"You'll know what it is in good time," he replied, and then turning to Ned he asked: "Can I have one of the tent poles?"
"What do you want with it?" demanded Ned. "Has it anything to do with that piece of tomfoolery?"
"Yes, it has," replied Randy aggressively. "That piece of tomfoolery, as you call it, is a sail. I'll make you fellows open your eyes after a while."
"I don't doubt it," exclaimed Ned laughingly, "There will be lots of sport in watching you try to sail on a stream like this. And what a sail, too! Why, it's made out of a red blanket! What put the notion into your head, Randy?"
"Oh, you can make all the fun of it, you please," replied Randy; "you'll all wish you had one like it after a while. Just look at that breeze blowing straight down the creek. In an hour from now it will be twice as strong, and then I'll leave you fellows so far behind that you can't overtake me in a week."
"It doesn't occur to him that the creek changes its course about every half mile," reflected Ned as he resumed his work. "If he tries the thing on he'll come to grief."
Randy was troubled by no such misgivings. He appropriated one of the jointed tent poles and lashed it on the fore deck of his canoe beside the queer looking sail. The Water Sprite, it may be said, had been built with a view to sailing, and it contained a mast hole and block just forward of the cockpit.
Not until the Jolly Rovers had been afloat an hour or two did Randy's opportunity come, for during that time the channel was one succession of short, jerky curves that encountered the wind every which way. But his patience was finally rewarded by a clear half mile stretch of water, licked into tiny undulations by a crisp down breeze.
Randy discreetly grounded the canoe on a little grass bar in mid-channel, and proceeded to rig up. His sail was merely a light weight blanket with each of its narrow ends sewed to a trimmed sapling—just like a banner, in fact. He attached this to his improvised mast, fastened each end securely, and drove the latter into the mast hole.
The Water Sprite was quite transformed by the addition. It presented a quaint, foreign appearance, for the high square sail was exactly like that of a Chinese junk, while its flaming red color was irresistibly suggestive of the craft that ply in Venetian lagoons.