"Sure!" groaned Shiner.
"But it won't be so bad for us as it would have been if we'd left them there for their own folks to find, and kept their boats hid," Pee Wee observed, with more thoughtfulness than he usually showed.
"And the Belden boys will be a deal more comfortable, eh?" chuckled Bobby.
There was an investigation. The Doctor conducted it himself. He went "back to the year one," as Barry Gray said, and considered all the causes of the rivalry between the two schools, and what each had done to the other.
The hot potato fight was taken into consideration, as well as the fact that the Belden schoolboys had once stolen every boat the Rockledge boys possessed, and hidden them for a week.
Then he rendered his decision: No party of boys without a teacher was to go to any of the islands. None of the boys were to venture across the lake to the Belden shore.
These decisions were repeated by the head of the Belden School, and from that time on there was less friction between the two institutions.
But, meanwhile, Dr. Raymond had heard all about Bobby Blake's action in the matter of the return of the boats to the marooned boys. He said nothing to Bobby about it, but he talked with his assistants.
This, too, made Bobby more popular with his mates. It had been the right thing to do, and, after all, boys respect a boy who is willing to do the right thing, even if it may make him unpopular for the time being.
The popularity that Bobby was winning at Rockledge School, however, was of a lasting kind. If Bobby said a thing, he meant it. If he made a promise, he stuck to it. He was no shirk, and no "goody-goody," and it began to be whispered around (goodness only knows how the story started) that Bobby might have a chance for the Medal of Honor if it was not for "Old Leith."