ABOUT THE ROVER BOYS
“Look out!”
“We’re going to be smashed!”
“That fellow must be crazy!”
Such were some of the cries coming from the Rover boys and their chums
as the big aeroplane swooped around from one side to another almost
over their heads.
It was a truly perilous moment, and no one realized it more than did
the Rovers. And what to do not a one of them knew. To attempt to row
out of the way might prove the worst move of all, for it might bring
them directly to the spot where the aeroplane would come crashing down.
“Let’s dive overboard,” suggested Fred. “Go down as deep as you can!”
he yelled.
This seemed good advice and some of the lads were on the point of
following it when suddenly the aeroplane made another swoop and struck
the surface of the lake some distance away. It sent the water flying
in every direction, some of the drops even reaching the cadets. The
propeller gave a snap and one blade went whizzing up into the sky to
come down on the other side of Berry Island. Then the flying machine
began slowly to settle and the motor stopped abruptly.
“Help! Help! Save us!” came in a girlish voice across the water. “Save
us!”
“Look! Look!” exclaimed Jack, springing suddenly to his feet. “Unless
I’m mistaken, that is Ruth Stevenson!”
“It is Ruth, just as sure as you’re born!” declared Fred. “And a man
and the aviator are with her!”
“That man must be her father,” went on Jack. “She said he was going to
call at Clearwater Hall to see her. Come on, boys! We’ve got to get to
them before the aeroplane pulls them under. Hurry! Row for all you’re
worth!”
As he uttered the last words Jack sank down on the seat and grasped
tight hold of the oar which had almost gotten away from him in his
excitement. The others also fell to rowing, and away they pulled for
the sinking aeroplane which was less than two hundred feet away. Soon
the other rowboat followed.
And while the four Rover boys and their chums are going to the rescue
of those in peril, it may be as well for me to state as briefly as
possible who the boys were and how they came to be in their present
situation. Of course, those who have read the previous volumes of this
series will need no special introduction to the Rovers, and they can
skip these pages if they so desire.
In the first volume of the line, entitled “The Rover Boys at School,”
I introduced three brothers, Dick, Tom and Sam Rover and told how they
were sent to Putnam Hall Military Academy where they had a number of
adventures and where they made great friends of three other students,
Larry Colby, Songbird Powell, and Fred Garrison.
Passing from Putnam Hall, these three brothers next attended Brill
College, and then went into business in New York City by organizing The
Rover Company with offices on Wall Street.
During their schoolboy days the three lads had made the acquaintanceship
of three nice girls, Dora Stanhope and her cousins Nellie and Grace
Laning. Shortly after the three couples were married and settled down in
connecting houses on Riverside Drive, New York City. As the result of
his marriage Dick Rover became the father of a son, Jack, and a daughter
named Martha. Sam Rover was blessed with a girl called Mary, and then a
son who was christened Fred. At about this same time Tom Rover’s wife,
Nellie, came forward with a lively pair of twin boys, who were named
Anderson and Randolph after their grandfather and their great-uncle.
Andy and Randy, as they were always called, were full of fun, coming
naturally by this, as their father had been as full of life as any lad
could well be.
Being brought up side by side, the younger generation of Rover boys, as
well as the girls, lived together very much as one large family. But
soon the boys began to cut up to such an extent that it was decided to
send them to some strict boarding school.
About that time Larry Colby, the chum of the older Rovers, had opened
Colby Hall, a military academy patterned somewhat after the national
institution at West Point. This was considered just the institution
for the younger generation, and in the first volume the Second Series,
entitled “The Rover Boys at Colby Hall,” I related how Jack, Fred
and Andy and Randy journeyed to that institution of learning and how
they made a number of warm friends and also defeated several of their
enemies.
The military school was located about half a mile from Haven Point,
a small town on Clearwater Lake close to where the Rick Rack River
ran into that body of water. The school consisted of a large stone
building facing the river and close by was a smaller building occupied
by Colonel Colby and his family and some of the professors, and not far
away were a gymnasium, a boathouse, and several necessary buildings.
On arriving at Colby Hall the four Rovers found several of their
friends already there, including Spouter Powell and Gif Garrison, the
sons of their fathers’ old classmates.
Up the lake on the other side of Haven Point was located Clearwater
Hall, a boarding school for girls. During a panic in a moving picture
theater the four Rover boys became acquainted with several girls from
this school, including Ruth Stevenson and May Powell, a cousin of
Spouter. Later on Mary and Martha Rover became pupils at the girls’
school, and all of the young folks got to be warm friends.
After a term at Colby Hall the four Rover boys had the pleasure of
spending the winter holidays on “Snowshoe Island.” Then a little later
they went “Under Canvas” with their fellow cadets, and later still went
on a grand hunt, using a bungalow up in the woods which belonged to
Gif Garrison’s uncle. This was during the great World War and when the
older Rovers had all gone to France to fight for democracy.
The return of the older Rovers brought a surprise. Dick Rover had
saved the life of a man from Texas and in return had received a deed to
some land which later on was supposed to contain oil. Dick decided to
go to Texas and Oklahoma, and the four boys begged to go with him. And
they had some stirring adventures in what has so often been called “The
Land of Luck.”
After their adventures in the Southwest the four boys returned again to
Colby Hall. At this time Jack was captain of Company C and Fred was a
lieutenant in the same command.
There was a spirited rivalry when a new election for officers was held.
But in spite of many efforts made to defeat them, Jack was chosen
major of the school battalion and Fred was made captain of Company
C. Andy and Randy might have held minor offices, but both preferred
to remain privates, especially as that would enable them to take
part in the various athletic exercises. At first Colonel Colby had
allowed the cadets to join the baseball nine, football eleven, and the
rowing teams, even though they were officers. But there had been some
grumbling that “some cadets were trying to do everything and would not
give the others a show,” and so it had been decided that while all
cadets were supposed to go in for athletics in general, they could not
be officers and take part in any official athletic contests.
During this term at school Spouter asked the Rovers and Gif Garrison
to spend the summer vacation with him out in Montana on a ranch owned
by his father. How the Rovers went out there with their chums and
what stirring times they encountered have been related in the volume
preceding this, entitled “The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch.” In that
book they exposed the acts of one of their enemies, Brassy Bangs, and
also brought a number of horse thieves to justice.
“We have certainly had some strenuous times here,” remarked Jack, one
day.
“I suppose it will be dead quiet for us this winter when we return to
Colby Hall,” his cousin Randy had answered.
“Well, that will give us a chance to catch up in our studies,” Fred had
suggested. “We don’t want to fall behind. If we do, our folks may take
us away from Colby Hall.”
“Oh, we don’t want to leave that place――at least, not just yet!” Andy
had put in hastily.
The winter had passed rather quietly, the boys going home only for the
Christmas holidays. During that time there had come only one surprise,
and that was the news concerning Longley Academy. This institution of
learning, which had been in existence only a short time, had been
devoted very largely to physical culture and athletics and had an
extra fine baseball grounds with a beautiful grandstand and bleachers.
But strange to say, the athletics had not been as prosperous as the
management of the institution wished, and a good many of the pupils had
been on the point of leaving, and several had applied for admission to
Colby Hall.
As a consequence of this the owners of Longley had turned the academy
into a military school with a section devoted to horsemanship. The
cadets were given a most striking uniform, and everything possible
was done to induce the cadets of Colby Hall to shift to the other
institution.
“And I call that about as mean a piece of business as could happen,”
was Jack’s comment, in talking this over with some of his chums. “Of
course they have a perfect right to make a military academy of Longley
if they want to; but they have no right to steal away our cadets.”
Among the boys to leave Colby Hall and go to Longley were Paul Halliday
and Billy Sands, who had been great chums of Brassy Bangs while that
individual was a cadet. Of course, Colonel Colby was sorry to have
any of his pupils leave him, but the Rovers were rather glad to see
Halliday and Sands go.
“It’s good riddance to those fellows!” Fred had remarked. “I never
considered either of them much better than Brassy Bangs himself.”
“Oh, I don’t think Halliday and Sands are quite as bad as Bangs was,”
Randy had answered. “Still I’d rather have them somewhere else than
here.”
During the winter the cadets of Colby and the boys at Longley had had
several contests on the ice and had also indulged in several snowball
fights. In one of these fights Fred had received a black eye from a
snowball hurled by Billy Sands. In return for this Sands had been
caught a little later and rolled down into a snowy hollow, much to his
disgust. In one of the skating races Paul Halliday had come in ahead
of two of the cadets from Colby, and because of this he and the other
cadets from Longley had done considerable crowing.
“We’ll show Colby where they get off!” had come boastfully from Tommy
Flanders, a youth who on several occasions had pitched for the rival
school.
“You’ll never show Colby anything!” Jack had retorted, and this had
made Tommy Flanders very angry, because he had been virtually “batted
out of the box” by the Colby baseball nine.
As a result of the new order of things a more bitter rivalry than ever
had sprung up between Colby Hall and Longley Academy, and when the
winter was at an end and there were talks of some boat races everybody
was wondering how the matches would terminate. The Colbyites hoped that
they might win, while the Longley supporters went around everywhere
declaring that they “would wipe up the lake” with their rivals.
This was the condition of affairs when the four Rovers had gone out
on the afternoon of this bright day in early summer for a row on
Clearwater Lake. They had been talking about the boys at Longley
Academy when their attention had been attracted to the aeroplane, as
mentioned at the beginning of this story.
The flying machine was one belonging to an aero corporation which sent
aeroplanes to many summer resorts where they might be used by visitors
and others. Each was supposed to be in first-class condition and under
the care of an experienced aviator.
At first it was supposed that the aviator would be able to get but
little patronage at Haven Point for the reason that the town was small
and the district sparsely settled. But it was soon found that, by
skillful advertising, the flying machine drew a great many visitors to
the lake; and sometimes the aviator was called on to make a dozen or
more trips a day.
As he usually carried two passengers and as the fare was fifteen
dollars per person, it can readily be seen that the business was a
prosperous one. The local paper had devoted several columns to the
enterprise, giving the personal experience of a number of people
who had made a flight. So far nothing in the way of an accident had
occurred to mar the success of the undertaking.
But now in the twinkling of an eye all this was changed. For some
reason as yet unknown the huge flying machine had struck the bosom of
the lake in slanting fashion and one of the blades of the propeller
had been broken of to fly into space. And now the aeroplane was on the
point of sinking, carrying the aviator and his two passengers with it.