A QUARREL OVER A ROWBOAT
“That’s our boat!”
“I think so myself. Come on. Let’s row over to them before they have a
chance to reach their camp!” cried Jack.
“That’s the talk!” returned Spouter.
“I wonder if they got the oars,” said Randy. “The pair I was using was
dandy.”
“It isn’t likely,” answered Andy. “You let them fall overboard, didn’t
you, when the boat upset?”
“Sure! Everything went out, as far as I know.”
With each cadet at an oar, the four lads sent the rowboat through the
water with good speed, and in less than five minutes were hauling up
alongside of the other craft. Those at the oars proved to be Tommy
Flanders and Billy Sands. The fellow in the stern, who was smoking a
cigarette, was Paul Halliday, while the fourth lad was a stranger to
the boys from Colby Hall, although they had seen him in the Longley
contingent at the ball games.
“Hello! So you found our boat, did you?” exclaimed Spouter.
“Your boat?” demanded Tommy Flanders. “Who said it was your boat?”
“I say it,” answered Randy. “That boat got away from us yesterday in
the storm.”
“Did you find the oars?” questioned Jack.
“No. We didn’t find anything but the boat,” said Halliday. “And you’ve
got to prove it’s your property before we give it up,” he went on
suddenly and with a wink at his companions.
“That boat belongs to Mr. Garrison,” declared Jack. “We got it from
Mose Mumbleton only yesterday.”
“Well, you’ll have to prove that before we give it up,” came from Tommy
Flanders. “Don’t you say so, fellows?”
“Sure we do,” put in Billy Sands readily.
“Of course if it’s their boat they ought to have it,” came somewhat
slowly from the fourth boy.
“Nothing doing, Fiddler!” cried Halliday. “We wouldn’t take their word
for anything. We’re going to take this boat to our camp and they can’t
have it until they prove it belongs to them. For all we know, they saw
us pick the boat up and now want a chance to get it for themselves,
even if it doesn’t belong to them.”
“Halliday, you ought to be punched for that!” cried Randy angrily.
“You know well enough we wouldn’t claim the boat if it wasn’t ours,”
added his brother.
“I don’t know anything about it. If this boat belongs to Mr. Garrison
he’s got to prove property. Besides that, he ought to pay for having it
brought back. If it hadn’t been for us the boat might never have been
found.”
“Oh, so you’re out for a reward, are you?” remarked Spouter
sarcastically. “How much do you think you ought to have――a quarter or
fifty cents?”
“I don’t want any of your funny talk, Powell,” roared Halliday, in a
rage. “I’m not looking for any reward, nor am I going to turn this boat
over to somebody it doesn’t belong to.”
“There is the name on the stern!” cried Randy. “_Comet!_ That’s the
name of the boat we were in yesterday when we got upset on a snag.
That’s our boat, and no question about it.”
“Well, we’re going to take the boat to our camp. If Mr. Garrison wants
the boat and can prove it belongs to him, let him come over there,”
said Tommy Flanders, after a few whispered words to his cronies. Then
those in the other boat began to row away.
“Great tomcats! we’re not going to let them get away with our boat, are
we?” gasped Andy. “Why, I’d fight ’em first!”
“So would I,” declared Spouter. “That boat belongs to us, and they know
it as well as we do. It’s only a trick to keep us from having the use
of the craft.”
“Let’s pull after them and cut the boat adrift,” said Jack. “Andy, you
get in the stern and have your knife ready. We’ll show those fellows a
trick or two.”
“Right-o,” answered his cousin, and without letting those in the other
craft see what they were doing Andy got out his pocketknife and opened
the largest of the blades. The others fell to rowing, and in a few
seconds more were alongside of the rowboat which was being towed.
“Hi! Let go of that!” cried Billy Sands suddenly, and, reaching out
over the stern, he tried to pull the second boat closer.
Andy, however, was too quick for Sands, and in a twinkling he reached
over and cut the line. The loose end he caught in his hand and in a
moment more the empty rowboat was tied fast to the stern of the craft
occupied by the Rovers and Spouter. Then Andy dropped back in his seat
and grabbed his oar.
“Away we go, boys!” he chuckled. “I don’t believe they can catch us
even if we have got to drag the other boat behind us.”
“Stop! Stop!” roared Tommy Flanders. “Stop, or we’ll have the law on
you!”
“You go to grass, Flanders,” answered Andy.
“Don’t you dare to follow us,” called back Spouter. “If you do you’ll
be sorry for it.”
“Oh, let ’em go. It’s probably their boat, anyhow,” said the boy who
had been called Fiddler, in a low tone. “We don’t want that boat. We’ve
got all the boats we need.”
There was a hot argument between this boy and the others from Longley
Academy, and while this was going on the Rovers and Spouter pulled
steadily and soon placed quite a distance between themselves and the
other craft. Then, looking back, they saw Tommy Flanders and his crowd
take up their oars again and row in the direction of Willoughby camp.
“What a nerve they had!” remarked Randy, as he and the others let up a
little in their rowing.
“I’ll bet if we hadn’t spotted them they would never have said a word
about the rowboat. That is, if they found out we had lost it,” came
from Jack.
“Just shows how mean that bunch is,” declared Andy.
“They’ll be meaner than ever after this, Andy. They’ll want to square
up with us for getting the best of them in this affair.”
As the other boat was now well on its way to the camp on the east shore
of Big Bear Lake, the boys from Colby Hall determined to turn back once
more and take a look around for the missing oars. This they did, and
spent an hour in rowing slowly up and down the shore and around several
small islands. They were rewarded by finding two of the oars. What had
become of the other pair was a mystery.
It was well toward noon when they got back to camp, and it must be
confessed that their arms were tired and they were glad to rest a bit
before partaking of the dinner prepared by Jeff under the directions
and with the aid of Gif and Fred.
“What gall those fellows had,” remarked Fred, when he heard the story
the others had to tell.
“If they had kept that boat my father could have made it hot for them,”
remarked Gif.
“Oh, they wouldn’t dare to keep it. They only thought they were going
to make us a lot of trouble,” answered Jack. “It was just a little
meanness on their part, that’s all.”
All the boxes and bundles had been brought in; and as soon as they
had rested and had dinner Randy and Spouter set about emptying their
suitcases and drying out their contents. Fortunately, nothing had been
permanently injured, for which the lads were thankful.
Several days passed, the boys doing little except to go in bathing
and lie around outdoors enjoying themselves. The bungalow boasted of
several hammocks, and these were stretched between convenient trees,
some of them quite close to the water. The lads went fishing, catching
a fine mess of pickerel and perch, which they had Jeff fry for supper
and for the following breakfast.
“Well, Jeff certainly knows how to fry fish,” remarked Jack, after he
had eaten his supper. “I never ate fish that tasted better.”
“That’s the one thing that Jeff can do,” answered Gif. “Otherwise,
I think he’s about as lazy and worthless as any nigger I ever met.
Privately, I wish we could get rid of him.”
“You’d better pile more work on him, Gif. Maybe then he’d get tired of
the job and make an excuse for going home,” suggested Spouter.
“I’m certainly going to do something unless he wakes up,” answered the
other.
On Monday, following a quiet Sunday in camp, all the boys rowed up to
Rocky Run to purchase some additional supplies from Mose Mumbleton.
The old storekeeper was glad to see them and had some news to impart.
“Three more young fellows came for that other camp yesterday,” he said.
“A fellow named Smith, another named Mason and a third chap with a big
wide mouth, named Stowell.”
“That was Codfish!” exclaimed Andy. “They said he was coming up here.”
“Did they buy anything from you, Mr. Mumbleton?” questioned Jack.
“Oh, yes; a few things. But most of those fellows are terribly sharp at
driving a bargain. I guess they haven’t got any too much spending money
with them. Another thing! Mr. Flanders was up here. He has a boy over
to the camp. He’s the man, you know, who bought that factory up on Flat
Rock Creek.”
“Is he staying up at the camp?” asked Andy.
“Oh, no. He was going up to a farmhouse that’s quite close to the old
factory. I think he wants to look the property over. He’s thinking of
opening it up again, you know.”
“What sort of factory is it?” questioned Fred.
“Why, it used to be a paint works. What they’re going to do with it now
though, I don’t know. It’s a pretty good building, and I suppose it
could be used for most anything.”
After the storekeeper had supplied them with the things they wanted
he told them they had better hang around a little longer as the train
would soon be in with the mail. They waited as directed and were
rewarded with a number of letters which, of course, they read eagerly.
One communication received by Jack was from Ruth. In it the girl
declared that she was having a fine time with the other girls at Valley
Brook Farm, but that she was very much worried over her father’s
business affairs.
“The loss of the book of formulas is worrying dad a great
deal,” she wrote. “Not only because he spent so much money on
it, but because he got some of the money from Uncle Barney
and because he signed an agreement to purchase a place where
he could manufacture those artists’ colors. And worst of all,
the loss of the money seems to have revived that old quarrel
between dad and Uncle Barney. Mother is terribly worried,
especially as dad doesn’t seem to be nearly as well as he was
before that aeroplane accident.”
The reading of this communication worried Jack not a little. He could
see that Ruth was much downcast over the state of affairs.
“Everything all right, Jack?” questioned Fred. “Here’s a letter from
dad if you’d like to read it. Everything is O. K. down their way.”
“Oh, they’re all well enough up at the farm,” answered the young major.
“But Ruth has her troubles,” and then he told of what the girl had
written.
“It’s too bad,” remarked his cousin. “I wonder why Mr. Stevenson
doesn’t try to get on the track of those two men, Norris and Lemrech,
the workmen who were interested in getting such formulas. Don’t you
remember they said Lemrech was of a shady reputation and not above
stealing the formulas and that the other fellow, who was his cousin,
was the same kind of man?”
“Well, Mr. Stevenson is probably trying to locate those fellows. But
maybe they know enough to keep out of sight.”
“If he shouldn’t get the formulas back, Jack, it might bankrupt him.”
“That’s just what I have been thinking,” answered the young major
soberly.