Frank Allen, determined, knowing only one duty in the whole world, and the chief of police, knowing only that he was trying to stop a boy whom he had always known as an upstanding, honest, honorable one on hearsay evidence which had come to him late that afternoon, faced each other for only one minute, and then, like the flash of a bullet, Frank Allen left the corner and was gone.
Racing to the boat-house, putting every ounce of his strength into the legs which carried him to the Rocket for his race down the Harrapin River and back again, Frank’s mind was not in any way crowded with thoughts of the chief of police.
It was only after he leaped aboard the Rocket which, as he reached the boat-house, was being pushed out of the little place by Lanky Wallace, that he gave any thought to the words of the officer of the law.
The other two boys had overheard all that passed, and only Paul, of the two, was anxious. Ralph West was dumbly, silently, unthinkingly, following Frank, without heed to any one or anything else.
The Rocket moved out to the river, was met by the current and her nose turned downstream, while Lanky threw the flywheel around with a spin, and they were off.
Frank turned the searchlight full on the stream, seeking for anything which might interpose itself as an obstacle, but the river was clear. Stars peeped out overhead, and a new moon shyly looked down.
Though the words of the chief of police puzzled Frank, though he thought he recognized in them a threat, there was something far more important for him to do—his father lay at the point of death back there in the hospital, the only drug the doctor knew which would save him was down the river at Coville, and nothing could get that drug back in time to save this precious life but the Rocket and himself.
Picking his way carefully downstream for half a mile, getting out of the zone where trouble might rise, he found himself very shortly pushing the Rocket faster and faster, her nose well up out of water, the steady noise of the muffled exhaust telling him that all was going well. The breeze, to help him along his way, was at his back.
Paul and Ralph lay prone on their stomachs as far forward as they dared to go, while Lanky Wallace kept his place at the side of the cockpit where he could hear any word that Frank might utter.
Faster and faster went the Rocket. The speed was far beyond any expectation of Frank’s, the air rushing past his face causing his eyes to squint until they were almost closed, his hand now and then directing the searchlight to keep the path ahead well lighted.