“How is the engine?” asked Hugh, without noticing the compliment, although Tip Lange looked toward Billy and nodded his head as much as to say: “I see he’s held in just as high esteem at home as he will be here in Lawrence, when people stop to think of all he’s done for the place.”
“Seems to be in apple-pie shape,” replied Monkey Stallings promptly. “I was just giving her a little more oil when you came. Uncle keeps her up to the scratch all the time. He’d make a good scout, because he’s so particular about doing things the very best he knows how. But say, what about this he was telling me of some stranger in town who wore scout duds snatching a boy off the bridge when it was just in the act of being swept away by a driftwood pack!”
Billy chuckled aloud.
“Can’t you guess, Monkey?” he demanded, with a knowing wink.
At that the Stallings boy gave a shout.
“Then it was some of Hugh’s work, was it?” he exclaimed. “I might have guessed as much. I thought it smacked of the Wolf Patrol way. Some other time you’ve got to tell me all about it, Billy, won’t you?”
“I promise you, Monkey,” replied the other, as he clambered aboard the launch, and then looking about him continued: “Seems to me this boat ought to hold quite a raft of people if pushed. It’s the boss thing for the work we’re going to start out on now.”
“Uncle says it has held twenty by crowding,” Stallings assured him.
Meanwhile Hugh was busy at the engine. In addition to numerous other qualifications that made him a good scout with a wide range of information, Hugh possessed a practical knowledge of motors that had proved of considerable value to him on many occasions.
After a little examination of the one which he now expected to handle, he soon had it throbbing noisily. When the moorings were cast off they ran easily out of the boathouse and upon the broad expanse of water.