don't have
a drink I'll drop by the way. I hate to think of drinking that warm
river water; besides, it isn't so easy to get it."

"There's a spring somewhere further along," said Emma Bradford. "If we
can manage to exist till we reach it, we can rest there. We shall be
half starved, too, by the time we get home."

"If we only had something to eat we could sit down by the spring till it
grew cooler, and we'd have a sort of a picnic. Oh, girls, we left all
our fishing tackle in the boat! I never once thought of it."

"Nor I."

"Nor I."

"Perhaps Bill What's-his-name will bring it back when he comes with the
boat. We've made a pretty expensive trip of it, as it is, without
losing our fishing tackle. Think what that four dollars would buy: such
a lot of ice cream and soda water," said Callie.

"Don't mention such things when we are consumed with thirst, and are so
warm," said Emma.

"We may have to pay for the use of the boat, too," said Libbie. "I
suppose we are out at least a dollar apiece, and maybe more. It will
take all my pin money for a month. No more soda water for a while,
unless some one treats me."

"I suppose we ought to be thankful to get home at all," Dimple spoke up.

"Yes, when you consider it in that light, we're let off cheaply enough,"
Callie replied. "Oh, dear, where is that spring?"

"Just beyond that turn," Emma told her. And they toiled on till they
reached the spot where the cold water bubbled out from a pebbly hollow
under an old tree.

"We must cool off before we drink," Libbie warned them. "We'll bathe our
faces and hands, and sit here for a while. We are so overheated we ought
not to drink right away."

"It's very hard not to," said Callie, "but I suppose you are right."

"I am as hungry as I am thirsty," Libbie remarked. "If we only had one
biscuit apiece, it would be something."

They had refreshed themselves with the cool spring water, and were idly
sitting under a tree, when Dimple sprang up, crying, "I see something!"
And she scrambled up the bank to a ledge beyond. "Girls! girls! here are
lots of huckleberries," she called.

"Are you sure?"

"Certain sure. I wish you'd see. Come up." And they clambered up to the
spot to find that she spoke truly: there was a patch of huckleberry
bushes full of fruit. They set to work with a will and bore their feast
down to the spring, near which they seated themselves on a fallen log.

"Did you ever taste anything so good?" said Emma