"That's a good, round sum, and will help us out a lot this summer," nodded Dave Darrin. "I'm glad you accepted it."
"I didn't," smiled Dick. "Mr. Eades finally offered eighty, and I told him I regretted that we hadn't done the trading at the time that he came over to Gridley to see the canoe. Mr. Eades replied that at the time he came here he wasn't authorized to speak for his friends, but merely to look at the canoe and report. After that he made one or two more small increases in his price, but I seemed to have lost interest in the subject of a trade and looked at my time table to see when the next train left for Gridley. Then we talked about other matters, and, fellows, I was pretty glum, though I didn't allow the fact to show. Finally, he offered me more money, and then a little more. At last I came down on my price, and made him my final offer. Mr. Eades didn't seem to like it, and then, all of a sudden, he took out his check book and wrote a check for me."
"Close to a hundred dollars?" asked Dave, with deep interest.
For answer Dick threw the check on the table. There was a wild scramble for it.
"A hundred and fifty dollars!" gasped Tom Reade.
"Let me see that check!" demanded Greg Holmes unbelievingly.
The check went from hand to hand, each of the fellows looking at it half bewildered. Yet certainly the check said one hundred and fifty dollars.
"See here, Dick," asked Tom anxiously, "are you sure—-positive, that is—-that it was honest to charge a hundred and fifty for that canoe of ours?"
"You may be sure that I thought of that," Prescott answered. "I don't want to defraud any man. But birch bark suitable for canoes is getting to be a thing of the past in this country. Our friend, Hiram Driggs, the boat builder, told me that a birch bark canoe, nowadays, is simply worth all one can get for it. But, after Mr. Eades had written the check and handed it to me, he said: 'Now, the trade is made and closed, Prescott, what do you really consider the canoe worth?' I answered him a good deal as I've answered you, and offered to return the check if Mr. Eades wasn't satisfied. Fellows, for just a moment or two my heart was in my mouth for fear he'd take me up and ask for the return of his check. But Mr. Eades merely smiled, and said he was satisfied if I was."
"I'll bet he'd have gone to a two hundred dollar price," declared Hazelton. "Dick, weren't you sorry, afterwards, that you didn't hold out flat for two hundred dollars?"