"What!" cried the cowboy, "that sawed-off moke?"
"I've thought a little on that line myself," observed Matt. "Pete was mad, when he left us up there in the path, and he could have circled around through the bushes and reached the boathouse before we got down to it with Ping."
"That's it!" assented George. "He hadn't any idea what sort of papers were in the roll, but they were handy to him as he looked through the window, and so he gathered them in. Of course, Pete knew that the papers would be valuable to Merton, if to anybody. It's a dead open-and-shut that he carried them at once to the commodore."
"Which may account for the commodore layin' back on his oars and not botherin' us any while we've been jugglin' with the Sprite," deduced McGlory. "We're all to the good, pards, and your Uncle Joe is as happy over the outlook as a Piute squaw with a string of glass beads. I'm feelin' like a brass band again, and——"
"Don't toot, Joe, for Heaven's sake," implored George. "You've got about as much music in you as a bluejay."
"Some fellows," returned McGlory gloomily, "don't know music when they hear it. It takes a cultivated ear to appreciate me when I warble."
"I don't know about that," laughed George, "but I do know that it takes some one with a club to stop you after the warbling begins. When are you going to 'warm up' the Sprite, Matt?" he asked, turning to the king of the motor boys. "Every ship has got to 'find herself,' you know. We've Kipling's word for that."
"Then," smiled Matt, "the Sprite is going to begin finding herself in the gray dawn of to-morrow morning. Glad you made up your mind to stay with us to-night, Lorry. I was going to suggest it, if you hadn't. I want you and Joe to hold a stop-watch on the boat."
"I wish we had one of those patent logs," muttered Lorry. "They go on the bulkhead, and work hydrostatically—no trailing lines behind."
"Too expensive, George," said Matt. "Besides, we didn't have time to bother installing one."