“Oh, I wish you all would, though of course I wouldn’t absolutely insist,” replied Miss Phillips. “But really, nobody in Pansy troop need be afraid. Already I consider you really expert canoeists!”
“Thanks, Captain!” exclaimed Ethel Todd, well pleased at the compliment.
“But of course nobody stands a chance with Marj!” said Ruth, rather sulkily. “Because she has had so much experience.”
“Experience isn’t everything,” said Miss Phillips. “It’s deftness—a certain knack, which I can’t explain.”
The canoes were forced to go in single file now, for the stream had become very narrow. Miss Phillips and Frieda took the lead, the former watching cautiously for rapids; for it was somewhere near here, she thought, that a portage would be necessary. Ruth and Lily in the Water-Witch were the last in the trail.
“I honestly don’t think it’s fair about Marj!” repeated the former, in discontent.
“Why, Ruth, of course it is! Marj isn’t any professional, like you make her out to be! What don’t you consider fair about it?”
Ruth paddled more slowly, in order to allow those in the canoe ahead to get out of hearing distance.
“Just this. I think the whole idea of a canoe meet is not Miss Phillips’s, but Marj’s. Why should the captain have chosen the thing Marjorie Wilkinson is most proficient in? You can’t tell me! It’s because Marj paws around her, and makes her do just as she likes!”
“Ruth Henry!” cried Lily, furious at the slur against her best friend. “Are you serious?”