e real work of the day had just begun.

Knowing they were really on the right course, however, cheered them.

"Say," cried Harvey, in a sudden burst of enthusiasm, "we'll not stop at
Benton, at all, perhaps; just keep on paddling down Mill Stream past the
city, down into Samoset river, into the bay, and out to Grand Island.
Make a week of it."

But even as he spoke, a big rain drop splashed on his cheek, and another
storm burst over them. Down it came in torrents; a summer rainfall to
delight the heart of a farmer with growing crops; a shower that fairly
bent the grass in the fields with its weight; that made a tiny lake in
the bottom of the canoe, flooded back around Harvey's knees in the
stern, and which trickled copiously down the backs of the two boys
underneath their sweaters.

"What was you saying about Grand Island, Jack?" inquired Henry Burns,
slyly.

"Grand Island be hanged!" said Harvey. "When I start for there, I'll go
in a boat that's got a cabin. I guess Benton will do for us."

They looked about for shelter, but there were woods now on both sides of
the stream, and through them they could get no glimpse of any farmhouse.

"Well, I wouldn't go into one if I saw it, now!" exclaimed Harvey. "I
can't get any wetter. Pretty soon we'll begin to like it. I'll catch a
fish, anyway. This rain will make 'em bite."

He unwound a line from a reel, attached a spoon-hook, cast it over and
began to troll astern, far in the wake of the canoe. It was, in truth,
an ideal day for fishing, and the first clump of lily pads they passed
yielded them a big pickerel. He came in fighting and tumbling, making
the worst of his struggle--after the manner of pickerel--when he was
fairly aboard. Once free of the hook, he dropped down into the puddle in
the canoe and lashed the water with his tail so that it spattered in
Jack Harvey's face worse than the rain. Harvey despatched the fish with
a few blows of his paddle.

"Guess I won't catch another," he said shortly. "I can't stand a shower
coming both ways at once."

Henry Burns chuckled quietly to himself. "Let's empty her out," he
suggested.

They ran the canoe ashore, took hold at either end, inverted the craft
and let the water drain out. Then they went on again. It was a fair and
pretty country through which the stream threaded its way, with countless
windings and twistings; but the rain dimmed and faded its beauties now.
They thought only of making progress. Yet the ra