“The paddles look all right, anyway,” spoke up Harry Hazelton, lifting one out of the canoe and looking it over critically.

“Oh, yes, the paddles are all right, and the river is close at hand,” spoke Dave Darrin vengefully.  “All we need is a canoe that will float.”

“If it were a cedar canoe we might patch it easily enough,” Prescott declared.  “But I’ve heard that there is so much ‘science’ to making or mending a birch bark canoe that an amateur always makes the job worse.”

“Haw, haw, haw!” came boisterously from Fred Ripley.  He and Mr. Dodge were now standing before the table of the auctioneer’s clerk.  Fred was paying down the remaining twenty-six dollars on the price he had bid for the handsome chestnut pony.

“Yes, you’re laughing at us, you contemptible Rip!” scowled Dave, though he spoke under his breath.  “You can afford to lose money, for you always know where to get more.  You knew this canoe was worthless, and you deliberately bid it up on us—–­you scoundrel!”

“Shall we make Colonel Grundy a present of this canoe?” suggested Danny Grin dolefully.

“The poor old man hasn’t money enough to get the canoe away from here, even if he wanted to,” replied Dick, in a voice of sympathy.

“But how did the show folks manage to use this canoe?” asked Tom Reade.

“They didn’t, except on a truck in a street parade, I imagine,” Dick replied.  “And that must be how the holes came to be in the bottom.  The sun got in its work on the bark and oil, and blistered the body of the canoe so that it broke or wore away in spots.  Oh, dear!”

The sale was over, but a few odds and ends remained.  Fred Ripley, having now paid the whole of his forty-one dollars through Mr. Dodge, ordered his handsome new purchase led out.

A man came out, holding the pony’s halter.  He walked slowly, the pony moving contentedly after him.

“A fine little animal!” glowed Fred, stroking the glossy coat.

“He—–­er—–­looks rather old, doesn’t he?” ventured Mr. Dodge.

“Not so very old,” Fred answered airily.  “There is a lot of life and vim left in this little fellow.  And he can show speed, too, or I’m all wrong.”

Then Fred’s eye roved toward the pile of stuff on which no one had bid.

“There’s a good saddle,” suggested Ripley.  “The real western kind,” nodded the auctioneer.

It looked the part.

“I’ll give you two dollars for the saddle,” Fred offered.

“You’ll pay ten if you get that saddle,” replied the red-faced auctioneer.

“Put it up and let us see how the bids will run,” proposed Ripley.

“The sale is closed.  Anything that is sold now will go at private sale,” retorted the auctioneer.

“Oh, come now!” protested Ripley.  “I’d like to trade with you.”

“You can, if you produce the price.  At least, your friend can.  I can’t deal with you, for you’re a minor.”