Page:Castlemon--Joe Wayring at Home.djvu/247

 enough to make him suspicious of them; and when they came to look at it, they found that they were in a very unenviable situation.

"I'd give almost any thing if I could live the last half hour over again," declared Loren, after he had taken a few minutes in which to consider the matter. "We've made Noble and his crowd so mad that they'll never look at us again, Tom is just as good as expelled from the club, and we may as well give up all hope of being admitted to the Toxophilites. We're at outs with every body, and the only thing we can do is to stand by one another."

Ralph thought so, too. Without wasting any more time in argument they put on their long coats to cover up the uniforms they would probably never wear again, shoved off their canoes, and set out for home; and no one except Frank Noble saw them go. The other members of the club were too much interested in their own affairs to pay any attention to the movements of a boy who had gone deliberately to work to mar their day's enjoyment.

"Tom's got two fellows to stand by him, but I am left alone," thought Noble, with no little