“Hurrah!  Gridley High School!  Hurrah!” called the girls again, giving the high school yell of the girls of that institution of learning.

In answer a series of whoops came over the water.

“They’re coming at racing speed!” cried Laura.

“Which shows how devoted the boys of our high school are to the young ladies,” laughed Belle.

Within a few minutes the canoe was quite close, and coming on swiftly.  From the young paddlers went up the vocal volley: 

“T-E-R-R-O-R-S-!   Wa-ar!   Fam-ine!   Pesti-i-lence!   That’s us! 
That’s us!   G-R-I-D-L-E-Y-----H.S.!   Rah!  rah!  rah!   Gri-dley!”

“Hurrah!  Gridley!  Hurrah!” answered the girls.

“Whoop!  Wow! wow! Whoo-oo-oo-oop!  Indians!  Cut-throats!  Lunch-robbers!  Bad, bad, bad!  Speed Club!  Glee Club!  Canoe Club—–­Gridley H.S.!” volleyed back Dick & Co.

It was the first time that they had let out their canoe yell in public.  They performed it lustily, with zest and pride.

“Splendid!” cried some of the girls, clapping their hands.  Though it was not quite plain whether they referred to the new yell, or to the skilful manner in which the boys now brought their craft in.  At a single “Ugh!” from Prescott they ceased paddling.  Dick, with two or three turns of his own paddle, brought the canoe in gently against the float.  Now Dave and Dick held the canoe to the float with their paddles while the other young Indians, one at a time, stepped out.  Those who had landed now bent over, holding the gunwale gently while Dave, first, and then Dick, stepped to the float.

“Up with it, braves!  Out with it!” cried Dick.  The canoe, grasped by twelve hands, was drawn up on to the float, where its wet hull lay glistening in the bright July sunlight.

“You never told us you were coming up here!” cried Laura Bentley, half reproachfully.

“If you’re bored at seeing us,” proposed Dick, smilingly, “we’ll launch our bark and speed away again.”

“Of course we’re not bored,” protested Belle Meade.  “But why couldn’t you tell us you were coming?”

“We weren’t sure of it until late Sunday afternoon,” Dave assured her.  “Some of us had to do some coaxing at home before we got permission.”

“How did you get that big canoe here?” Clara Marshall asked.

“Don’t you see the gasoline engine and the folded white wings inside the canoe?” asked Tom Reade gravely.  “We can use it either as a canoe or as an airship.”

Three or four of the girls, Clara at their head, stepped forward to look for engine and “wings,” then stepped back, laughing.

“You’re such a fibber, Tom Reade!” declared Susie Sharp.

“A falsifier?” demanded Tom indignantly.  “Nothing like it, Miss Susie!  The worst you can say of me is that I have the imagination of an inventor.”

“Tweedledum and tweedledee!” laughed Clara.