“What is that boat?” asked Paul Bird.
“Those are the fellows who loaned me one of the cans of gasoline, only they don’t know yet that they loaned it to me,” laughed Frank Allen grimly.
“How about fixing our searchlight before we get going?” asked Lanky. “We’ll need it to make any speed.”
“Let’s save every minute we can, Lanky,” replied Frank. “You work on the searchlight and I’ll get her out and start upstream as fast as we can without the light.”
Suiting the action to the word, Frank turned the Rocket as he backed away from the landing, and soon was headed up the Harrapin.
It was slow work, while Lanky and Paul worked on the connections at the light.
As yet Frank had had no time to tell the other boys what he had overheard, and reserved the telling of it now until they had finished the work which was necessary to be done. Frank realized as he swung the Rocket into the stream that he would have to use the light before he could go very fast. But, at any rate, they were saving a little time.
The Rocket had gone about a mile up the river when Lanky found the connection which was loose, and, having made it tight, switched on the search.
Immediately Frank gave the Rocket the full speed of the engine. The fast little craft almost moved out from under the boys as it leaped forward under the suddenly applied power, the propeller churning up the water furiously.
Ahead of them, its beams darting here and there, jumping about the river to pick up anything which might do them injury or which might hold them back, the searchlight played under the guiding hand of Lanky Wallace.