“Dawson certainly knows how to make a boat hum,” observed the owner of the place.
“It would go twice as well if Halstead were aboard,” remarked Oliver Dixon.
“You’ll have to stop teasing our young captain, or he’ll lose you overboard, some dark night when we get back to sailing on the Gulf,” laughed Mrs. Tremaine. Tom fancied there was a slight note of warning in her voice.
“Oh, I wouldn’t string Halstead,” rejoined Dixon, dryly. “I esteem him too highly and take him too seriously for that.”
“Cut it!” uttered Tremaine, in a low voice, as he passed Dixon. That young man started, at such a peremptory command. He glanced over at Ida Silsbee, to see a flash of angry remonstrance in her handsome dark eyes.
“Why does the girl take such an interest in this young booby of a so-called captain?” Dixon asked himself, uncomfortably. Then, stretching slightly and indolently, to hide his discomfiture, the young man vanished inside the house.
Joe, meantime, was circling about on the lake, sounding his whistle once in a while, as though he wished to invite the attention of those on the porch. At last he turned and sped back to the pier.
“She seems to run all right, Joe,” called Halstead, as his chum came up the boardwalk.
“Runs first rate for a little lake boat,” replied Dawson.
“Are you really pleased with the craft?” inquired Henry Tremaine. “I wish you’d tell me candidly, because I ordered her by mail, on the builder’s representations. He claimed she’d make fifteen miles an hour.”