llisons. The
latter's canoe, encumbered by water that leaked slightly but steadily
through the rent in the canvas, dragged somewhat and had to be bailed
before they had gone a half mile further.

That afternoon, a boy, barefoot and hatless, stood by the shore at a
point a little way above the Ellison dam, anxiously watching up stream
as far as he could see. That he was intensely excited was evident by the
way he fidgeted about; and once he climbed a birch tree that overhung
the water and gazed away from that perch.

"Hello, Tim," said a voice close by him, suddenly. "What are you looking
for?"

"Oh, hello, Bess," responded Tim Reardon, turning about in surprise.
"How you startled me! I'm watching for the canoes--don't you know about
it? Cracky, but don't I hope Jack'll win."

"Why don't you go out on the logs?" queried the girl. "You can see up
stream farther from there. Come on."

Without waiting for a reply, Bess Thornton darted out across a
treacherous pathway of light cedar and spruce logs that lay, confined
by a log-boom, waiting to be sawed into shingle stuff; for the old mill
occasionally did that work, also, as well as grinding corn. Many of the
logs were not of sufficient size to support even the girl's light
weight, but sank beneath her, wetting her bare feet. She sprang lightly
from one to another, pausing now and then to rest and balance herself on
some larger log that sustained her. Little Tim, equally at home about
the water, followed.

The boom confining this lot of logs was made of larger and longer logs,
chained together at the ends, and extending in a long irregular line
from a point up the shore down toward the dam, to a point just above the
landing place for the canoes. Tim Reardon and Bess Thornton ran along
this boom as far as it extended up stream.

Presently Little Tim gave a yell and nearly pitched head-first into the
stream.

"They're coming! they're coming!" he cried. "Who's ahead? Can you see?"

The next moment he gave an exclamation of dismay. Two canoes shot around
a bend of the stream, one not far behind the other--but the second
canoe, to Little Tim's disappointment, that guided by Jack Harvey. Tom
and Bob had a fair lead, and, by the way they were putting life into
their strokes, seemed likely to maintain it.

"Ow wow," bawled Little Tim. "Come on, Jack! Come on, Henry! You can
beat 'em yet. Give it to 'em!"

Bess Thornton, catching the enthusiasm and spirit of her companio