“It’ll be faster yet when they get those runners rubbed down,” vouchsafed Merritt; “it only came in this afternoon from New York. They got it from a big sporting-goods house.”
“Maybe the same one Jack got his flying machine from,” chuckled Paul, smiling over the remembrance of the bully’s discomfiture on the occasion of the aeroplane model contest, as told in the first volume of this series.
“Shouldn’t wonder,” responded Tubby, in reply to Paul’s observation.
“Where did they get the money from?” wondered Merritt. “That sled must have cost a lot.”
“Oh, Hunt’s father gives him plenty of money,” was Rob’s response, “and the others are not exactly poor. They could easily afford such a sled for the gratification of winning the cup away from us.”
“I guess that’s about all they’ve gone into the competition for,” suggested Paul.
The others agreed with him. It would be a big feather in the caps of the arch enemies of the Boy Scouts if they could capture any of the events which were to take place on the hill after Christmas, especially the big cup event.
“It’s up to us to look out for any crooked work, then,” said Tubby, as, with arms full of such parts of the shattered Pegasus as seemed worth keeping, they started for home. “Those fellows won’t stick at anything as we know.”
“Oh, don’t be too hard on them,” was Rob’s comment; “there’s good in most chaps if you look for it.”
“Hum,” sniffed Merritt, “you’d have to go prospecting with a pickaxe and dynamite to find it in Jack Curtiss’ crowd.”