"Don"t tell Antha we"re going to sleep on the ground," Gladys warned the others diplomatically, "or she"ll make a fuss before we start."
"We"ll save that for a pleasant surprise," said Sahwah, with a grin over her shoulder.
No special time had been set for the return of the "exploraging" party.
They were simply going to paddle up the river as far as they could go and then turn back.
The camp looked like an army preparing to move that Tuesday morning.
Blankets were being stripped from beds and spread out on ponchos while their owners raced around hunting for the rest of their belongings which should go in.
"Where"s my toothbrush?" demanded Gladys, having turned the tent upside down in her search for the missing article. "Katherine, if you"ve borrowed it to stir that villainous paint mixture you were daubing Eeny-Meeny with I"ll----"
"What"s that sticking out of the hole in the floor?" interrupted Katherine, pointing to the corner behind the bed.
"Why, that"s it," said Gladys. "I remember now, I poked it into that hole last night."
"Whatever did you put it into that hole for?" asked Hinpoha curiously.
"Why, after I was in bed," answered Gladys, "I got to thinking about that hole and how spiders and things could come crawling through and walk right into my bed, and I had no peace of mind until I got up and stuffed it. And the only thing I could find to stuff it with was the handle of my toothbrush. Then I went to sleep in peace."
"As if all the spiders in the world couldn"t walk in at the side of the tent," jeered Hinpoha.
"I know it," said Gladys, laughing shamefacedly, "but somehow the spiders that might be coming in at the sides didn"t bother me a bit, while those that might be coming through the hole did."
""Consistency, thou art a jewel,"" quoted Katherine, laughing.
"What are the boys doing?" asked Hinpoha, hearing a commotion outside.
The Captain was running toward the path, waving something over his head, and Slim was hot after him trying to get it away.
"Oh, it"s the thermos bottle," called Sahwah, who had run out after the two. Ever since Slim had taken the thermos bottle full of hot chocolate with him the time they went on the snowshoe hike, he had never been allowed to forget it. Wherever Slim went that thermos bottle was taken along for his benefit. The Captain had even taken it along to a school party and gravely handed it to Slim when he was trying to appear especially dignified in the presence of a stately young lady. This time Slim caught the Captain and downed him at the head of the path and they struggled for its possession while the onlookers held their breath for fear they would both roll down the hill. Slim finally got it away from the Captain, and succeeded in hiding it where it could not be found in time to take along.
"What"s going to be the order of procession?" asked Aunt Clara when they had finally got all their impedimenta down on the dock.
"You and Uncle Teddy will be in the first canoe," said Katherine. Since she and the Captain were the Chiefs they had the right to be commanders of the trip, but they willingly agreed to let Uncle Teddy have that responsibility, as he was able to engineer a canoe party and they were not.
"Let Katherine and the Captain go in the canoe with you," suggested Mr.
Evans. "Then they can pretend they are commanding the expedition." Mr.
and Mrs. Evans were not going on this trip.
"No," said Uncle Teddy, "I would rather have my first aids in the last boat. Then they can watch the whole line of canoes ahead of them and see that everything is all right."
So Katherine and the Captain had the place of honor at the tail of the line.
When they were nearly ready to start, Katherine, who had returned to the tents for something, came toiling down the hill, carrying in her arms the stiff figure of Eeny-Meeny. "We can"t go without our mascot," she said. "Didn"t the old Greeks and Romans carry their household G.o.ds with them, and didn"t the Indians take their "Medicine" along on all their journeys? As fourth a.s.sistant sub-head of this expedition I use my authority to declare that she shall be taken along. There is one canoe left and we can tie that behind mine and tow her. Mayn"t we, Uncle Teddy?"
"You"re the Chief this week," said Uncle Teddy, throwing up his hands in a helpless gesture. "You have the right to say whether she shall go or not. If you agree to tow her yourself I certainly have no objections to her going along. But remember, towing her will include carrying her overland when we come to the shallow places."
"Now lie still and be good," admonished Katherine, when Eeny-Meeny had been laid in the canoe, looking ridiculously undignified with her one arm and foot sticking up in the air.
"All ready there?" shouted Uncle Teddy from up front. "All right, cast off."
The line of canoes moved forward. Nakwisi was up in the first canoe with Uncle Teddy and Aunt Clara, while the Bottomless Pitt made the fourth pa.s.senger. After them came Hinpoha and Slim, paddling the second canoe with Antha and Dan as pa.s.sengers; then Sahwah and the Monkey, paddling Migwan and Anthony; and lastly, Katherine and the Captain with Gladys and Peter Jenkins, and Eeny-Meeny traveling in state behind them.
The lake was smooth and paddling was easy. They sang as they bent to their paddles, as voyageurs of old. Soon they came to the mouth of the narrow river and ran in between the high banks. The current was strong and the paddling immediately became harder work.
"I bet Slim loses five pounds on this trip," called out the Captain.
"See him perspire!"
"I"ll bet he gains five," answered Katherine. "Working hard will give him such an appet.i.te that he"ll eat twice as much as he usually does.
Too bad we didn"t bring that thermos bottle; he will be wanting some nourishment very soon if he keeps up at that rate."
Slim heard the jokes at his expense being tossed back and forth over his head, but his exertions had rendered him too breathless to say a word of protest.
They pa.s.sed the place where Uncle Teddy had called the moose with the birchbark trumpet on the occasion of the Calydonian Hunt. "Why don"t you call another moose, Uncle Teddy?" asked Sahwah. "I should think there would be lots of them around."
"I don"t think so," replied Uncle Teddy. "This is a bit too far south for them. That other moose probably didn"t live in these woods; he was just traveling here; spending his vacation, probably. And, like a good many of his human brothers, he didn"t take his wife along with him.
There were no signs of another."
"He would have done better to stay at home with his wife," remarked Aunt Clara, "and then his head and his hide wouldn"t be over in St. Pierre now, getting respectively mounted and tanned."
"Mercy, but this is hard pulling," groaned Katherine, as they went farther and farther up against the swift current. Those up in the forward boats thought the same thing and the paddles were not dipping with anywhere near the briskness and regularity with which they started out.
"This won"t do!" shouted Katherine, making a trumpet of her hands. "We look like a row of lame ducks limping along. Get some style into your paddling. Let"s sing and paddle in time to the music." Her voice cracked as usual and Gladys had to start the chorus:
"Pull long, pull strong, my bonny brave crew, The winds sweep over the waters blue, But blow they high, or blow they low, It"s all the same to Wohelo!
"Yo ho, yo ho, It"s all the same to Wohelo!"
It is astonishing how much better everything goes to music. The ragged paddling straightened out into steady, rhythmic dipping; drooping backs stiffened up, and aching arms regained their energy.
"That"s the way!" shouted Katherine. "Now we have some style about us.
This canoe seems much lighter than it did a few minutes ago. Hurrah for music!"
Just at this moment her alert senses told her that something was wrong.
She twisted her head backward and then she saw that the sudden lightening of the canoe was not due to the beneficial effects of music.
For the canoe, which they had been towing, was no longer fastened to them. Far behind them they saw it, traveling rapidly back to the lake with the swift current, carrying with it their mascot Eeny-Meeny, her arm visible above the sides of the canoe, stretched out to them in a beseeching gesture.
"Halt!" cried Katherine in a fearful voice, which broke in the middle of the word and leaped up fully two octaves.
"What"s the matter?" shouted Uncle Teddy, looking back in alarm.
"We"ve lost Eeny-Meeny!" screeched Katherine.
A roar of laughter went up from all the canoes, as the occupants, carefully turning their heads so as not to disturb the balance of their frail barks, caught sight of that runaway canoe with the imploring arm visible over the side.
"I"ll go after her!" said Katherine, bringing her canoe up alongside the bank and unceremoniously inviting Gladys and Peter to get out and lighten the boat. Then she and the Captain headed around into the current and started downstream paddling for dear life. It was so much easier going down than coming up that they fairly flew over the water, and caught up with Eeny-Meeny just before she reached the mouth of the river and went sailing out on the wide bosom of the lake. She was fastened on more firmly this time, and then began the long, hard paddle upstream again to overtake the others. Katherine would have been game to go on paddling all day rather than say Eeny-Meeny was a bother to tow, but she was very glad of the order given by Uncle Teddy, which gave her a chance to sit in the bottom of the canoe and do nothing but look at the scenery and keep an eye on Eeny-Meeny, lest she should give them the slip again.
The change of paddlers brought Anthony to the place of bow paddler in the third canoe. "Now you"ll see some real paddling," was his gracious remark when he took the seat the Monkey had vacated in his favor.