George Burton and his dog Zip had won golden opinions from the Boy , who urged their visitor to spend several days with them, but he declined, saying he would set out on his return to Mouse Island directly after dinner, which was eaten at one o’clock. Truth to tell his tastes differed from those of his new friends. He cared little or nothing for bird , or the study of trees, or roughing it in the woods. But he was an athlete, who could outrun any one of the Boy Scouts and last longer on a tramp. He was putting himself through a course of training, with a view of making the football team when he should enter Princeton University, for which he had already matriculated. His sole companion on his long runs or the hours to hardening his muscles was Zip, between whom and 249himself, as had been shown, there was a strong affection.  
Accordingly, while the afternoon was quite young, Burton shook hands with all his friends, soon to see them again, and stepped into one of the canoes in front of the . He sat on the bottom with Zip between his knees, while Alvin Landon and Chester Haynes manipulated the paddles. Mike Murphy sat in front of Burton and assumed the airs of a captain. Burton had intended to pass around the eastern end of the lake, and over the rough trace to the highway, and so on to Boothbay and Mouse Island, thus reversing this tramp of the day before. Considerable of this long course could be saved by using the boat.
 
“I don’t see how you can reach Mouse Island before night,” remarked Alvin as he slowly swung his paddle.
 
“I can’t.”
 
“Then why not stay with us and make your start in the morning?”
 
“What’s the difference? The weather is clear and cool, and the moon is near its full. I can reach Boothbay Harbor some 250time in the evening and stay there over night, and hire a launch to take me to Mouse. Or if I feel lazy, I can find accommodations at Bovil, which you know is a little village between that road over which your supply team and Boothbay. Zip and I don’t mind a little thing like that.”
 
“Hello!” exclaimed Chester, “are we never to be rid of those pests?”
 
On the shore of the lake to their right, two men were seen with their attention upon the canoe and its occupants. The distance was so slight that the three boys instantly recognized them as their old acquaintances,—Buzby Biggs and Saxy Hutt. It would have been thought that after their recent experience they would have lost no time in getting out of the neighborhood, but it will be remembered that when they leaped in a panic from the of our old friend Jake, instead of running away from Gosling Lake, they headed toward it.
 
Zip was quick to identify the . Looking toward them he emitted a throaty .
 
“He hates tramps so, that I have to restrain him when we meet them.”
 
“And why do ye reshtrain him?” asked Mike from his place in the boat. “Why don’t ye gratify his appetite for such spalpeens, though I’m thinking he runs risk of being p’isoned?”
 
“So long as the tramps keep out of I am willing to leave them alone.”
 
“But that is what they don’t do; they seem to have a spite against Doctor Spellman and his family.”
 
“Against Doctor Spellman!” exclaimed Burton; “you don’t mean Doctor Wilson Spellman?”
 
“That’s his name.”
 
“Where is he?”
 
Alvin lifted his paddle and a little away ahead and to the right.
 
“He has put up one of those patent houses among the trees, where you can’t see it from the lake, though we observe the smoke from his fire now and then. There he and his wife and little girl Ruth are spending several weeks in the most sensible manner possible.”
 
“Why, he’s my uncle,” added the 252surprised and delighted Burton; “I knew he had gone on an outing in Maine, but thought it was at the Rangely Lakes. Now, as the expression goes, isn’t that ‘funny’?”
 
“You will like to call on him?”
 
“Most certainly; I’m very fond of him, and of Aunt Susie and Ruth.”
 
The boat was sheered toward land at a point where the canoe of the physician was seen up the bank. The two tramps stood so motionless and fixed in their attention that they suggested a couple of scarecrows. Mike turned his head and grinned.
 
“Head the boat toward them, as if ye intinded to call and lave yer cards.”
 
The bow was whirled further around, and pointed straight for the vagrants. Zip was tremulous with eager expectation. Resting his paws on the gunwales, he his ears and . One good look at the was enough for the men. They turned about and dived among the trees as terrified as when the bullets of Doctor Spellman’s revolver whistled about their ears.
 
“Howld on!” shouted Mike, “till we can 253talk politics wid ye, and thry to agraa as to whether the Bool Moose ought to be the next President.”
 
But the scamps paid no , and Mike looked commiserately at the dog.
 
“’Tis a cruelty thus to disappint ye, Zip, as me dad said whin he walked five miles to have a shindy with Terence Googhagan, and found he’d been drowned; but ye may git a chance at ’im later on.”
 
A few minutes the nose of the canoe slid up the bank, and the boys stepped out. It being early in the afternoon, Doctor Spellman was seated in his camp chair in front of his house, smoking a cigar and looking over the Boston Globe. His wife, having set thing............