Going, going-----" Just then the word "gone" would have been uttered, and the canoe gone to Dick & Co.
"Three dollars!" called Fred Ripley.
There was a pause, while the auctioneer exhorted the crowd to wake up.
"Four," said young Prescott, at last, but he spoke with pretended indifference.
"Five," chimed in a man who now seemed to take an interest.

The bidding now went up slowly, a dollar at a time, with these three bidders, until twelve dollars was reached.

Then the man dropped out.

Dick was outwardly calm, though his chums shivered, for they knew that their combined capital did not reach the amount now being offered.
"I'm afraid that canoe is going to Dick's head," whispered Harry Hazelton anxiously to Tom Reade.
"Let him alone," retorted Tom in a low voice.

"It's one of Dick Prescott's good points that he generally knows what he's doing." "But we have only-----" "Never mind if we're worth a million, or only a single dollar," interrupted Reade impatiently.