“Another piece of patchwork, you mean,” grinned Harry.  “No, please don’t.  I have not recovered from the other yet.”

“You fellows do not appreciate real genius, and here is the river right at your feet to inspire you to noble thoughts.  Come on, let’s take a spin.”

“You have set our brains to spinning already,” said Arthur.

“No, one good turn deserves another,” quoted Jesse W., with a broad grin.  “Come on, boys, before Billy breaks out again.”

“I may astonish you boys yet,” laughed Billy, as he got into his boat and set off down stream.

Jack worked industriously on his poem, and Percival became serious and did some really good work on one that he had begun when he knew that Jack was at work, a number of the boys getting to work at the same time.

“I don’t expect to do better than Jack,” Percival said to Arthur, “but if he knows I am going in for this he will do all the better, and I want him to come out on top.”

“He may anyhow, Dick,” returned Arthur.  “He has been doing something of this sort for the News in Riverton.  They have not been signed, but I know that they were his from a line or two that I heard him repeating to himself in the tent when he did not know that any one was around.  I recognized them afterwards in one of the poems published in the paper.  Jack is a modest fellow and does not blow his own trumpet.”

“Did any one else hear him, Art?”

“Yes, Harry.  We did not say anything about it, but we know the pieces were his.  Then you know that he has done something in that line for the Hilltop Gazette, of course?”

“To be sure I do.  The Academy paper is doing fine since Jack took the editorship.  It is some magazine now.”

“I should say it was.  Jack will write something good I know, and I want to see him win the prize.”

“So do I, Art, as I told you before,” replied Percival heartily.

Percival let it be known to Jack that he was trying for the prize and this, instead of making the boy feel envious, as some would have done, encouraged him and caused him to put forth his best efforts.

“I hear that you are going to compete for the poetic prize, Dick,” he said to his friend.  “That’s fine.  I hope you will get it.  You used to do a lot of good things, and I don’t see why you should not do them still.  I’d like to see you get it, Dick.”

Dick chuckled over this to Harry and Arthur and Billy, and said: 

“Jack is putting his best foot forward, as I hoped he would.  He thinks that I will beat him, and so he is doing his best.  That’s just what I wanted, and I hope he will win the pennant.”

“H’m! you talk as if this was a baseball series,” laughed Billy.

“Well, you know what I mean anyhow,” returned Dick.

The boys put in their poems and the blank sealed envelopes containing their names and the titles of their productions, the envelopes not to be opened till after the prizes were given.