Page:Castlemon--Joe Wayring at Home.djvu/120

 "That's my opinion," said Loren. "He shall win it, too, if strategy is of any use."

"You are no sooner out of your canoe than you are back into it again," continued Tom. "I am sure that neither Wayring, Hastings nor Sheldon can do better than that. I only wish you had a little more muscle."

"But I haven't got it and can't get it between this time and the race, and so you fellows will have to help me."

"Trust us for that," answered Tom. "Then we'll turn to and foul the best contestant in the hurry-scurry race, so that Loren can win that; and if you will lend me your Rob Roy, I'll take my chances on carrying off the honors in the portage race."

"That is just the way I had planned it," exclaimed Ralph. "We'll show these fellows who think themselves so smart, that there are others in the world who are quite as smart as they are."

It was a very pretty programme, no doubt, but it never occurred to Tom and his cousins that possibly the boys to whom Prime was to introduce them the next day, might not think