THE LOOT AND THE LOOTERS
“Is there plenty of gas?” he asked as he leaped on the deck of the Rocket, addressing himself to Paul and Ralph.
“Plenty. We got it at the gas station up the street, and had just got it when we saw you coming. How is your father?” It was Paul speaking.
“Getting along all right, the doctor says,” Frank answered with a smile of gratitude to the thoughtful boy who, even in his moment of excitement, knowing that they were now proceeding on an errand fraught with much adventure, had not forgotten the trials through which his friend had gone. “And mother and Helen have arrived and are with him,” he added.
“Good!” shouted Lanky.
In another moment, with the police chief and his men aboard, the four boys got the Rocket out into the stream, turned its nose against the current, and started away.
“Now, Allen,” the chief edged over close to the cockpit where Frank was maneuvering the boat, “can you tell me what this story is? Wallace tried to tell me about it, but I haven’t got it all in my head.”
Frank replied by telling the chief that he would be glad to tell him the story in detail just as soon as he got the Rocket around and going at a better speed.
“They’re ahead of us only so much as the time since we landed—how long has that been, fellows?” he asked the boys.
“A little more than half an hour. Time has been going slow, all right, but things have been going fast.”