"Oh, you're feeling friendly toward 'em, now, are you?" sneered Jack.
"Oh, no, it isn't that," Sam hastened to assure him; "nothing of the kind. What I mean is that we are liable to get into serious trouble if we keep on this way. I saw Hank Handcraft the other day, and I can tell you he's in no very amiable mood. He wants his money for the other night, he says, and he intimated that if he didn't get it he'd make things hot for us."
"He'd better not," glowered Bill Bender, looking up from his paper. "We know a few things about friend Hank."
"Yes, and he knows a good deal about us that wouldn't look well in print," retorted Sam gloomily. "I wish I'd never gone into that thing the other night."
"Pshaw, it was just borrowing a little money from the old man, wasn't it?" snorted Jack. "We'll pay it back some time."
"When we get it," rejoined Sam more gloomily than ever; "and I don't see much immediate chance of that."
"Oh, well, cheer up; we'll get it all right somehow," Jack assured him. "And in connection with that I've got a scheme. Why shouldn't we three fellows go camping after the motor-boat races?"
"Go camping—where?" asked Bill, looking up surprised.
"Well, I would have suggested Topsail Island, but those pestiferous kids are going there, I hear. However, there are plenty of other islands right inside the Upper Inlet. What's the matter with our taking possession of one of those?"
The Upper Inlet was a sort of narrow and shallow bay a short distance above Topsail Island, and was well known to both Bill and Jack, who had been there in the winter on frequent ducking expeditions.