“I’m just as anxious to start as you boys are,” he said to them one day, when he had paid a visit to the dock where the boat was tied up, and where Bob, Ned and Jerry were cleaning the engine, and overhauling the mechanism.
“Well, it won’t be long now,” remarked Jerry. “To-morrow ends school, and then—for the best vacation we ever had!”
“And the radium fortune!” added Bob.
“Hush!” suddenly exclaimed the tall lad.
“What’s the matter? Did you see Noddy Nixon?”
“No, but there’s his crony, Bill Berry, in that boat,” and Jerry nodded toward a rowing craft which a shabbily dressed man was propelling up stream. “He’s pretending to be fishing,” went on Jerry in a low voice, “but I believe he’s just spying around here to see what we’re up to.”
“That’s so,” admitted Bob. “I must keep quiet. But I’m glad it wasn’t Noddy. I guess he isn’t out of bed yet,” and the boys kept on with their work, the professor strolling off to see if he could get any specimens, while Bill Berry rowed around a bend of the river, and so out of sight.
But Bob was mistaken about Noddy not being out of bed. That bully had gotten up for the first time that day, and, even while our heroes were talking of him, he was sitting in the parlor of his father’s house, trying to evolve in his mind a plan for learning more about the radium, said to be located on Snake Island.
“I’ll need some one to help me,” mused Noddy. “I can take Bill Berry, of course, but I need some scientific fellow who will know radium when he sees it, for I don’t, and Bill certainly couldn’t tell it from a lump of coal. I wonder what I can do?”
At that moment the door bell rang, and, as the servant happened to be out, Noddy answered it. He saw, standing on the steps, a tall, lank man, whom the word “sleek” seemed to describe better than any other. The caller wore a long black coat, a flowing black tie, and had a tall hat, while he carried a small valise in his hand.