rew in an extra oar, and were ready to embark.
I do not believe that Christopher Columbus, when he started on his
rather successful voyage of discovery, felt half the responsibility
and importance that weighed upon me as I sat on the middle seat of the
Dolphin, with my oar resting in the row-lock. I wonder if Christopher
Columbus quietly slipped out of the house without letting his estimable
family know what he was up to?

Charley Marden, whose father had promised to cane him if he ever stepped
foot on sail or rowboat, came down to the wharf in a sour-grape humor,
to see us off. Nothing would tempt him to go out on the river in such
a crazy clam-shell of a boat. He pretended that he did not expect
to behold us alive again, and tried to throw a wet blanket over the
expedition.

"Guess you'll have a squally time of it," said Charley, casting off
the painter. "I'll drop in at old Newbury's" (Newbury was the parish
undertaker) "and leave word, as I go along!"

"Bosh!" muttered Phil Adams, sticking the boat-hook into the
string-piece of the wharf, and sending the Dolphin half a dozen yards
towards the current.

How calm and lovely the river was! Not a ripple stirred on the glassy
surface, broken only by the sharp cutwater of our tiny craft. The sun,
as round and red as an August moon, was by this time peering above the
water-line.

The town had drifted behind us, and we were entering among the group of
islands. Sometimes we could almost touch with our boat-hook the shelving
banks on either side. As we neared the mouth of the harbor a little
breeze now and then wrinkled the blue water, shook the spangles from
the foliage, and gently lifted the spiral mist-wreaths that still clung
along shore. The measured dip of our oars and the drowsy twitterings
of the birds seemed to mingle with, rather than break, the enchanted
silence that reigned about us.

The scent of the new clover comes back to me now, as I recall that
delicious morning when we floated away in a fairy boat down a river like
a dream!

The sun was well up when the nose of the Dolphin nestled against the
snow-white bosom of Sandpeep Island. This island, as I have said before,
was the last of the cluster, one side of it being washed by the sea. We
landed on the river-side, the sloping sands and quiet water affording us
a good place to moor the boat.

It took us an hour or two to transport our stores to the spot selected
for the encampment. Having pitched our