They couldn’t get back to town in the damaged iceboat. They managed to beat their way to John Bromley’s wharf, and then Billy ran all the way home and brought back the motor car, in which to transport the girls to their homes.
“That mean Barrington Spink!” exclaimed Lettie. “He’s just gone past in his boat. We saw him stop for some time up there by Island Number One.”
And later the Speedwell boys had reason to remember this statement. When they went to bed that night Dan searched his coat pocket in vain for the plans and specifications of the new motor-iceboat.
“Lost them—by jolly!” gasped Billy. “Where?”
Dan couldn’t be sure of that; but he had his suspicions. He remembered clearly removing his coat where they had had the accident at Island Number One. The envelope might have fallen from his coat pocket.
So anxious were the boys that they went up the river road the next day after Sunday school, and walked across the ice to the island. There were no boats on the river, but they saw the marks of their own and the White Albatross’s runners on the ice at the head of the island.
So, too, did they find the torn envelope in which the plans had been; but Dan’s drawings and specifications were not in it.
Who had got the plans? Was it Spink, when he stopped on his way down the river in the White Albatross? Or was it the mysterious occupant of the island whom the boys had dubbed “Dummy”?
The question not alone puzzled Dan and Billy; they were both troubled vastly by the loss of the drawings. A good mechanic could easily get the principle of Dan’s invention and—perhaps—build a boat similar to the one the Speedwells were constructing.
Under Billy’s earnest urging Dan agreed that they should search the island for some trace of the boy who could not talk; but they made absolutely nothing out of it. Not even a smell of smoke this time.