ck. Didn't
he make us stand around, aboard the _Surprise_?"

"Well, who's going to win, Tim?" called Tom Harris, as he skilfully
turned the canoe paddled by himself and Bob White, to avoid collision
with one which held George and Arthur Warren.

"'Spose you think you are," answered Tim, "because you and Bob know how
to paddle best. Look out for Jack, though."

Tom Harris laughed. "You'd bet on Jack if he had a broken arm," he said.

"Count us last, I guess," said George Warren, good-naturedly. "We're
pretty new at it. Going in for the fun of it. Hello, who's this coming?"

"Look out, Jim, it's Benny," exclaimed the elder of the Ellison
brothers.

"I don't care. I won't stand any nonsense from him," replied his
brother, a handsome young fellow, athletic, but slightly smaller than
the other.

Just what he meant by this remark was best explained when Benjamin
Ellison, strolling lazily down to the shore, paused in the process of
devouring a huge piece of molasses cake and said, in a sneering tone:

"My, Johnnie, don't you and Jim look fine though, with city chaps?
What'll Uncle Jim say when I tell him--"

He didn't get much further, for a canoe shot in to shore, and from the
bow of it sprang John Ellison. He seized his cousin by the shoulder.

"You will tell tales, will you?" he cried.

"Let me alone," replied the other, striving to shake off John Ellison's
grasp, but failing. Then he added, as the other canoes came in to shore
and the boys stepped out of them. "Can't you take a joke?"

"No, not when you've done the same kind of a thing before," exclaimed
John Ellison. "Come on, fellows, in with him."

Ready for any kind of a rough joke, several of the canoeists laid hands
on the unfortunate Benjamin.

"Most too many against one," remarked Henry Burns, quietly. "Better let
him go."

"No, he's got to be ducked," insisted John Ellison, whose anger was
aroused.

"Well, only a little one," assented Harvey, grinning good-naturedly. So
they held the luckless youth heels over head and plunged his head
beneath the surface up to his coat-collar. He was sputtering wrathfully
as they lifted him out again.

"Going to tell on us?" cried John Ellison.

Benjamin Ellison glared at his cousin, doubtfully.

"Once more," said John Ellison; and they put the victim's head under
again.

He wasn't hurt and his clothes were still dry; but he was whining, and
he begged for mercy after the second ducking.

"I won't tell,"