“Well, I guess the black side of debt shows only when one doesn’t intend to make an effort to pay it,” Dick suggested.  “The whole business world, so we were taught at high school, rests on a foundation of debt.  The man who doesn’t contract debts bigger than he can pay, won’t find much horror in owing money.  We owe Hiram Driggs twenty dollars, or rather we’re going to owe it.  But the bark we’re going to take in to him to-day is going to pay a part of that debt.  A few days more of tramping, blistered hands and aching backs, and we’ll be well out of debt and have the rest of the summer for that great old canoe!”

“Let’s make an early start with the bark,” proposed Tom.  “I want to see if the stuff feels as heavy as it did late yesterday afternoon.”

“Humph!  My load doesn’t seem to weigh more than seven ounces,” Darrin declared, as he shouldered one of the piles of bark.

“Lighter than air this morning,” quoth Tom, “and only a short haul at that.”

When Hiram Driggs reached his boatyard at eight o’clock he found Dick & Co. waiting for him.

“Well, well, well, boys!” Mr. Driggs called cheerily.  “So you didn’t back out.”

“Did you think we would, sir?” Dick inquired.

“No; I knew you boys wouldn’t back out.  And I don’t believe you threw away any bark on the way home, just to lighten your loads.”

Hiram went about the yard starting the day’s work for his men, then came back to the boys.

“Now, just bring the bark over to the platform and we’ll look it over and sort it,” suggested the boat builder.

Dick & Co. carried their loads over to the platform, where they cut the lashings.

“We’ll make three heaps of the stuff,” Driggs proposed.  “One heap will be the worthless stuff that has to be thrown away.  Another heap will be for the pieces that are good but small; they’ll do for patches.  The third heap will be the whole, sound strips.  Mebbe I’d better do all the sorting myself.”

So the boys stood by, watching Driggs as he sorted the bundles of bark with the speed of a man who knows just what he wants.  A quantity of the bark went on to the “worthless” heap, yet there was a goodly amount in each of the other piles by the time that the boat builder was through sorting it.

“You’ve done first rate, boys,” he announced at last.  “Is there much more of that bark on Katson’s Hill?”

“We ought to be able to bring in fifty times as much bark as we’ve brought already,” Dick answered.

“I wish you would,” Driggs retorted.

“And give up the whole of our summer vacation?” Danny Grin asked anxiously.