“That’s our boat!”
“I think so myself. Come on. Let’s row over to them before they have a chance to reach their camp!” cried Jack.
“That’s the talk!” returned Spouter.
“I wonder if they got the oars,” said Randy. “The pair I was using was dandy.”
“It isn’t likely,” answered Andy. “You let them fall overboard, didn’t you, when the boat upset?”
“Sure! Everything went out, as far as I know.”
With each cadet at an oar, the four lads sent the rowboat through the water with good speed, and in less than five minutes were hauling up alongside of the other craft. Those at the oars proved to be Tommy Flanders and Billy Sands. The fellow in the stern, who was smoking a cigarette, was Paul Halliday, while the fourth lad was a stranger to the boys from Colby Hall, although they had seen him in the Longley contingent at the ball games.
“Hello! So you found our boat, did you?” exclaimed Spouter.
“Your boat?” demanded Tommy Flanders. “Who said it was your boat?”
“I say it,” answered Randy. “That boat got away from us yesterday in the storm.”
“Did you find the oars?” questioned Jack.
“No. We didn’t find anything but the boat,” said Halliday. “And you’ve got to prove it’s your property before we give it up,” he went on suddenly and with a wink at his companions.
“That boat belongs to Mr. Garrison,” declared Jack. “We got it from Mose Mumbleton only yesterday.”
“Well, you’ll have to prove that before we give it up,” came from Tommy Flanders. “Don’t you say so, fellows?”
“Sure we do,” put in Billy Sands readily.
“Of course if it’s their boat they ought to have it,” came somewhat slowly from the fourth boy.
“Nothing doing, Fiddler!” cried Halliday. “We wouldn’t take their word for anything. We’re going to take this boat to our camp and they can’t have it until they prove it belongs to them. For all we know, they saw us pick the boat up and now want a chance to get it for themselves, even if it doesn’t belong to them.”
“Halliday, you ought to be punched for that!” cried Randy angrily.
“You know well enough we wouldn’t claim the boat if it wasn’t ours,” added his brother.
“I don’t know anything about it. If this boat belongs to Mr. Garrison he’s got to prove property. Besides that, he ought to pay for having it brought back. If it hadn’t been for us the boat might never have been found.”
“Oh, so you’re out for a reward, are you?” remarked Spouter sarcastically. “How much do you think you ought to have—a quarter or fifty cents?”
“I don’t want any of your funny talk, Powell,” roared Halliday, in a rage. “I’m not looking for any reward, nor am I going to turn this boat over to somebody it doesn’t belong to.”
“There is the name on the stern!” cried Randy. “Comet! That’s the name of the boat we were in yesterday when we got upset on a snag. That’s our boat, and no question about it.”
“Well, we’re going to take the boat to our camp. If Mr. Garrison wants the boat and can prove it belongs to him, let him come over there,” said Tommy Flanders, after a few whispered words to his cronies. Then those in the other boat began to row away.
“Great tomcats! we’re not going to let them get away with our boat, are we?” gasped Andy. “Why, I’d fight ’em first!”
“So would I,” declared Spouter. “That boat belongs to us, and they know it as well as we do. It’s only a trick to keep us from having the use of the craft.”
“Let’s pull after them and cut the boat adrift,” said Jack. “Andy, you get in the stern and have your knife ready. We’ll show those fellows a trick or two.”
“Right-o,” answered his cousin, and without letting those in the other craft see what they were doing Andy got out his pocketknife and opened the largest of the blades. The others fell to rowing, and in a few seconds more were alongside of the rowboat which was being towed.
“Hi! Let go of that!” cried Billy Sands suddenly, and, reaching out over the stern, he tried to pull the second boat closer.
Andy, however, was too quick for Sands, and in a twinkling he reached over and cut the line. The loose end he caught in his hand and in a moment more the empty rowboat was tied fast to the stern of the craft occupied by the Rovers and Spouter. Then Andy dropped back in his seat and grabbed his oar.
“Away we go, boys!” he chuckled. “I don’t believe they can catch us even if we have got to drag the other boat behind us.”
“Stop! Stop!” roared Tommy Flanders. “Stop, or we’ll have the law on you!”
“You go to grass, Flanders,” answered Andy.
“Don’t you dare to follow us,” called back Spouter. “If you do you’ll be sorry for it.”
“Oh, let ’em go. It’s probably their boat, anyhow,” said the boy who had been called Fiddler, in a low tone. “We don’t want that boat. We’ve got all the boats we need.”
There was a hot argument between this boy and the others from Longley Academy, and while this was going on the Rovers and Spouter pulled steadily and soon placed quite a distance between themselves and the other craft. Then, looking back, they saw Tommy Flanders and his crowd take up their oars again and row in the direction of Willoughby camp.
“What a nerve they had!” remarked Randy, as he and the others let up a little in their rowing.
“I’ll bet if we hadn’t spotted them they would never have said a word about the rowboat. That is, if they found out we had lost it,” came from Jack.
“Just shows how mean that bunch is,” declared Andy.
“They’ll be meaner than ever after this, Andy. They’ll want to square up with us for getting the best of them in this affair.”
As the other boat was now well on its way to the camp on the east shore of Big Bear Lake, the boys from Colby Hall determined to turn back once more and take a look around for the missing oars. This they did, and spent an hour in rowing slowly up and down the shore and around several small islands. They were rewarded by finding two of the oars. What had become of the other pair was a mystery.
It was well toward noon when they got back to camp, and it must be confessed that their arms were tired and they were glad to rest a bit before partaking of the dinner prepared by Jeff under the directions and with the aid of Gif and Fred.
“What gall those fellows had,” remarked Fred, when he heard the story the others had to tell.
“If they had kept that boat my father could have made it hot for them,” remarked Gif.
“Oh, they wouldn’t dare to keep it. They only thought they were going to make us a lot of trouble,” answered Jack. “It was just a little meanness on their part, that’s all.”
All the boxes and bundles had been brought in; and as soon as they had rested and had dinner Randy and Spouter set about emptying their suitcases and drying out their contents. Fortunately, nothing had been permanently injured, for which the lads were thankful.
Several days passed, the boys doing little except to go in bathing and lie around outdoors enjoying themselves. The bungalow boasted of several hammocks, and these were stretched between convenient trees, some of them quite close to the water. The lads went fishing, catching a fine mess of pickerel and perch, which they had Jeff fry for supper and for the following breakfast.
“Well, Jeff certainly knows how to fry fish,” remarked Jack, after he had eaten his supper. “I never ate fish that tasted better.”
“That’s the one thing that Jeff can do,” answered Gif. “Otherwise, I think he’s about as lazy and worthless as any nigger I ever met. Privately, I wish we could get rid of him.”
“You’d better pile more work on him, Gif. Maybe then he’d get tired of the job and make an excuse for going home,” suggested Spouter.
“I’m certainly going to do something unless he wakes up,” answered the other.
On Monday, following a quiet Sunday in camp, all the boys rowed up to Rocky Run to purchase some additional supplies from Mose Mumbleton. The old storekeeper was glad to see them and had some news to impart.
“Three more young fellows came for that other camp yesterday,” he said. “A fellow named Smith, another named Mason and a third chap with a big wide mouth, named Stowell.”
“That was Codfish!” exclaimed Andy. “They said he was coming up here.”
“Did they buy anything from you, Mr. Mumbleton?” questioned Jack.
“Oh, yes; a few things. But most of those fellows are terribly sharp at driving a bargain. I guess they haven’t got any too much spending money with them. Another thing! Mr. Flanders was up here. He has a boy over to the camp. He’s the man, you know, who bought that factory up on Flat Rock Creek.”
“Is he staying up at the camp?” asked Andy.
“Oh, no. He was going up to a farmhouse that’s quite close to the old factory. I think he wants to look the property over. He’s thinking of opening it up again, you know.”
“What sort of factory is it?” questioned Fred.
“Why, it used to be a paint works. What they’re going to do with it now though, I don’t know. It’s a pretty good building, and I suppose it could be used for most anything.”
After the storekeeper had supplied them with the things they wanted he told them they had better hang around a little longer as the train would soon be in with the mail. They waited as directed and were rewarded with a number of letters which, of course, they read eagerly.
One communication received by Jack was from Ruth. In it the girl declared that she was having a fine time with the other girls at Valley Brook Farm, but that she was very much worried over her father’s business affairs.
“The loss of the book of formulas is worrying dad a great deal,” she wrote. “Not only because he spent so much money on it, but because he got some of the money from Uncle Barney and because he signed an agreement to purchase a place where he could manufacture those artists’ colors. And worst of all, the loss of the money seems to have revived that old quarrel between dad and Uncle Barney. Mother is terribly worried, especially as dad doesn’t seem to be nearly as well as he was before that aeroplane accident.”
The reading of this communication worried Jack not a little. He could see that Ruth was much downcast over the state of affairs.
“Everything all right, Jack?” questioned Fred. “Here’s a letter from dad if you’d like to read it. Everything is O. K. down their way.”
“Oh, they’re all well enough up at the farm,” answered the young major. “But Ruth has her troubles,” and then he told of what the girl had written.
“It’s too bad,” remarked his cousin. “I wonder why Mr. Stevenson doesn’t try to get on the track of those two men, Norris and Lemrech, the workmen who were interested in getting such formulas. Don’t you remember they said Lemrech was of a shady reputation and not above stealing the formulas and that the other fellow, who was his cousin, was the same kind of man?”
“Well, Mr. Stevenson is probably trying to locate those fellows. But maybe they know enough to keep out of sight.”
“If he shouldn’t get the formulas back, Jack, it might bankrupt him.”
“That’s just what I have been thinking,” answered the young major soberly.