While they were discussing this, the canoe lay on the float., whence they were soon to take it into the boathouse.

“We can try it now,” suggested Dick.

Getting a good hold, Dick & Co. raised the war canoe to their several shoulders.  They found they could accomplish the feat, though it wasn’t an easy one.

“We’ll have to give up that idea,” Tom remarked rather mournfully.  “Without a doubt we could carry the canoe to Lake Pleasant, if we had time enough.  But I don’t believe we could make five miles a day with it.  So to get the canoe up to Lake Pleasant on our shoulders, and then back again would take over two weeks.”

Dick was unusually thoughtful as the boys strolled from Driggs’ yard up to Main Street.  Lake Pleasant was a fine place to visit in summer.  He knew that, for he had been there on one occasion.

On one side of the lake were two hotels, each with roomy recreation grounds, with piers and plenty of boats.  On this same side there were four or five boarding houses for people of more moderate means.

Boating was the one great pastime at Lake Pleasant.  Indeed, a canoe club had been started there by young men of means, and the boathouse stood at the water’s edge on the Hotel Pleasant grounds.

Then, too, there may have been another reason for Dick’s desire to go to Lake Pleasant.  The following week Dr. and Mrs. Bentley were going to take charge of a party of Gridley high school girls, at Lake Pleasant, and Laura and Belle Meade would be of the number.

“We’d cut a fine dash at Lake Pleasant,” Dave Darrin laughed.  “Which hotel would we honor with our patronage?  Terms, from fourteen to twenty-five dollars a week.  We’ve about enough money to stay at one of the hotels for about two hours, or at a boarding house for about nine hours.  When shall we start—–­and how shall we get there with our canoe?”

“We have about fifty dollars in our treasury, from the birch bark business,” Dick mused aloud, “but that won’t help us any, will it?”

“Why, how much would it cost to have the canoe taken up there on a wagon Danny Grin asked.

“Not less than fifteen dollars each way,” Dick replied.

“We’ll give it up,” said Tom.  “There’s nothing in the Lake Pleasant idea for us.”

“I hadn’t any idea we could do anything else but give it up,” Dave observed, though he spoke rather gloomily.

Dick was still thinking hard, though he could think of no plan that would enable them to make a trip to Lake Pleasant and remain there for some days.

It was a Saturday afternoon.  It had been a hot day, yet out on the water, busy with their sport, and acquiring a deep coating of sunburn, the boys had not noticed the heat especially.  Now they mopped their faces as they strolled almost listlessly along the street.

“I want to go to Lake Pleasant,” grumbled Danny Grin.

“Going to-night, or to-morrow morning?” teased Greg.