“What’s that?” asked Charley. “To turn somersaults in the water? That was what you were doing all the time until Tom came up.”
“That was for exercise, and had nothing to do with my rule, which is, ‘Always have a fellow in a “Rice Lake” canoe to pick you up.’”
“All your trouble came from forgetting to lash your ballast-bag,” remarked Harry. “I hope it will teach you a lesson.”
“That’s a proper remark for a Commodore who wants to enforce discipline,” cried Charley; “but I insist that the trouble came from carrying too much sail.”
“The sail would have been all right if it hadn’t been for the wind,” replied Harry.
“And the wind wouldn’t have done us any harm if we hadn’t been on the lake,” added Joe.
“Boys, attention!” cried Harry. “Captain Charles Smith is hereby appointed sailing-master of this fleet, and will be obeyed and respected accordingly, or, at any rate, as much as he can make us obey and respect him. Anyhow, it will be his duty to tell us how much sail to carry, and how to manage the canoes under sail.”
“This is the second day of the cruise,” remarked Joe an hour later, as he crept into his blankets, “and I have been wet but once. There is something wrong about it, for on our other cruises I was always wet through once every day. However, I’ll hope for the best.”