"If the guv'nor subjects me to this degradation just for one sharp answer to an old man, what would that same guv'nor do to me if he knew all the things that I've been engaged in up here at the lake? What if he knew that I hired that farmer's son to swim under the float and attach that drag to the canoe? What would the guv'nor do if he knew that I tried to wreck Prescott's outfit?"
Fred shivered at the mental prospect of his father's stern, grim wrath.
But young Ripley, as sometimes happens, wasn't caught just then. He would go on for the present planning mean tricks against those whom he had no just reason to dislike. Yet his time was sure to come.
Soon after Dick & Co. were compelled to bid adieu to Lake Pleasant. They had had a splendid time, and had acquitted themselves with great credit in this entry into high school athletics. They had had pleasure enough to last them all the rest of the summer in memory.
The cost of transporting their canoe, on the homeward trip, was borne out of the funds of the Gridley High School Athletic Council.
Dick & Co. entered three more canoe races against high school teams that summer. All these were run off on the home river, and Dick & Co. had the great glory of winning them all "the Gridley way."
After the summer, came the opening of the school year again. Our readers may learn what happened to Dick & Co. in their sophomore year in the second volume of the "High School Boys Series," which is published under the title, "The High School Pitcher; Or, Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond."
As to what befell our young friends in the summer vacation which followed their sophomore year, all that is told in the second volume of the "High School Boys Vacation Series." That interesting volume is published under the title, "The High School Boys' Summer Camp; Or, The Dick Prescott Six Training for the Gridley Eleven." It will be found to be a splendid story of real American boys who know how to get the most out of both work and play, and to make each year of life a preparation for a better year to come. In this volume the friends of Dick & Co. will find these six sturdy boys leading a life full of healthy excitement and adventure in the woods.