Transcriber’s Note
Italic text is displayed as: _italic_
[Illustration: “THERE HE IS!” CRIED LANKY EXCITEDLY, POINTING TO THE
MOTOR BOAT THAT LOOMED DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF THEM
_Frank Allen and His Motor Boat_ _Frontispiece_ (Page 203)
]
FRANK ALLEN AND
HIS MOTOR BOAT
OR
Racing to Save a Life
BY
GRAHAM B. FORBES
_Author of “Frank Allen’s Schooldays,” “Frank
Allen—Pitcher,” “Frank Allen at
Rockspur Ranch,” etc._
[Illustration: Bookmaker’s symbol]
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING CO., INC.
1926
FRANK ALLEN SERIES
BY
GRAHAM B. FORBES
_See back of book for list of titles_
COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY
GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC.
MADE IN U. S. A.
FRANK ALLEN AND HIS MOTOR BOAT
CHAPTER I
TUNING THE ROCKET
“Cunningham really wants a race, does he? Well, I’m ready after
to-day to give him a chance to beat the _Rocket_; but, Lanky, he’ll
have to handle the _Speedaway_ better than he handles himself or he
will find himself taking the rough water of this little boat mighty
quickly.”
Frank Allen and Lanky Wallace were out on the Harrapin river giving
the regular daily try-out to the _Rocket_. Lanky’s father, after
their return from a recent trip to the West, had presented Frank
with this neat, little, rakish-modeled motor boat for three reasons:
first, because he liked the upstanding leader of the Columbia boys
and felt that his own son, Clarence (though Lanky was the name
known best) could be in no better company; second, because he was
himself a lover of the great out-of-doors and felt that kinship to
Frank which the outdoor life develops in men; and third, he felt
that Frank had done him a great turn out at Gold Fork when he had so
successfully outwitted those who had tried to rob him of the gold
which was rightfully his.
“You know, sweet little Clarinda—” and Frank started “kidding” his
pal.
“Listen, boy,” Lanky spoke up quickly, “the Harrapin’s wetter than
usual to-day. One of us might get damp.”
“As I was saying,” and Frank’s eyes sparkled, “Clarice,” keeping a
watch on Lanky, “you know that a gas engine has fifty-seven varieties
of tricks in it, just like a good Missouri mule, and before I get
into any contests I am going to learn a few of the tricks this one
has.”
At the moment there seemed to be no reason why Frank Allen should
doubt the faithfulness of his motor, for it was running smoothly,
hitting regularly, and had been responding to-day to its master’s
touch. Which very fact was stated by Lanky Wallace.
“That’s all right, Lanky—what you say. But you heard me compare a gas
engine to a mule, didn’t you? That is using other words to say that
when you think things are the smoothest is when they are getting
ready to be the worst.”
The words had just left Frank’s lips and reached Lanky Wallace’s ears
when there was a loud pop and the engine’s explosions ceased.
“Oh, ye prophet!” and Lanky started laughing.
“Here! Grab the wheel, hold her straight ahead, and let me tickle
this thing into action,” and Frank let Wallace have his place.
His wrenches in hand, he took out a spark plug and immediately found
this particular trouble. Cleaning the plug and respacing the two
points across which the spark leaps, he replaced the plug and started
the engine. Again it worked smoothly, and he threw it into gear with
the propeller shaft.
“I wonder who Cunningham is, really,” he said as he wiped his hands
on some waste and stood again alongside Lanky Wallace.
“Beats me. But I don’t like him, no matter who he is nor where he’s
from. There’s something about him that isn’t square, Frank. His eyes
are shifty and he seems too anxious to be the leader in everything in
Columbia. I don’t see what Minnie sees in him——”
The mention of Minnie Cuthbert’s name along with Cunningham’s was
not at all pleasing to Frank Allen, and a little frown stole across
his face. There was silence between the two boys while the _Rocket_
continued up the river at a medium pace, taking them on an errand for
Frank’s father.
“Well,” Frank broke into the put-put of the exhaust, “I guess it’s
just a strange face and new ways and new words and lots of great
things he has done, and all of that. They say a woman’s intuition is
unerring, but I believe that you and I have better intuition in this
case than the girls have. I’m going to venture this: I don’t believe
Cunningham is here for any good reason, and I believe that fast motor
boat of his is for some other purpose than just to challenge us
fellows to a race.”
Silence fell again between the two boys while the _Rocket_ passed
one after another of the beautiful, green, wooded islands which dot
the Harrapin and make it one of the prettiest water-courses in the
country. From among the trees on each of them peeped out pretty
houses or cottages or partly built summer homes, the finished houses
possessed of neat boat landings where week-end parties often stopped
during the solstice days and spent a merry time as guests.
“What a summer!” suddenly exclaimed Lanky.
“How?”
“Well, first out at Rockspur and Gold Fork, and lots of fun and go
almost every minute, and dad’s map being stolen, and the sudden
appearance of Lef Seller, and the hot chase we had, and Lef’s
getting away, and your finding all the gold for dad, and his giving
you a bunch of it, and now back here—all of it, you know.”
“And don’t forget we’ve got to have a good camp yet before the
summer’s gone,” put in Frank. “I’ve been thinking of it all the
summer and I don’t want to see the time get away from us before we
pull that off.”
“You’re sure right,” agreed Lanky.
For a while they chatted about the pleasant times in store for them
on a camping trip, then the conversation again drifted back to their
adventures in the West. All the while Frank was listening, even
through the spoken words, to the action of the motor, feeling all the
time as if something might be wrong with it.
“Something’s out of adjustment,” he said to his companion, breaking
suddenly into one of Lanky’s speeches. “This motor is good, a
perfect daisy, a four-cycle type that is hardly without equal, and
yet it isn’t acting right, Lanky. I’m not so awfully expert that I
can figure it all out, but there is a noise here that isn’t right.
Listen! Just as I pick her up for some speed, there’s a peculiar
sound.”
With this Frank increased the speed of the boat, and in perhaps sixty
seconds the _Rocket_ was heading up the Harrapin at a pace which
Frank had not previously held it to.
“Gee, Frank,” cried Lanky enthusiastically, “what chance has Fred
Cunningham with this? This is speed, I’ll say!”
“Righto—it’s speed. Look at her nose! Up and after ’em! Look back of
us at the wash. But also listen to that sound. Some of these days
when I need speed and think I’m going to get it, I’m going to find
myself in trouble if I don’t find the cause for it,” and Frank’s tone
was one of extreme worry.
“What’s the use of worrying? I don’t hear anything half as much as I
see some speed. This is great!”
Gradually the speed of the _Rocket_ was lessened, for Frank was not
inclined to take chances on something which he did not understand.
“How far do we go?” asked Lanky.
“Up to Crescent Island. Father asked me to deliver that message in my
coat pocket up to Mr. Sneed on the Island. I guess it must have been
important, or he would have sent it by mail.”
Around a long bend of the river they went, past one of the prettiest
of the island group, whereon a handsome summer home stood back of the
shrubbery.
“I wonder why Mrs. Parsons keeps that big place on the island and
also her home on the shore of the river,” idly observed Lanky
Wallace, nodding over to the very handsome old home on the shore of
the river, standing back on a knoll, protected from the view of the
river boats by great trees and row upon row of shrubs.
“I understand she has become a sort of miser since Mr. Parsons died.
I have heard that she keeps lots of her family heirlooms and silver
and all that sort of thing up there.
“I’ve heard all sorts of mysterious things about her place, among
them that she has secret chambers to keep her money and jewels,” and
Lanky looked back at the place. “But, Frank, I don’t believe half of
those stories. You know that lots of the small talk we hear in town
about many folks isn’t so.”
“That’s true enough,” agreed Frank. “Of course, there is the old
saying that where there’s smoke there is also fire, but I can’t help
but think that a sensible person who is rich is not going to keep
stuff of that sort about the place, exposed to thieves and burglars.”
“I wonder if she’s afraid to stay there unguarded.”
“Then why doesn’t she move into town, where she would be close to
neighbors and friends?”
“On advice of counsel, I must refuse to answer,” said Lanky
banteringly, striking a mock heroic attitude.
Just at this juncture the expected happened. Frank’s exclamation of
“Now! what’s the matter?” showed that his fears were being realized.
The engine stopped dead, and the _Rocket_ was going upstream merely
because of its own headway.
Lanky Wallace took the wheel at the suggestion of Frank, so that he
himself could get down to tinker with the engine.
Once, twice, three times he tried to get it started, but there was no
success.
Without any show of temper, but a determined look of the conqueror,
Frank Allen rolled his sleeves back, chose the wrenches he wanted,
and started to work.
“While we’re drifting, Lanky, hold her in toward shore, and when
we’re close enough you might as well ease her up to some good spot to
tie. I’m going to fix this thing if I know how.”
First the plugs were taken out. They showed considerable fouling,
but when he had cleaned and replaced them there was no success. What
Frank noticed particularly was the resistance which the motor offered
to being turned over.
A half-hour of drifting passed away, Lanky in charge of the wheel,
and then a slight bump told the boys that he had brought the
_Rocket’s_ nose up against a soft place in the bank. Lanky leaped off
with a line and ran to a low-bending tree, a very convenient willow,
and tied.
They had drifted back to a point just upstream from the Parsons house.
Several boats out in midstream passed them, but the two boys, busy in
the cockpit, paid no heed to those who were going their own ways. The
afternoon was wearing on.
The first thing Frank had discovered was that two of the valve
springs were weak, or appeared to be so, and he placed the only spare
ones he had—two new ones from the tool kit—where they belonged, then
had Lanky try the engine by slowly turning it over to note the effect.
Next came his examination of the carburetor, where so much of the
trouble of a gas engine lies, and found that the needle valve was
dirty. This being cleaned, an examination of the float having been
made, and all parts then carefully put together, Lanky grabbed the
flywheel and gave it a spin. Away it went with a whir!
“Now, which of three things was wrong?” laughed Frank, as the motor
spit and sputtered and then went to running evenly.
“All three!” exclaimed Lanky. “It’s not for me to choose the right
one—so I’ll just play safe and say it was all of them at the same
time.”
The two boys washed their hands, Lanky loosened the fastening to the
tree, gave a huge shove to the boat to cast it far off shore, leaped
on it as it moved away, and grabbed an oar to propel it further from
shore, paddle-like, so that the propeller would not foul.
Then, its nose slowly turned upstream, the engine running smoothly,
the _Rocket_ picked up speed under the hand of Frank, and out to
midstream they went, toward the Parsons Island.
“There’s Cunningham right now!” exclaimed Wallace, pointing to a
rapidly moving boat which was rounding the upper side of the narrow
island.
It was a trim craft, the _Speedaway_, and worth watching as it
skimmed around the island and made its way toward the same side of
the river as was the _Rocket_.
“What’s the fool mean? Look at him! Heading straight at us!” cried
Frank, throwing his wheel over to get passing space and blowing his
whistle.
“Drat his hide!” muttered the other. “Turning directly at us and not
slowing down.”
Once again Frank eased the _Rocket_ to the port. At once the
_Speedaway’s_ direction was changed, the boat answering quickly to
the wheel, as its speed was kept.
A long slim V of water washing behind as its bow cut the river with
its burst of speed, the Cunningham craft was bearing directly at the
_Rocket_, a deliberate attempt to run it down!