ANOE SLOWLY TURN AND FACE THE SWIFT
CURRENT"

"HE SEPARATED THE LINE INTO TWO COILS, WHIRLED ONE ABOUT HIS HEAD AND
THREW IT FAR OUT"

THE RIVAL CAMPERS ASHORE

CHAPTER I

AN INLAND VOYAGE

The morning train from Benton, rumbling and puffing along its way
through outlying farmland, and sending its billows of smoke like sea
rollers across the pastures, drew up, ten miles from the city, at a
little station that overlooked a pond, lying clear and sparkling at the
base of some low, wooded hills. An old-fashioned, weather-beaten house,
adjacent the station, and displaying a sign-board bearing the one word,
"Spencer's," indicated that Spencer, whoever he might prove to be, would
probably extend the hospitality of his place to travellers. Here and
there, widely scattered across the fields, were a few farmhouses.

The locomotive, having announced its approach by a mingled clanging and
whistling that sent startled cattle galloping for the shelter of the
thickets, came to a dead stop at the station; but, as though to show
its realization of the insignificance of Spencer's, continued to snort
and throb impatiently. Certain important-appearing trainmen, with
sleeves rolled to the elbows, hastily throwing open the door of the
baggage-car, seemed to take the hint.

Presently a trunk, turning a summersault through the air, landed,
somewhat damaged, on the platform. A few boxes and packages followed
likewise, similarly ejected. Then, through the open doorway, there
appeared the shapely, graceful bow of a canoe. Whatever treatment this
might have received, left to the tender mercies of the trainmen, can
only be imagined; for at this moment two youths, who had descended from
one of the passenger coaches, came running along the platform.

"Hold on, there," said the larger of the two, addressing a man who stood
with arms upreached to catch the end of the canoe, "let me get hold with
you. We don't want to be wrecked before we start,--eh, Henry?"

"Hope not," responded his companion, quietly taking the bow of the
canoe, which the larger youth relinquished to him, while the latter
stepped to the car door and put a stalwart shoulder and arm under the
stern, passed to him by a man inside.

Together, the two boys deposited their craft gently on a patch of grass
near-by; the locomotive puffed away from Spencer's, dragging its train;
the station agent resumed his interrupted pipe. Soon the only sounds
that broke the stil