“But we can’t see it now,” added Jack, straining his eyes for a glimpse of the spot where the fisherman’s shack stood.
“Well, there’s no use worrying over what can’t be helped,” observed Walter, philosophically. “We’re here and not there. Denny will have to look out for himself—I guess he’s able.”
“That isn’t the point,” rejoined Jack. “There we took the case out of the girls’ hands, so to speak. We said we were the big noise, and that we’d look after things. Then we go and get stuck miles from shore where we can’t do a thing. They’ll laugh at us when we do get back, if they don’t do any worse.”
“But we didn’t know we were going to get stuck when we came out for a little run, after we found Denny wasn’t home,” said Dray.
“That’s no excuse,” returned Jack. “It’s like a child breaking the looking glass and then saying he didn’t mean to. Well, I know one thing Cora will say when we get back—if we ever do—and own up that we weren’t on hand when the play came off.”
“What will she say?” asked Dray. He was not well acquainted with the doings and sayings of the motor girls, as yet.
“She’ll say that she and Bess and Belle and the rest of them could have done better themselves, if we’d left it to them. And I guess she’d be more than half right,” sighed Jack.
“Well, there’s no use crying over a bridge before you come to it,” observed Dray. “Let’s have another go at that engine.”
They began their labors all over again. They even took out the spark plugs, though they had been new that afternoon.
Nothing could be found wrong there. The feed pipe from the gasoline tank was examined, but it seemed to provide a good flow. The timer was adjusted and readjusted. The coil was looked to. Everything, in short, that the boys could think of, or that previous trouble had taught them to look for, was tried, and all with no effect.