"Well," replied Allan Harding, cautiously, "mebbe you're right, but I guess those fellows in the green canoe stand a good chance. Look how strong they are. Say, who are they, anyway?"
"Hm! Jack Harvey's stronger'n any of them," asserted Jim loyally, eying his stalwart friend, as a canoe passed containing Harvey and Henry Burns. "Those other chaps are Jim and John Ellison. They live up on the farm above here. That's what makes 'em strong. But you know Jack. Didn't he make us stand around, aboard the Surprise?"
"Well, who's going to win, Tim?" called Tom Harris, as he skilfully turned the canoe paddled by himself and Bob White, to avoid collision with one which held George and Arthur Warren.
"'Spose you think you are," answered Tim, "because you and Bob know how to paddle best. Look out for Jack, though."
Tom Harris laughed. "You'd bet on Jack if he had a broken arm," he said.
"Count us last, I guess," said George Warren, good-naturedly. "We're pretty new at it. Going in for the fun of it. Hello, who's this coming?"
"Look out, Jim, it's Benny," exclaimed the elder of the Ellison brothers.
"I don't care. I won't stand any nonsense from him," replied his brother, a handsome young fellow, athletic, but slightly smaller than the other.
Just what he meant by this remark was best explained when Benjamin Ellison, strolling lazily down to the shore, paused in the process of devouring a huge piece of molasses cake and said, in a sneering tone:
"My, Johnnie, don't you and Jim look fine though, with city chaps? What'll Uncle Jim say when I tell him—"