“I may be an important part of this race,” was Amy’s final protest. “But I can’t see it myself.”
The boys had long since decided that Darry and Burd would do the paddling, Fol not having had as much experience in the art as had the two older boys.
“We will race from this dock to the big pier,” suggested Darry, when all other questions were settled.
They agreed, and at the snappy command “Go!” from Darry, started off right gallantly for the pier. The pier was the only one of its kind along Lake Towako and received the incoming excursion steamers from points farther down the lake. There was a stream connecting this body with Lake Monenset upon which New Melford was situated. In this way it would have been possible to travel all the way from New Melford to Forest Lodge by water—though the girls and boys unanimously agreed that the motor trip had been much more thrilling.
Now, as the paddles bit deep into the glassy surface of the water, Jessie and Nell put all their strength into the stroke. The canoe shot forward swiftly, but, alas, the boys shot ahead more swiftly still!
Before they had gone a hundred yards the boys were hopelessly in the lead, and Burd raised a victorious paddle to wave at them tauntingly.
That gesture proved to be his undoing. The handle of the paddle, slippery with water, slid from his careless grasp and drifted lazily beyond his reach.
“He has lost his paddle! He has lost his paddle!” chanted Amy, bouncing up and down in the canoe and threatening to upset them at every bounce. “Go it, girls; go it! We’ve got ’em at our mercy!”
“I am not so sure of that,” giggled Jessie, but she leaned still harder on the paddle and Nell responded nobly to the call for “full steam ahead.”
Laughing so they could hardly paddle, the girls passed the boys, who were still fishing for the paddle.