It was a good six-mile pull to Westport, but Paul was used to the Dragon, and she went ahead without much effort on his part. The lake was as smooth as glass, and the rower wondered that it could ever be as rough as it had been the day the Silver Moon was so nearly wrecked. Though he was as tough as an oak knot, and had not yet become tired, he thought it was about time for the stranger in the stern to begin to do his share of the pulling, for the boat was now about half way to Westport. Sandy Point was half a mile ahead, and Paul mentioned the fact as a hint that his companion had better take the oars. "They say you used to live there, Bristol Brick," said Tom in reply, and without taking the hint, which was altogether too indefinite for one with a skin so thick and dirty as the bruiser had. "I lived there two years," replied Paul indifferently. "Sho'! You don't say so!" exclaimed Tom, albeit there was nothing very astonishing in the statement. "They say the Beech Hill fellers kerried the house you lived in over to Hornet P'int one night, and left everything jest as though there never hadn't been no house there." "That's all very true. Major Billcord warned my mother to move the cottage within twenty-four hours, and told her he should pitch it into the lake if she didn't do it," added Paul; and the stranger seemed to be the only person in Addison County who didn't know all the particulars of the affair. "I guess the major was a little struck up when he found it had scooted," said Tom, with a cheerful grin, as he looked ahead at the point where he had suggested a meeting of the oarsman with Walk Billcord on the evening of that day. "He was very much astonished, and so were the students of the institute, to whom he had promised a pile of fun in tipping the cottage and all that it contained into the lake." "I don't see how the Beech Hill fellers could move the house. I don't believe they did it," added Tom, shaking his head. Paul explained how the job had been done, and assured his companion he had seen the whole work himself. Tom insisted on being incredulous, for just then he believed he was particularly cunning. "I never went ashore at Sandy Point, Bristol Brick, and I should like to see how the land lays there," suggested Tom, with one of his cheerful grins, exaggerated for the occasion. "You can see the whole of the shore from here," replied Paul, turning around and pointing out the locality of the cottage. "But I want to see the place, and 't won't take two minutes for me to run up to where the house was," Tom insisted. "Then I will row the rest of the way over to Westport, and nobody won't git hurt none."