“Chuck that, George,” said Josh. “You know you beat him out once handsomely.”
“Yes, but he said he hadn’t tried to do his level best. Anyhow, if the chance comes again I’m ready to race him.”
“How long would we be gettin’ up till the Soo now, Jack, darlint?” asked Jimmie; who being second “high notch” in the line of eaters in the crowd, had been too busy up to now to do any great amount of talking.
“That depends pretty much on the weather,” replied the leader of the expedition, who studied his charts faithfully, and was always ready to give what information he picked up, to his chums. “We are now something like one hundred and fifty miles sou’-east-by-south from Mackinac Island, where we expect to stop over a few days. If we pick out a good morning we ought to navigate the head of Huron and the crooked St. Mary’s river to the Soo in one day. The steamers do, and we can make about as fast time.”
“Of course we have to hold up for the Comfort pretty much all the way,” said George; “not that I’m complaining, fellows, for I understand that it takes all sorts of people to make a world, and lots of different kinds of boats to please everybody. And in bad weather Herb and Josh fare better than the rest of us. Well, suppose we leave here tomorrow morning, if the weather lets us, Jack?”
“We will try and make Mackinac with just one more stop,” Jack replied. “That will be easy enough; though if the wind gets around and the waves increase, we’ll have to run for some snug harbor, George, because your boat and mine are hardly storm craft on these big lakes.”
“It’s been a foine trip so far, I say,” observed Jimmie, reaching for another baked potato, which Josh had cooked to a turn in the ashes of the fire, somehow keeping them from blackening, as is usually the case in camp.
“You’re right there, Jimmie,” replied Herb. “And with no serious accidents to come, we’ll make a record to be proud of. Just imagine us sitting around the fire in our cozy club house that is right now building, while Jack reads the stirring log of our experiences up here. It will make us live over the whole trip again.”
“Yes,” chimed in George, “and think of the bliss that must bring.”
Nick colored a little, as he felt every eye on him.