“You bet; and an awful splash when the pieces struck the water.”
Joe Preston laughed loudly at his own words, and the others, except Fred Winter, rewarded him by an appreciative smile.
“So, at the present moment,” went on George, with a sigh of satisfaction, “there is nothing to bother us. What are you doing with those pieces of board, Norman—going to make a rest for the telescope?”
“Yes—so that we can study the stars.”
“That’s a great idea,” said Fred Winter. “Joe, here, needs special instruction in most everything; and a bit of astronomy may help.”
“And while you are about it,” giggled Joe, “add a course on bookworms and diplomacy.”
“And on the awful fate that overtakes young chaps who are always going to do, but never start,” retaliated Fred.
“So that we shall have a little floating college, all to ourselves, and with rather unusual branches,” chimed in Norman, with a smile.
The swift tide carried the “Gray Gull” ahead at a lively pace, and the views seemed to grow more and more picturesque. Nature seemed to have combined the wild and grand with the delicate and poetic; dark, frowning crags above; and sylvan dells below. Here, the banks steep and rugged, with the shadowed river rushing swiftly by; there, gentle, sloping stretches, whose sunlit groves seemed to extend a cheerful welcome. At another place, the hills on the right opened out, giving them a glimpse of the far distance, with deep blue mountain forms.
And on this late summer day, with the white clouds floating overhead and a tender, dreamy effect enveloping the entire landscape, the boys felt like breaking forth into song. And they did; and the result, while not especially harmonious, proved that their hearts were as light as the glancing beams which traveled across the hills and valleys.