“But I tell you I can’t,” flashed back the fat boy. “I feel sore about it; and I want to find out the truth so that every one of you’ll get down on your marrow-bones and ask my pardon. And something tells me the time ain’t so far away when that very thing is going to happen.”
“Then speed the hour,” grinned Herb; “after you’ve seen us in a row asking forgiveness, perhaps we’ll have peace, and you’ll forget the incident.”
“Don’t count too heavily on that,” George said. “You don’t know Buster as well as I do. Just as like as not he’ll turn out to be made up the same way as that thirsty young woman in the sleeping car, you know.”
“But perhaps we don’t know, so suppose you tell us,” Nick himself burst out with curiosity consuming him.
“Oh! I thought it was a chestnut; but if you will have it, listen. A traveling man, trying to go to sleep, heard some woman keep on saying out loud in the berth next to him ‘Oh! I am so thirsty! Oh! I am so thirsty!’ When he couldn’t stand for it any longer he got up, went and fetched a glass of water, and begged her to accept it. Then he went back to his berth, thinking he would have peace. But soon he heard the same woman saying over and over again: ‘Oh! I was so thirsty! I was so thirsty!’ So look out Buster don’t play that game on you, Herb.”
There was a shout at this, in which Nick joined; for being a good-natured chap in the main, he could take a joke that was leveled at himself.
About nine o’clock the signal was given, and the three motor boats forming the cruising fleet pulled out of the friendly cove. Those on board looked back with more or less rejoicing and regret at the scene of their recent adventures. They would not soon forget all that had happened since first they dropped in there for a night’s stay. And Jack’s entries in the official log would doubtless prove very entertaining reading for the folks at home.
Upon examining the bow of his speed boat George had found where that bullet had struck, that was fired last of all by the desperate smuggler, in hopes of frightening the boy at the wheel of the pursuing craft.
It had made quite a hole, though fortunately doing no real damage. Later on he could of course, have the aperture plugged; but for the present it would stand as a mute witness to the truth of the adventurous story the boys had to tell. If any one of their mates at home ventured to scoff at the idea of their having been actually under a hot fire, he stood ready to pry that bit of lead out of its lodgings, and thus confound the skeptic.
They were now on the second week of their vacation, and of course had lots of territory to cover still, before they could say they had exhausted the pleasures of this wonderful cruising ground. But already the motor boat boys were looking forward to another daring venture, and all of them had written home to gain the consent of those who must be consulted ere determining positively on their plans.