SOMETHING ABOUT THE ROVERS
“Sheer off! Sheer off!”
“You’ll send us to the bottom!”
“Why don’t you look where you’re running?”
“It wasn’t our fault! You changed your course!” came from the steam
yacht.
“Nothing of the sort! I was runnin’ as straight as an arrow!” yelled
Pud Hicks, in reply.
Then the two boats sheered away from each other and presently both came
to a standstill in order that the occupants might ascertain what damage
had been done. In the meantime Phil Franklin, who had disappeared
beneath the surface of the lake, reappeared and struck out lustily for
the motor boat.
“Where are Andy and Randy?” gasped Fred, who had kept himself from
being hurled overboard by a firm hold on the rear gunwale.
“Ouch! My fingers!” came in a wild yell from Spouter Powell. He had had
the digits of his left hand severely pinched when the two craft came
together.
“The trophy went overboard!” groaned one of the other cadets. “Andy and
Randy took the silver vase with them!”
“Never mind the trophy!” interrupted Jack quickly. “If only they are
not hurt!” he added fervidly.
The youthful major had scarcely spoken when a head bobbed up on the
surface of the lake about fifty feet away. It was Andy Rover, and he
struck out somewhat feebly for the motor boat.
“Andy! Andy! Are you all right?” yelled Jack.
“I――I guess so!” gasped his cousin.
“Where is your brother?” screamed Fred. He was in mortal terror,
fearing Randy had been seriously hurt and gone to the bottom.
The words were scarcely off his lips when the waters of the lake parted
once more and Randy Rover reappeared. He threw up a hand feebly.
“Help! Help!” he gasped out. “Somebody help me!”
“He’s got a cramp, or something!” exclaimed Jack. “I’m going after him.
Bring the boat over,” and without further ado he balanced himself on a
seat of the motor boat and then dove overboard in the direction where
his cousin had appeared. Randy’s head and hand had gone down slowly,
and now he was once more out of sight.
As my old readers know, the young major was an excellent swimmer and he
struck out with vigor for the spot where his cousin had disappeared.
In less than a minute after Jack left the boat Andy managed to reach
the craft and was pulled on board by Fred and Gif. Then the motor boat
was turned in the direction where Jack was swimming.
“Be careful, Pud. We don’t want to hit anybody,” cautioned Fred. And
then he and some others helped Phil Franklin to clamber aboard.
“I’ll be careful,” answered the man at the wheel. “Confound those
fellers on that steam yacht! They’re to blame!”
“It’s a steam yacht from up the lake――_Jocelyn_,” said a cadet. “It
belongs to the crowd that hangs around the Outlook Hotel.”
A minute of vigorous swimming brought Jack to the place where he had
seen Randy go down. Filling his lungs with air, he dove beneath the
surface, keeping his eyes wide open for whatever might appear.
He saw his cousin a few yards away, struggling feebly to regain the
surface. In another moment he was at Randy’s side and then both came up
as quickly as possible.
“Oh, Jack, I’m so glad you came after me!” were Randy’s first words,
coming with severe gasps. “I was afraid I was a goner.”
“What was the matter, Randy, that you couldn’t swim better? Were you
struck or was it a cramp?”
“Neither. It was the silver trophy. I tried to save it, but it was too
heavy for me.”
“Oh, gee, I forgot all about it!” answered Jack. “Then the trophy has
gone to the bottom of the lake! But never mind――I’d rather have the
trophy missing than you,” he added grimly, and then aided his cousin
to keep afloat until the motor boat came alongside and they were both
assisted on board.
And now I think it is high time that I pause for a moment to introduce
the Rover boys and their friends to those who are meeting them for the
first time. In the first volume of this line of books, entitled “The
Rover Boys at School,” I introduced three brothers, Dick, Tom and Sam
Rover, and related how they were sent to Putnam Hall Military Academy
where they made a number of chums, including a cadet named Lawrence
Colby. From Putnam Hall the three Rover boys went to Brill College and
then entered business in Wall Street, New York City.
During their days at school the Rover brothers fell in love with three
nice girls, Dora Stanhope and her cousins, Nellie and Grace Laning.
The three young couples became married and settled down in connecting
houses on Riverside Drive in 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 named Mary, and then a
son, who was christened Fred. 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, thus
following in the footsteps of their ever-lively father.
Residing side by side, the younger generation of Rover boys, as well
as the girls, were brought up very much as one large family. At first
they attended private institutions of learning in the metropolis. But
presently, when the lads began to develop a propensity for fun, it was
decided to send them to some stricter institution of learning.
At that time Larry Colby was at the head of a military academy called
Colby Hall. Jack and Fred, as well as the lively twins, were sent to
that institution of learning, and what happened to them during their
first term there has already been related in a volume entitled “The
Rover Boys at Colby Hall.”
At school and elsewhere the young Rovers made many friends, and also a
few enemies. Among their warmest chums were Gif Garrison, the son of
their fathers’ old friend, Fred Garrison, after whom Fred Rover was
named, and Spouter Powell, the son of the older Rover boys’ chum, John
Powell, always known as Songbird.
A term at Colby Hall had been followed by some stirring winter
adventures on “Snowshoe Island.” Then the cadets returned to school to
go into an encampment “Under Canvas.” Later still the lads went on a
great “Hunt.” During these times Jack and Fred took a great interest in
military matters, and the former gradually worked up until he became
major of the school battalion while Fred became captain of Company
C. This was at a time when the World War was taking place and when
their fathers, and also Colonel Colby, were doing their duty on the
battlefields of France.
The war at an end, the older Rovers returned to the United States.
Through a soldier whose life he had saved Dick Rover became interested
in the oil fields of Texas and Oklahoma, and how he journeyed to the
oil fields, taking the four Rover boys with him, is fully set forth in
a volume entitled “The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck.” Dick Rover,
aided by the boys, was highly successful in his quest for oil, but he
made several bitter enemies, including Carson Davenport, who, with two
of his pals, was sent to prison.
From the oil fields the boys returned to school, but a short time later
accompanied Spouter Powell on a trip to “Big Horn Ranch.” Later still
they went with Gif Garrison to “Big Bear Lake,” where they had some
great doings. It was here that they found some of the Longley Academy
boys in camp and where Tommy Flanders, the pitcher for the rival
academy, had sought to do them much harm and had been brought to book.
Colby Hall was located on Clearwater Lake not far from the town of
Haven Point. On the other side of the town was situated Clearwater
Hall, a school for girls. Among the pupils at this institution were
Ruth Stevenson and also May Powell, a cousin of Spouter Powell. Jack
and the other lads speedily became acquainted with these girls and
later on induced the folks at home to allow Martha and Mary to become
pupils at the place.
Before Jack Rover had been elected major of the school battalion,
Ralph Mason had occupied that important position. Through Ralph the
lads obtained an invitation for a motor boat trip out to Nantucket and
Cape Cod. What this trip led to has already been related in the volume
preceding this, entitled “The Rover Boys Shipwrecked.” They found
themselves carried down to the West Indies and were there plunged into
an unexpected hunt for pirates’ gold.
“Well, we certainly had great times on that trip,” declared Randy. “I
don’t suppose we’ll ever have such strenuous times again.” But Randy
could not look into the future. Strenuous days were still to come for
the boys, as the pages which follow will prove.
“Do you feel all right, Randy?” questioned Fred anxiously, as his
cousin came aboard, followed by Jack.
“I――I think I’m all right!” gasped Randy. “Gee, it’s too bad the silver
trophy went to the bottom of the lake! I hung on to it as long as I
could, but it was too much for me.”
“You shouldn’t have risked your life for it,” said Phil Franklin.
“I had hold of it, too, but I let go before Randy did,” put in Andy. “I
wasn’t going to drown for any trophy, no matter how valuable it was.”
“It’s all the fault of that steam yacht,” growled Pud Hicks. “We’re
lucky they didn’t cut us in two.”
“Run up alongside and see what they’ve got to say,” said Jack, and as
he spoke the young major of the school battalion did what he could to
wring the water from his baseball uniform. Fortunately, it being a warm
day, there was little danger of those who had been submerged taking
cold.
The steam yacht was crowded with men and boys, most of whom had
attended the ball game.
“You can’t lay this accident on me,” growled the man in charge of the
steam yacht, a burly fellow with reddish hair and a bristly mustache.
“I blew my whistle and I had the right of way.”
“No such thing!” retorted Pud Hicks. “You ran into us on purpose. I’m
goin’ to report you.”
“It certainly was too bad it happened,” said a young man on the steam
yacht, as he eyed the cadets critically. “You fellows didn’t get hurt,
did you?”
“I came pretty close to getting drowned,” growled Randy.
“Yes, and the silver trophy we just won was knocked overboard,” added
his brother. “I guess the owner of the yacht will have to settle that
bill.”
“We won’t settle anything! It was all your fault, and you know it!”
said the man who was running the steam yacht. “If any one is to make a
complaint, it ought to be me!”
After this there was a wordy war lasting for five minutes or more. Each
side seemed to be convinced that the fault lay with the other crowd.
Finally a number of men aboard the steam yacht began to grumble.
“Stop chewing the rag and take us up to the hotel,” said one man. “I’ve
got to catch that evening train.”
“That’s the talk!” put in another. “You fellows can settle this some
other time.” And a minute later the steam yacht continued on its way up
Clearwater Lake.
“Well, we didn’t make much out of that,” remarked one of the cadets.
“Just the same, I hold that they are responsible,” said Pud Hicks
sturdily.
“I think so myself,” answered Jack. “But whether you can hold them for
it or not is a question. If you took it to court probably they would
have as many witnesses to side with them as we’d have for us.”
“I wouldn’t care so much if only the silver vase hadn’t been lost,”
sighed Randy, who was now feeling once more like himself. “Gee! what
are we going to tell the other fellows and Colonel Colby when we get
back to the school?”
“I’m afraid there’ll be an awful howl go up when the fellows learn that
the trophy has been lost,” answered the young major soberly.
“Why can’t we fish it up?” questioned Fred quickly. “How deep do you
suppose the water is around here?”
“Thirty or forty feet at least――maybe twice that,” answered Pud Hicks.
“Well, we’ve got to get it back somehow!” cried Gif. “We worked too
hard to win it to lose it this way.”
The motor boat was run around in a circle in the vicinity of the spot
where the precious silver trophy had disappeared beneath the waters of
the lake. Then, with heavy hearts, Pud Hicks and the cadets turned once
more in the direction of the Colby Hall boat-landing.