ng.

"Don't get too gay, fellows," remarked a tall lad, whose name was
Colon, and who had always been a good friend of Fred Fenton, from the
day the latter first came to town. "Buck Lemington is a big bag of wind
when it comes to bragging about what he's going to do. I think I can
see him buying that shell over at Grafton, that Colonel Simms owns. His
boy who went to college rowed in her, you know. There isn't money
enough in Riverport to buy that boat."

"Oh! I don't know," broke in Dave Hanshaw, who had always been more or
less of a crack athlete on Riverport's teams; "I heard my father saying
only last night that the old Colonel had lost all his money, and was
selling out over in Grafton. So you see, perhaps he might be willing to
let that pet boat, in which his son rowed to victory, go for a certain
sum."

"And Buck," observed Colon, "must have got wind of it a while back. Oh!
he's a cute one, all right. He knows how to feather his nest. When he
came to count noses he understood that there wasn't a show for him to
be elected cox. in our club; so he gets ready to organize a little one
on his own account. Wise old Buck, he knows which side his bread is
buttered."

"Hey! look who's coming on his wheel over yonder!" called out Dick
Hendricks.

"Who is it?"

"Why, it looks like Sandy Richards. But what can he want up here, when
they all understood we didn't expect to have visitors?" Corney Shays
observed.

Some of the boys began to show signs of sudden nervousness. They were
not used to being away overnight from home, and could immediately
picture all sorts of things as having happened since their departure
very early that morning. Possibly to some of them it already seemed as
though they had been off for a week.

The younger boy on the wheel soon arrived at a point close to the camp.
Abandoning his bicycle at the roadside he climbed the fence, crossed
the field, and came to the fringe of timber.

"Who's it for, Sandy?" asked Brad; and possibly there was just a
trifling tremor in his own voice, though he tried to hide it in a
fashion.

"Got your name on it, Brad; and she's addressed to the Coxswain of the
Riverport Boat Club," answered the boy, promptly; looking around him
curiously at the camp, where he would very naturally have liked to
remain, simply because it was forbidden territory.

"A challenge, that's what!" yelled Bristles.

"Buck's made good already, just think of it!" cried Corney Shays,
thr