cking up on you fellows," declared Herb, as he stepped
ashore to stretch his stiffened limbs a short time. "From this on look
out; I give you all fair warning. The _Comfort_ is hot on your trail,
and you've got to hump yourselves to keep on even terms with us. As
the current grows fiercer so our chances improve. Once more allow me
to state that the race is not always to the swift."

"Glad to find you so cheerful, Herb," laughed Jack. "As for George
here, he's already arrived at the sensible conclusion that, no matter
who wins the cup, it's going to remain club property, and will likely
be kept at the club house, when we get one."

"Say, has Buster been able to swim across the river yet?" asked Josh,
who never allowed a chance to get in a sly dig at the fat boy to pass
him.

"Well, I was thinking about doing that job," returned the fat boy,
calmly, but with a knowing wink at his companions; "but George here
wouldn't hold up long enough for me to try it. When I want to paddle
around, he says I've just got to have a rope tied under my arms so he
can yank me back if I get too venturesome."

"That accounts for it, fellows," cried Josh. "I just had a suspicion
that Pudding might be to blame for all the trouble that old chap told
me about when I went ashore at noon today."

"Me to blame for what?" demanded the other, pretending to be annoyed.

"Why, you see," Josh went on blandly, "he says to me that when he was
settin' there on the bank try in' to pull in a few buffalo fish for his
dinner, along came a tremendous wave. He vowed that it nigh washed him
away, and called it a cloudburst or something like that; but now I
understand just what it was."

"Sho! you don't say," Nick remarked scornfully; "then suppose you tell
the rest of us about this bright idea that came to you, the only one
you ever had, I guess."

"Why, you see, that wave was started when you stepped into the river
for your little sportive paddle. It kept growing bigger all the time
as it rolled down the stream, till it nigh swamped the old fisherman.
I'm almost afraid to hear what calamity may have happened to some of
the lower parishes," grinned Josh.

"But what's this, Jack, you're saying about Erastus?" asked Herb. "Do
you mean to say you chaps have run up against another adventure, while
we were just sailing down on the breast of the bully old river?"

So after that the story had to be told, and Josh listened with open
mouth as he heard