“Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!” shouted the delighted lads.
“It’s lucky there were boats ready to give us a lift,” said Jack Diamond. “Hans was floundering about like a maniac, and——”
“Who told me so?” cried the Dutch boy. “Dot Bodomac Rifer vater vos der thinnest sduff dot efer tried to valk on me. Id don’d seem unaple to subbort me ven I tried to svim oudt der shore to. I sunk der pottom to shust like you vos von sdick uf vood.”
“Where is Browning?” asked Fred Dobbs.
“Oh, he’s in the hotel, having a chill,” laughed Rattleton. “The plunge in the river brought on the ague again.”
“I don’t suppose there is any doubt as to the identity of the fellow who threw the bomb?” said Noel Spudd, questioningly.
“Not a bit of it!” exclaimed Bart Hodge. “Miss Bellwood and Miss Spencer both saw him when he did the trick. He was on the steam launch. Miss Bellwood was looking at him through field glasses, and she is ready to swear it was Rolf Harlow.”
“In that case,” said Spudd, “I presume Mr. Merriwell will see that the fellow is punished, if he is arrested?”
“Bet your life on it!” cried Diamond. “Merry means to put Harlow where the birds won’t peck him. That chap has given Merry trouble enough.”
“Anyway,” said Kent Spencer, “we want you fellows to stay at Blue Cove a while longer. We’ve had more sport since you struck the Cove than ever before.”