"I can hardly realize it," said Randy. "The time has certainly slipped by very quickly, and yet it was three weeks yesterday since we started."
"I hate to think that the cruise is nearly over," remarked Clay, "but all the same it will be nice to get home again."
Ned laughed as he folded up the map and put it in his pocket.
"I know just how you feel," he sad. "It will be very nice to sleep in a soft bed, and eat off a table again, and sit out on the boathouse porch in the evenings; but about a week after you get home you'll wish with all your heart you were back on the creek with the grass for a bed and a rock for a table. Canoeing is like ice cream—when you once taste it you are always wanting more. It reminds me of what I read about a famous African explorer. He was always glad to get back to civilization for a little while, and then he was more anxious than ever to return to his wild life. It seemed as though he couldn't breathe right anywhere but in Africa."
"I hope canoeing is like that," said Randy. "Then we will make lots more trips together. I feel just as you do about it, Ned. I don't like to see the cruise end, but it will be very nice in some ways to get home. Won't the other boys be envious when they see how sunburnt we are, and hear all about the exciting adventures we have had?"
"When will we reach the end of the creek?" asked Nugget with a rapturous expression. "Monday?"
"Hardly," replied Ned. "It will take longer than that. But why are you so anxious to get home, Nugget?"
"He wants to put on a suit of cream colored clothes," exclaimed Clay with mock gravity, "and a boiled shirt and high collar. He is longing to encase his lily white hands in kid gloves, and his dainty feet in patent leathers."
As Nugget blushed an angry red, and made no reply, it is to be presumed that Clay's remark contained more truth than fiction.
"You fellows are all counting your chickens too soon," said Ned. "A good many miles separate us from home, and as likely as not there are more rough times in store for us."