“Hi! Let go of that!” cried Billy Sands suddenly, and, reaching out over the stern, he tried to pull the second boat closer.
Andy, however, was too quick for Sands, and in a twinkling he reached over and cut the line. The loose end he caught in his hand and in a moment more the empty rowboat was tied fast to the stern of the craft occupied by the Rovers and Spouter. Then Andy dropped back in his seat and grabbed his oar.
“Away we go, boys!” he chuckled. “I don’t believe they can catch us even if we have got to drag the other boat behind us.”
“Stop! Stop!” roared Tommy Flanders. “Stop, or we’ll have the law on you!”
“You go to grass, Flanders,” answered Andy.
“Don’t you dare to follow us,” called back Spouter. “If you do you’ll be sorry for it.”
“Oh, let ’em go. It’s probably their boat, anyhow,” said the boy who had been called Fiddler, in a low tone. “We don’t want that boat. We’ve got all the boats we need.”
There was a hot argument between this boy and the others from Longley Academy, and while this was going on the Rovers and Spouter pulled steadily and soon placed quite a distance between themselves and the other craft. Then, looking back, they saw Tommy Flanders and his crowd take up their oars again and row in the direction of Willoughby camp.
“What a nerve they had!” remarked Randy, as he and the others let up a little in their rowing.
“I’ll bet if we hadn’t spotted them they would never have said a word about the rowboat. That is, if they found out we had lost it,” came from Jack.