“Marj!” cried Frieda suddenly, in a doleful tone. “Suppose this makes us too late for the water meet!”
The idea had not occurred to Marjorie. She looked thunderstruck for a moment, but upon consideration, dismissed the thought with her usual optimism.
“It simply couldn’t, Frieda,” she reassured the other. “Today’s only Friday; the old sinner will surely find out today that he’s mistaken and let us go early tomorrow. It’s two days’ trip--we’ll only be a day late; and the meet isn’t till Wednesday. Oh, Frieda--” she jumped up and threw her arms around her companion--“I’d be so disappointed if I don’t have a chance to try for that cup!”
The woman appeared with their luncheon, and the girls found themselves treated like royal guests. They slept in the afternoon, but by five o’clock the old man had not appeared, and Marjorie’s hopes sank.
As the scouts pushed off from the shore, they lingered until Marjorie and Frieda disappeared around a bend in the stream on their way to the farm-house. Then, still thinking of the peaches, they went slowly forward.
“Let’s go slowly, and give the girls a chance to catch us,” suggested Ethel. “I could eat a peach right now.”
“Oh, Marj and Frieda will soon catch us,” reassured Ruth. “They’re the two best canoeists we’ve got.”
“You’re right, Ruth,” said Florence Evans. “Really, it hardly seems worth while for the rest of us to go in that water meet. Marj will be so sure to carry off the prize!”
“What did I tell you, Lil?” asked Ruth, triumphantly.
“Well, don’t repeat it, or I’m liable to upset the canoe again.” She was in quite a good humor now, and could laugh about the episode. “But I do think,” she added, “that we all have a good chance to become as expert as Marj is, and we’re bum sports if we just sit back and complain that it isn’t fair! It would spoil all her pleasure!”
“Right you are, Lily!” commented Miss Phillips. “I am beginning to see that it is worth while to be a scout, after all.”
“Yes, I am ashamed of myself,” said Ruth, humbly. “But I am putting all my energy into the job, and I hope maybe I am improving, a teeny-weeny bit. How about it, Captain?”
“You are doing very well, Ruth,” she replied, with sincerity.
The girls paddled on in silence for a time, all the while keeping a sharp look-out behind them for the absent ones. But there were so many bends and turns, and the trees were so thick on either side, that they could scarcely see two hundred yards behind them. Suddenly Ruth noticed a little tributary to the right.