e opener
driven through the top of the peach tin, paused to watch them. They
shoved and pulled vainly. The boat remained where she was. Frank began
to hope that they, too, might have to wait for the rising tide. They sat
down on a large stone and consulted together. Then they took everything
out of the boat and tried pushing and pulling her again. Her weight was
still too great for them. They moved her forward in short jerks, but
each time they moved her the keel at her stern buried itself deeper
in the soft mud. They sat down, evidently somewhat exhausted, and had
another consultation. Then the man got the oars and laid them out as
rollers. He lifted the boat's stern on to the first of them.

"I thought," said Priscilla, "that they'd hit on that dodge sooner or
later. Now they'll get on a bit. Go on scalping the peach tin, Cousin
Frank."

The peaches had been cut in half by the kindly Californian who preserved
them and a half peach fits, with a little squeezing, into any mouth of
ordinary size. Priscilla and Frank fished them out with their fingers
and ate them. Some juice, but considering the circumstances very little,
dripped down the front of Frank's white flannel coat, the glorious
crimson bound coat of the first eleven. He did not care in the least. He
had lapsed hopelessly. No urchin in the lower school, brewing cocoa
over a form room fire, ladling out condensed milk with the blade of a
penknife, would have been more dead to the decencies of life than this
degenerate hero of the lower sixth.

"They're getting the boat down," said Priscilla, swallowing a lump of
peach. "Do you think that you could throw stones far enough to hit them
when they get out into the channel? I'd grub up the stones for you. We
might frighten them back that way."

Frank had won second prize in the sports at the end of the Easter term
for throwing the cricket ball. He looked across the stretch of water and
judged the distance carefully.

"No," he said, regretfully, "I couldn't."

"That's a pity," said Priscilla, "for I can't, either. I never could shy
worth tuppence. Curious, isn't it? Hardly any girls can."

The spies had got old Flanagan's boat down to the water's edge.
They went back to the place where she had lain first. By a series of
laborious portages they got all their goods down to the beach and packed
them into the boat.

"They're off now," said Frank, regretfully.

"I wouldn't be too sure," said Priscilla. "That fellow