er to the hotel again
that day, to see if a telegram had come. He was certain that
the letter would not find Mr. Howgate earlier than the next day,
in any event.

But at ten o'clock the next morning Dick & Co., having put the
best possible aspect on their attire, paddled gently in alongside
the float of the Hotel Pleasant.

Even before they had landed, Fred Ripley, who was stopping with
his father and mother at the Lakeview House, alighted from an
automobile runabout in the woods some two hundred yards from the
lakeside camp of Dick & Co.

"Those muckers are away," Fred told himself, as he watched the
war canoe go in at the hotel float. "Now, if I have half as much
ingenuity as I sometimes think I have, I believe I can cut short
their stay here by rendering that cheap crowd homeless---and foodless!"

CHAPTER XIII

THE RIPLEY HEIR TRIES COAXING

Fred studied the now distant canoe, then glanced carefully about
the camp.

He knew that any sign of his presence, observed by Dick & Co.,
would be sure to result in the swift return of the canoe, with
its load of six indignant boys.

Nor did young Ripley dare to risk discovery as the perpetrator
of the outrage he was now planning. He feared his father's certain
wrath.

"There are screens of bushes behind which I can operate," Ripley
decided. "I am glad of the bushes, for, if I use care, not a
living soul can see me. Now, for some swift work."

It did not take Ripley long to discover where the boys' food supply
was stored.

"These fellows act like boobs!" muttered Fred in disgust. "Here
they go away and leave everything exposed. If they didn't have
an enemy in the world, even then some tramp could come along and
clean out the camp. Humph! Two tramps, if they wanted to work
for a little while, could carry away all the food there is here.
What a lot of poor, penniless muckers Prescott and his friends
are!"

Again Fred studied the lay of the land, then drew off his coat
and flung it aside.

"Now, to work!" he said to himself gleefully.

First of all, he got the food supplies all together. Most of this
stuff was in the form of canned goods. Ripley gathered it up in
one big pile.

Then he stepped over to the tent, from which, at several points
and angles he looked carefully over to the hotel landing float
on the other side of Lake Pleasant.

"They can't see, from the hotel, whether the tent is down or up,"
Fred determined. "So here goes!"