On the way across, they told Mr. Golden of their narrow escape in the counterfeiter's den, and why they had kept silent about it at the table. He shuddered, as he realized how near death they had been and said that they had done just right in not letting their mother and aunt know about it, and Mr. Sharp declared that he was going to take up the search for them as soon as he got to Boston.
They obtained the trunk, and saying goodby to the detective and wishing him good luck, started back for the cottage, which they reached about nine o'clock, and, as they were all tired, they soon retired for the night.
The boys spent the next day sailing on the lake with the girls, while their father and uncle went down to Skowhegan, having some business to attend to. Late in the afternoon the four young people went fishing and, in a short time, caught a good mess which they had for supper.
That night, as the boys were getting ready for bed, Jack suddenly said:
"I say, Bob, what's the trouble with fitting up our motorcycles with electric motors and running them with the cells?"
"Just the thing! Wonder why we didn't think of that before."
"Huh, that's easy, guess we've had our minds fairly full of something else, lately."
"That's a fact, we have," agreed Bob, "We'll go down on the wheels, first thing in the morning and see what we can do. I guess likely we can get the motors at Watson's, and if we can make it a go, we'll have some bikes."
Right after breakfast the next morning, they got their motorcycles out and in less than fifteen minutes, were in Watson's store in Skowhegan. Fortunately, he had two small motors, of ten horsepower each, on hand, which seemed to the boys to be just what they wanted, and asking him to send them up to the house at once, they were soon in the laboratory hard at work.
"You start on a couple sets of caps, Jack, and I'll get the electrolysis apparatus going and fill a few cylinders," Bob had said as soon as they got there. By noon, Jack had the caps done, as he had everything at hand to work with and knew how to do it, and by five o'clock, they had taken the engines apart and had the wheels all ready for the installation of the motors.