Dave “stretched his legs” for a good five minutes. Then the motor car began to roll forward again. Tom didn’t scorch exactly—he knew that Bob Somers’ watchful eye was upon him—but several times Charlie Blake’s nerves received severe jolts, as trees and telegraph poles by the roadside seemed to be whirled by with bewildering rapidity.
“Kenosha, Wisconsin, fellows!” exclaimed Bob, at length, half rising from his seat.
“Kenosha!” echoed all but Victor.
“The first lap of our journey is done!” cried Dave.
CHAPTER III
THE “FEARLESS”
Leaving the motor car at a garage, the boys made their way to the harbor. Down by the river they found a great deal to attract their attention. Factories with tall chimneys sent columns of smoke whirling upward; schooners, barges and a number of smaller craft were moored along the stream; and these, together with picturesque buildings, big lumber sheds or great pilings presented so many pleasing combinations to the eye that the artistic soul of Dave was enraptured.
The smell of fresh water was in the air, and along with it came a faint odor of things belonging to shipping. The gurgle and splash of lapping waves and the creaking of boats vainly tugging at their moorings formed a steady accompaniment to the occasional puffing of passing tugs or the hoarse blasts of whistles.
Close alongside a big lumber schooner the boys, who had taken turns in carrying Victor’s heavy luggage, finally discovered the motor yacht “Fearless.”
A big, burly man busy at some work on the wharf looked up as they approached.
Captain Ralph Bunderley had been successively the master of a barge, a coastwise schooner and a windjammer on the Atlantic. Having been left a comfortable fortune by a relative, he finally retired from the sea, but, feeling that to get away from the sight of land occasionally was as necessary to him as water to a fish, he had built a motor yacht some sixty feet in length designed for speed, as well as to withstand the rough weather on the lake.