The afternoon exercises passed off successfully, and with farewells from their teachers the three chums, as well as all the lads in the academy, bade good-bye to the place of learning and scattered for the long summer vacation. The motor boys, who were all in the same class, walked down the street, arm in arm, as three fine lads as one could wish for,—tall, strong, full of recourse in times of danger, brave and fearless—excellent types of the American Boy.
“Let’s each think of some plan for a trip,” proposed Ned, as they parted to go to their several homes. “We can talk ’em all over to-night.”
A few hours later the three chums were at Ned’s house. On the library table he had spread out a number of geographies, guide books and maps, and the boys were soon pouring over them. They talked a perfect babble, the only things that could be distinguished now and then being such expressions as:
“How about a trip to Maine?”
“What’s the matter with doing the Gulf of Mexico?”
“We could go to Cuba if the weather kept good.”
“The Bermudas aren’t so very far off.”
“Say, we’ll never settle anything this way,” called Ned after an hour had been spent in fruitless discussion. “I’ve got a plan.”
“What is it?” asked Jerry.