efully
walked around them to avoid having to pass through the little
crowd.

"Speaking of angels-----!" said Dave Darrin dryly.

"Don't tease him, Darry," urged Dick in a very low voice.

But Fred heard all their remarks. His fists clenched as he walked
on with heightened color.

"It's just meat to them to see me so badly sold on the pony, and
to know that my father ordered the animal shot and carted away!"
muttered young Ripley fiercely. "Of course the whole town knows
of it by this time. Prescott's muckers and a few others will
be in high glee over my misfortune, but, anyway, I'll have the
sympathy of all the decent people in Gridley!"

Fred's ears must have burned that night, however, for the majority
of the Gridley boys were laughing over his poor trade in horse
flesh.

CHAPTER XI

ALL READY TO RACE, BUT-----

On the landing stage at the Hotel Pleasant a group of girls stood
on the following Tuesday morning.

"Wouldn't Dick and Dave and the rest of their crowd enjoy this
lake if they were here with their canoe?" asked Laura Bentley.

"Yes," agreed Belle Meade. "And very likely they'd win some more
laurels for Gridley High School, too. Preston High School has
a six-paddle canoe here now, and Trentville High School will send
a canoe crew here in a few days. Oh, how I wish the boys could
manage to get here with their war canoe!"

"It seems too bad, doesn't it," remarked Clara Marshall, "that
some of the nicest boys in our high school are so poor that they
can't do the ordinary things they would like to do?"

"Some of the boys in Dick & Co. won't be poor when they've been
out of school ten years," Laura predicted, with a glowing face.

"I don't believe any of them will be poor by that time," agreed
Clara. "But it must hurt them a good deal, just now, not to have
more money."

"I wish they could be here now," sighed Laura.

"You want to see Gridley High School win more laurels in sports
and athletics?" asked another girl.

"Yes," assented Miss Bentley, "and I'd like to see the boys here,
anyway, whether they won a canoe race or not."

"There's a crew canoe putting off from the other side now!" announced
Belle Meade.

"That's probably Preston High School," said Laura.

"Have the Preston boys a war canoe, too?" asked one of the girls,
shading her eyes with her hand, and staring hard at the canoe
across the lake, some three quarters of a mile away.

"Someone at the hotel said the