But the man returned no answer, and in a few seconds he was too far off to enable the boys to repeat the question.
"Do any of you fellows know him?" asked Bert of his chums.
"Seems to me I saw him in the village the other day," replied Tom. "He was buying some stuff in the drug store. He's a stranger in town."
"Wonder what he's doing around here?" asked Vincent. "It's a good thing I hollered when I did, or he'd have punched a hole in us."
"You're right," agreed Bert. "I didn't think there was anybody in the boat. But didn't he come out of the Stockton boathouse?"
"He sure did," replied Tom. "But there hasn't been a boat there in several years. We've been in swimming around here lots of times, and I never saw one before."
"Me either," chimed in several lads.
"And that's a new power boat," went on Bert. "It's a dandy, too. We ought to have a gasolene engine to work our fire apparatus."
"No, we shouldn't!" exclaimed Cole. "Those valves on our pumps wouldn't stand being worked too fast. Our engine is good enough as it is."
"Of course it is. We haven't had much use of it lately, have we?"