The boys’ first experiences with gasoline vehicles had to do with motorcycles, but it was not long before they had an automobile, and in that they took many trips, overland, into Mexico, over the plains and home again. Then the motor boys went in for boating, and sailed not only on the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans but in strange waters.
On many of their trips the boys were accompanied by Professor Uriah Snodgrass, and he did not balk even when they went in for airships, in which line of locomotion they were very successful. Professor Snodgrass—at present an instructor in Boxwood Hall—was a great seeker after queer forms of insect life and his zeal sometimes got him into odd predicaments.
I had the pleasure, in a number of volumes, of telling you of the activities of the motor boys until it seemed there were no more worlds left for them to conquer. But they heard the call of the under sea, and, venturing into a submarine, they found life beneath the waves fully as remarkable as above, if not more so.
The parents of the boys began to think the lads were getting too much idle fun. They wanted their sons to have a better education. So our three heroes had been sent to a boarding school. “The Motor Boys at Boxwood Hall, or, Ned, Bob and Jerry as Freshmen,” the volume immediately preceding this, tells of new adventures for Ned Slade, Bob Baker and Jerry Hopkins.
Of the merry times they had, and how they were instrumental in “putting Boxwood Hall on the map,” in athletics, you may read in that book. This present story opens with the boys coming to an end of their first year in the place, with the prospect of a long summer vacation, and at this moment we find them puzzled over the foreman’s letter to Mr. Slade.
“He says,” began Ned, reading the missive again. “He says——”
“Who’s he?” demanded Jerry.
“Dick Watson, foreman of dad’s Square Z ranch,” explained Ned.
“Square Z ranch—what does that mean?” asked Bob.