by very quickly, and yet it was three weeks yesterday since we started."

"I hate to think that the cruise is nearly over," remarked Clay, "but
all the same it will be nice to get home again."

Ned laughed as he folded up the map and put it in his pocket.

"I know just how you feel," he said. "It will be very nice to sleep in a
soft bed, and eat off a table again, and sit out on the boathouse porch
in the evenings; but about a week after you get home you'll wish with
all your heart you were back on the creek with the grass for a bed and a
rock for a table. Canoeing is like ice cream--when you once taste it
you are always wanting more. It reminds me of what I read about a famous
African explorer. He was always glad to get back to civilization for a
little while, and then he was more anxious than ever to return to his
wild life. It seemed as though he couldn't breathe right anywhere but in
Africa."

"I hope canoeing _is_ like that," said Randy. "Then we will make lots
more trips together. I feel just as you do about it, Ned. I don't like
to see the cruise end, but it will be very nice in some ways to get
home. Won't the other boys be envious when they see how sunburnt we are,
and hear all about the exciting adventures we have had?"

"When will we reach the end of the creek?" asked Nugget with a rapturous
expression. "Monday?"

"Hardly," replied Ned. "It will take longer than that. But why are you
so anxious to get home, Nugget?"

"He wants to put on a suit of cream colored clothes," exclaimed Clay
with mock gravity, "and a boiled shirt and high collar. He is longing to
encase his lily white hands in kid gloves, and his dainty feet in patent
leathers."

As Nugget blushed an angry red, and made no reply, it is to be presumed
that Clay's remark contained more truth than fiction.

"You fellows are all counting your chickens too soon," said Ned. "A good
many miles separate us from home, and as likely as not there are more
rough times in store for us."

Lightly spoken and lightly meant were these words, but Ned recalled them
under thrilling circumstances a day or two later.

All day Sunday the creek continued to rise slowly until it was just a
foot from the top of the bank. It was stationary at nine o'clock in the
evening, and when it began to fall two hours later the boys turned in,
satisfied that the danger was over.

The water receded a foot and a half during the night, but when Monday
morning dawned with a cle