"He'll only come back and bother us again," said Peewee Hicks apprehensively. "What's the idea?"
Enos, fussing with his flywheel, was out of earshot when Rex spoke.
Rex chuckled. "I've lost the permit, fellows, I don't know when, or how. I've got to stall along until I can get a letter from the lumber company."
CHAPTER XIV.
A LIVELY TIME.
"You don't mean it, Rex?" asked Midkiff, seriously. Cloudman and Hicks were open mouthed.
The motorboat began to sputter. They saw Quibb pottering about in her cockpit, the red spark of his cigarette showing plainly as the boat moved slowly out from the island.
She had crossed not more than a cable's length of the placid sound when there was a dull pop and a flare of light. Enos Quibb squealed affrightedly and tumbled sternward, seemingly surrounded by a halo of flame.
"Great Scott!" shouted Cloudman, bounding shoreward. "He's touched off his gas tank with that fool cigarette!"
What had caused the explosion aboard the motorboat did not matter. It was the effect that held the attention of the Walcott Hall boys, who stampeded to the edge of the water after Cloudman. Before any of them reached the shore, Enos Quibb had pitched backward still yelling, over the boat's stern, and disappeared under the surface of the water.