"Did the bad tramps take your motor boat?" asked Rose quickly, as she saw visions of the many nice rides she hoped to have in the Spray, as the captain's splendid boat was called, fade away.
"No, they didn't take the motor boat," answered the marine. "I take good care to lock that every night, and I fix the motor so no one not in the secret can start it. But the tramps, or whoever they were who paid us a midnight visit, took one of my best rowboats—one I use when I go fishing."
"Oh, may we go fishing?" asked Vi, who, with Laddie and the two little ones, had now come down. The thefts of the midnight visitors did not trouble her very much, it seemed.
"Yes, we'll go picnicking and fishing and have lots of fun," Captain Ben answered. "But first I must see if any one else around here has missed anything, and we must try to catch the tramps."
"Do you think it was tramps?" Laddie wanted to know.
"Well, I can't be sure of the last," remarked Captain Ben. "But I'm pretty sure it was tramps of some sort. As I said, they generally come around at the end of the season, when cottages and bungalows are being closed. They take anything they can find. But these fellows didn't wait for us to leave."
Captain Ben had a talk with some of his neighbors, who also missed various articles from around their cottages or docks, but the captain was the only one from whom a boat had been taken.
"I guess the tramps walked around the shore from their camp in the woods," remarked Daddy Bunker. "They took what they wanted here, and elsewhere, and then they rowed off in your boat, Ben."
"I guess that was it," remarked the marine. "I should have locked up the oars, but I left one pair out, and now I wish I hadn't. But I'll not let those tramps get away if I can help it."
"What will you do?" asked Russ.