“All right,” answered Ned, stowing away the last of his belongings.
“Let her go!” called Bob.
“We’ll go past you fellows’ houses so you can say good-bye,” Jerry announced, as he turned the lever of the self-starter and the big car moved slowly forward.
In turn, as they glided past their homes, Ned and Bob waved farewells to their folks, and then, reaching the broad highway that extended over the first part of their tour, Jerry opened the gasoline throttle a bit wider. With a hum and a roar, the powerful engine took up the burden, bearing the boys toward the mountains.
There had been busy times since they had come back from their fruitless trip to see Professor Snodgrass. The preparations for the trip occupied some time, and one day was spent in going to the swamp where the taking out of the yellow clay was in progress.
Jerry did not wish to get into a conflict—verbal or otherwise—with Fussel and his workmen, nor with Noddy Nixon, who, it appeared, was still acting as assistant foreman. So the motor boys did not approach very closely the scene of operations.
They could see, however, that a larger force of men was employed, and that considerable of the yellow clay was being taken out. It was being piled on narrow, flat-bottomed boats, that had been made purposely to float along the little canals created when the clay was cut out.
“They’re working on a big scale,” remarked Ned, as he stood beside Jerry in the motor boat, watching the operations.
“Yes, and most of their work is being done on the land my mother used to own,” replied the tall lad. “Well, maybe we’ll be able to get our rights; but it looks doubtful.”
Noddy Nixon had strolled down to the fence that marked the limits of the ownership of the Universal Plaster Company. But he had no excuse for ordering away our friends, for which he was doubtless sorry. Jerry, however, took care not to give him any chance to be insulting, if nothing worse.