Jerry smiled as he took the socks, and then his face grew grave. He was thinking of the yellow mud of the swamp, and wondering what Professor Snodgrass would say when asked why he had told Jerry it was worthless, and why, later, he had indorsed it as of great value.
Mrs. Johnson brought out the professor’s letter. It was short, as his epistles always were, and merely stated that he had gotten on the track of a two-tailed lizard. He gave his address simply as Hurdtown, Maine.
“Well, we’ll have to go after him!” decided Ned, “and the sooner we start the better. I wonder where this place is, anyhow?”
“I looked it up on the map,” said the housekeeper eagerly. “I can show it to you.”
Hurdtown appeared to be in the northern part of New England, several hundred miles from Boston, and in a lonely section, poorly supplied with railroad facilities.
“Yes, we could get there,” decided Jerry, looking at the map. “We could best make it by road and river, as well as by some lake travel. See,” he went on, tracing out a route with a pencil. “We could go up that far in the auto, leave the car there, and make the rest of the trip in the motor boat. That river would take us nearly to Hurdtown, and we could finish up with a lake trip.”
“Shall we do it?” asked Bob.
“I’m willing, if you are,” assented Jerry. “I sure do want to have a talk with the professor.”
“Well, it will be an all-right jaunt; merely as a trip,” said Ned slowly, “and of course we’ll stand by you, Jerry. But I don’t see how we’re going to do any water traveling—not with our motor boat, anyhow. We can’t haul it along behind the auto very well.”
“No, but we could ship it on in advance, and have it waiting for us at the head of Silver River. Then we can go down that to Lake Mogan and so on to Hurdtown. It will be quite a trip, but maybe we’ll enjoy it.”