“All right,” said Frank. “If you don’t win the prize in that, my dear, then I hope Polly does.”
“Why, I haven’t a chance beside Bess, I am sure.”
“That’s all right. Bess is too erratic. One day she paddles well and the next she is ’way behind. It’s her temperament. She’s not a steady old warhorse like yourself, Wynnie.”
“Thanks,” laughed Wyn. “How about Polly? What do you call her?”
“I don’t know. I admire her vastly,” said Frank. “But Polly puzzles me. And I haven’t seen her working at the paddle much. I only know that in a skiff she can out row any of the Busters.”
“I fancy she can paddle some, too. And her canoe is as light as a feather. All those birchbarks are.”
“The judges may handicap her, then. But, hullo! what’s that Dave Shepard up to?”
Wyn turned to look at her next-door neighbor. Dave was writing upon a slip of paper. Once he looked across at Frank and Wyn and saw that the two girls were watching him.
He seemed confused, started as though to tear the paper up, and then hid it under a coil of rope at his feet. But he was very particular to hide every particle of the paper.
“What you doing there, Dave?” demanded Frank, with plain curiosity.