“Beats restaurants all to pieces!” was Ned’s opinion.
Then with the bread and butter they had brought along, with the seasoning for the fish, fresh crullers and cheese, the whole washed down with water from a clear cool spring near by, the boys made a meal that even a king might have envied.
Dinner over they lolled lazily beneath the trees until the sun was low in the west. Bob proposed a walk along the creek as he wanted to see if there were any evidences of musk-rats nests in a certain place.
“Will it be safe to leave the machines here?” asked Jerry. “Some one might come along and ride off with them.”
“It would take more than one person to get away with all three,” Bob said. “But we can take out the spark plugs, and unless the thieves have duplicates along they won’t get very far.”
Removing the plugs, the boys walked along the stream for half a mile. They found no musk-rats nests, and Bob, remarking that they could come back another day and make a better search, proposed a return trip.
It did not take long to reach the places where they had left their machines. The spark plugs were put back, and, after finishing what few crullers remained, the three boys trundled their motors out into the path.
“Here goes for home!” cried Ned, as he vaulted into his saddle. He got his cycle started by foot power and then attempted to throw the power on. Nothing but a faint sound of air being exhausted from the cylinders responded.
“Something’s wrong!” cried the boy.
At the same time the other two discovered that their machines would not work. Again and again they tried but with no result.