ompanion, Jack Harvey, in the stern, dipped their
paddles joyously together, and went swiftly on their way.

It was about half-past seven o'clock of a June morning. The sun was
lightening the landscape, yet it was by no means clear. The day had, in
fact, come in foggy, and the mist was slow in burning off from the
hills. Often, at intervals, it hung over the water like a thin curtain.
But the mystery of an unknown stream, hidden by the banks along which it
wound deviously, with many a sharp twist and turn, tempted them ever to
vigorous exertion.

Just a little way ahead, and it seemed as though the narrow stream were
ending against a bank of green. Then, as they approached, an abrupt
swerving of the stream one way or the other, opened up the course anew
for them. This was a matter of constant repetition. Theirs were the
delights, without danger, of exploration.

"Warming up a bit, isn't it, Jack?" said Henry Burns, laying aside his
paddle for a moment and peeling off a somewhat dingy sweater. "I'm not
so sure about getting the sun for long, though."

"Nor I," replied his companion, driving the canoe swiftly with his
single paddle till the other had freed himself of his garment and was
braced, steadily, once more; when he, too, laid his paddle across the
gunwales and stripped for the work. "I don't just like the looks of
those clouds. If we were in the old Viking now, I'd say put on all sail
and make for harbour; for it looks like rain by and by, but no wind."

"Well, this is all one big harbour from here to Benton," laughed Henry
Burns. "Avast, I sight a cow off the port bow. Never mind the cow? All
right, on we go. If it rains hard, we'll run ashore and hunt for a barn.
Wouldn't Tom Harris and Bob White laugh to see us poking back by train,
instead of making the trip?"

"Oh, we won't turn back," said Harvey. "Besides, there's no train in to
Benton till night. Fancy spending the day at Spencer's station! It's
through the streams for us now, rain or shine."

As though to demonstrate more fully his determination, Harvey dipped
with a sharper, quicker stroke, put the strength of two muscular arms
into his work, and they sped quickly past the turns of their winding
course. Perhaps either Tom Harris or Bob White, of whom Henry Burns had
spoken, might have wielded the paddles with a bit more of skill, have
kept the course a little straighter, or skimmed the turns a trifle more
close; but neither could have put more of