[Illustration: BAD ROWING.]

"_Oars!_" said Marco, "OARS!"

What Marco meant by _oars_ they did not know, so they paid no attention to the command, but some stopped rowing in despair, while others kept on, banging the blades of the oars against one another, and plashing the water, but produced no effect whatever in respect to propelling the boat. In the mean time the air was filled with shouts of laughter and loud vociferations.

"_Oars!_" exclaimed Marco again, with the voice of a colonel at the head of his regiment. "_Oars!_ Why don't you stop when I say _Oars_?"

The boys began to stop, shouting to one another, "Stop!" "Stop!" In a few minutes all was still again. The boys began to take their oars in and one of them rose and said,

"Poh! this is all nonsense. You can't do any thing with oars. I'd rather have one good paddle than all the oars in New York."

In fact, Marco himself began to despair. He uttered some impatient exclamations, and tried to paddle the boat toward the shore. But he found he was almost as awkward in managing a paddle, as the other boys were in working oars. He succeeded, however, at last, in getting the boat to the shore, and then he told the boys that they might as well get out, for they could not do any thing at all about rowing.

"You don't seem to get along very well, Marco," said Forester: "what is the matter?"

"Why, I havn't got any crew.

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