t emphasized the old idea that at an auction
sale one must either use great judgment or take his chances.

"Say," called Dick, "there goes the very man we ought to ask for
advice. Harry, will you run over and ask Hiram Driggs to come
here?"

Hazelton, nodding, hurried away at full speed. "Hiram Driggs
is an awfully high-priced man," sighed Tom Reade.

"Perhaps his mere advice won't come high," young Prescott answered.
"If it does, we'll begin right by telling him that we have no
money---that we've nothing in fact but a birchbark white elephant
on our hands."

Driggs came over promptly, his keen, shrewd eyes twinkling.

"So you boys have been buying away from my shop, and have been
'stung,' eh!" queried Driggs, a short, rather stout man, of about
forty.

"Robbed, I'd call it," replied Dave Darrin.

"Same thing, at a horse trade or an auction sale," hinted Hiram
dryly as he got up on the truck. "Let's have a look at your steam
yacht."

For a few moments Driggs looked the canoe over in grim silence.

"Whew!" was time final comment.

"Pretty bad, isn't it?" Dick inquired.

"Well, for my part, I'd sooner buy a real wreck," Driggs announced.
"This may be an auctioneer's idea of honor. What was his name?"

"The auctioneer's name? Caswell," Dick answered.

"I'll make a note of that name," said Driggs, drawing out notebook
and pencil, "and keep away from any auction that has a man named
Caswell on the quarter-deck. Now, boys, what do you want to know
about this canoe that your eyes don't tell you?"

"About how much would it cost us to fix her?" asked Prescott.

"Thirty dollars---maybe thirty-two," said Driggs, after another
casual look at the canoe.

"Let's announce the bonfire for to-night," urged Greg.

"We haven't any such sum of money, Mr. Driggs," Dick went on.

"Too bad, boys, for you'd probably have a lot of fun in this craft.
If you want to sell it, maybe I could allow you four dollars
for the craft as she stands."

"We'd hate to part with the canoe," Dick continued.

"I know, I know," remarked Driggs sympathetically. "It was wanting
a boat badly when I was a boy that drove me into the boat business.
But I didn't have to handle birch bark then, or my first craft
would have sunk me. Say, boys, great joke how young Ripley got
stung so badly, wasn't it?"

"I know about how he feels," remarked Dick.

"Yes, of course," smiled Driggs. "But you boys are entitled to
some honest sympathy. I