“We ought to have a motor-boat ourselves, to follow them up the river—that is, if they went any distance,” said the senator’s son.
“We might try to borrow one, Roger.”
“Not Nat Poole’s—he wouldn’t lend it to us.”
“I know that.”
The two students walked to the river and looked up and down the stream. A rowboat and a sailboat were in sight, but that was all.
“There is Jack Laplow in his sloop,” cried Dave, mentioning a riverman they knew. “The wind is blowing up the stream. Maybe he’ll take us along.”
They hailed the riverman, who made a living by doing all sorts of jobs on the stream. He did 184 not have much to do just then and readily agreed, for a small amount, to take them up the river and bring them back.
“We want to find some fellows who are in the Kingsley motor-boat,” explained Dave. “Have you seen anything of them?”
The riverman had not, but said he would help to watch out for the lads. Dave and Roger hopped aboard the sloop, and soon the little craft was standing up the Leming River, with Jack Laplow at the tiller.
It was a warm, clear day, and had the boys not been distressed in mind, they would have enjoyed the sail immensely. But as it was, they were very sober, so much so in fact that the old riverman at length remarked: