes?”

“Some do,” Jeffrey replied. “When I get mine I’ll have a cushion especially for you, Poke, with your initials on it.”

“Just as long as you don’t ask me to sit on it, all right. I say, Gil, how are you getting on?”

“Pretty well, thank you. How are you?”

“Oh, fine! I guess I’m doing most of the work from the feeling of my arms. Say, wouldn’t it be great if the silly old river would run the other way for awhile?”

“I wish there was another paddle,” said Hope disconsolately. “I could help if there were.”

“You’d upset the canoe if you tried to paddle from the middle,” said Jim. “How much further is it, Gil?”

“About a mile, I guess. Getting tired?”

“N-no; a little. It surely gets your muscles, doesn’t it?”

“It surely does!” agreed Gil. “It’s getting muscles I didn’t know I had!”

“Keep farther away,” warned Poke. “I need lots of room when I paddle, and you make me nervous when you come so close. Get out or I’ll splash you, Gil!”

“Don’t you try it, son! And for goodness’ sake don’t wriggle around so in your seat. If you upset we’ll lose the luncheon. I knew we oughtn’t to have let you take it.”

“Isn’t it most time for luncheon now?” asked Poke. “We might just rest a while and have a sandwich, eh?”

“Get out! It isn’t ten o’clock yet,” Gil jeered.

“Isn’t it?” asked his chum pathetically. “My arms feel as though it was twelve!”

“Rest awhile,” said Jeffrey from the stern. “I can work it alone here. The current isn’t so hard now.”

“No, I’ll keep at it until I fall in a swoon,” answered Poke. “One arm’s numb clear to the elbow now and doesn’t hurt so much. I dare say I’ll soon be beyond all pain.”

“Let’s paddle in to the bank,” Jim suggested, “and take a rest. I’m just about all in, fellows.”

So they turned the canoes to where the branches of the trees overhung a little stretch of pebbly beach and ran the bows of the craft ashore. Poke laid his dripping paddle across his knees, murmured “Good night!” and apparently sank into slumber. They were all, excepting Jeffrey and Hope, glad of the respite, for paddling against the current, even for those accustomed to it, is no light task. Hope wanted to get out and “explore,” but her brother hard-heartedly commanded her to sit still and not overturn the canoe.

“Isn’t the river perfectly beautiful!” she exclaimed.

There was a deep sigh from Poke. “It is indeed paradise,” he murmured. Presently he raised his head and looked about him, passing a hand across his damp forehead. “Where am I?” he asked dazedly. “Ah, I remember all! I thought ’twas but a dream!”

“Well, suppose we dream some more,” laughed Jeffrey. “After we get to Riverbend we can rest as long as we want to. You fellows ready?”

“Yes, come on,” answered Jim. “Push her off, Gil.”

“Aren’t we going to have our luncheon now?” asked Poke in injured surprise. “Only the thought of food has kept me alive thus far. Let’s every one have a sandwich, fellows, just one miserable little sandwich.”

“Oh, come on, Poke,” said Gil. “Get a move on. Jeff wants to buy his canoe some time to-day.”

“Well, just a half a sandwich,” pleaded Poke. “Honest to goodness, fellows, I’m faint with hunger and fatigue.”

“Shall I give him one?” asked Jeffrey laughingly.

“Not a bite!” replied Gil. “He wouldn’t do another stroke of work if you fed him now. All he wants to do after he has eaten is lie down and go to sleep.”

“Gee, I want to do that now!” ejaculated Poke, raising his paddle wearily and pushing the bow of the canoe from the sand. “When I fall in a dead faint in the bottom of the canoe you fellows will be sorry you treated me so meanly. Jeff, will you push the basket this way a little farther, please? I just want a smell of it to encourage me!”

A half-mile farther up the stream they began to encounter other crafts. Riverbend was a veritable canoeing center and on fair days, and especially on Saturdays and holidays, hundreds of persons were to be found on the river thereabouts. As early as it was, the stream was pretty well populated as they drew near their destination. There were red canoes and blue canoes and white canoes and green canoes, and canoes of half a dozen other colors or tints. Many of them were really luxurious, with mahogany seats and embroidered cushions, while one craft that they passed, occupied by a man and a woman, was floating lazily down the stream with a graphophone playing in the bow. That was too much for Poke. He stopped paddling and stared at it most impolitely with open mouth. Finally he shook his head.

“It’s no use,” he said discouragedly. “I can’t do any more. My mind is wandering. I’m seeing things and hearing music!”

“Well, we’re just about there, I guess,” laughed Jeffrey. “There’s a boat-house ahead of us now, although I don’t know that it’s the one we want.”

“I will essay a few more faltering strokes then,” replied Poke. “Shall you have one of those music affairs in your canoe, Jeff, or are you going to have a church organ?”

“A music box, I guess. There’s our place, Poke; see the sign?”

Poke shook his head. “I see nothing clearly,” he muttered. “All is a blur before me.”

“There’s Sandford’s,” called Gil from the other canoe which had drawn ahead. “Shall we go over there now?”

“Yes, let’s look at his canoes first. Then we’ll have something to eat, eh?”

“Eat!” shouted Poke. “Who said eat? Do my ears deceive me?”

“Back water!” commanded Jeffrey. “That was a narrow squeak, Poke.” A pea-green canoe crossed their bow, while the single occupant of it asked them scathingly if they were blind. It required some care to cross the river, which here widened into a very respectable basin, without scraping somebody’s paint, but it was at last accomplished and the two canoes sidled up to a long sloping float which presented a very busy scene. Canoes were being brought from their racks in the big shed and placed in the water, and dozens of persons were embarking or awaiting their turns. Paddles and cushions and lunch-boxes littered the float. Through the open doors of the boat-house canoe after canoe could be seen housed on racks in the dim interior.

“Great Scott!” exclaimed Jim. “I didn’t know there were so many canoes in the world!”

They pulled their own craft onto the float and looked about them. Across the basin was another boat-house bearing the name of a rival maker. Near at hand a high bridge spanned the river. Beyond it the stream turned to the left and still more boat-houses showed through the leafless trees that lined the banks.

“It’s just too—too jimmy for words!” cried Hope. “It must be perfectly stunning up here in summer, mustn’t it? Jim, will you bring me up here sometime and paddle me around?”

“We’ll all come up and make a day of it next spring,” said Gil. “It’s really very jolly in warm weather, when the leaves are out, you know, and the birds are singing—”

“Listen to him!” hooted Poke. “Listen to old Gil rhapsodizing! ‘Trees and birds’! Say, Gil, what you need is a bite to eat.”

“Let’s get busy, then,” said Jeffrey. “I wonder where the office is.”

“At the other end,” said Poke. “I’ll show you. Only—” He stopped and viewed the luncheon basket thoughtfully. “Only,” he went on, “I don’t want to take any chances about losing that grub. Shall we take it with us?”

“Oh, come ahead; no one’s going to steal it,” said Gil. “Besides, if they do we can buy luncheon here. There are two or three places up there towards the station.”

“That’s so,” responded Poke in relieved tones. “Come on, then.”

Buying a canoe was not as easy as it had seemed. Not that there was any scarcity of the articles, however. That was just where the difficulty lay. There were so many of them, new and second hand, of all colors and sizes, that it took a lot of deciding. Poke had been very nearly right as to prices. In the end, after fully a half hour of viewing and discussing, Jeffrey made his decision. The canoe he selected was sixteen feet long, with a white cedar body and red cedar trim. It was painted crimson and the varnish shone until the boys could almost see their faces in it. It had been difficult at the last to choose between crimson and blue in the matter of color, for the blue was a most enticing shade. But Gil reminded Jeffrey that crimson and gray were the school colors and patriotism cast the deciding vote. Then came the extras; paddles, seat-backs and cushions. Jeffrey tried a half-dozen paddles at the edge of the float before he decided on the model he liked best and ordered two. One seat-back was all he wanted, and that was only in case Hope should honor the canoe with her presence. Three cork cushions completed his purchases and almost exhausted the fifty dollars that he had brought with him. (The canoe was thirty-seven dollars and a half.) Then came the subject of having a name printed on the bow, and Jeffrey was nonplussed.

“I think that would be nice, don’t you?” he asked the others. They agreed that it would and immediately suggested names. But none of them seemed to please Jeffrey and finally he told the man that they would think it over and let him know about it in an hour or so.

“I suppose, though,” he said with a trace of disappointment in his voice, “I’d have to wait for it if you painted the name on.”

The man replied that it would require several days to perform the work and dry the paint.

“That means that I’ll have to come up again and get it, then.”

“Oh, no, sir. We’ll deliver it for you at the school. Just take it down with our launch.”

“Well, then I guess I’ll have a name on it,” replied Jeffrey. “And I’ll let you know in about an hour.”

So they left matters that way and went back to their canoes for the luncheon basket. With this in hand they started out to find a suitable place to eat and at last succeeded, discovering a sunny nook a little way down the river where a row of willows shut them off from the observation of the people in the passing canoes. Mrs. Hazard had provided liberally. There were sandwiches galore, tongue, ham and lettuce; a thermos bottle filled with coffee that was as hot when Hope poured it into the drinking cups as when it had been put into the bottle; another thermos filled with milk; a dozen hard-boiled eggs; much cake and some bananas. Poke heaved a sigh of contentment as Hope and Jim spread the contents of the basket out on two napkins.

“Great!” he said. “There’s as much as I can eat there. I wonder, though, what the rest of you are going to do.”

“We’ll show you in a minute,” said Gil. “All gather around, ladies and gentlemen. Who wants milk and who wants coffee?”

“I,” said Poke promptly.

“Well, which?”

“Both, please.”

“You’ll not get both. Which do you want, Hope?”

“Milk, please. Have a sandwich, Poke?”

“A sandwich?” murmured Poke, helping himself liberally after determining the kind he wanted. “Why put the ‘a’ in?”

“Now,” said Jeffrey presently, when the first pangs of hunger had been assuaged, “let’s talk about a name for the canoe, fellows.”

“Mayn’t I help too?” asked Hope.

“Why, of course; I want you to!”

“You said ‘fellows,’ and I didn’t know.”

“Excuse me,” Jeffrey laughed, “I should have said ‘Lady and fellows.’ I tell you how we’ll do it. We’ll start and go around the circle in turn. You’re first, Jim. What do you say?”