"Ping," said Matt, turning to the Chinese, "you go outside the boathouse and see that no one hangs around it while we're talking."
"Can do," chirped Ping, and shuffled out.
Matt pulled up a chair close to Lorry's and motioned for McGlory to join the inner circle. Then Matt explained about the loss of the roll of drawings.
The cowboy was mad clear through in half a second.
"It was Merton, all right," he scowled, "and you can bet a ten-dollar note against a last year's bird's nest on that. By this time he'll know what the improved Sprite can do, and he'll also know that the Dart can run circles around her. We're Jonahed, for fair."
"No, we're not," said Matt. "As long as I thought we had only the Wyandotte to beat, I was only planning to make the Sprite fast enough for that purpose. But I can make the Sprite the fastest thing on the lakes—it'll take a hustle, though, and I'll have to have a machinist helper."
"I don't care how many men you have to have, Matt, nor how many extra supplies," returned Lorry, beginning to gather a little confidence from the quiet, determined air of the king of the motor boys. "Go ahead, and call on me for what money you need."
"Over at the machine shop, where I've been getting some work done," proceeded Matt, "they have a double-opposed, four-cycle automobile engine, capable of developing from eighteen to twenty horse-power at eighteen hundred revolutions per minute. The cylinders are five by five. That's a pretty stiff engine for the Sprite, but the hull could be strengthened, and we could put it in and get about ninety or ninety-five per cent. of the horse-power by gearing down three to one. After the gears wear a little, the percentage of horse-power might drop to eighty. This motor will drive a three-bladed propeller twenty-six inches diameter, thirty-two inches pitch. If the vibration don't shake me out of the boat at eighteen hundred revolutions per minute, the speed we'll get will be astonishing."
"Whoop!" exulted McGlory. "I don't know what it all means, but it listens good. I reckon there's a kick or two in the old Sprite yet."
"You can't run a boat engine like you run an automobile motor, Matt," said Lorry.