"We'd better have a look at the boat by daylight," said McGlory. "For all we know, pards, the end may have been burned off her."
But an examination showed that the Sprite had suffered little damage from the fire. The luggage was thrown aboard and the boys climbed to their places. One turn of the flywheel and the cylinders took the spark; then, on the reverse, the boat was pulled from the shoal into deep water, Matt changed to the forward drive, and they were off in a wide circle that pointed them for Lake Mendota.
"I don't care a whoop what happens now," gloried the cowboy, "we've got George out of the woods, and that's the main thing."
"Call it that if you want to, Joe," said Lorry, "but there's music for me to face, over on Fourth Lake Ridge."
"And you're goin' to face it like a little man, Georgie; and if Uncle Dan don't back down on that military-school proposition he'll get a cold blast from Joe McGlory. And that, pards," the cowboy added, "is a shot that goes as it lays."
"I'll take my medicine and not make much of a face, no matter how bitter the dose is," went on George; "but there's one thing that's bound to happen."
"Meanin' which, George?" inquired McGlory.
"Why, my father is going to be set right on the subject of Motor Matt."
"Don't let me cause any friction between you, George," urged Matt. "The breach between you and your father is in a fair way of being healed."
"So far as I am concerned," said Lorry, a flush tinging his cheeks, "I'm willing to admit that I acted like a fool. I'll go on record with that, face to face with the governor; I'll even go further and say that it was weakness that made me hang back from Madison, stop in that cabin, and send Motor Matt on to make a dicker and save my pride. But the governor has got to understand that Motor Matt's my friend, and that, but for him and you, Joe, I'd not be here now. Right is right, and Motor Matt is going to have justice, if nothing more."