The General bowed in acknowledgment of the compliment, and the brothers turned their horses about and rode away.  When they reached the barn Don was willing to confess that he was very tired.  Riding on horseback is hard work for one who is stiff in every joint and lame all over; but Don could not think of going into the house and taking a rest.  He had been a close prisoner there for a whole week, and now that he had taken a breath of fresh air and stirred his sluggish blood with a little exhilarating exercise, he could not bear to go back to his sofa again.  He proposed that they should leave their ponies at the barn and go up to David’s in the canoe.  They would take their guns with them, he said, and after they had paid David his money, they would row a short distance up the bayou, and perhaps they might be fortunate enough to knock over a duck or two for the next day’s dinner.

Bert, of course, agreed to the proposition, and went into the shop after the oars belonging to the canoe, while Don went into the house again after the guns.  When he came out again he had a breech-loader on each shoulder and David’s ten dollars in his pocket.  Paying that bill twice did make a big hole in his Christmas money, for it took just half of it.

The brothers walked along the garden path that ran toward the lake, and when Don, who was leading the way, stepped upon the jetty he missed something at once.  The canoe was gone.  They had not been near the jetty for a week, and the last time they were there the boat was all right.  It could not have got away without help, for it was firmly tied to a ring in the jetty by the chain, which served as a painter, and even if that had become loosened the canoe would have remained near its moorings, for there was no current in the lake to carry it from the shore.  Beyond a doubt, it had been stolen.  Don would not have felt the loss more keenly if the thief had taken his fine sail-boat.  The canoe was almost as old as he was, and in it he and Bert had taken their first ride on the lake and captured their first wounded duck.

“It’s gone,” said Don, after he and Bert had looked all around the lake as far as their eyes could reach, “and that’s all there is of it.  But we’ll not give up our trip.  We’ll go in the sail-boat.”

The sail-boat had been dismantled, and the masts, sails, rudder and everything else belonging to her had been stored in the shop under cover.  While Bert was gone after the oars, Don drew the boat up to the jetty, and having stowed the guns away in the stow-sheets, he got in himself and took another survey of the lake to make sure that the canoe was nowhere in sight.  It was hard to give it up as lost.

Bert came back in a few minutes, and having shipped the oars shoved off and pulled down the lake.  A quarter of an hour afterward they landed on the beach in front of Godfrey’s cabin.  They found David wandering listlessly about in the back yard with his hands in his pockets; and when he came up to the fence in response to their call, they saw that he had been crying again.