"Let's go canoeing," proposed Muriel Harding, as they came in sight of the boathouse.
"The very thing," exulted Mignon. "Let me see; there are nine of us. That will be three in a canoe. I'll hire the canoes and tell the man to send the bill to my father."
With quick, catlike springs, she ran lightly down the bank, across the road and disappeared into the boathouse. Ten minutes later three canoes floated on the surface of the river, swollen almost to the banks by April's frequent tearful outbursts. Mignon stood on the shore and gave voluble orders as the girls cautiously took seats in the bobbing craft.
"Get in, Marcia," she commanded, pointing to the third canoe.
Marcia obeyed with nervous expressions of fear.
An hour later, from a little slope just inside the woods, Marjorie and her friends, who had reluctantly directed their steps toward the boathouse, glimpsed the returning canoeing party through the trees. The canoers had lifted their voices in song, and Marcia Arnold, forgetful of her fears, was singing as gaily as the rest.
"It's dangerous to go canoeing now," commented Jerry, judicially. "The river's too high."
"Can you swim?" asked Irma, irrelevantly of Marjorie.
"Yes," nodded Marjorie. "I won a prize at the seashore last year for——"
A sharp, terror-freighted scream rang out. The eyes of the trio were instantly fastened upon the river, where floated an overturned canoe with two girls struggling near it in the water. They saw the one girl strike out for shore, and, unheeding her companions' wild cries, swim steadily toward the river bank.