At eleven they were paddling up the river against a stiff tide with the wind quartering the canoes from across the marshes. There was a big pasteboard box of luncheon in Alf and Tom’s craft, while between Dan and Gerald lay a pile of rugs. Paddling was rather hard work and, although they started off merrily enough, they soon relapsed into silence and saved their breath for their labor. Once past Flat Island it was easier going, for the stream narrows there and the banks are higher and afford more protection from the wind. Half a mile farther Tom protested.

“Isn’t this far enough?” he asked. “What’s the good of killing ourselves.”

“There isn’t a decent place to camp here,” answered Alf. “Let’s go up where we can find some trees to break the wind. It isn’t much farther.” Tom groaned and bent over his paddle again.[159] Gerald had learned paddling the year before and was quite an adept, but his softer muscles soon tired and he was heartily glad when Alf finally called a halt, about a mile and a half from school.

“Here’s a dandy place,” Alf announced, “over here on the left.”

“The other side looks better,” said Tom.

“No, because over here we’ll have the trees between us and the wind. Push her in here, Tom.”

The canoes were nosed up on a yard-wide beach of soft sand and the boys disembarked. The bank was only two or three feet high and they scrambled up it, bearing the provisions and rugs. There was a little plateau of grass here and back of it the land sloped up in a tiny ridge thickly grown with young oaks and stunted, misshapen cedars. The fringe of trees broke to some extent the wind, which blew strongly here across a mile of marsh and meadow. There were no houses near, although farther up stream and on the other side a farm was in sight a half mile distant. There was plenty of wood lying along the bank and Dan discovered dead cedar which he uprooted and added to the fuel pile. Alf found a piece of dry pine wood and splintered it with his knife.

“Who’s got a piece of paper?” he asked.

[160]

“You don’t need paper,” said Tom. “Use dry grass.”

So Alf gathered a few handfuls, leaned his whittlings neatly upon it, set some larger pieces on that and felt in his pockets.

“Got a match, Tom?” he inquired.

Tom went through his clothes and shook his head. Dan followed his example and shook his head likewise. Alf began to look anxious.

“Got a match, Gerald?” he cried. Gerald, who was gathering wood at a little distance, answered promptly and cheerfully.

“No, I haven’t, Alf. Will this be enough wood?”

There was no reply for a moment. Then Alf answered dryly: “I think so, Gerald. Yes, I think we have all the wood we can burn—without a match!”

Dan looked about him, his gaze traveling over the landscape. Tom grinned.

“Looking for a match factory, Dan?” he asked pleasantly.

Alf, sitting on his feet, looked ruefully at his neatly arranged pile of grass and splinters and wood. Gerald came up cheerfully with an armful of broken branches.

“There,” he said, “that’s surely enough.[161] There’s a big old log down there, though, if we need it. It was too heavy for me to carry. What—what’s the matter?” He stared wonderingly from one to another of the silent trio.

“Nothing to speak of,” answered Dan. “Only we haven’t any matches.”

“It’s a mere detail, of course,” murmured Tom carelessly.

“Oh!” said Gerald blankly.

“Thank you,” said Alf. “It’s a remark I’ve been trying to think of for some time. It—it does full justice to the situation.”

“Let’s look again,” suggested Dan, probing his pockets. Everyone followed suit, but, although a great variety of articles were discovered, no one found a match.

“We’re a parcel of idiots,” remarked Alf earnestly.

“‘We?’” asked Tom in surprise. “No one told me to bring any matches. If they had I’d have brought them. Why, the table was just strewn with them. I noticed them as I left the room.”

“It’s a wonder you wouldn’t put a few in your pocket,” replied Alf disgustedly.

“I thought you were attending to the arrangements,” said Tom unruffledly. “Well, I shall[162] wrap myself in a rug and go to sleep. I just love these al fresco affairs. I could die picnicking—probably of pneumonia!”

“It is fun, isn’t it?” laughed Dan.

“Absolutely matchless,” replied Tom cheerfully.

Alf sniffed disgustedly.

“As there are only two rugs, Tom, you’ll have to take some one in with you,” said Dan. “We might go home and have our luncheon in the room.”

“Go home after coming all the way up here?” said Alf fretfully. “That would be a silly thing to do!”

“Yes, I’m surprised at you, Mr. Vinton,” said Tom severely. “How much better it would be to stay here comfortably and enjoy the dear little breezes that are wandering caressingly down my spine.”

“I saw a match somewhere,” said Gerald, gazing into space with a deep frown. Tom viewed him in mock alarm.

“It’s hunger and exposure,” he whispered. “He’s raving! He’s seeing matches! It’s a frightful symptom!”

“What do you mean?” demanded Alf anxiously. “Where did you see a match?”

[163]

“Yes,” prompted Dan, “tell the ladies and gentlemen where you saw the match. Give all the details, Gerald. What sort of a match was it? Not a football match, I hope?”

Gerald looked at them blankly, trying to remember.

“I—it was somewhere.”

“Yes, yes! Go on!” cried Tom hoarsely, clutching his hands in an agony of suspense.

“Oh, cut out the comedy!” begged Alf. “What are you talking about, kid?”

“Why, I saw a match somewhere—just now—since we left school,” answered Gerald.

“Where?”

“I can’t think.”

“Look in your pockets again,” said Dan.

“I did.”

“Well, did it again, then.” Gerald obeyed but had to shake his head when the search was over.

“I observe,” remarked Tom, as though speaking to himself, “that yonder lies what looks from here to be a perfectly good farmhouse. I presume that there are matches there and that we might be able to borrow one or two of the priceless things.”

“It’s a half-mile paddle and a half-mile walk after that,” said Alf dejectedly. “Still, you[164] might try it.” Tom looked pained and surprised.

“Oh, I wasn’t thinking of trying it,” he assured them. “I’m not what you’d call an accomplished canoeist, Alf. I haven’t your skill, you know.”

“Well, I’m not going away up there all alone,” said Alf positively. “The wind’s too strong. If one of you fellows will go with me——”

“I know!” cried Gerald. He turned and sprang toward the bank, the others following. He clambered into the nearest canoe and began to peer about. Then he went to the second and repeated the operation and in a moment exhibited what at a few yards away had all the earmarks of a match.

“Hooray!” cried Dan. “Is it a good one?”

Gerald viewed it dubiously as he clambered back.

“I—I think so,” he answered, handing it over for their inspection. Dan examined it and passed it to Alf, and Alf, with a shake of his head, presented it to Tom. It was about two thirds of a sulphur match and had evidently been exposed, if not to rain, at least to dampness, for the head had lost its brilliancy of hue.

“A most dissipated looking article,” pondered[165] Tom. “It looks to me like a match with a sad and eventful past. However”—he returned it to Alf—“see what you can do with it.”

“You light it, Dan,” said Alf carelessly. But Dan shook his head.

“It would go out as sure as Fate if I tried it. You do it, Tom.”

“Never! I decline to assume the terrible responsibility. Let Gerald perform the mystic rite.” But Gerald drew back as though Dan were offering him poison.

“I wouldn’t dare!” he laughed. “Alf, you do it.”
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