"But who would row when they could canoe?" cried Billie, for in Billie was a passion for canoes which Chet had always declared must have come from her Indian ancestors. "I think rowboats are horribly clumsy."
"Hardly anybody really likes to row," Connie answered, "but we have to do it for the exercise, Miss Walters says there's no better exercise in the world than rowing."
"Yes," said Billie, with a little laugh. "And no harder work, either."
"Do you do much swimming in the lake?" asked Nellie, gazing down at her reflection in the still water.
"Oh, we can," Rose answered. "But no one likes it very much. They'd rather do their swimming in the swimming pool. There's a mud bottom to the lake, and the water, though it looks mighty nice, isn't good to drink."
While they were speaking two girls whom the chums remembered having seen in the dining hall but did not know came down to the dock, and, after waving to Rose and Connie, went to a rack and started to take down one of the canoes.
The girls watched rather wistfully while they slipped it from the rack, removed the cover, and slid it into the smooth water.
One girl with a skill born of experience jumped into the front seat of the canoe, lifted one of the paddles and waited while her companion settled herself in the stern seat. Then they glided from the dock softly, almost silently but for the dip of the paddles in the water, and drifted out toward the middle of the lake.
"Oh, if we could only do that," sighed Billie, "I think I'd die happy."
"Those girls are instructors," Connie explained. "They are in the first grade and expect to graduate in the spring."