“Positive. I had a good glimpse of him just before I swung the wheel over. I’d know him anywhere. We have good reason to. I’d know him and Noddy Nixon, his bosom friend, wherever I met them.”
“Bill Berry, eh,” said Jerry softly. “Well if he and Noddy are in town together it means that some mischief is afoot. They never get together but something happens. We’ll have to be on our guard. They may try to pay us back for getting ahead of them as we did on several occasions. I wonder if Bill and Noddy have met since Noddy came home.”
“What do you suppose he was doing in that boat, if it was the one that floated away from us?” asked Bob.
“He was probably hanging around near the river bank and saw it when it floated down,” said Ned. “He thought it was a chance to earn money by selling it or by returning it to the dock, and he just got in it.”
A little later the boys had housed their boat and started for home.
“We ought to go off on a cruise somewhere,” suggested Ned. “It would be a fine thing to go down the river to Lake Cantoga, and spend three or four days camping there. We could hunt and fish and have a bully time.”
“Say, that would be sport!” agreed Bob. “We could take along a lot to eat in case the fish didn’t bite or we didn’t kill anything.”
“Say, Chunky,” spoke Jerry solemnly, “if you mention eating again to-night, after the way you devoured chicken sandwiches to-day, I—I’ll hit you, that’s what!”
“I can’t help it,” said Bob with a little sigh, “I guess I was born hungry.”
“Well if you weren’t, you certainly have acquired the habit since,” observed Ned dryly. “But that aside, what do you think of my plan, Jerry.”