“Well, of course George, he had his head stuck down close to his engine, watching every stroke it made, and couldn’t see anything, only when he bobbed up every little while to tell me how to steer. And we went in fairly close to the shore. All at once, in a snug little cove behind a tongue of high land, I saw the boat. She was anchored there; and first thing I saw was a young feller, just like that paper tells on, asittin’ on the gunnel, and directin’ a heavy-set chap, who was in jumpers, and looked like he was the engineer, deck hand and crew all rolled in one; he seemed to be mendin’ the engine, or doin’ something like that.”
“But how was it you didn’t call the attention of George to the boat?” asked Jack.
“It was cruelty to animals, that’s what,” echoed Josh, “because, think how joyful it’d make our chum to know that other people had their engine troubles as well as him?”
“Oh! he did tell me to look,” admitted George just then, nodding his head, “but we were going so very fast, you know, that when I did get my head up it was just too late; I had a glimpse of the tip-end of some sort of boat in that cove he mentions; and then the bully little Wireless flipped by like a streak of light. Give you my word for it, fellows, we must have been flying along at the rate of nearly twenty miles per just then, current and all.”
“Ah! rats!” ejaculated some one, and George did not know who had spoken, for the voice seemed to come from anywhere; but he just glared around, and then, shaking his head menacingly, he muttered:
“Better not be so plain next time, whoever said that; or it might bring on trouble. I c’n stand nearly anything about myself, but I won’t hear my pet boat sneered at. Yes, it was all of twenty miles, understand!” and he again looked at Andy, Buster and Josh, as though daring any one to express another doubt.
“Well,” said Jack, “here’s some fun for us, now. If that description of the robber launch holds good; and Buster didn’t see something that wasn’t there, then it seems that we’ve got the thieves, and all their plunder, here within five miles of us right now. That’s interesting, if true, as the papers say.”
George began to grow excited.
“Get that gun of yours ready, Jack, the trusty old Marlin that has stood between us and trouble many a time!” he exclaimed, jumping to his feet, as though in a frame of mind to go rushing off, pell-mell, on some reckless errand.