“That chap has the magic, all right, all right!” grumbled Billy. “He disappears as though he had an invisible cap.”
“More probably he’s here only once in a while,” said Dan.
“How about yesterday?” demanded the younger boy. “He wasn’t on the ice when Lettie and I hunted for him—that’s sure. He’s got a hide-out here, and don’t you forget it.”
“Maybe he buries himself—along with the treasure—when he is pursued by curious folk,” chuckled Dan.
But it was really no laughing matter. Dan was as glum as Billy when they returned home that Sunday evening. The plans were gone—and with them, perhaps, the chance the Speedwells had of building a faster boat than anybody who would enter for the iceboat races.
Not that Dan was unable to redraw the plans. That was easy. But the brothers feared that whoever found the original plans would make use of Dan’s invention in the line of motor-propulsion for ice craft.
This was really a very novel arrangement, and might be worth some money if once the boys made a practical test of the idea on the river, and demonstrated its worth. Mr. Robert Darringford, the young proprietor of the machine shops, was always on the lookout for worthy inventions; he was the Speedwell boys’ very good friend. Dan had rather hoped to interest Mr. Darringford in the invention.
Of course, he did not want to show the plans to the machine shop proprietor until after the races on the ice, for Mr. Darringford was going to enter an iceboat of special design himself. But Robert Darringford was a trustworthy man, and the boys were greatly tempted to tell him about the loss of the plans.
However much disturbed they were by this loss, there were other matters which kept the boys busy and their minds alert during the next few days. The Speedwells were more than ordinarily good scholars, and stood well in their classes. Even “Doc Bugs,” as one of their chief instructors was called by the more irreverent youth of Riverdale, seldom had to set down black marks against Dan or Billy.
Billy’s superabundance of energy and love of fun was well exercised out of school hours; he stuck pretty well to his books in the classroom.