Frank laughed as he made this remark. It was Sunday afternoon, and he was taking a little stroll with his chum, “just to show the natives that they were as fresh as daisies after that five-mile Marathon yesterday,” as Lanky put it. “Well, it did come pretty thick and fast, for a fact,” admitted the one for whom the remark was intended. “But my mother had pity on me, and let me sleep late this fine Sunday morning. Just got up in time to dress, have my breakfast, and then go to church.” “I’m sorry I missed that little affair on the river,” Frank went on. “From all the accounts I heard, it must have been a great time.” “It sure was a dandy picnic, Frank,” admitted the other, without hesitation, and drawing in a long breath, as imagination once more transported him back to the moment when he held Dora up with his right arm, and used the left to keep both of them afloat. “And you went all the way up to the Baxter farm afterwards, they say, Lanky?” “Oh! it isn’t so very far,” remonstrated the other. “The river makes a lot of turns, you know; and when a fellow is skating, it seems longer than when you’re in a buggy, on the main road, alongside a girl, and there’s just _heaps_ to be explained.” “That’s right, Lanky, it does,” replied Frank, with a knowing look. “And I reckon it was all explained, too, long before you got to the Baxter place?” “Smooth sailing from this on, Frank,” the other quickly retorted. “You see, when poor old Walter, with all his good looks, had to own up that he couldn’t swim a little bit, with Dora in the river a-waitin’ for somebody to do the rescue act, even if she can swim better’n any girl around Columbia, it just made her disgusted with such a poor stick. Anyhow, she told me she never had cared much for him, and was goin’ home from choir meetin’s with Walter just because she was mean, and wanted to hurt me. But it’s all right now, Frank; and I guess we’re better friends than ever before.” “Well, that’s going some,” remarked Frank, knowingly. “But, Lanky, how in the wide world did you put on such an immense amount of steam in the last half mile? Why, I saw in a jiffy that I was a back number yesterday, and there was no use of a fellow trying to head you off. You went like the wind, I tell you. Give me the secret, if you don’t mind. It might come handy in the big, long run.” “Shucks! it’s nothin’, after all,” replied Lanky. “I just kept thinkin’ of her, and how sorry she’d feel that our friendship was busted, when she saw me come in first, and heard everybody yelling. And she was, Frank, she admitted that to me. Why, she even couldn’t help jumpin’ up, and clappin’ her little hands, forgettin’ right then that there had ever been a wide gulf come between us. But it’s all right now, Frank, and there’s no such silly spat goin’ to happen any more. We both promised that.”