f every
Ranger on the island.

Their sole present ambition was to become canoe-men, and all their
interest was centred in the fascinating craft of their New York friends.
At the same time they found it impossible to decide which of the several
types of canoe represented at the meet was the most admirable. There was
the big war canoe _Kosh-Kosh_, that required a dozen paddlers to urge it
over the water, and could carry as many more passengers as well. As they
dashed about the bay in this great craft, chanting what they believed to
be war-songs, and uttering blood-curdling yells, they could easily fancy
themselves South-Sea warriors bound on a foray, against the cannibals of
some adjacent island.

Besides this huge vessel there were other paddling canoes, light open
affairs in each of which two boys, transformed for the time being into
Indian hunters, could glide swiftly and silently in and out of sheltered
coves, or close under overhanging banks, in search of game or scalps,
they cared not which.

Then there were sailing canoes of two kinds--cruisers and racers--dainty
bits of cabinet-work built of cedar and mahogany, varnished and polished
until they glistened in the sunlight, fitted with spars not much heavier
than fishing-rods, silken or linen sails, delicate-looking but
unbreakable, cordage, and cunning little blocks of boxwood or aluminum
that would answer equally well for watch-charms. The cruisers had open
cockpits long enough to lie down in at full length. At night these,
covered by tents of striped awning cloth, and lighted by little swinging
lanterns, formed the coziest of cabins. Thus housed, the cruising
canoe-man could cook a meal over an alcohol lamp, eat it from a
hatch-cover table, lie at his ease, and read, or turn in and sleep
through rain and storm as snug and dry and thoroughly comfortable as
though in his own home. "Besides having a thousand times more fun," as
Tom Burgess said, while all the Rangers well agreed that he spoke the
truth.

Tom owned a cruiser, and to him, of course, she was the most perfect
craft in the world. "She can go anywhere that a yacht can, except, of
course, across the ocean, or on voyages like that," he explained, "and
into lots of places that a yacht can't, besides, such as up small
streams and down rapids. You can either sail or paddle in her, and if a
storm comes, all you have to do is to run your ship ashore, step out,
haul her beyond reach of the tide, and there you