Professor Skillings was going to paddle up the river with them, although Mrs. Havel would take the afternoon train to the lake. The professor had gone on ahead; but Dave Shepard arranged the two clubs in line and boys and girls marched through the streets and down to the river, being hailed by their friends and bidden good-bye by their less fortunate mates.

Somebody started singing, and the twelve young voices were soon in the rhythm of “This is the Life!” Dave and Tubby were ahead, their paddles over their shoulders, each carrying his blanket-roll in approved scout fashion. The roll made Tubby Blaisdell look twice his real size.

As the party struck across the sward toward the boathouses Dave suddenly dropped his paraphernalia and started on a run for the river.

“Hi, there!” he shouted. “The professor is in trouble, boys!”

The Busters bounded away after him, and the girls, catching the excitement, followed along the bank of the swiftly-flowing Wintinooski. There was Professor Skillings in his canoe, drifting rapidly into the middle of the current, and plainly without his paddle. Indeed, that useful–not to say necessary–instrument, capped the pile of Professor Skillings’ impedimenta on the bank. He had evidently–in his usual absent-minded manner–stepped into his canoe and pushed off from shore without getting his cargo aboard.

Amid much laughter Dave and Ferd Roberts got a skiff and went after their teacher. Professor Skillings chuckled at his own troubles. Although he was well past the meridian of life, he had neither lost his sense of the ridiculous nor his ability to laugh at a joke when it was on himself.

While the boys were rescuing their friend and mentor, the Go-Ahead Club proceeded to get out their own canoes and load them. The weight had to be distributed in bow and stern of the light, cedar craft; but Wyn and her mates had practised loading and launching their boats so frequently that there was little danger of an overset now.

Grace was still growling about the food and cooking apparatus distributed among the canoeists. Wyn said, laughing:

“That is still the bone of contention; is it, Gracie?”

“What is a ‘bone of contention’?” demanded Mina, innocently.

“Why, the jawbone, of course, silly!” cried Frank.

“Don’t you mind about my jawbone, miss!” snapped Grace.

“Oh, don’t let’s fight, girls,” Mina said, soothingly.

“Better a dinner of herbs with contentment than a stalled ox and trouble on the side,” misquoted Frank.

The six girls quickly shot their canoes out into the stream. At this point the current was swift; but above Denton the river broadened into wide pools through which the current flowed sluggishly and it would be easier paddling.

The girls set into a steady stroke, led by their captain, and passed the pretty town in a few minutes. Wyn could see the upper windows of her home and noted a white cloth fluttering from one. She knew that her mother was standing there with the field-glasses and Baby May. Perhaps the little one was trying to see “sister” through the strong glasses.

So Wyn pulled off her cap and swung it over her head and the six canoes immediately fell out of alignment.

“Don’t do that, Wyn!” shouted Bess. “Those boys will catch up with us.”

“Well, we want them to; don’t we?” asked the captain of the Go-Aheads, good-naturedly. “We’re going to lunch together, and if we make the poor boys work too hard they’ll eat every crumb we’ve got and leave nothing for poor little we-uns.”

“So that’s why you made us bring all this food?” demanded Bess, in disgust. “Can’t those boys feed themselves?”

“Oh, they’ll do their share,” Wyn replied, laughing. “You’ll see. Don’t you see how heavily laden Tubby’s canoe is? I warrant he has enough luncheon aboard for a small army.”

“I can’t look over my shoulder–I never can,” quoth Bessie. “Paddling a canoe takes more of my attention than riding a bicycle.”

“Or a motorcycle. Those things are just awful,” cried Mina Everett.

“Shucks!” exclaimed the lively Frankie. “A motorcycle is only an ordinary bicycle driven crazy by over-indulgence in gasoline.”

“How smart!” cried Bessie. “But you’d better save your breath to cool your porridge – ”

“Or, better still, to work your paddle,” commented Grace, with a swift glance behind. “Those Busters are coming up the river, hand over fist.”

“With poor Tubby in the rear, of course,” said Frank, glancing back. “The tide is certainly against him.”

“Oh, dear me!” giggled Percy, “poor Tubby was more than ‘tide’ last week when he took Annabel Craven out on the river. Did you hear about it? You know–the night before graduation.”

“I believe that fat youth is sweet on Annabel,” announced Bessie, shaking her head seriously.

“What do you suppose Ann thinks of Tubby?” cried Grace.

“You know how it is,” chuckled Frank. “Nobody loves a fat boy. Go on, Percy. What happened to poor old Tubby?”

“Why, he inveigled Annabel down to the river and got her into a boat and was going to row her around in the moonlight. You know it was just a scrumptious night.”

“M-m-m! wasn’t it?” agreed Frank.

“Well,” said Percy, “Tubby got in without overturning the boat and settled to work. The current was pretty swift and he struck right out into it and headed up stream.

“And there he tugged, and tugged, and tugged, giving all his attention to the oars and having none to spare for Annabel. By and by, after Tubby had tugged, and grunted, and perspired for half an hour, he said:

“‘Say, I never saw anything like this current to-night–not in all my born days! I’ve been pulling like a horse for half an hour and I don’t see that we’ve made as much as a dozen feet!’

“And then Annabel spoke up real pretty, and says she:

“‘Oh, Mr. Blaisdell! I’ve just thought of something. The anchor fell overboard some time ago and I forgot to tell you. Do you suppose it could have caught on something?’”

The other girls were intensely amused at this, for they all appreciated Annabel Craven’s character as well as poor Tubby’s good-natured blundering. But while they laughed and chattered in this way the Busters crept steadily up on them.

“I told you how it would be,” said Bess, tartly, “if we didn’t hurry up.”

“What’s the matter with you girls?” demanded Dave Shepard. “One would think you were sent for and couldn’t come, by the way you paddle. You’ll get to the lake before noon at this rate.”

“Not much danger of that, Davie,” returned Wyn. “And you know we agreed to stop at Ware’s Island for lunch.”

“Oh, I wish that was right here!” grunted a voice from the rear, where Tubby Blaisdell was paddling away with almost as much splashing as a small side-wheel steamer.

“My goodness, boy!” cried Ferd Roberts. “You’re not hungry so soon, are you?”

“Soon?” repeated Tubby, with disgust “It’s so long since breakfast that I’ve forgotten what I had to eat.”

“What do you want to eat, Tubby?” asked Frank, giggling.

“Not particular. Anything–from a marshmallow cake to a tough steak,” grunted the fat boy.

“Tubby wouldn’t be as particular as the grouchy gentleman who went into the restaurant out West and ordered a steak,” chuckled Dave. “After the waiter brought it the customer tried his knife on it and then called the waiter back.

“‘Say!’ he objected. ‘This steak isn’t tender enough.’

“‘Not tender enough, stranger?’ returned the cowboy waiter. ‘What d’you expect? Want it to hug an’ kiss yer?’”

When the laugh on Tubby had subsided Professor Skillings said, with a twinkle in his eye:

“Our friend, Blaisdell, should be able to exist some time on his accumulation of fat. He ought not to seriously suffer from hunger as yet.”

“Like a camel living on its hump–eh?” said Wyn. “How about that, Tubby?”

“I’m no relation to a camel–I tell you that,” snorted the fat boy, with disgust.

“Then Mr. Blaisdell might imitate some insects; mightn’t he, Professor Skillings?” suggested Frank, with a sly look. “You know there are insects that live on nothing.”

“On nothing?” exclaimed the professor, quickly. “Oh, no, young lady, you are mistaken. That is quite impossible.”

“But, Professor! A moth lives on nothing; doesn’t it?”

“No, indeed. How could that be?” cried the scientific gentleman, greatly perturbed by Frank’s apparent display of ignorance.

“Why, moths eat holes; don’t they?” chortled Frank. “Surely ‘holes’ are a pretty slim diet.”

Professor Skillings led the laughter himself over this simple joke. But he added:

“I fear I should not be able to interest you in science, Frances.”

“Not in summer, sir–oh, never!” cried Frank. “I refuse to learn a single, living thing until school opens again next fall.”

In spite of Tubby’s complaints, the canoeing party sighted Ware Island in good season for luncheon. This was a low, wooded spot around which the Wintinooski–split in two streams–flowed very quietly. The country on both sides was cut up into farms, with intervening patches of woods, dotted with ferns, and was very beautiful.

There was a little beach on one side of the island, with a green, shaded bank above. This was a favorite picnicking spot for parties from Denton; but our friends had the island all to themselves this day.

The girls had been as far as this island before in their canoes; but never beyond. From this spot on the journey up the Wintinooski would be all new to Wyn Mallory and her chums.

The canoes were hauled up out of the water and the boys skirmished for fuel while the girls got out the luncheon. Ferd Roberts was fire-builder, and Grace, who hated that work, watched him closely, marveling how quickly and well he constructed the pyre and had a blaze merrily dancing among the sticks.

“Doesn’t that beat all!” cried Grace. “You must love fires as much as Nero did.”

“Nero? Let’s see–he was the chap that always was cold; wasn’t he?” queried Ferd, grinning.

“Nope!” broke in Frank. “That was Zero. You will get your ancient history mixed, Ferd!”

The luncheon was quickly laid, and Tubby was not the only one who did it justice. But Bessie Lavine continued to act disagreeably toward the boys. She was “forever nagging,” as Dave said; and sometimes there was a spark of fire when she managed to get one or another of the boys “mad.”

Professor Skillings wandered off with his bag and little geological hammer and Tubby rolled over on his back under a shady bush and went to sleep.

“Pig!” ejaculated Bess, in disgust. “That’s all boys think of–their stomachs.”

“Oh, don’t be so hateful, Bess,” advised Frank. “Come on; the rest of us are going to walk around a little to settle our luncheon, before tackling the paddles again.”

“Humph! with the boys?” snapped Bess, seeing Wyn start off with Dave by her side. “Not me, thank you!”

“All right,” chuckled Frank Cameron. “You can keep Tubby company.”

But that suggestion made Bess even more angry, and she went off with her nose in the air, and all alone. But as the crowd of young folk came around the east end of Ware Island, they, saw Bess standing upon the brink of a steep bank, under a small tree, where the water had washed out a good deal of the earth in a sort of cave beneath where she stood.

“Hi, Bessie! get back from there!” shouted Dave, warningly. “That place is likely to cave in.”

“Then you certainly would get a ducking,” added Frank.

“Pooh! I guess I know what I’m about,” said the girl. “I’m no baby.”

“You’re acting like one,” growled Dave. “That place is dangerous.”

“It’s not, Mr. Smartie!” cried Bess, and she stamped her foot in anger.

And just as though that had been the signal for which it had been waiting, several square yards of the steep bank, with the tree she was clinging to, slumped down into the river.

The girls screamed, while the boys bounded forward toward the spot where Bessie had disappeared.

“Oh, Dave!” cried Wyn. “Save her! save her! She can’t swim very well. She will be drowned!”