"Why can't we make a boat? There's plenty of time between now and vacation. If we do the work ourselves, it oughtn't to cost more than two or three dollars and then we'd have a boat of our own." "Bully!" cried Charley. "We can make it as good as anybody. We'll do it." "All right. I'll go down-town and find the price of oars and rowlocks, and you go over to Hank Cooley's and find out how his father made that boat of his. It's a dandy and just what we need." The two boys rushed off in opposite directions, each full of enthusiasm over the plan to build a new boat and make a trip up the river during their Easter vacation. Chapter II What Came of Them A few hours later Charley Russell again sat before the bench in the little wireless house in his father's yard. Before him lay some patterns for a rowboat, and on a piece of paper Charley was trying to figure out how much lumber it would take to build the boat. "We'll need two sixteen-foot boards, each a foot wide for the sides," he said, looking across the table at his chum, who sat ready, with pencil and paper, to jot down the figures Charley gave him. "Thirty-two feet," said Lew, setting down the number on his paper. Charley bent over his patterns, measuring and estimating in silence. "It'll take three more like 'em for the bottom," he said presently. "That's forty-eight more," replied Lew, jotting down the number. "And these cross braces," added Charley, after another period of calculation, "will take ten feet more." Again Lew set down the number. "That provides for everything but the decks," said Charley. "They will take seven or eight feet more. Better call it ten. That's all. What does it make?" Lew put down ten and added the column of figures. "One hundred feet exactly," he said. "Bully good!" replied Charley. "A hundred feet oughtn't to cost much of anything. The rub's going to be to get the oars. You say they want five dollars for the cheapest pair at the hardware store, and the sporting goods store wants six-fifty." "The robbers!" cried Lew. "Think of it. Six-fifty for about fifteen cents' worth of wood. Maybe we can get a pair of second-hand oars somewhere. Six-fifty is as much as we can afford to spend on the whole outfit." "It will be all right to get second-hand oars," said Charley, "for we can get new ones later, when we have the money. Besides, we want to put most of our money into the boat itself. As long as we are going to build it, we want to make it the very best boat possible. We want the best wood in the market and we want our boat light enough so that the two of us can carry it. I reckon it may cost two or three dollars if we buy such good wood as that. But it will be worth while. We can get along with cheap oars for a time. Let's go down to the lumber-yard and get our boards." The two chums left the shop and hurried down the street toward the lumber-yard.