"Good morning, Prescott," came a greeting from Lawyer Ripley, just then coming out of a store. "How did you young men enjoy that collapsible canoe?"
"That canoe, sir? It made the vacation trip a perfect one. But were you the one who sent it, Mr. Ripley?"
"Yes," assented the lawyer, "though acting as agent for another. You remember how much Mr. Page wanted to do for you boys, after your splendid work for him last summer? Mr. Page wanted to do something for you this summer, and he and I hit upon the collapsible canoe as a remembrance so simple and inexpensive that you young men were quite likely to accept it."
"Mr. Ripley," begged Dick earnestly, "will you accept the very best thanks of us all for that canoe? And will you please convey our deepest gratitude to Mr. Page? We couldn't have had anything that would have delighted us as much."
Readers of the preceding volume of this series are well aware of the reason of Mr. Page's great gratitude to Dick & Co.
The next Tottenville car that came along had Dick Prescott for one of its passengers.
This narrative, however, has been finished. That trolley, toTottenville really belongs to the next and final volume in thisseries, which is published under the title, "The High SchoolBoys' Training Hike; Or, Making Themselves 'Hard as Nails."
This new story will be found to contain the full record of a most wonderful vacation jaunt taken by six young champions of the Gridley High School football squad.
Yet this jaunt did not consist wholly of training work, for Dick & Co. fell in with a lot of tremendously exciting adventures.
What these were and how Dick & Co. acted under amazingly strange circumstances will be set forth fully in that volume.