Frank Allen and his Motor Boat

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

THE SCREAM IN THE DARK

Lanky Wallace looked aghast as the Speedaway bore squarely at them, aimed at tearing the Rocket in two.

Frank Allen, realizing what a dastardly attempt was being made to disable the boat and probably to injure Lanky and himself, knowing that only the coolest maneuvering would save them, was as steady as a post.

With one swing of his arm to the motor he increased speed and with the coolest deliberation turned the nose of the Rocket squarely for the Speedaway. His hope was two-fold: that he would scare off the other men and that he might be in a better position to throw his own craft hard over to one side at the last moment before any impact.

His movement was entirely successful in at least one respect—that he got into position quickly for his own next move.

In a flash of time the two boats were almost touching noses. Then came the necessary alertness and deftness of movement. With a hard tug at his wheel Frank threw the Rocket to one side.

Crunch! The sides of the two boats rubbed each other all the way from stem to stern. As quickly as this happened Frank threw the wheel hard in the opposite direction, with the effect that it threw the Speedaway around, and did so with such a jerk that a large box fell overboard on the other side.

“Hey, you blame fool! What do you mean trying to run me down? What kind of dirty tricks are you up to?” yelled Fred Cunningham as they passed.

Frank, hearing the splash and not knowing that it was not a man overboard, for he had seen two other men beside Cunningham in the boat, immediately cut off speed and continued the long turning movement started when he so quickly gave the push to the stern of the Speedaway.

Her nose now downstream, Frank and Lanky saw that the Speedaway had also made a wide turn and was coming back toward a box which was floating in the river. The speed of the Rocket lessened as it neared the other motor boat.

The two men in the Speedaway were busily engaged in reaching for the floating box, which appeared to be an empty one, and were thus averting their faces. His quick eyes taking in the scene, however, Frank got enough of a glimpse of the men to be able to recognize them again if he should ever see them.

“Say, what kind of business is this? Do you know that you could have swamped this boat and put us all into the river?” called Cunningham.

“That’s about what you had coming to you,” called Frank. Since Cunningham was playing this kind of trick and since there was nothing to be gained by having any argument about the guilt of one or the other, Frank merely showed his contempt for the other.

By this time the two other men had rescued the box and had placed it on the deck forward.

“Do you think that raft of yours has any speed in it?” asked Cunningham sneeringly. “If you think so, I’ll give you a race any time you want it.”

“That’s exactly what I’ll be glad to do. Any time you say and where you say we’ll show you what a regular boat can do that doesn’t spend its time running other people down,” called Frank quite coolly.

“What’s that?” called Cunningham threateningly, getting out from the cockpit as the two boats lay alongside each other.

Frank was equally ready, and saw that a lack of movement on his part might be misinterpreted. Out he stepped from the cockpit of the Rocket and started toward the side.

“I said this boat was ready for a race any time, and I said it was not in the nasty habit of trying to run into other people. Did you get me plainly?”

“Race you any time you say, then. Better put two or three more engines into your rowboat,” again sneered Cunningham, as he stepped back into the cockpit of the Speedaway.

With that he threw the motor into gear and moved away from the Rocket, which now slowly turned its nose upstream.

Frank and Lanky were both quiet. Wallace wanted to talk, but he knew Frank well enough to know that the young captain of the Rocket did not wish to say anything. Under such conditions Frank Allen was always most quiet.

The afternoon sun was slanting its way down into the west and the cooler breezes of the river were flitting past their tousled heads, cooling them off a bit after the rather exciting moments they had had.

It was just at dusk that the boys came to Northeast Bend in the Harrapin and saw the island for which they were headed.

As quickly as it was possible to do, without taking too many chances on injuring the craft, Frank brought it up to the landing with the engine dead. Lanky leaped ashore and tied to the landing post, while Frank made sure he had the note in his pocket before stepping off.

“Well, we’re going to have a moonlight ride on the Harrapin to-night—provided there’s a moon,” laughed Frank, as he came hurrying back to the Rocket and found Lanky stretched out astern, viewing the sky.

“Good enough, only it’s going to cost someone something to eat when we get back to town, for I’m as hungry as one of those bears they talk about.”

“I think father ought to be the one to buy it. What do you say if you come on to the house and we’ll have a snack laid out for us that will improve conditions in the department of the interior.”

“That’s the most sensible thing you’ve said since we started—so far as I can recall.”

In the meanwhile Lanky pulled his frame up from the stern seat, stretched, jumped to the landing, cast off, and the Rocket was ready to go. The stream slowly turned the boat’s nose downward as Frank threw the wheel over. A moment later the motor was going, the gear shifted, and the Rocket started on its homeward journey.

“Better get the lights going, Lanky. And while you’re at it, get the searchlight uncovered and start it. Might as well have all the light we need. This is the first time we’ve navigated at night, and there are about two hours of it to do.”

Lanky took up his task, whistling the while, but suddenly ceased the music and cried:

“Say, Frank, there’s not a bit of juice. What’s the big idea? Can’t light one of them.”

“Throw the main switch on.”

“I have, but not a bit comes through. The line’s dead.”

Here was something more to concern them. Frank Allen knew he did not dare go far down the river without lights, for the many islands in the river and the tortuous path it followed at times would put their own safety at risk, while anything that might be floating in the stream would be an additional risk. On top of all would be the risk to themselves and to others should they meet a motor boat or a rowboat coming upstream.

“Here, take the wheel and hold her in the middle of the river,” he directed Lanky, as he threw the engine out of gear with the drive and started to seek for the trouble.

Fifteen minutes passed without any degree of success, and actual darkness was on them.

“Put her nose over to shore, Lanky. No use taking any chances. We’ve got to find the trouble.”

Whereupon Lanky did his duty, and the Rocket was soon tied to the bank, the engine was stopped, and the two boys began their search for the trouble. They started at the battery end to trace out the wiring.

Doing the work carefully, not dodging about after one connection or another, working methodically, as was Frank’s wont in all things, they came across a grounded connection which was causing the trouble.

“What has always got me,” said Lanky, as Frank declared it was a ground, “is that you call that kind of a connection a ground, or you say the current is grounded, when there’s no ground near the boat.”

“Simple as can be to a high-class, first-grade, expert electrical engineer such as yours truly,” declared Frank, poking out his chest and striking an attitude.

“Yes, like I’m a good jeweler!”

“Now, little playmate, wilt thee kindly cast off the vessel from yonder coral reef?” Frank continued his attitude.

Lanky went shoreward, loosed the rope, and threw it on board at the bow, gave the Rocket a push and leaped aboard himself, hastily grabbing the oar once again to push the stern away from the shallow water.

“Put-put!” and the engine started as he gave the flywheel a spin, Frank at the wheel ready to throw it in gear and get to midstream. All lights were going properly.

Silence now held the boys for a while as Frank picked his way easily to midstream and headed for Columbia.

“You know,” Lanky suddenly broke the stillness, still, except for the muffled exhaust of the motor, “I’ve been wondering about that fellow Cunningham, Frank. What the mischief is that fellow up to? What does he want around here? Who are those two men who were with him? Why did he try to run us down to-day? And any other questions I may have forgotten.”

“You haven’t forgotten any. But you sure can have the first chance to answer all or any of them, too. I don’t know the answers. Wish I did.”

Lanky was silent again. Frank joined him.

The Rocket was skimming the Harrapin at a fair pace, no great amount of speed, however, being shown, for Frank Allen was not anxious to run into trouble. The searchlight was lighting the river fifty yards in front of them, first flashing across to the tree-lined banks as they came to great curves in the river, and again lighting up some one of the emerald-like isles, though now looming up out of the water like spectres. No moon was up.

“Getting down toward home. There’s the Parsons island ahead of us. We’ll pass it on this side, and then I believe I know the river better from that point to home.”

“What’s that over there?” excitedly cried Lanky, as he pointed to a shadowy thing which had been brought up out of the river as the searchlight swung toward the shore.

Back again Frank swung the light, disclosing a rowboat tied to the bank, with a form, much resembling a living being, at the bow of the boat. But the light was not strong enough to bring out details.

“Some one tied there for a while, I guess,” and Frank turned the searchlight again toward the middle of the stream.

“Look! A signal!” Lanky had seen a flare of light in the direction of the boat.

“Rats, Lanky, you’re letting this darkness get on your nerves.”

“Well—maybe. Anyhow, if it wasn’t a signal of anything else it was a signal or sign that he was lighting his pipe.”

Then a distant hail came to their ears above the put-put of the motor. They were almost on a line between the Parsons island and the Parsons home on shore. Frank stooped and cut off the motor, permitting the boat to drift with its headway. Both the boys listened. There was no sound.

“Guess I’m the one that let the light and the sound get on my nerves. What time is it, Lanky?”

“Half-past nine o’clock.”

“That’s early for anything wrong to be happening anywhere, so I guess there’s nothing happening. Those sounds are common to the river, no doubt,” and Frank stepped over to grasp the flywheel and start the engine.

“Help!” It came across the water from the shore of the Parsons estate.

Frank straightened and listened. Lanky was sitting bolt upright. Once again there came the shrill scream of a woman. No other sound.

“Wonder what it is, Lanky!”

“Some one in trouble over at the Parsons place.”

In a trice Frank grasped the flywheel, gave it a twist, the motor started, and they swung to the shore. Wallace went forward, hoping to catch any sound that might come across the lessening expanse of water.

Cutting off the motor, throwing the nose around so as to strike the bank easily, with Lanky ready to leap ashore with a line, Frank maneuvered the Rocket expertly.

Just as Lanky Wallace jumped ashore, as Frank held tight to the wheel, there came again the shrill scream of a woman from the Parsons house!

CHAPTER III

THE PARSONS JEWELS

Up the inclined bank went the two boys, determined now to get to the Parsons house, whence the cries came.

Dodging through the shrubbery, which whipped their faces in the inky darkness, tripping and stumbling over the gnarled roots of some of the older vines, as they missed their steps, they came to the broad expanse of lawn in front of the estate which faced the river.

Once more came that cry of a frightened woman!

It seemed to come from the rear of the house. Dashing up the steps to the front porch, Frank tried the door. It was locked. Still another cry from the woman!

“Around to the rear!” cried Frank, as Lanky and he turned back from the resisting front door.

They dashed as fast as their legs could carry them around the large building, coming to the rear porch, or gallery, which faced toward the river road, and up to which a broad driveway led.

Swish! The starting of a motor! Then a light flashed and an automobile moved out from the drive at the garage a hundred feet away!

“There they go!” both boys cried in the same breath, just as a loud cry came from within:

“Help! Let me out!”

It was just over their heads. Frank looked up, but could see nothing. The night was as black as ink.

Rushing up the steps to the wide back porch, the two boys tried the door. It gave to their touch. Both tried to get in at the same time, and for a second wedged each other.

Again Mrs. Parsons, for in all probability it was she, screamed, and Frank dived through the dark for the direction indicated by her voice.

“Find a light, Lanky, quick!” he cried, feeling about for the door.

While Frank fumbled along the wall, trying to find the door or closet wherein Mrs. Parsons was imprisoned, Lanky was in turn fumbling in his pockets for a match, which, finding at last, he scratched. The feeble light flared up, and the quick eyes of both boys located the push button. Each made a dive to get it, but Lanky being nearest reached it and flooded the room with the necessary light.

In another moment Frank was smashing against the door behind and beyond which the woman was screaming even more lustily, more excitedly, than before.

As it gave before his second onslaught, he saw she was lying on the floor, her arms and feet pinioned, a rag which had been used as a hurriedly made gag lying alongside her head.

Loosening her arms quickly and lifting her bodily to her feet, Frank and Lanky both supported her to a chair.

It was Mrs. Parsons, the wealthy recluse of the county. She was thoroughly hysterical.

“My jewels! My silver! They’ve stolen it all and got away! What shall I do? What shall I do?”

Frank tried to quiet her, but for a few minutes it was of no avail. She was thoroughly excited over her experience and her loss, wildly hysterical about it, crying one moment and screaming the next.

What seemed to the boys a very long time was only a few minutes, and then she quieted enough to tell, between gasps and moans, something of what had happened.

Mrs. Parsons said that she had returned to her house from a trip to Columbia just after dark and that her automobile had been put up. She came into the house, and her maid being out for her regular weekly day off, she had prepared a little supper for herself. In doing this she had not gone any further than the kitchen, the pantry, and the small room off the kitchen which she used as a breakfast room and which, under circumstances such as these, she used also as a dining room.

Having finished her supper she sat in the same small room checking over her balance in bank as shown by her bankbook as against her own check stubs.

“How long were you engaged at this?” asked Frank.

He was decidedly anxious to get to the heart of the story, yet realized that she must tell the tale in her own way, even though the miscreants were putting more and more distance between themselves and this place at every minute that she detailed the story.

“Oh, I suppose it was fully an hour that I sat here checking and thinking idly about different things, then——”

She proceeded with her story, about as follows:

She had heard a noise of a peculiar kind several times, but had paid no heed to it, thinking the noises were caused by the wind, coupled with the queer noises that one always hears at night. Living alone in this house for so long she had become quite accustomed to extraordinary noises, and had enjoyed herself on many occasions concentrating on some of them and guessing what they were.

“Suddenly I felt as if some one were behind me,” and she turned quickly, apprehensively, around, expecting to see some one.

“As I twisted around to see what could be behind me,” she gasped, “a man seized me by my shoulders and another placed a hand over my mouth. I screamed as I jerked and for a moment freed myself from his grasp over my mouth. But in a second he again placed his hand over my mouth, the other hand going around my throat, and I could not even breathe.”

“Then they placed you in the pantry?” asked Frank.

“Yes, they dragged me over there, one of them tied a rag around my face, to gag me, and then they bound my hands and feet.”

“How did you get the gag off so that you could scream so loudly—for we were attracted by your screams?”

“I guess it was because I twisted and squirmed so much. Anyway, finally, while I was almost frantic over the noises I could hear of their packing up my silver and loading it into a box and carrying it out, I managed to free myself from the gag, and then I started screaming as hard as I could.”

“But why scream, when you knew you were so far from neighbors?”

“You heard me, didn’t you? You heard me from the road and came. That’s why I screamed.”

“Yes, we heard you from out on the river. That’s how far your screams carried,” replied Frank, speaking softly so as to reassure her. “Now, let’s call the police and get them out here.”

“Yes, yes, call the police!” she cried, gaining strength and with it her composure. “Let’s look around and see what is gone, too.”

Lanky hurried to the telephone, being directed to its location by Mrs. Parsons, and sent in a call for the police headquarters in Columbia, reporting the robbery and asking for men to be sent at once. The night lieutenant replied that he would send two special men immediately. It may be added here that Frank’s old friend, Chief Hogg, was no longer at headquarters in Columbia. His health had given out and he was away on a long vacation and another man the boys did not know was now at the head of the police department.

In the meanwhile Mrs. Parsons and Frank started through the house. In the dining room they saw the sideboard drawers all pulled out, and linens strewn on the floor.

“All my silverware—gone!” she moaned, her hands to her face. “Thousands of dollars’ worth of the very finest sterling silver dishes and all my flat silver, too! There’s the plated ware on the sideboard—they did not want that. Oh, what shall I do. All my silver gone, gone!”

Frank surveyed the scene quietly, not knowing how much of the ware there might have been. Nor had he any idea of what amount it would take to make “thousands of dollars’ worth.”

“Let us not touch anything here, Mrs. Parsons,” Frank suggested, as Mrs. Parsons stooped to put one of the drawers in its place in the sideboard. “Let us leave things just as they are until the police get here.”

She stood quietly and looked at the disturbed condition of things for a while. Then she said:

“I wonder if they could have gotten my jewels upstairs. Let’s see!”

She started off with the sudden recollection that these same men could have gotten more than the silverware.

Up the steps to the second floor they went, into her own apartment. There the dresser drawers were scattered about the floor, everything in the closets was down, showing that a search had been made for valuables.

Over in one corner of the room, in a place that was rather out of sight, a small safe was standing, its door wide open.

“The safe! My jewelry!”

The safe was empty. Papers and large legal envelopes lay on the floor, but otherwise the safe was absolutely, completely, hopelessly empty.

Mrs. Parsons sat stiffly down on the bed and cried, moaning the while about the loss of her jewels.

“How much was there, Mrs. Parsons?” asked Frank, after taking in the whole scene and waiting for the first shock to pass.

“Literally thousands upon thousands of dollars. There were jewels there which my grandfather and my own father and mother had left to me, and much that Mr. Parsons had bought for me at different times. Oh, there were rings and necklaces and bracelets and pins and scores, scores of small pieces of all kinds! And there were four large diamonds which were unmounted, all in a small iron box.”

The robbers had made a good haul while they were at it. Evidently they had known something of the lie of the land, had figured where everything was, or had been told where things were. And, thought Frank, they had not done all this after they had bound and gagged the wealthy widow. There was so much to be done that they had probably been in the house while she was away, and the small noises they made upstairs were those which she had heard and had permitted to pass unheeded.

Having looked carefully about the room, having seen how thoroughly these fellows had worked, Frank proposed they go downstairs to await the police.

They had not long to wait. They had barely gained the landing below when the police knocked at the front door, having come around from the broad front of the house.

Frank admitted them while Mrs. Parsons, still almost overcome at the fright and also at the realization of her loss, sat in a large chair, sobbing, patting her eyes with her handkerchief the while.

The whole story was told again, this time a few little details being added which explained to Frank the very things he had thought were true that these fellows had been in the house all the time, and that they had caught and bound her when they had finished upstairs and had come down to rifle the lower part of the house.

“Have you any idea who did this, Mrs. Parsons?” asked one of the men from the police department.

“If I had, would I have you out here? Wouldn’t I have you chasing them right now?”

“I mean, madam, would you recognize them if you saw them again?”

“No, because they wore handkerchiefs over their faces, and that is all I saw as I turned to see what was behind me.”

“Did you notice their clothes or anything?”

“No—oh, yes! I’ll tell you something,” and she smiled for the first time. “When that fellow put his hand roughly over my face the second time, one of his fingers got between my lips and I bit down hard on him, so hard that he jerked it away, but he had it back again before I could draw my breath and scream. I know I bit him so hard that it will show.”

The policeman smiled.

“Pretty hard work to find one fellow out of thousands whose finger was bitten.”

“And, besides,” broke in Frank Allen, “they are a long distance from here right now. That car started away mighty fast.”

“What car? Did you see them? Did you get here in time to see them get off in a car?”

The man from police headquarters swung on Frank.

“Yes, we heard the screams and came running here. Just as we came to the rear of the house we heard a car door slam, saw the lights flash on, and the car pulled out from the garage.”

“Where were you when you heard Mrs. Parsons?”

“Out on the river,” answered Frank.

“And you heard her scream from here away out in the river, from the rear of this house to that broad lawn and out there?” questioned the man.

“Sure. How would we have come here if we hadn’t heard the noise?” asked Frank in turn.

The two men from police headquarters drew aside and held a whispered consultation. Then the chief of the two came back.

“Mrs. Parsons, how long after the two men left did these young fellows come in here to turn you loose? How did they get in?”

“How would she know the answer to the last question?” asked Frank. “We found the rear door open, and we broke down the pantry door, as you can see by looking at it.”

“You have been in this house several times as the guest of Mrs. Parsons, have you not?” asked the policeman. “When she entertained you while you were at high school?”

“Oh, officer,” cried the widow. “What do you mean? Frank Allen could have had nothing to do with this!”

CHAPTER IV

WHEN FIRE LIGHTS THE SKY

The accusation, hardly to be called veiled, rather startled Frank Allen. Lanky, close chum of Frank’s that he was, moved as if to strike the policeman, but refrained on sober second thought, since it would certainly have placed him in a bad light.

“You are inclined to jump at conclusions without much thought,” remarked Frank quietly, though in that quietness there was the glint and swish of a rapier blade. “We thought you were coming up here to help find the thieves and not to waste time making wild accusations.”

“Zat so, young man? Well, my advice to you is to keep a quiet tongue or things won’t be so quiet for you.”

This exchange of remarks brought Mrs. Parsons around from her hysterical fright to a feeling of resentment.

“Pray, let us not have any trouble of the kind. We have had enough trouble to worry us. Let us proceed to learn whether we might not find a way to gain proof against the men who have done this.”

“I quite agree with you, Mrs. Parsons. If there are such things as clues which will help us fasten this on the men who did it, let’s try to find the clues.” Frank was keeping his cool demeanor.

“I’ll see to the clues.” The policeman still held to his manner, which was bellicose, to say the least. “We do not need your help, young man, and you may leave.”

“This is my house, sir!” The widow spoke angrily. “Mr. Allen will stay here until he pleases to leave.”

“No, Mrs. Parsons, I think it wise that I leave. I thank you ever so much for what you have said, but since it might merely slow things down if I stayed, I will be getting back home, for it is already late.”

With this Frank and Lanky bowed themselves out of the house and were gone down the river bank.

Walking at a medium pace across the great spread of carpeted grass, the two boys said nothing to each other, though both were thinking deeply.

The vines and shrubs cracked and swished as they pushed their way through these, and both came out at the river bank at practically the same time—and with the same thought.

For both were looking, or trying to look, through the darkness to a point upstream. Seeing in this inky blackness was impossible. Even their boat, the Rocket, was a slightly darkened blob against the river.

Not until the boat had been pushed into the stream and Frank had guided it away after Lanky had turned the engine over, was the silence between these two friends broken.

“What does it mean?” asked Wallace.

“It really, down to brass tacks, doesn’t mean anything, Lanky, as you will realize if you think of it for a minute. We know we haven’t done anything wrong, don’t we? So, all it can mean is that the police force has one more member on it than we thought who hasn’t all that’s coming to him.”

“But it doesn’t alter the fact that he has accused us of having something to do with this robbery.”

“He also hasn’t altered the fact that we didn’t, has he? You’ve got to battle with facts when you get after things of this kind. Now, I know a fact which I should like to place before your attention—there was an old boat tied up to the river bank just above us when we landed.”

“Yes, and I was remembering the same thing when we came through the brush. But you can’t see anything in the dark. Let’s go back and see if it’s there.”

“Sure, it isn’t there! What’s the use of going back? If the fellow had no reason whatever for being there he would have moved by this time, because it has been more than an hour, maybe nearly two hours. And if he did have something to do with it, he wouldn’t be there yet.”

“But those fellows who got into the auto when we came to the house—how about them? What connection would they have with the boat, for they had a car?”

Lanky had asked a question that meant something. What, indeed, could the car have to do with the boat?

Frank was silent, thinking, as was Lanky.

The steady put-put of the exhaust broke the silence, and Frank steered a course well toward the farther side of the Harrapin, thinking to skirt close to the next island, for in doing so at the wide bend of the river below he would gain a short distance.

Wallace was standing close to Frank in the cockpit, and their words were not spoken, when they did speak, very loudly. The submerged exhaust did not bother them greatly.

“Wish we could have got some idea of the shape of that car,” muttered Frank Allen. “When he flashed on the lights to get away we might have had gumption enough to have noticed the license tag.”

“I did,” replied his mate. “There wasn’t any.”

“What? Are you quite sure?”

“Well,” and Lanky drawled his reply to the question, “maybe I oughtn’t to have said that. As I recall the impression on my mind when they started off, the red light did not show any license tag beneath it.”

“We didn’t even notice whether they turned up the road or down, either, so there’s that much information that we lost. Instead, we dashed up those steps and into the house.”

“They must have had a lot of time to do what they did.” Lanky spoke suddenly after another period of silence. “They could not have done all that after they bound her in the pantry.”

“That’s what I think. They probably were already in the house before she got home. But that brings up this question, Lanky—if their car was standing at the spot where we saw them get in at the time she came home, why didn’t the driver of her own car notice it and tell them?”

“Gee, that’s a fact! Now, what does that mean? Does it mean that they arrived after she did? Does it mean they entered the house after she arrived home, proceeded upstairs and finished the work, and then came down and got her?”

“Doesn’t sound reasonable. Let’s see what we would have done if we had been the culprits.” Frank was reasoning it out slowly. “If I had gone in there after she returned, and I had known she was there, I would not have taken a chance on proceeding upstairs, making noise which she might have heard and reported over the telephone before I could get downstairs to quiet her.”

“How about this?” Suddenly a thought struck through Wallace’s mind. “Could not these fellows have left their car outside somewhere, out of sight, and the driver of it could have brought it up after she had returned home and after her own driver had gone away?”

The idea was a good one, and Frank turned to look fairly at his friend before he answered.

“Hey! Hold off there! What the dickens!”

The sudden cry had come from out the darkness on the river. Frank’s head was back again to the forward end of the Rocket. Squarely in his path was a dark object of considerable size!

With a wide sweep of the wheel he threw the Rocket hard over to the port side, his right hand reaching down to slow the motor so as to decrease the impact when he struck.

But the Rocket missed the object.

It was a rowboat with three men in it, and a large box or trunk-like object in the stern. Frank threw his searchlight into play and dropped it squarely on the rowboat.

But the man at the oars was pulling hard on them, getting out of range of the light.

“Why don’t you watch where you’re going?” came out across the river to them.

Frank and Lanky said nothing. The searchlight was reaching out in an effort to locate them, but when it found the mark, two of the men ducked low in the boat while the third one was plying the oars as hard as his strength permitted.

“Isn’t that the same boat?” gasped Lanky.

Frank said nothing. Instead, he changed the course of the Rocket, but he was too late to get immediately after the fellows. The island was squarely in front of him, the one he had aimed at passing on this side to shorten the run down the river.

Around it to the far side he went, then swung as closely as good navigation of the Rocket would permit, to get back to the course made by the rowboat.

Several minutes were consumed in making this return to the former location, and the path had led completely around the island in an attempt to head off the rowboat.

Back upstream they went, the searchlight playing here and there, seeking for the little craft.

“I’d be careful, Frank,” muttered Lanky Wallace. “If there’s anything wrong about these fellows, they’re very apt to do some shooting.”

“I’ll take the chance,” and Frank gritted his teeth.

Over toward the farther shore they went, then swung back again, but the searchlight of the Rocket, though flung first to one side and then the other, failed to reveal the boat.

“That’s mighty queer. That boat is on the river. It has no motor. It can’t move away fast. We are faster than it is. So, it is not far from here right now.”

“But it isn’t in sight. It is so plagued pitchy dark that one can’t see, anyhow,” replied the other.

“But we’ve come right across their path. They can’t have gotten far.”

“No—you’re right. But they’ve gotten out of sight whether they got far away or not.”

“Suppose they turned, too, when they saw us turning, and went to the upper side of the island? Let’s take a look?”

Lanky said nothing. But he was thinking that he did not relish the plan. He knew that a bullet could come out of that darkness very easily, for the willows hung far over the water on the upper side of this island, as he well recalled, and the boat could easily have slid somewhere beneath them.

Frank navigated toward the island, the searchlight playing about, like some great sepulchral hand reaching out to grasp, in weird, ghostlike fashion, whatever it might find.

Though they searched the waters and around the island for several minutes, no trace of the rowboat was to be found. It had completely vanished in the night.

“Frank,” declared Lanky, as they moved down the river after the fruitless hunt, “that rowboat is on the upper side of the island, under those willows, snugly tucked away, and there was at least one gun pointed our way in case we ran in there.”

“Maybe you’re right. Even at that I don’t see that we need to risk our skins hunting for something that may be as peaceable as a baby.”

“Not much, and you know it!” exclaimed Lanky. “That boat was something crooked, or they wouldn’t have dodged out of sight. If everything was all right it would have been in plain sight when we came up around that island.”

“You’re absolutely right, Lanky. And it was that very idea in my own mind that caused me to want to hunt it out.”

The Rocket was now headed straight for Columbia. Only a few more miles and they would be at home—at a rather late hour, and probably with two families worrying over the two boys.

“We might have been thoughtful enough to have called our people from Mrs. Parsons and let them know where we were,” ruefully remarked Frank.

“As if we could have been so thoughtful under such circumstances as those. I think we did a wonderful thing when we thought to call up even the police station with all that excitement.”

They looked straight ahead for several minutes. The minds of these two youths, both active ones, were fully engaged on the happenings of the evening, which had, to say the least, come rather thick and quite fast.

“Was that a trunk or a box in that boat?” asked Frank.

“Looked to me like a large box—about the size of one I saw earlier in the day in the Speedaway.”

“Huh?” This had set Frank to thinking.

“And that rowboat looked as much like the one we saw at the bank above the Parsons place as any other rowboat would look.”

“That’s putting two and two together, Lanky, as rapidly as that policeman did.”

“What’s that?” Lanky’s startled voice cried as he pointed ahead of them toward the city of Columbia, whose electric lights were now dancing across the waters.

The two boys studied a bright reflection in the sky for some seconds, both figuring what this might be.

“It’s a fire, and a big one, too—or at least it is big enough to look mighty big in the skies,” said Frank slowly.

“Where can it be? In the heart of town? Or is it further away?”

“Don’t know. But my guess is that it’s right where dad’s place is. See that smokestack there to the right? That’s right across the street from dad’s store. How far is the fire from that stack?”

“It’s right there, Frank! Sure as can be, that is your father’s place on fire—and it looks like it is a real one, too!”

Midnight, almost, with a great fire in the Allen department store—his father’s place of business—and he on the river, unable to be of aid!

Frank gave the motor all its speed. The Rocket fairly leaped out of the water on its way!

CHAPTER V

THE TOLL THAT FIRE COLLECTS

Everything in the town of Columbia seemed to be astir. As Frank and Lanky came rapidly down the Harrapin to the landing at the Boat Club they heard the clanging of bells, the tooting of automobile horns, the blowing of steam whistles, and the sound of many voices, all in a babel.

“It is dad’s place, all right!” Frank’s remark was more in the nature of a groan than anything else, though he was not usually given to taking things that way. But, at the end of a day of excitement of several kinds, at the end of a day wherein he had been openly accused of a theft of silverware and jewels by the policeman from headquarters, this outbreak of the fiery monster in his father’s place was calculated to give him a sinking of the heart.

“I believe it is, too,” came from his friend.

They made the landing and tied the boat as quickly as safety would permit, having first drifted it into its house. Frank looked hurriedly about to see that nothing of an inflammable nature was exposed to anything which might start a fire, and then, ready to leave, he threw off the main switch.

Out of the building they went on the shoreward side, and started the dash for the fire.

“Dad’s place, is right!” Frank gasped, as they turned into the main street leading uptown and could see the exact location of the blaze.

Crowds had gathered quickly, the streets were fairly jammed, people being there in all manners of dress, for it was close to the midnight hour and Columbia had, in a very large measure, retired for the night when the summons came.

Lines of hose were lying about the streets, all drawn tight like so many wriggling snakes of huge size, as the two boys neared the square where the fire was.

At the corner below the Allen store, standing close to a fireplug, stood one of the city’s engines, manned by two coal-dust-covered firemen, adding to the pressure of the water line.

The police had taken charge of the situation, and were holding back, by means of a patrol, the great crowds of people so that they would not hinder the hurrying firemen in their work.

Sparks and flying pieces of burning wood were being hurled in every direction.

Frank and Lanky, leaping lines of hose, dodging the firemen, roughly breaking their way through the cordons of people here and there, dashed headlong for the fire.

“Hi! Come back there! Get back of the line!” yelled one policeman, as Frank broke through a crowd of onlookers.

Before he could dodge or wriggle through somewhere else the burly fellow had him by the shoulder.

“That’s my father’s place!” cried Frank. “Let me through so I can help him. Maybe he’s in there!”

The policeman looked the boy over, and then, slowly through his brain came a recollection of this young fellow and his athletic exploits in Columbia.

“All right, young feller,” he said, and Frank was released. “I’ll let ye go, but take care when ye reach the main line up there. Orders is orders, and we’re not to let any one through.”

Again Frank and Lanky stretched their legs for the fire, this time being slowed down considerably by the heat which rushed down upon them from the blaze which was rapidly gaining.

As they turned around the corner from the street on which the store faced, and looked down the side street this sight greeted their eyes:

The entire northwest corner of the Allen Department Store was ablaze, flames leaping from the tier of windows running up the freight elevator. The flames had probably started at some floor near the bottom of the building and had been drawn straight upward through the elevator shaft, which acted as a giant flue, or stack. The danger lay in their spreading to each of the floors.

Frank stood motionless as the sight lay before him. Lanky stood panting beside him, their eyes taking in the scene from top to bottom.

“There’s dad!” Frank moved swiftly across the street to where he saw his father helping direct the work of the firemen. “What can I do, dad?”

“Nothing right now, boy. The thing is just trying to get a start. Those iron doors at the elevator openings will hold the flames from each of the floors, if only we can keep them in check for a little while.”

But Frank was hardly willing, like the red-blooded boy he was, to stand idly by and permit this to be going on without some effort on his part to help.

“Dad—” he grabbed his father by the sleeve—“what do you say if I take some of that fire-fighting powder and try to get it down the shaft?”

“That’s the idea! But don’t you do it! Let some of the firemen do that. They’re better prepared.”

Frank paid no further heed. He called to Lanky, and then led the way to the warehouse across the alley from the store. In his pocket was a key which he always carried, for he stored much of his athletic material there from time to time. Unlocking the door and quickly closing it behind them as the two boys entered, Frank found the spot where the stock of fire-fighting powder was kept. He and Lanky took three packages each, as much as they could safely carry.

“How’ll we get up there?” asked Lanky.

“Go through the lodge rooms next door. Let’s get over there and get to that adjoining roof. Some of the firemen can bring a ladder up.”

As they came out of the warehouse Mr. Allen was there to meet them, with the chief of the department alongside.

“Here, Frank, the chief will attend to that.”

“No, keep as many men down here with the water as you can. Give me a couple of men to bring up a ladder through the lodge next door, and we’ll get to the roof. Then we can douse this powder down the shaft and slow it up enough to fight.”

“We’ll put a hose up there, too!” cried the chief.

“Look out for the garage over there!” went up a shout from the crowd just at this juncture, and they all turned to look.

Great fiery embers were floating down on the roof of the garage which stood on the opposite side, wherein was stored barrel upon barrel of oil and where a great deal of oily waste was lying around, gas also being kept in the tanks which were fed from the sidewalk.

“Put a hose on that garage!” called the chief. “Now, Tom, you and Andy get a ladder and go with these two boys. Get to the roof adjoining. Tell Micky to send a hose up through the stairway next door and try to get it to the roof.”

The two boys got around the corner, the police keeping the surging crowds back, and started up the steps to the lodge room at the top. Reaching there, panting hard for breath, the two boys faced the door of the lodge room, closed, locked.

But Frank knew better than to go this way. In all such buildings there is an opening to the roof from the hallway, and Frank’s observation was that this opening was usually at the rear. So it was in this case.

In another moment the two firemen with the ladder hoisted it in place. One of them scrambled to the top, unhooked the hatch, threw it on to the roof, and all four of them were very quickly out on top.

“Just in time!” cried the first fireman. “And luckily for us, the wind is blowing the other way—off the building instead of on to it.”

Making their way quickly across to the parting wall, having pulled the ladder up behind them, they now placed it against the wall and all four scaled to the roof of the Allen store.

One of the firemen grabbed a bag of the fire-powder from Frank’s arm, and both of them rushed toward the elevator shaft, where blazes were breaking through the wooden door. Laying the powder on the roof, they again dragged the ladder up from the wall, and, using it as a battering ram, they very quickly knocked the burning door inward.

Out leaped a perfect rush of flames, their long red hungry tongues leaping and crackling in fiendish glee as the opening gave a first-class draft for the fire below in the shaft.

Crack! The first bag of fire-powder was hurled into the shaft, spilling downward. Crack, went another. Then another, and one more, in quick succession, each carefully aimed through the center of the opening.

By this time the firemen with the hose were calling for the ladder, which was passed down to them by the two firemen on the roof while Frank and Lanky continued hurling the powder at the opening until all six bags were gone.

Frank recalled that the salesman of the powder had stated that it was merely a deterrent of fire, and would not extinguish a large blaze—only hold it in check for a few moments.

So it did in this case. The flames of a sudden grew smaller, and Frank realized that their time to get water down the shaft had arrived.

“Water!” went the cry from one of the firemen on the roof, as he signaled to the street below, where a burly fellow stood at the water plug with hand on wrench ready to give them the water.

Instantly the hose swelled and twisted and turned, writhing to get away from them, but six men, including Frank and Lanky, were at the nozzle end of the hose, keeping it to its duty.

Swish! The first rush of water came, stopped, and then a full stream came pumping through the nozzle. Straight into the elevator shaft it went. The flames leaped up in defiance, and the water struck again.

“We’ve got it now!” came from one of the firemen in a muffled voice. “It may break through one of the other floors, but it can’t do any more harm in this shaft.”

Seeing that the fire through the shaft was now held in check, or would be in a few minutes more, as black smoke commenced rolling up, Frank went over the side and started down. Lanky was immediately behind him, having first asked the firemen if four of them could handle the nozzle.

“Gee, I hope it hasn’t gotten through any of those floor doors,” remarked Frank, as they reached the top floor of the lodge building and walked down the stairs.

“I don’t suppose it has, but even if it has they can hold it now, because the fellows on top will stop it from going up the flue,” remarked Lanky.

Down at the street level once more, they turned to where the fire had been raging. Sparks were no longer flying as freely as they had, and the sky was not so well lighted by the flames.

Crash! Crash! A sound as of a floor falling.

Just at this moment the fire chief came running toward Frank.

“Mr. Allen’s down in the basement! He went in there a minute ago!”

“Is father in there?” blurted Frank Allen dazedly.

“So one of the men says. I told him to keep out of there, but he went in by the front door a few minutes ago this fellow says, and he just came back to tell me.”

“That’s a fact. Went running in, and I yelled at him, because there’s no telling what’s in there yet.”

Frank turned and started for the front door.

“Here, here!” the chief grabbed for Frank. “Hold on! I’ll go in there and find him! Stay out of there!”

But he had spoken too slowly, and even his words would not have stopped the boy. Lanky went leaping behind his chum, but the chief grabbed Wallace and threw him to one side, telling him to stay out, while he, the chief, went dashing through the door behind Frank.

A heavy pall of smoke hung over the entire first floor, and as the door opened and closed behind him, Frank Allen felt a heavy rush of heat and wondered how his father could have gone through it.

“Dad! Dad!” he cried, but then decided to keep his mouth closed, for he had sucked in a mouthful of the choking smoke, and his lungs seemed to be bursting.

Holding his breath, he rushed along the broad aisle toward the rear. Flames were licking around the elevator shaft, just breaking through. Around the stairway opening the floor was gone! It had caved in, and flames were now starting to leap through to the first floor.

How should he get below? His father was probably down there. Probably had been directly over this spot when the cave-in happened, caused by the flames having eaten away the floor supports in the basement.

A groan came from the right of them. Like a flash Frank leaped in that direction. He recalled the narrow stairs which led to the vault in the basement from the rear office, while the broader stairway was used for customers.

Barely able to hold his breath, gasping and gulping, the boy made his way to that narrow stairway, down its sinuous path, heard the groan again, and himself fell to the floor as he slipped on the steps.

The flames in the farther part of the basement were leaping and crackling, lighting the entire space. Mr. Allen was crawling along the floor, groaning and moaning, having tumbled through when the floor caved in.

CHAPTER VI

AN UGLY INTIMATION

Grabbing his father under the arms, Frank half carried, half supported him to the stairway, just as the chief came scrambling down.

They very soon brought the man into the open air. Everything was at a high pitch of excitement, as the word had gone around the crowd that Mr. Allen had been injured, perhaps killed. A half-dozen other rumors were in the air, all caused by the knowledge that a part of the building had caved in and that Frank Allen and the chief had been seen dashing into the place.

As the three emerged from the building, doctors grabbed them, for the chief and Frank were choking from the smoke, while Mr. Allen was now unconscious.

In a short while the chief was himself, as was also Frank, while Mr. Allen had been hurried off to a hospital. Being informed of this when he had come around, Frank, too, was driven quickly to the hospital. Mrs. Allen and Frank’s sister Helen were out in the Canadian Rockies on a visit.

The chief now directed the fire-fighting to better effect since he knew the situation more thoroughly within the building. In an hour the fire was completely out.

At the hospital aid was given to Mr. Allen, who had suffered bruises from the fall through the floor, probably also from pieces of timber or goods which fell on top of him, and, as the doctors said, maybe internal injuries were inflicted.

It was too early to make a close examination, and Frank could only content himself with hearing the carefully worded reports of the physicians and the nurse.

Morning came to find a very weary young man still waiting nervously around the hospital for better word of his father’s condition.

Lanky Wallace, who had tried to be of assistance to Frank after the accident, but who had gone home at his earnest solicitation, now came to the hospital and took him away for breakfast.

After breakfast Frank went to the store, and, with several of the clerks, attended to laying out plans for repairs and also for getting things straight.

The actual damage, from a financial point of view, was not great, though the entire stock had been subjected to damage by water and smoke. The cleaning and brightening of the store would require some days.

Before going home to get a rest which was so needed, he sat in conference with his father’s friends and the banker, making preparations for the contractor to take charge of all repair work.

This done, and noon-time having arrived, Frank returned to the hospital, to receive the joyful news that his father had regained consciousness and was able to talk with him, though only for a limited number of minutes.

Frank explained what had been done, and the smile on his father’s face indicated that a great deal of worry had been removed. The doctor standing close by nodded his approval of the things which Frank related.

“Getting his mind in a quiet frame will help much toward bringing him around,” remarked the physician. Then Frank was told to leave and, also, that he must not return to see his father until late in the evening, when the promise was that he would be even more improved.

Evening came, finding Frank much rested and back at the hospital. The nurse was the only one present, and informed him that his father was decidedly better, his consciousness fully regained, that no signs had yet shown themselves to indicate any internal injuries—that, in short, all was going well.

In the meantime Mrs. Allen and Helen were planning to return home as speedily as possible, as both wished to be at the side of husband and father at this time of trouble. But the trip was a long one and would take over a week to accomplish, for they were not even near the railroad.

On the second morning after the fire Lanky and Frank were together and were joined along the streets by several of the boys, among them being Ralph West. Rapid fires of questions as to the condition of his father were hurled at Frank, and every one seemed pleased at the cheery news that he was apparently better.

“Tell me about this robbery up the river,” said Ralph, when they had a moment together. “It has been in the papers, and I saw you and Lanky had been there shortly after it happened.”

“I haven’t seen the article, Ralph, but Lanky and I got there right after it all happened and turned Mrs. Parsons loose. But this fire and dad’s getting hurt knocked out of my mind most of the thoughts of the robbery.”

He told Ralph some parts of the story, the high lights of it, following Ralph’s questions.

“Why are you asking so many questions about it?” asked Frank, for Ralph was not generally given to gathering such close details.

“Because I heard on the street a while ago that the chief is going to have a hearing of some sort and that they are going to ask you and Lanky over there.”

“That wouldn’t be out of the way,” replied Frank. “They wish to get all the information they can in order to locate those thieves, I presume, and certainly Lanky and I were there very closely behind them—in fact, we were there at the same time they were and saw them go—and something we might tell the chief that Mrs. Parsons hadn’t told or didn’t know, may help.”

Though he did not mention it to Ralph, Frank had not forgotten the accusation made by the policeman while at the Parsons place, and, though he knew it was a false one, it was an uncomfortable feeling to realize that some one, whether in authority or not, whether a thinking man or not, had accused him of complicity of some sort.

“Frank,” said Lanky, as he came up and joined the two, “what do you say if you and I and any of the others who care to do so go up to the Parsons place to see what we can learn? You know, we might see something in daytime that we couldn’t see at night.”

“It may be of no use,” replied Frank. “How do we know they have not already found the fellows?”

At this juncture a policeman waved to the boys from across the street, and came up to Frank.

“The chief is going to have a hearing to-day and wants you to be present. Also you,” turning to Lanky. “It will be at two o’clock.”

“Can we go?” Ralph West immediately asked, meaning Paul Bird and himself.

“Sure, you can go! But I don’t know whether the chief will let you in.”

“We’ll go and try,” both the boys agreed.

Just before two o’clock all four of them were at the chief’s office, but Paul and Ralph were refused admission. At this refusal, which had been expected, they told Frank and Lanky they were going to remain within easy distance, because they wanted to get in on the search and its expected excitement, if one should be started.

In the chief’s office Frank and Lanky saw Mrs. Parsons, the chief, the two policemen who had been there when called to the place by telephone, and, much to the surprise of both the boys, Fred Cunningham was sitting there.

As these two boys were the last, evidently, who had come of those invited or summoned, the chief greeted them quietly and at once started his hearing.

Mrs. Parsons first told her story, practically the same as she had told two nights before, the difference lying primarily in her quietness of manner as opposed to the rather hysterical recital she had formerly made.

Then followed the two statements by Frank and by Lanky, both the same, for they had seen the same things.

Following this came the statements of the two policemen who had appeared on the scene after having been called.

Frank felt much relieved when the principal of the two did not make any allusions such as those which he had made at the Parsons place.

“Now, I’d like each of you to be prepared to answer questions,” the chief sat forward toward his desk, taking it by both sides with his hands in rather a pugnacious attitude, or one that was calculated to show that he meant business.

“First, how far, Mr. Allen, were you out in the river when you heard the cries of Mrs. Parsons?”

“I should say we were a hundred yards from shore.”

“How long did it take you to land and get to the house?” asked the chief.

“Perhaps five minutes, though one cannot very well guess at the time. We got to shore, tied, and ran through the underbrush, but it was very dark and we probably were longer than we might have been had it been daylight.”

Then the chief skipped over the whole narrative to the next question, which was one of opinion:

“If you were in my place, would you say the robbers were in the house when Mrs. Parsons got home or that they got in after she arrived home?”

Frank smiled a little, for he and Lanky had talked over the same question.

“Wallace and I talked about that very thing when we got back to the boat. From the things we saw in the upper room and from what Mrs. Parsons told us about the queer noises she heard, I believe they were already in the house.”

“All right,” answered the chief. “Now, then, if there was a car which took those men away, will you please tell me why it wasn’t there when Mrs. Parsons came home?”

“Really, since I was not there at that time and since my guess isn’t any better than that of any one else, I don’t know.” Frank felt a little nettled at being the target for questions of opinion.

“Well, Mr. Allen,” pursued the chief, “perhaps you have some idea, since you and your friend have talked about it.”

“I have,” said Frank. “I believe the car arrived at the roadway and let the men out. They then proceeded to the house, and the car did not come for them until some prearranged signal had been given.”

At this remark Fred Cunningham leaned over and said something in a whisper to one of the police.

The chief turned toward him immediately.

“Mr. Cunningham, we’re going to hear your story in a little while. Please do not talk with others meanwhile.”

So Cunningham had a story to tell! Frank wondered what it would be.

“Now, Mr. Allen, will you please express your opinion as to whether the robbery could have been committed earlier in the day and the robbers could have come back a second time?”

This was an angle that Frank did not see the end of. Further, the chief seemed to be questioning him as if he knew more than he had told.

“Mr. Berry,” he replied, “I have no idea of what these men may have done. I told you what I saw, and I cannot see that my guesses would be any good. If I were able to guess at such things with a reasonable amount of accuracy, I’d be out hunting for these men right now, for it was a shame to have robbed Mrs. Parsons and to have tied her in that pantry.”

“All right, but I have one more question I would like to ask, and then I may be through. It is this: What were you doing that day on the river with your motor boat? That is, please account for your time.”

Again Frank saw the veiled intent of accusation. There was something deeper here than he knew.

But he accounted for the time in a general way by saying they had gone up the river on an errand for his father, had some mishaps with the motor and with the electric lighting system, and were running along at a reasonable speed late in the evening when they heard the cries of the imprisoned woman.

“Ordinarily, would it take you so long to run up the river on such an errand and come back?”

“Certainly not, sir, but you must remember that I had trouble with the motor.”

“Will you please tell me, then, why you were tied to the shore just above the Parsons place and lay there for two hours on that afternoon? Will you please tell why you were tied at the only point along the shore where there is an open path through the underbrush to the lawn of the Parsons house? And will you please tell me where you were for those two hours?”

Frank told them it was motor trouble, that he had tied there because it was the first place he could get to when the motor stopped and that any other place would have been just as good.

“But you have not told me why you were not in that boat for two hours.”

“Sir? Who said I was not in that boat for two hours? I certainly was there every minute. I did not even get on shore, as my friend tied the boat and came back aboard to help me with the motor.”

“The word has been brought to me that your boat lay there for two hours and that you were not on board.”

“The person who told you that told an untruth. I never put my foot on shore that afternoon.”

“Mr. Cunningham,” as the chief turned to him, “did you see Mr. Allen’s boat tied there while you were out in your own?”

“Yes, sir, I did.”

“And do I understand that you are sure that neither Mr. Allen nor his friend were in the boat for two hours?”

“That’s it, exactly,” replied Cunningham.

“How does Mr. Cunningham know that I was not there for two hours? Where was he all that time?” Quickly Frank threw in the question. Cunningham went pale.

CHAPTER VII

A BREACH

This quick retort on the part of Frank Allen threw the hearing into dismay for a few moments. The question had not occurred to the chief of police, who, it was now becoming more evident, was willing to place the blame on the most convenient shoulders, and, Frank thought to himself, he may have been influenced by the policeman who had so openly accused him of knowledge of the crime at the Parsons place two nights before.

Cunningham did not reply. Instead he fidgeted in his chair, and looked at the chief, who was nonplussed.

“That is a fair question,” he said slowly. “Mr. Cunningham, will you please explain why you are so sure this young man and his friend were not in the boat for two hours?”

“It is not possible for me to explain,” was the very deliberately pronounced reply of Fred Cunningham. “I got my information from a source which I do not care to name.”

“Then you do not say that you actually saw my Rocket tied to the shore for two hours?” asked Frank, directing the question at Cunningham.

“No, I did not say I saw it myself. But the man who told me is a thoroughly reliable one.”

“Is he any more reliable than the information he gave you?” Again Frank shot a direct question.

“Now, now, that will not do. I am carrying on this hearing,” broke in the police chief.

“I just wish to remark,” Frank was not to be stopped, “that if the informant of Mr. Cunningham is no more reliable about any other information than he was about this, I cannot see that anything Mr. Cunningham can say will be of any value to you, Mr. Berry.”

“Do you mean to say that this information is not true?” asked the chief.

“I mean to say exactly that and nothing more. Now, Mr. Berry, this stranger, unknown to any one in town, comes in here and places before you some hearsay evidence that is not the truth. Instead of asking me privately my whereabouts on that day, you proceed to accept his statement as if it were the truth. I am known in this town, while he is not. You have known me a long time, and you have known my father. You have not known this man at all, nor do you know anything about him.”

The chief looked fairly at Frank, at first inclined to temper, but he bit his lip and held back whatever it was that he started to say. For a moment everything was quiet.

“Further,” said Frank, “I will answer no more questions. Any further questions I have to answer will be in a court room and will be under oath, when all other people, too, will be under oath.”

With this the young man rose to go. The chief stood and raised his hand.

“I wish you to remain right here until I have finished this hearing.”

“I will remain until you have finished your hearing, but I will decline to answer any more questions. You have no right to demand replies from me, and I will not reply.”

The chief sat only after Frank had re-taken his seat, and the hearing then became a humdrum of asking several minor questions of the others, all of which had been told before.

As they left the room, Lanky took Frank’s arm, but not a word passed between the two boys.

Ralph and Paul joined them outside, but it was plain to both the boys that Frank and Lanky did not care to talk at this time, and they contented themselves with walking along the street.

Just as they reached the next corner, a bevy of the girls of the old high school crowd spied the four boys, for whom they had been looking.

In the bunch of girls was Minnie Cuthbert, looking sweeter than ever since her return from Rockspur Ranch.

“We hope you haven’t forgotten that to-morrow is the day of the picnic,” Minnie told them. “Everything is ready, and we have planned on going down the river to the picnic grounds we used last year. But why the long faces?” and she laughed merrily at the quiet of the four boys.

Frank was the first to regain his happy manner.

“Sure, we’re going. That is, I am. You can leave the others at home, but I’m going to gobble all the sandwiches and ice-cream you’ve got.”

“That’s what we have, and if you think you can eat all of it, you’re welcome to try. Where is Mr. Cunningham? Have you seen him? We wish him to go along, too.”

This was precisely like waving a red flag in the face of a bull, except that Frank did not storm. He just had a violent feeling of wanting to throw the fellow into the river or of doing something else desperate with him. Then a sinking feeling followed.

“I haven’t seen him in the last few minutes. He was up the street a while ago.”

“Come on, girls, let’s go and find him, because we have not invited him yet,” and Minnie Cuthbert led the girls away in the quest of the good-looking stranger who had seemed to capture all of them.

It was late afternoon, and the four boys made their way to the high school grounds, where they sat down under one of the trees, Paul and Ralph listening to the story which Frank and Lanky told them. The entire story was told to them in detail, for Frank felt that, if he did this, he might get some help or suggestions and felt that a stray idea might come to the surface which would help them locate the men who had robbed Mrs. Parsons.

After this little meeting broke up Frank went to the hospital to see his father, finding him resting, but nervous, and the nurse said that he did not appear to be doing quite so well as he had during the earlier part of the day.

The day of the picnic broke bright, clear, sunny, perfectly wonderful for such an outing as had been planned. Vehicles of every kind, but most of them new automobiles, were pressed into service to take the crowd of high school students to the picnic grounds. Frank asked Lanky Wallace, Paul Bird and Ralph West to go there in the Rocket, especially since Minnie Cuthbert had refused Frank’s request to take her and said she was going to go with the crowd of girls.

The Rocket had to be given a load of gas and oil, which caused the four boys to be a little later in getting away than had been planned, but finally they were ready to push the trim boat out of its house.

Before doing so, Frank saw that the engine would turn over easily, and, as it emerged from the house, Lanky gave the wheel a twist and the put-put started merrily.

Paul and Ralph had not yet had the pleasure of a ride in the new boat, nor had they done any more than give it a cursory inspection. Now, aboard for a real ride, they bent to looking around for the things that made the craft complete.

“This is far better than going down in a car,” remarked Paul. “But according to my ideas we are wasting time to-day. What we ought to do is to search for some clues to the Parsons robbery. Picnics are fine when there’s nothing else to do.”

To this the boys all agreed, even Frank. What was puzzling Frank, though never a hint did he give, was what it was about Cunningham, the stranger, that caused him to get along so easily with the girls, and especially why Minnie Cuthbert, the girl he liked so well, should be attracted to the fellow, even to the point where she was willing to refuse Frank’s attentions.

They ran down to the picnic grounds in a very short while, the motor humming along beautifully. No particular speed was shown, nor did Frank wish to try for any, as he felt that he would rather warm the engine up little by little, feeling the boat along for several more days, after which he would give it a good test if the chance was offered for a race with Cunningham’s Speedaway.

The girls were at the picnic grounds, as, indeed were most of the boys, when they swung in toward the shore to land.

“Wonder where the Speedaway is,” remarked Wallace.

Frank did not know. It was enough to see Fred Cunningham standing there on the bluff alongside of Minnie, appearing to take most of her time.

“What’s doing?” called Ralph, as he jumped ashore. “Let’s stir up something to keep from going to sleep. Let’s eat or have some games.”

“Eat! That’s the big idea! Let the games go! Let’s eat!” roared the attenuated Lanky Wallace as he climbed the stairs cut in the side of the bluff and came to the grassy grounds.

But the girls vetoed any spoiling of their plans. Moreover, the truck containing the best part of the luncheon had not yet arrived, they declared.

But the noon-hour came, as noon hours do when young folks are on picnics, and the girls spread the cloths on the ground, laying out the paper dishes which had been supplied in large quantities, while the boys helped break into baskets and bundles to get at the food. The two large ice-cream freezers got the attention of Paul, Ralph, and Buster Billings.

During the lunch, when all had been seated and it had been agreed that no one person should wait on any of them, but all should scramble as best they could for things which were not being passed quickly enough, the conversation suddenly veered to the races which had been proposed some days before, and about which Cunningham had made some very boastful remarks.

It was Irene Rich, the girl who probably was most anxious to be in the company of Fred Cunningham but who had not thus far succeeded, who started the talk.

“How about that race?” she cried, just as a lull fell for a moment in the conversation, as pieces of fried chicken were demanding attention. “I’ll bet on the Speedaway!”

“Atta girl!” came from Cunningham. “You’re a judge of boats!”

“Also of those who run them!” she bantered.

“And that’s agreed!” came instantly from the stranger. “The Speedaway, though, doesn’t need much brains to run it—she’s naturally the best boat along the Harrapin or any other river. She’s ready to run anything ragged that gets into a race with her.”

“I thought Frank Allen was going to race his Rocket against her.” Irene was pursuing the matter insistently.

“That’s what Frank Allen is going to do,” that personage spoke up. “The Rocket is ready any time, including to-day.”

“I haven’t the Speedaway here this afternoon,” said Cunningham, “and I am mighty sorry. Moreover, I’ve got to be out of town on some business for a few days. But as soon as I get back I’ll be ready.”

“How about one week from to-day?” asked Frank Allen.

“Fine! That’s agreed, is it?” Cunningham replied. “I’ll be back in a few days and we’ll run the race one week from to-day. Let’s attend right now to all the details of distance, starting, passengers, and everything else.”

So, while the luncheon proceeded, all details were set forth, some being the cause of disagreement, but some one was prepared to meet any of these points, and everything was determined for the race.

As they left the lunch Frank got a chance to speak with Minnie, asking her and two of the girls to take a short ride in the Rocket. Though Minnie acted rather coolly, she agreed to go, and in a few minutes three of the girls were with Frank in his boat, and had put out from the shore.

“Look at that cloud,” one of the girls said. “Is there any danger of being caught in a rain? There’s no place on the boat to keep dry.”

Frank cast his eye toward the cloud, but he did not feel that there was any immediate danger of a rain, and proceeded down the river a distance before giving the subject much more thought, in the meanwhile trying to engage Minnie in conversation while the other girls sat forward.

But Minnie was not as free with her bright talk as was her wont, and Frank was disturbed over it. In fact, Minnie mentioned the name of Fred Cunningham during the conversation a little oftener than Frank thought was necessary.

During a fifteen minute run the girls had forgotten about the cloud, but now it was making itself evident. A stiff little breeze gusted across the boat.

“We’re going to get caught in a rain!” those in front cried as a few drops of water fell.

Frank, who had paid no attention to the change in the weather in his deep thought about Minnie’s change toward him, now took a look at things.

“This is going to be a stiff little rain. We’re nearest to this island. Let’s land and get in that hut. It will keep off the rain.”

He changed the course of the Rocket slightly, for they were approaching an island in midstream. The rain was peppering down a little more as they made the landing, and, while Frank tied the boat, the girls dashed for the shelter of the rickety looking hut which stood at the edge of the shore, a great elm tree spreading out to reach it but not quite doing so.

But it did them little good. As the storm broke in full intensity, the water poured through the roof as if there were none there. The girls huddled together in one corner, but even that did them little good. The rain came in a perfect sheet. Ten minutes of this and their dresses were soaked.

“I think you should have used a great deal more care about this,” Minnie said to Frank coldly. “It surely is not a very nice thing to bring your friends out and then get them soaked in this manner. I don’t appreciate it a bit.”

There was nothing for Frank to say. He had just succeeded in widening the breach a little more, though certainly he had intended no such thing.

CHAPTER VIII

SHARP WORDS

Even more quickly than the rain storm had developed did it pass away—and the bright summer sun came out in its resplendent glory. Frank and the girls emerged from the hut, drenched to the skin, the girls’ dresses hanging to them like so many rags.

“I am just as sorry as I can be, girls,” said Frank in an apologetic tone of voice. “Had I thought the rain was going to be so severe, even had I thought we were going to have a shower, I would not have come. But, there’s nothing to be done about it but to be miserably wet and uncomfortable until we get back.”

Minnie seemed to be in a tempest, her expression one of anger when Frank spoke.

“Your attention was called to it when we started,” she shot at him as they reached the Rocket at the shore.

“Quite true, Minnie. But do you think for a moment that I came down here to get myself wet, too, just for the fun of getting you girls wet? Just remember that I got as much of it as any one else.”

“I don’t think Frank is to blame one bit,” one of the other girls spoke up. “Let’s make the best of it. The sun will dry us out a little, and the wind on the river will help. The only thing is that we’ll look like we’ve been rough dried.”

Into the Rocket climbed all the girls, while Frank shoved easily off and took charge of the engine and the wheel.

The cheery reaction of the sunshine as opposed to the drear of the rain and clouds and the breeze of the water, the open air, and the feeling of freedom—all combined to return the little group to something more resembling normal, and in a very few minutes, before they had half traversed the return distance to the picnic grounds, all the girls were laughing and giggling, making light of the incident.

Frank was delighted to see the turn of affairs, and even more pleased to notice that Minnie seemed to be regaining her former spirits, denoted by a little more freedom in her conversation with him. She sat on a steamer stool at the edge of the cockpit while he held the Rocket to its course.

“Please let me run it, won’t you?” she asked.

Whereupon the length of time it took Frank to permit her to take the wheel in hand and assume charge of their path was measured by the speed with which he could slip to one side and let her get into the pit.

“Girls, isn’t this fine? I’m going to capture that port yonder. Fire when you are ready, men!”

Minnie, a driver of an automobile herself, fearless of mechanical things, swung the Rocket far out of the midstream and made a run around the little island standing in the center of the Harrapin’s course just opposite the picnic grounds.

The crowd on shore had returned to the grounds, for, as Frank learned afterward, they too, had been caught in the rain and had sought shelter under benches, inside of cars and wagons, and under doubled cloths which had been spread as tents.

Some one from the picnic grounds noticed that Minnie was steering the Rocket, and sent the news around. This very largely accounted for the interest exhibited by all of them in gathering along the little bluff of the shore, watching.

Minnie took the speedy little craft gracefully around the island, making a three-quarter turn, and then dashed straight for shore.

Frank gave her directions to go slightly upstream before making the turn down again to the grounds, and then cut off the engine.

“It must be truthfully said,” laughed Lanky, as he watched, “that Frank’s nerve for one thing and his fear of hurting Minnie’s feeling for another thing, causes him to allow her to make the landing.”

But it was smoothly done, a feat of which Minnie herself was not sure when she essayed it, but which she was determined to try now that she had the wheel.

Out of the boat all of the passengers jumped as they touched, Frank tying, and the crowd was all around them.

“Where were you during the rain?”

“Did you make Whipper’s Island?”

“Did you go into that hut?”

“Look how wet they got!”

Questions, statements, suggestions, quips and gibes, all came thick and fast from the crowd of young folks. Finally, the explanation was given, Minnie enlarging it as much as one can who is happy over a feat well performed and who, therefore, had almost forgotten the unkind remarks and cutting looks which she had directed at Frank Allen.

“I must have you drive the Speedaway!” cried Fred Cunningham coming forward and making a very successful attempt to separate Minnie from the others.

“I certainly should love to. Can’t we get it out to-morrow?” she asked.

“No, because I am going to be out of town. You see, I have some business which I must attend to. My two friends are anxious to have me with them on a business deal.”

“Did you hear that, Frank?” whispered Lanky.

“I did.”

“Rather nervy, I’ll say.”

“Well, he has the right to do it, I suppose,” returned the owner of the Rocket.

“Humph, he ought to have his head punched,” was the growled-out reply.

Just after lunch, about the time Frank and his group had started for the boat ride, others had strung a tennis net beyond the trees in an opening which was reasonably smooth, though far from perfect. Fortunately, some thoughtful person had put the rackets beneath the seat of an automobile, protected from the rain, and now these were unlimbered from their hiding places and a game proposed.

It had not occurred to Frank to bring along the two folding stools aboard the Rocket, but this did not alter the fact that it was a rather nervy thing for Fred Cunningham to step aboard the little boat shortly afterward and take both of them, using one for himself and one for Minnie as they took seats alongside the tennis court to watch.

“What do you think of that?” Lanky asked Frank.

“I think if whatever nerve he has continues to develop, he ought to be able to get along in this world,” was Frank Allen’s very apt reply. “But he has shown me what a bonehead I carry on top of my own shoulders, anyhow.”

“I agree,” Lanky rejoined, without a smile.

However, the act was just one more little coal added to the fire of dislike which was well kindled in the breast of Frank, for, though he did not resent the act as one of gallantry when he had forgotten it, he did resent the nerve of this fellow who had gone aboard his boat under the circumstances which existed and in face of the rift which was between them. Instead of his feeling any jealousy, he had a feeling that this fellow was trying to take entire charge of things, trying to make light of Frank before his friends.

The game of tennis went merrily on, though the ground was wet and slippery, the balls soon became the same, and the rackets gradually became slow. In fact, the players knew the gut were ruined, but none of them would stop from playing. To-morrow was time enough to think of the cost.

It was just as the afternoon was getting along to a close, when the happy crowd of young folks was commencing to weary, that some one made a remark again about the race between the Rocket and the Speedaway.

“It will be only a few days more,” called out Fred Cunningham. “I have been watching the Rocket of Allen’s, and I saw the way it acted this afternoon. It really will be a shame the way the Speedaway will run off from the Rocket.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised but what you expect to run several rings around me,” declared Frank Allen, making a very brave attempt to make the speech laughingly.

“Now, that hadn’t occurred to me; but I believe it can be done.” Cunningham, instead of taking it up in the same bantering fashion, made a serious matter of it.

“Well, as you said, it will be only a few days. In the meanwhile I think I shall install a couple of pair of wings on the Rocket,” answered Frank.

For a while the conversation ran in this wise, and then veered off to a discussion of the Parsons robbery case, a subject which had thus far been taboo with Frank’s closest friends.

The boys supposed none of the girls knew the inside facts of what had been going on, and the five of them, Frank, Lanky, Paul, Ralph, and Buster felt that they could keep this particular subject clear of any personal references.

But they missed their guess, for Irene Rich was the one who spoiled their hopes with the remark:

“Frank was up there, and he ought to know a whole lot. Why not tell us all about it, Frank?”

Fred Cunningham appeared to be interested in what was going on, and looked from one to the other as questions and urgings passed around the little crowd.

“But there isn’t anything to tell that you don’t already know,” Frank tried to stem the tide. “The newspapers have told what we saw, Lanky and I.”

“Sure they have,” Lanky now interrupted. “What’s the use of serving it all over again—cold?”

“But who do they think did it? Wasn’t that awful—robbing Mrs. Parsons and scaring her almost to death putting her in that closet?” went on another girl.

Fred Cunningham rose from his seat and walked around the group, fearful that something might be said which he would not hear.

“I think,” said Frank, “that it’s getting late and we ought to commence packing. It will be dark by the time we get back to town.”

“That is right,” spoke up Cunningham, a guest, but willing to get away from the grounds.

So, there being little else to do, the crowd being weary of the day, packing operations were started immediately.

The boys who were closest to Frank gathered about him, each doing his own part toward packing, but there seemed to be a natural gravitation of his friends toward one little group.

“Say,” Paul Bird spoke up quietly, as he was standing near Frank at one time, “what do you say if several of us go up there to-morrow to see if we can find anything.”

“That’s the idea! We know more to start with than any one else, and we ought to be able to find something, provided there is anything to be found,” Lanky put in.

“A lot of time has passed,” interposed Frank. “I am not opposed to the idea, but I am fearful that we won’t find anything that will be of benefit.”

“It certainly would be too late to hunt for any tracks of automobiles or anything of that kind,” said Buster. “Even if we had a chance this morning, the rain has spoiled whatever chance remained.”

“It doesn’t seem to me that hunting for automobile tracks would help us, anyhow,” said Frank. “I don’t think the automobile had very much to do with it.”

“It took those men away, didn’t it?” asked Ralph.

Frank smiled quietly. That question had been asked before, as also the other one—where was the automobile when Mrs. Parsons came into the house?

“What time can we get started? I want to go to the hospital and then I want to see the contractors in the morning, but I’ll be ready to go after that. Say about ten o’clock?”

It was agreed at once that all the boys should be down at the boat-house at ten o’clock, and Lanky was given the job of seeing that oil and gas were aboard, and Buster’s job was to have lunch for all on board, inasmuch as they would spend the day up the river.

Minnie joined the group of boys after a short while.

“I am having a little lawn party at the house to-morrow afternoon in honor of Mr. Cunningham,” she said. “Won’t you boys be there?”

This invitation was a bombshell in the crowd. They all looked at Frank for an answer.

“Sorry, Minnie, but all of us have agreed to make a little trip of exploration to-morrow to try out the Rocket, and we won’t be able to go. If it were the next day, now——”

“It can’t be the next day. I can’t change my arrangements, and you can change yours.”

“Well, the other boys may do as they see fit, though I think they feel as if they are bound to make this trip, but I am going to make it, whether or no.”

Frank’s position rather startled Minnie. She was not accustomed to having people attempt to alter her plans.

Just at this moment Fred Cunningham walked over to the crowd.

“I say, fellows, surely you will be there. I want to get away on a business trip the day after. Surely your trial of the Rocket can wait another day.”

“I am afraid it has waited too long.”

“Going to hunt up the place where you had your two hours of engine trouble?” Cunningham shot covertly at Frank.

“No. But I’m going to find the rowboat that gets in the way at nighttime and learn where it keeps its boxes that it carries aboard.” Why Frank made such a remark he was never able to explain. But Cunningham went as white as a sheet.

CHAPTER IX

THE MYSTERIOUS ROWBOAT

Fred Cunningham turned away from the crowd and walked over to where Irene Rich was tying the last of the bundles when Frank shot this decidedly pointed shaft at him.

This action on Cunningham’s part reacted on Frank’s mind, and he, now amazed at what he had said and the result it had produced, grew quiet while he made his preparations to get aboard the Rocket.

Minnie Cuthbert came over to his side while he was making ready to cast off from the river bank.

“Frank, may I ride back with you to town? I’d like to go up the river instead of riding back in a car.”

“Surest thing you know!” he exclaimed. Not only was he delighted to take Minnie along because he wished her company, but he also felt that Cunningham would realize that he had not done so much damage as he thought.

“Won’t you please tell me,” she asked when they had got away from shore and Lanky, Paul, and Ralph had gone forward to allow the two to be alone at the cockpit, “what you meant when you said what you did to Fred? And why did he turn and leave so suddenly?”

“I wish I could tell you, Minnie. But right now I may not tell you the truth. I am guessing at some things. That wild guess may be right and it may be wrong. At any rate, it had an effect that surprised me.”

“What does it all mean? Has it anything to do with that robbery at Mrs. Parsons? I’ve heard so many things dropped that I am very curious.”

The Rocket had swung far out into the middle of the stream and under the increasingly expert hand of Frank Allen, it turned its nose toward Columbia, past the dredge which was cutting a channel close to one of the islands, and, as the golden glow of the sun fell aslant the quiet waters of the Harrapin, they were started for home, weary of the day’s picnic, but wide awake, all of them, to the new things which had opened up in this quick exchange of words.

At the bow of the boat, Paul, Lanky, and Ralph were close together, whispering exchanges about the most recent happening.

“What do you think Frank knows?” Paul was asking.

“I don’t think he knows any more than we do,” answered Lanky. “But he made a wild guess, and he seems to have struck home. This fellow Cunningham knows a whole lot more than we have been thinking he does.”

At the cockpit Frank and Minnie were standing.

“Yes,” he replied to her question, “it had something to do with the Parsons robbery, but I don’t know just yet what its real significance is.”

“Why so mysterious about it, Frank? You know I am not going to say anything.”

“Well, Minnie, you tell me what you have heard. Tell me what Cunningham has told you about me, and then maybe I can put two and two together.”

“He hasn’t talked about you, Frank. You know very well that I would never stand for anything of that kind.”

Frank had hoped that he would learn something that Fred might have said about him in an effort to hurt him in the eyes of Minnie Cuthbert, but now it appeared that he had been too careful or too shrewd to say anything, or that Minnie was hiding something from him—and he did not believe the latter.

“Did he not tell you what occurred over in the rooms of the chief of police in the hearing yesterday afternoon?”

“Not a word. What happened?”

“Hasn’t he told you that I stand suspected of knowing something about this robbery?”

Minnie gasped in amazement at this question.

“You have something to do with it? Have you really, Frank? What is it? Surely you are not implicated——”

“Do you think I am?” he looked straight into her eyes as he put the question.

“Oh, Frank, please forgive me! I did not mean to hurt you! Did not mean it that way! Only what you said so surprised me that I had to ask for more.”

“What I want to know is whether Cunningham told you that I was suspected of knowing something about it. Or did he say anything else that might injure my reputation?”

“No, I do not recall that he said anything except one time this morning when we were talking about your pitching the games, and he said something about the brunette at Bellport being so interested in you—and that you were interested in her. You were over there after we got back from Rockspur, weren’t you?”

“Yes, on father’s business. I went to see no girl—brunette or blonde.”

Frank’s mind was much relieved that the coolness had been caused by this rather than anything else. He had felt all day that Cunningham was poisoning the girl’s mind against him by implicating him in some manner in the Parsons case. But now that the coolness had been produced by Cunningham’s very sly connection of this brunette, whoever he meant, with himself—that was another thing.

Minnie asked again what it was that Frank had done to be implicated in any manner, but Frank merely asked her to await developments.

“This much is certain, Minnie: I don’t know a thing about that robbery, but I certainly propose to know something. And I am not going to be long about it, either.”

Paul, Lanky and Ralph heard the statement of their friend, and they saw in his tense expression, his firmness of manner, the same determination to win which they had seen often enough on the athletic field to recognize at a glance.

“Trust Frank to get to the bottom of the affair,” remarked Ralph.

“I sure hope so,” came from Paul.

They reached Columbia at dusk, warped easily into the boat-house, and made for home, Frank walking out with Minnie.

“Gee, I’m glad Minnie and Frank have made up,” said Lanky, as the three boys walked up to town ahead of the young couple. “Not that they’ve had a fuss, but that Cunningham fellow has been throwing sand on the track. I wish I could find a first-class reason for punching his eye for him.”

“Why not on general principles?” laughed Ralph.

“No—I want something very specific, so that I can feel that I have a job to finish well.”

The other two boys felt largely the same way toward the good-looking stranger who had forced himself on them.

Parting for the evening, with their plans laid for the next day, they went home, while Frank and Minnie took their time, chatting gaily about things in general, Minnie taking a little more pains to keep away from Cunningham as a subject for conversation.

“But he is such a nice boy,” she thought to herself, when Frank had bade her good-bye. “I am sure he isn’t quite so great a villain as Frank seems to think.”

Before Frank could go to the Rocket, even though the other boys were up early and doing their tasks toward the day’s trip, he had to call at the hospital to learn about his father, since the news of the evening before had been only average, nothing to make him feel cheerful.

“He’s getting along well, I think,” cheerily said the nurse on this bright morning. “Had a good night’s sleep, and seems to be resting. Go in and see him.”

They chatted for a while, Frank doing most of the talking, telling of the day previous, the picnic, and ending by saying that he was going out to-day to help Mrs. Parsons. As yet Mr. Allen had not been told much of the details, merely that Mrs. Parsons place had been robbed. Mr. Allen was a sick man.

“All ready, fellows?” asked Frank as he reached the boat-house and saw the four boys lined up. “Let’s get her out, then!”

So the Rocket was started on her voyage up the Harrapin, a voyage of exploration for clues or direct knowledge—a voyage intended to turn up something before the day was ended.

“Can you show us what kind of speed she’s got in her, so we’ll know in advance whether you’re going to win against the Speedaway?” asked Paul.

“Pretty coarse way you have of getting a speedy joy ride,” Frank smiled at his good friend. “Wait until we clear out of these boats and get past the island there and we’ll show them, won’t we, Lanky?”

“I’ll say we will! Wait a minute! I’m a sea-faring man, I am, and I’ve got to speak correctly. You can lay to that we will sir, aye, aye! Blow me, just show these landlubbers what she’s got in her.” Ending this speech, Lanky bent his shoulders forward and hitched his trousers in imitation of vaudeville sailors.

Getting past the few boats that were on the river in front of Columbia, clearing past the first of the islands, Frank gradually opened up the speed of the Rocket. Taking the very middle of the stream, moving against the current, the bow lifted clear, and the Rocket skimmed at a merry pace for four miles, the boys uttering exclamations of delight the while. The speed was the best that Frank had yet gotten out of the Rocket, but at that he realized that he was not up to the top-notch.

“The Speedaway’s in for a trimming, sure!” cried Ralph hilariously. “It’s too bad Fred Cunningham isn’t along to see this so that he wouldn’t have to waste his gasoline.”

Making one of the wide bends of the river, seeing two other boats beyond, Frank blew his whistle in signal, and also cut down the speed, fearing that he might run into trouble.

“Where do we go first?” Lanky asked.

“I think the wise plan is to go up to the Parsons place and look around. I’d like to get to the place, Lanky, where we saw that rowboat tied, if we can find it, for I’ve an idea in my head.”

Frank only shook his head negatively when asked what his idea might be.

“Might not be worth anything. Let’s wait until we get there and see if I am right. If I am right, fellows, we’ve got something to think about.” At this there came a chorus from all four, begging, pleading with Frank to tell—to no avail.

In a short while they were standing off the shore of the Parsons place. Frank ran a quarter of a mile up the river, and then turned and came slowly downstream, drifting.

Lanky lay forward as far as he could stretch, his eyes glued on the shore line. Once he looked quickly back to catch Frank’s eye, but that young man was easing the Rocket over to shore, his eyes also fixed on the slightly inclining bank.

Touching at practically the same spot where they had landed before, all the boys climbed out and started for the broad lawn of the Parsons estate, Lanky and Frank finding it much easier to make their way this time than during the darkness a few nights before.

Mrs. Parsons was on the lawn, directing the cutting thereof by a burly laborer who was operating a hand-powered lawn-mower. To Frank’s pleasant greeting, she replied:

“What is it that gives me the pleasure of this visit?” speaking very frigidly.

“Clarence Wallace and I have brought three of our friends along, Mrs. Parsons, this morning to see if there is anything we can learn here that might lead to the capture of those men who robbed you.”

“I think the police can do that perfectly well.”

“Perhaps they can,” Frank replied pleasantly. “But it so happens that two of us are decidedly interested in having something done at once.”

“I think something is being done,” she replied.

Frank saw that she had turned completely against him, for she had never been so cold before to him.

“If anything is being done beyond accusing honest boys of dishonest acts and motives, then I have not been informed, and I am much more interested in the information than even you are, Mrs. Parsons, for, you must remember that ‘he who steals my purse steals trash!’”

Whether the semi-quotation was lost on the woman Frank did not know, but he was afterwards to learn.

“So far, you are here without my invitation,” she said just as coldly as ever, “and I must ask that you leave the place.”

“We will, Mrs. Parsons, by the road at the rear of the house.”

Frank bowed politely to her and strode across the lawn toward the road at the rear, taking pains to pass as close to the house as possible, in order to observe.

Out on the road the boys stopped while Frank gave directions to seek for automobile marks at the side of the road. Very slowly they proceeded. Stopping at one point, Frank looked across the distance stretching toward the river, his eyes carefully searching the trees and shrubbery. Suddenly he gasped, and pointed to an opening.

“Lanky, you go down to that opening right away. When you get to it go slowly, and back out to the river, while I watch.”

In five minutes Lanky was there, backing away through the opening. When he reached the water’s edge, his shoulders were still visible to Frank.

Looking to see where he was, Lanky saw a pasteboard box in which lunch might have been, a discarded tobacco bag, and a piece of rope on the bank. Here was where that rowboat had been tied when they came down the river the night of the robbery!

CHAPTER X

THE ROWBOAT IS FOUND

Lanky Wallace involuntarily gasped as he realized what Frank had sought—and here was a clue at the very start. He wildly waved his arms for the other boys to come.

“He’s found something!” cried Frank, as he led the boys across the lawn of Mrs. Parsons like hounds in full chase.

Mrs. Parsons, her eyes having never left the boys from the time they passed her on the lawn, now watched this strange thing—four of them running at full speed toward a point on the river to which one of them had gone a few minutes before.

“Henry,” she said to the hired man, “go down there at once and see what those boys are doing. There is something here that needs watching.”

Henry started away as he was told, but his pace was not calculated to get him there too soon, for Henry did not know what he was expected to do when he found what the boys should be doing, and Henry remembered, as burly as he was, that there were five of these live young fellows.

“Look, Frank!” Lanky cried as quickly as the other boys came to the river bank, Frank well in the lead. “This must be the spot where the rowboat was tied the other night.”

“I rather think it is. Let’s study it all very carefully,” Frank looked downstream to where the Rocket was riding the current of the Harrapin. “First, are we the right distance above the Rocket, because, if you remember, we had time to throw our searchlight before we heard the scream.”

Lanky called Frank’s attention to the fact that they were not abreast the rowboat when they first saw it, nor even when they were searching for it through the heavy darkness with the electric spotlight.

“All right, let’s agree on that point to start with. Now, Lanky, you know as much as I do about the happenings on that night. If we agree that this lunch-box, this empty tobacco bag, and the piece of rope are indications that the rowboat was here, what other reason is there? I want to see if you are getting to the same conclusion that I have reached.”

Lanky had it in his mind, however, for he, too, had been thinking of the same thing Frank had when Frank first spied the opening through the trees and the shrubbery to the river’s bank.

“Remember the match that was lighted in the rowboat that night, and how it stood out above everything?”

“What—a signal?” cried Ralph West, while Paul and Buster stood with mouths open, listening.

“Precisely,” replied Frank Allen. “I believe there was a signal that night from this boat to some one on that road. Why was this boat tied at the only actually open space along this part of the river?”

“That seems to answer our question about the automobile,” Lanky slowly reasoned things out.

“That’s it! The automobile was in the road back of the house, instead of standing by the garage, and it received a signal from this rowboat! Now here comes our next question: When and why did the fellow in the rowboat signal to the fellow in the automobile?”

Ralph, Buster and Paul, not having been there, could only picture the scene in imagination, but Frank and Lanky were revisualizing what they had seen that pitch-dark night on the river.

“Gee, this is getting exciting!” cried Buster.

“I’ll say it is,” added Ralph.

“Regular detective story,” put in Paul.

“Well, we—ll—” Lanky was thinking hard over another point, and he was drawling to gain plenty of time to think before replying—“Frank,” he looked suddenly at his good friend, his forehead wrinkling in a frown, “if my memory serves me rightly, we heard the scream of Mrs. Parsons about a minute or two after we saw the flare.”

Frank agreed that the time might be right.

“But,” he added, “do you recall we thought we heard a sound from shore as if some one were answering?”

“Sure! I had not forgotten that! You stopped the motor and kidded yourself that we were both allowing the darkness and the mysterious sounds of the river to get on our nerves.”

Frank smiled as he recalled plainly what remarks he had made. At the time it happened he little thought he would be nudging his memory to serve him in recalling all the things that had occurred, nor that he would have strong personal reasons for retracing all the detailed steps of that night.

“We haven’t answered the question yet why and when the signal was given.”

“What is this—an examination?” Ralph broke in. “I wish I could help!”

“Absolutely, this is an examination,” said Lanky Wallace. “This is the greatest little examination you ever saw. Frank is thinking certain things and he is using me to trace all the steps of his reasoning in order to assure himself that he is right. Eh, old boy?”

“Right you are—and if you come to the same conclusions I have, we’re going to get on the track of somebody.”

“I have it!” cried Lanky, touching Frank on the arm. “See the house from here?” and he turned to point to the house. There stood the hired man, Henry, just at the edge of the lawn! “Hey! What’re you standing there listening to?”

“The madam said for you to clear out of here.”

“You clear out yourself!” called Frank, starting toward the fellow. “We’re doing no harm to any one.”

Henry did not wait any longer. He said, “All right,” and started back for the lawn. The boys watched him leave.

“Now, what were you saying, Lanky?”

“I was saying that you can see the house from here. The room that was ransacked is right there on the corner in front. Suppose there came a signal from there—it could be seen from here.”

“But why would a signal come from there?”

“Well, suppose they had finished their work, suppose they were not in need of the automobile; if they signaled from up at the window, then a signal from here, like the lighted match, would let them know their signal had been seen and it would also act as a signal to the fellow in the automobile.”

“Exactly!” cried Frank. “That’s the way I have it figured out. Now, the next question is: Did they ransack the dining room between the time Mrs. Parsons screamed—or the first scream we heard—and the time we got to the rear door?”

“They surely did, Frank,” agreed Wallace. “I believe they could have done it.”

“All right!” The other three boys listened in admiration to this exciting disclosure of the details of the robbery. “But that means we have how many in the gang?”

“Four, of course!” came in quick reply from Lanky.

“Well, then, if that’s agreed, let’s go to the Rocket and we’ll do some more hunting.”

Frank led the way back on to the lawn of the Parsons place, skirted the trees and shrubs downstream, finally starting through at the point where they had left their motor-boat.

Arriving there, all climbed aboard, not a word having been spoken the while, not a word spoken now. The three boys, Paul, Buster and Ralph, were consumed with curiosity, as the saying goes, wondering what the next move was to be. They had not long to wait.

“We’ll go hunting for that rowboat now, Lanky,” said Frank, as the Rocket was shoved off from shore. “It is somewhere along the river. We’ll just spend the rest of the day finding it.”

“I suppose the first place to start the hunt will be at the point where we almost struck it?” asked Lanky.

“Absolutely! Let’s try to locate that spot, and then follow, for you will remember it was going across stream, headed for the opposite side of the river just above the island we circled trying to find it.”

Paul and Ralph was sitting at the bow of the Rocket whispering to each other, their remarks concerning their hopes that they would locate the little craft.

Frank eased the Rocket well out to the middle of the Harrapin, the sun bearing down heavily on them now, for it was getting toward noon.

“How about something to eat? Let’s have the eats!” Buster Billings demanded when they were well started down the stream, the Rocket riding the water smoothly.

“I’m agreeable; but what do you say to waiting until we get to that island and we’ll eat in the shade?” suggested Lanky.

It appeared to Lanky and Frank, as the Rocket glided along down the river, that the distance from the Parsons place to the island where they had encountered the rowboat that night was shorter now than before. One remarked it to the other, as if reading each other’s minds.

“This is the place, Lanky, that we met the rowboat, and there’s the direction it took. Now, I’m going around the island, following the same path we did before, and see what the result is.”

Suiting the action to the word, Frank Allen held the Rocket over toward the island, swung around it at the lower end, and came up on the farther side, until he was abreast the upriver side of it.

“Now, don’t you think this is about where we were?”

Wallace agreed that, as nearly as could be told in the daylight, this was the spot where they had started their hunt.

“And right over there is where I claim that rowboat went under the trees and stayed while we sought it,” Lanky turned and pointed to the upper part of the island, where old willows dropped and spread their branches down close to the water, entirely hiding the shoreline.

“All right. Since you think so, I move we eat our lunch under those trees. Let’s get where you think they were, and see what the outcome is.”

Frank put the Rocket hard over, and gradually brought it under the trees, though it was a close shave to make it fit under the low-hanging branches.

“Why, fellows,” cried Paul Bird, “even in the daytime this is a good hiding place. Look, you can’t see out, and it is a sure thing no one could see in! Just think what it must be after dark, especially on such a pitch-dark night as you say that one was!”

Frank was won over to Lanky’s idea, after studying the situation very carefully.

The boys fell to on the food with a will such as only hungry, manly, athletic fellows, can show. They attacked the sandwiches front and rear.

And, be it said in all truth right here, neither Frank nor Lanky, serious as they were in the matter gave any heed to further quest for clues or information of any sort until the food was devoured and the containers had been buried deep in the soil of the shore.

But, having partaken heartily of everything that had been brought along, the boys walked around this part of the island, curiously looking here and there, not for anything in particular, but as observant boys will do when in a strange place.

“Now, fellows, since I am willing to concede the point to Lanky about this being the hiding place that night, let’s see if we can figure where the thing went. I believe it had something to do with that robbery, and I wish to run it down.”

The Rocket slowly, very carefully, nosed out of the willow-nook and turned straight for upstream.

“You see, it was headed this way when we met it, and the chances are there is a spot on this side where it found a landing—its goal, I might say.”

The boys took the cue of their leader, Frank, and while he brought the Rocket farther over to the opposite side of the river, they strained their eyes to watch for any trace of it.

An hour passed slowly by, with the Rocket making its way steadily up the Harrapin, the boys watching the shore. But no success was theirs.

“How far shall we go, do you say?” Frank asked Lanky. “Do you suppose it could be any farther up the river than we have come?”

“I don’t believe so,” slowly replied Wallace. “You see, it was a rowboat, which, if my line of reasoning is any good, means there was not a great distance to go. If the distance had been greater they surely would have used a motor boat.”

Frank agreed with this, for it seemed a logical conclusion to reach, excepting for the one item of noise, which Frank suggested, but which Lanky set aside.

They decided to turn the Rocket downstream, hold it back as well as possible, even to the extent of drifting once in a while, the better to give a chance of studying the brush along the shore of the river.

Another fifteen minutes passed, and it was noticeable they were moving with the current a little faster than they had come up against it.

It was Frank who, happening to glance up from the wheel at the right moment, saw something which attracted his attention at the shore.

“Look! Do you see anything?” he cried.

“It’s a rowboat!” exclaimed Lanky. “And I believe it’s the same one! Let’s get to it.”

Frank started the engine, swung the Rocket out toward midstream, and turned its nose back toward the spot where he had seen the boat among the weeds, pulled well up from the river.

CHAPTER XI

THE MYSTERY BOX

Lanky Wallace leaped to shore as the Rocket was brought slowly in, and Paul cast the line to him. It took several minutes to tie the motor boat properly, but when it was done the other boys stepped gingerly off.

They gathered about the rowboat, as if it were some strange animal, five pairs of eyes centered upon it.

“If this is the boat, we ought to be a little more careful about being seen, for the owner of it may be somewhere near here, and he knows much more than we do.”

Frank spoke cautiously as he very slowly turned to look beyond the shoreline of the river for any habitation. On this side the bank was grown with a dense thicket.

The rowboat was of the same general appearance as a thousand other rowboats. It was of average size and of the same semi-flat design which the boys might have seen all along the Harrapin. The oars were lying about five feet away, side by side, not hidden. The boat was not tied—merely pulled up from the river so that it would not float away.

Frank stood quietly looking at it, taking in everything about the boat and its surroundings, which were weeds and coarse shrubbery of the river-bank variety.

Why were they led to choose this particular boat? What reason had they for thinking that this rowboat, and this one only, had been the one which they had met that night on the river? Why could it not have been some other rowboat, farther upstream or downstream? Why could not the rowboat they were seeking not just as well be out on the river somewhere, busy at a rowboat’s regular tasks?

These were some of the thoughts which flashed through Frank’s mind as the five boys stood looking upon it.

“Let’s see what is beyond the thicket,” suggested Lanky, turning to lead the way through the undergrowth.

“It was just a hunch, that was all,” mused Frank, not moving away. They had come out to look for a rowboat, a rowboat of very common design, perhaps, and certainly one which they had seen hastily, in the dark, under the glare of a dancing searchlight, in moments of excitement. To choose this particular one was certainly following a hunch.

If they had seen three rowboats pulled up from the stream, as this one was, which would they have chosen, even though all three had been of different sizes and general shapes?

Lanky, Buster, Paul and Ralph were starting through the brush and had gotten twenty or thirty feet from the boat before Frank followed.

“Psst!” came a sound from the leader of the Indian file, and Lanky signaled back to Frank to come forward.

“There’s a house and a barn, and here’s a path leading to them!”

That was true, but, again Frank was trying to find a reason for this blind following of a trail which had opened up to them so very suddenly.

Surely there were hundreds of just such houses and barns along the banks of the Harrapin, places inhabited by small farmers who dwelt along the stream, and all of them probably owned a small boat with which to cross the river or fish. Certainly, there was nothing about this particular house and this particular barn to cause them any anxiety or any feelings of discovery.

Where would this trail lead them? What was there to make them think the robbers or the loot or any information about either lay at the end of the trail?

“Let’s sneak up there and see what is the lie of the land,” murmured Lanky, ready to proceed at a signal from Frank.

There was no move on the part of the latter. There was no expression of face or body to indicate to Lanky that his suggestion had been heard. He looked at Frank’s troubled expression in question, wondering why there was no instant desire to move.

“What’s the matter, Frank? Don’t you think this is the right place? There is the boat——”

“We—ll, all right, let’s see what we see. Let’s go along mighty carefully. Don’t disturb anything.”

Like Indians stalking their prey, every nerve at tension, every muscle under perfect control, ready for action of any kind, the inner urge of adventure pulsing through the veins of four of them, they crept slowly, stealthily, forward.

The sun was slanted down toward the west, indicating midafternoon of a bright summer’s day.

The path followed no straight line to its goal. So, after twisting and turning, dodging high weeds on both sides, holding some of them carefully back to prevent the swishing sounds which they might create, the seekers came close to the barn.

Before they realized where they were they broke out at the corner of a tumble-down structure with a loft, one which had been allowed to drift, with the years, into decay.

Lanky, in the lead, came to a halt, holding his hand up in quick signal.

Coming down through the weeds and tall grass of a lot between the farmhouse and this barn was the figure of a man, moving slowly, picking his way along the weed-grown path.

“Get back!” breathed Frank in a whisper, reaching for Lanky’s shoulder to draw him back. “Let’s see who it is and what he is doing.”

The five boys crouched in the rank growth, and, each trying to peer through the weeds, they waited for the man to come to the barn.

Seconds seemed like hours, but Frank, who, by going to the left side of the trail, had the point of vantage, soon saw the man get to the barnyard proper and move across toward the weather-beaten structure.

He signalled to the others that the man was in sight, and Lanky craned his head to get a good view. Frank’s attention was drawn from the man by the sharp intake of breath on the part of Lanky Wallace:

“That’s the man who was rowing that boat!” he exclaimed whisperingly to Frank.

The man went inside, and in another moment his face appeared at a door which he opened at the rear, the side on which the boys were hiding. Stealthily the man looked in all directions.

“That’s Jed Marmette,” muttered Frank to Lanky, who had, meanwhile, quietly crept over to the side of his friend. “Marmette is the man who was arrested several months ago, if you will remember, for bootlegging. But they were never able to get him with the goods.”

“Sure, I recall!” murmured Lanky, as the recollection of the story came to him. “They thought they had found a lot of evidence, but he was able to show that he had nothing to do with it. I remember it well.”

The man still stood at the half-door peering around, his iron-gray hair falling to one side as he brushed it over with his hand nervously, otherwise being of very unkempt appearance.

Gradually the door was closed, and the boys plainly heard the hook as it was brought into place.

“I’m going to slip up close. You fellows listen for any trouble or noise. I’m going to see what that fellow is doing there. Maybe he’s as innocent as a baby, but I’m not taking any chance. Listen for any signal from me, and then come.”

Frank crouched low, and then, when he felt that he could clear the open space quickly, he was off. In the flash of a second he was at the corner of the barn and around toward the front.

The other boys, stooping and watching with eyes that strained and ears that were sharply set for every sound, waited for any eventualities. Second after second passed away, but nothing of untoward significance came to their ears.

In the meanwhile, Frank reached the corner at the front of the barn and then carefully made his way toward the door which was closed and saw a hook holding it from the inside. Obtaining a small sliver of wood, he worked through the crack at the jamb of the door until he had raised the wire hook within and let it slowly, silently drop out of the staple at the side.

Stealthily opening the door and fastening it from the inside again, he peered around the barn, accustoming his eyes to the semi-darkness.

Above him in the loft he heard a cautious tread. The boards creaked as some one moved about. Jed Marmette was there. For what purpose?

Frank’s mind was in a whirl of ideas, of guesses, of plans. His first involuntary thought was to go quietly up the ladder to the loft and see what this man was about. The lay of the land up there he did not know, however, and on second thought, the more sober one and the one of sounder judgment, he decided to wait for the man to descend, after which he would explore.

After many minutes had passed, during which he heard different kinds of sounds, some of which he imagined he knew, others entirely foreign to any notion he could arrange in his mind, Frank heard the stealthy tread again, as if the man were approaching the loft ladder.

Quietly the boy now tiptoed to one of the stalls, and there crouched while he saw the feet of the man dangle downward through the hole, reach for and gain the ladder, followed by the body, the shoulders, and the head.

In one hand the thick, heavy-set, gray-haired, but none-the-less active man was carrying a package about the size of a cigar box, wrapped in brown wrapping paper. He carried it gingerly as he carefully grasped the ladder with one hand round after round, throwing his body toward the ladder to balance himself as the hand released one round and grasped the next lower down.

Reaching the floor of the barn he stood to get his breath, and then, turning toward the door, Frank saw the package more plainly. As Marmette reached the door he exchanged the package from one hand to the other in order to unfasten the hook, and Frank heard many small particles fall from one side of the box, which must have been of metal, to the other.

Letting himself out through the door, the man placed the box on the ground and very carefully locked the door from the outside with a large padlock.

Frank’s face lighted with a merry smile as he thought of his own predicament—inside the barn with the rear door locked from the inside!

Slipping over to the front door he peered through and saw the man leave the barn, going straight toward the lot by which he had come.

Then, going to the rear, he quietly lifted the lock on the back door and slipped out, the four boys watching him as the door opened.

He signaled to them to keep back. Lanky was watching Jed Marmette as he made his way toward the farmhouse.

Frank took no chance on his going to the boys. Instead, he called to them, in a stage whisper, and told three of the boys to watch the man while Lanky was to come over to him.

“He took a metal box out, Lanky, and it’s got something inside that sounds like a whole lot of things; for instance, the way that a lot of buttons or nails or something of the kind might sound inside a metal box. The box is wrapped in paper. He got it up in the loft.”

“Let’s follow and see what he does with it.”

“All right. Get him located, and we’ll follow.”

By this time the man was almost to the farmhouse, but they saw him turn to the right and stride over toward an old-fashioned grape arbor.

Along the weedy pathway the two boys ran as quickly as stealth permitted, now and then peering up to see where the man was and what he was doing. He had gone, by the time they approached within safe distance, into the grape arbor.

“You stay right here and I’ll sneak as near as I can. If I need any help, come quickly.”

With this admonition, Frank stole through the weeds, circling toward the grape arbor, hoping to find some point where he might see through. But no such point appeared, and Frank, determined to get whatever information he could, took the long chance of creeping through the weeds straight up the arbor.

Here he saw plainly! Jed Marmette had dug a hole under the arbor. Into that hole he was now placing the box. He then covered it carefully with the earth, tamped it down, smoothed everything off and then replaced, so it appeared, a large flagstone which was turned up to one side. This flag fitted over the new-made hole and did away with all newness!

Frank backed out of the weeds, crouchingly made his way back to Lanky, beckoned him to follow and, without words, they got back to the barn thence to the trail behind.

Here Frank laid a new scheme of exploration, and took Lanky with him while the other boys, Paul, Buster and Ralph, watched.

Into the rear of the barn, up the ladder to the loft, and then a search. Frank led, for he felt he knew where the sounds had been made—and success was his at once.

Under a small amount of hay was a large box, or chest, roughly looking like the one they had seen the night on the rowboat.

It required no tug, no hardship—just the lifting of the lid, after pitching the hay aside, and there they saw, within the chest, piece after piece of silver of all kinds, the dining-room treasure which Mrs. Parsons had lost!

CHAPTER XII

STOPPED BY THE HAND OF FATE

Though such an idea had been finding a home in the brain of Frank Allen, it was a distinct shock to him when he saw the contents of that chest.

Lanky gasped in the utmost surprise, and looked at the many pieces with wide eyes.

There were knives and forks, and many spoons of all sizes and kinds; there were plates and salad pieces, small pitchers and shells, some gold lined and others plain sterling silver; literally hundreds and hundreds of pieces, enough for a dozen families.

Lanky Wallace looked at Frank, and Frank looked at his chum. Across the face of each stole a smile, just a wee smile of one who knew his honor could now be vindicated.

No sound of warning had come from below, yet Frank quietly closed the lid, strewed the hay over the box as carefully as it had been done when they found it, and led the way toward the ladder leading to the floor below. Down he went first, followed very closely by Lanky.

In a few minutes more they were on the trail leading up from the river, beckoning to Buster, Paul and Ralph to join them. Not a word thus far had been spoken by either.

Not knowing what had been found, completely at a loss to understand why Frank and Lanky said nothing, Paul and Ralph and Buster followed meekly behind, picking their way along the trail, until they had reached the Rocket’s landing place.

“Let’s get it out into the stream as quietly as possible,” whispered Frank as they climbed aboard, and Lanky, whose particular business it appeared to have become, waited to push the Rocket well into the river.

Away it shoved off, Lanky grabbed an oar from its convenient place to pole the boat out against the fouling of the propeller blades, and Frank headed the Rocket toward midstream, trying to get far enough to drift with the river’s current before starting the engine.

Still not a word came from either of the two boys as to the happenings within that barn on Jed Marmette’s place.

Having gotten a full eighth of a mile below the landing, Frank gave Lanky the signal to start the motor, and the muffled exhaust set up its song.

“Well?” Paul could hold himself no longer. “Please tell what you saw up in the barn! You must have seen something of interest or you wouldn’t be so quiet.”

“All right, fellows,” replied Frank graciously (for he surely could afford to be in a gracious mood right now) “gather close up and we’ll tell you what we saw.”

As the sun was sinking farther and farther into the west, as the long, last, struggling rays which it threw out upon the world were cast across the rippling current of the Harrapin River, Frank and Lanky, piece by piece, told what they had seen at the arbor and what they had seen in the loft of the old barn.

The three listeners sat with mouths open, their eyes bulging, listening to this tale as children do to the wonders of princes and princesses and giants and kings in fairy tales.

“And all the Parsons’ stuff is in that chest?” Paul asked the question.

“I don’t think it is. I think all the silverware and such heavy pieces as they stole downstairs in the dining room are in that chest, but I believe the jewels which they got upstairs in her safe are in that metal box which is buried.”

“Why do you suppose he buried it?” again Paul queried.

“Hump——”

“Do you think he was putting it there so that no one would find it in case they were discovered?”

“I certainly do not!” spoke up Lanky Wallace.

“And I’ll bet Frank agrees with me, too! I believe that fellow was double-crossing his partners—that’s what I think! I believe he put that box of jewels, which is the easiest of all things to get off with, away in a safe place so that he could come back himself some of these days and get it—after his pals are in jail or away from this part of the country.”

“But, suppose Jed goes to jail?” asked Paul.

“Listen, Paul Bird! You’d better start using your head pretty soon. This detective agency has no place for weak sisters. We run a first-class, efficient detective agency, we do! Don’t we, Frank?” teased Lanky.

“Why kid me?” Paul stuck to his questioning.

“Oh, listen to him! Say, Mr. President, we’ll have to call this operative. He’s a mess!”

This had the effect of quieting Paul, who wondered what could be wrong with his question. Suppose Jed Marmette went to jail, what would become of the jewels?

“Youthful aide-de-camp to the world’s leading detectives, will you kindly notice that when Jed Marmette starts to jail we’ll have the little box of jewels safely back in Mrs. Parsons’ hands?”

Paul said nothing more, yet they had not answered his question for him. For his question must not, of course, include the knowledge which Jed Marmette did not have—that he had been seen burying the jewel box.

Quietly the Rocket drifted along for a while, the motor running slowly and smoothly, Frank making no effort to get back to Columbia in a hurry. He was trying to lay out a plan in his own mind, and held the boat to the center of the stream while he thought it all out.

“You know,” said Frank, speaking to Lanky more than to the other two boys, “those two fellows in the boat that night were the same two who were with Cunningham that same day when he tried to run us down.”

“Sure,” agreed Wallace instantly.

“Next, you remember they dropped a large box of some kind off the Speedaway when I swerved and struck them aft.”

“Yes,” again agreed Lanky. “And it’s my impression the box they dropped off the Speedaway that day and the box we saw on the rowboat that night and the box we saw in the loft to-day are all the same box.”

“I’ve just been wondering if that is true.”

Again silence reigned on the Rocket.

Frank called for the lights, which Lanky attended to without further ado. The sun’s rays had passed out below the horizon, the day was coming to an end, and the boys were getting toward home in the beautiful hour of twilight.

The whole scene was different. Things which had appeared plain and definite during the sun’s hours were now blots and blurbs on the dancing surface of the river. Paul and Ralph and Buster saw things which were new to them.

What was the proper move to make? Frank asked himself the question time after time. Should he go back and recover the trunk or chest of silverware and also the metal box of jewels and restore them to the widow from whom they had been stolen?

Frank knew that he and his four friends in this boat, without any help, could very easily return to the Marmette place an hour or two later, quietly recover both the large chest and the smaller box, and he believed they could get away without being discovered.

But, if this was done, what would be the result?

Simply that he and Lanky, already accused of knowing something of the robbery, would still stand accused by those whose minds had become poisoned. True, the goods would be returned, but the attitude of the poisoned minds would be that the boys had become fearful and had restored the stolen goods in fear of being caught with them in their possession.

On the other hand, if some plan were worked out by which the actual thieves could be caught removing the stolen goods or dividing their booty among themselves, two very necessary ends would be achieved: First, their own skirts would be shown to be clean of the robbery; second, the thieves would be removed from further contaminating contact with society.

Certainly, the locating of the thieves was the way to proceed. But how do it?

Could they expect help from the police department?

Were they to carry their news to Chief Berry would that dignitary of the law send out his officers in an effort to find the men, or would they merely uncover and bring in the booty without locating the thieves, thus leaving Frank and Lanky in a rather anomalous position?

The distant lights of the town were coming into sight as the Rocket made the last bend in the river when Lanky finally broke the silence which had fallen upon the lads.

“What shall we do, Frank? Shall we go to the chief or shall we follow this thing out ourselves?”

Frank was not surprised at the question, realizing that Lanky had probably spent the many minutes of silence in going over the same questions which had kept his own mind busy.

“It seems the only thing we can do, Lanky. If we keep this knowledge to ourselves we are apt, in some unforeseen manner, to find ourselves in a tight box.”

“I had thought of that, too,” replied the long lad. “If some one else discovers anything, or if something slips, we’ll be in for trouble.”

“Absolutely!” Frank rehearsed the chance for trouble. “For instance, it is plain as can be that since we know where that silver is, it is our duty to see that, so soon as possible, it is returned to the rightful owner. If, through any fear on our part that we may not get right and just treatment, we permit the thieves to get away with it, we are accessories after the fact, aren’t we?”

The other boys nodded their assent to this statement.

“This very evening we could have retrieved every piece of the silver, and I haven’t the slightest doubt we could also have gotten that box of jewels. Why didn’t we?”

No one replied; they waited for Frank to reply to his own question.

“Simply because we were selfish, thoughtful only of our own reputations. That’s rough, but it’s true, isn’t it?”

“But if we don’t think of our own reputations when our motives are impugned, who is going to help us?” Lanky came fighting back to the aid of themselves and their first ideas.

“Quite so, Lanky,” Frank replied slowly, as they drew nearer and nearer to Columbia. “But the facts are just as I have stated. Now, if they be true, what is our best move? Isn’t it to report to the chief of Police?”

The boys felt that there was nothing but to admit it was the straightforward thing to do—leaving their reputations in the hands of the chief or of the public when the story should be told.

It being agreed among them, no other course suggesting itself to any of them, they fell silent while the Rocket headed straight for its boat-house on the Harrapin.

“Well,” said Paul, “I’ve enjoyed the day immensely, and we’ve learned more than we expected to when we started. Now, as to the outcome.”

“I feel that things will come out all right in the end,” Frank replied serenely. “There is a path that we must follow—the rules of right living demand that—and we shall merely follow that path. It runs straight, to say the least.”

The Rocket ran slowly, easily, quietly into the boat-house, and everything was made ready for the night. It was already well past dark, and along the river front all was still.

The door at the river side was closed and locked, the ignition locked, and the key placed where the boys could find it, the battery switch thrown safely off, and the day was done in so far as the motor boat was concerned.

“Now, it’s up to the chief’s office for us, and if he isn’t there we’ll have to find him.”

They stopped at the first drug store to quench their thirst with soda-water, and from there proceeded in the direction of the police headquarters.

Stopping along the street to pass remarks with other boys of their acquaintance, answering questions about the speed of the Rocket, they found themselves a few blocks nearer to the large brick structure without having attracted any undue attention.

This, though unplanned, was the best way to proceed.

Buster Billings met his father on the way and was asked to look after a family matter of extreme importance. Buster could not have refused, even if he had wished to, so after promises on the part of the other boys to tell him everything that passed in police headquarters and with assurances that his name would be given to the chief as knowing something of the matter, he said good-bye and went on his way.

Finally, when the others reached the police department, Frank led the way in. He saw Chief Berry sitting in his office, his feet comfortably cocked up on his desk.

Just then one of the attendants at the hospital came rushing up, touched Frank on the shoulder and whispered:

“Come to the hospital quickly. The doctor wants you.”

Before Frank could ask questions, before he could get any information, the attendant was gone.

Frank turned and dashed for the hospital at full speed, all of the other boys right behind him.

Not waiting to reach the gate, Frank vaulted the fence and raced for the building. Just inside stood the doctor.

“Frank!” he cried, “They just told me you were here. You’ve got to act quickly. Your father’s weaker, suddenly, and there’s only one thing I know to be done. The drug we need for his heart is not in town nor at Bellport, and we’ve only one chance to get it—a druggist at Coville has it. I’ve just telephoned. Can you make it there in your boat—is it fast enough—can it be trusted to come back at once? It’s life or death. You’ve got to get to Coville and back with the utmost speed!”

Frank stood dazed for a moment.

“Tell the druggist I’m coming!” he cried, turning to the door.

CHAPTER XIII

RACING FOR A LIFE

Fate had taken a hand in affairs. Frank Allen, one of the most loving and obedient of sons, had grown up to his present age with a fine respect and a high regard for his father. He was now stricken by this news from the lips of the doctor.

“It’s life or death!” resounded in his ears as he turned to run out of the hospital.

Paul, Ralph and Lanky had overheard the words of the doctor—and could not misunderstand. But, as is always the case, the news came to their ears with an entirely different meaning. Though they regarded Frank highly, though they loved him, though there was little they would not do for him and with him as their guide, the words meant not so much to them as they meant to their sturdy, aggressive leader.

“It’s life or death!”

The words were thundered at him by an inner consciousness, literally throbbing in his mind.

“Frank, can we go with you? We are going. Tell us what to do and we’ll do it!” From Lanky came the words, quiet, meaningful, the words of a friend ready to help in a crisis.

“The quickest possible way to Coville is by river. It’s our only way now,” muttered Frank. He was still in a daze at the news which had been given to him by the doctor.

“You come along slowly. Don’t run. Take your time. I’ll have the Rocket ready!” and Lanky turned on his heel and made a dash out of the door of the silent hospital while the others stood in a small group near the door.

The words of Lanky Wallace galvanized all of them into action. He had thought of the thing to do—prepare the Rocket for the trip, and he alone had started toward the river to attend to the duty of getting the boat out of the house.

Just as the other boys started for the door a girlish figure came in—Minnie Cuthbert.

“Oh, Frank!” she exclaimed as she reached out her hand to his. “I’m so sorry to hear the news. Is there anything I can do? Please tell me—anything!”

“The doctor says there’s only one thing to be done—to get a drug which the druggists around here don’t seem to have. A Coville druggist has it, so he told me. The quickest way to get it is to drive the Rocket down. I’m going now to get it.”

They looked fairly into each other’s eyes, this girl whose attractiveness held Frank in its grip, and this one boy who had been the magnet for most of the attention of Minnie Cuthbert.

“Is there nothing I can do for you?” she asked. “If I can go with you in the motor boat, or if there is anything I can do for you while you are gone—tell me, and I’ll be more than glad to be of service.”

“There isn’t a thing you can do—now—Minnie. God and the doctor have put everything into my hands. The Rocket must make her real race to-night—for the life of dad. And mother and Helen! Oh, what will they find when they reach here! Lanky has gone ahead to get the Rocket out. I’m going now—every minute means something. The doctor says it’s life or death.”

There was the drama which is forced upon people frequently in this life. A pleasure craft, given to be a thing for joy only, trimmed and tried for its foremost activity in the ownership of Frank Allen—the race against the Speedaway—was now called into action by the Fates to race against the greatest contestant in the activities of life—Death.

Yet Frank, still not quite out of the realm of dreams, still suffering the rude shock of the news which the doctor had given to him, comprehended mentally something of the awful tragedy which he faced or which faced him, but the body was unwilling to act in unison with the demands of the moment.

It is not a simple thing to be told, without warning of any kind, to be told with words that come as scathingly and as relentlessly as a bolt of lightning from a stormless sky, that one’s father, beloved, is lying at death’s door and that one’s own action is the only possible thing which might save him to the contact of the worldly things.

He stepped quickly, lightly, to the front door, screened and swinging half open in the breeze which was blowing in from the river, and followed the two boys who had gone out to the broad veranda ahead of him.

“There isn’t a minute to spare!” he said, his cap thrown to his head. “It’s life or death!”

The three boys fairly raced for the foot of the avenue, Frank knew that good old Lanky was probably even now swinging open the doors and loosening the fastenings of the Rocket, ready for the race.

“Hey! Hey!” came a cry from the crossing of Fourth Street as the boys tore at full speed to the river.

“Frank! Frank Allen!” came the cry.

All three of the boys halted almost instantly, for the loud cry came from one who seemed to call for a purpose.

It was Chief Berry, hurrying around the corner. He beckoned to Frank.

“Frank, it is my very sad duty to say to you that you must come to my office at once. I want you to explain something which has just been brought to my attention.”

“I can’t! I’ve got to go to Coville. My father is dying, and the doctor just told me that I must get to Coville for a medicine which is necessary to save him.”

“I cannot help it—you’ve got to come to my office!” sternly announced the officer of the law.

Frank was unmindful, however, of anything that any one might tell him, of any obstacles which might be placed in his way. There was only one goal, only one activity. Dominated only by the one thought, he turned and started away.

“Wait a minute, young man!” exclaimed the officer of the law. “I say you must come to my office with me at once.”

“And I told you that I must go to Coville. Now, I’m going to Coville. Whatever you have to ask me or say to me can wait!” Again Frank started.

“I’ll place you under arrest!”

“Listen!” Frank Allen turned and faced the chief of police. “Don’t say anything like that to me when I’m in trouble, or, Chief Berry, I’ll forget myself and I’ll forget your position. I’ll smash your face if you make a move to stop me.”

Frank Allen, determined, knowing only one duty in the whole world, and the chief of police, knowing only that he was trying to stop a boy whom he had always known as an upstanding, honest, honorable one on hearsay evidence which had come to him late that afternoon, faced each other for only one minute, and then, like the flash of a bullet, Frank Allen left the corner and was gone.

Racing to the boat-house, putting every ounce of his strength into the legs which carried him to the Rocket for his race down the Harrapin River and back again, Frank’s mind was not in any way crowded with thoughts of the chief of police.

It was only after he leaped aboard the Rocket which, as he reached the boat-house, was being pushed out of the little place by Lanky Wallace, that he gave any thought to the words of the officer of the law.

The other two boys had overheard all that passed, and only Paul, of the two, was anxious. Ralph West was dumbly, silently, unthinkingly, following Frank, without heed to any one or anything else.

The Rocket moved out to the river, was met by the current and her nose turned downstream, while Lanky threw the flywheel around with a spin, and they were off.

Frank turned the searchlight full on the stream, seeking for anything which might interpose itself as an obstacle, but the river was clear. Stars peeped out overhead, and a new moon shyly looked down.

Though the words of the chief of police puzzled Frank, though he thought he recognized in them a threat, there was something far more important for him to do—his father lay at the point of death back there in the hospital, the only drug the doctor knew which would save him was down the river at Coville, and nothing could get that drug back in time to save this precious life but the Rocket and himself.

Picking his way carefully downstream for half a mile, getting out of the zone where trouble might rise, he found himself very shortly pushing the Rocket faster and faster, her nose well up out of water, the steady noise of the muffled exhaust telling him that all was going well. The breeze, to help him along his way, was at his back.

Paul and Ralph lay prone on their stomachs as far forward as they dared to go, while Lanky Wallace kept his place at the side of the cockpit where he could hear any word that Frank might utter.

Faster and faster went the Rocket. The speed was far beyond any expectation of Frank’s, the air rushing past his face causing his eyes to squint until they were almost closed, his hand now and then directing the searchlight to keep the path ahead well lighted.

Miles slipped from under them in the night, and Frank, no other thought in mind save the goal at Coville as quickly as it could be made, urged the Rocket on its way, having every foot of speed the engine could give.

No word passed between the boys. The two forward gasped now and then as a rush of air suddenly shot down their open mouths.

Ahead of them loomed a broad raft of logs, and Paul turned his head involuntarily to signal or to call to Frank.

But the searchlight had picked it up and Frank held the Rocket far enough over to make around one end of the raft without lessing speed.

Was there any chance that the doctor may have failed, in the excitement at the hospital, in his own sincere and earnest solicitation over the condition of Mr. Allen—was there any chance that he might have forgotten to telephone to Coville so that the man might have the drug ready?

Could he make it down there and then, returning against the strong current of the Harrapin River and the wind as well, be back in Columbia in time to save his father?

Would this race be a futile one? Was the fast-moving specter of Death to win this contest?

Frank thought of all the kind things his father had said and done, of the counsel his father had given to him. He thought too of his mother and Helen rushing on toward Columbia, now nearly there, and of what they would have to face if he, Frank, did not get the drug back in time.

He was facing the greatest strain he had ever faced—racing his motor boat in an effort to save the life of his father—himself, the son, trusted with the one mission which meant so much to the family, the life of his father!

Frank’s involuntary effort was to push on the wheel, to urge, to force the Rocket to increased speed, to make it fly. What was there that could be done to give her greater speed? Surely, this was not all he could get from this boat!

He leaned over to see that everything exterior was functioning properly.

Out of the darkness to one side came the shrill sound of a tug’s whistle, and Frank threw the searchlight over to find it. It was dead ahead, whistling the passing signal, which Frank returned at once.

“Wow! Where are ye goin’ in such a hurry?” came a yell from aft of the tug as the Rocket shot by only two boat-lengths away, at the same time striking into the wash from the tug and casting spray in goodly amounts over the two boys forward.

Paul and Ralph released their holds to wipe the spray from their eyes.

Just at this moment something came up the river from the port side, long and slim, running directly across the path of the Rocket!

The searchlight was shooting a little high, and its rays were cast upward instead of along the surface of the river.

There was no time to throw it into place. The spray and the rocking of the motor boat in the wash of the tug had decreased their ability to see clearly for just a few seconds. They were almost upon this obstacle, whatever it was.

Frank saw two ends of it—recognized they were running squarely into the midships of a launch which was crossing their path slowly!

Action was demanded! Something must be done! This thing would be cut in two! Their own boat would be injured! They might lose in this race for a life!

Frank threw the Rocket’s nose far over, the rudder acted instantly, the Rocket careened, and Paul Bird went tumbling into the river.

CHAPTER XIV

WILL THE RACE BE LOST?

Ralph West hung to the tie-hook at the bow with all his might and main, and succeeded in staying on the Rocket.

Cries went up from the thing in front, which was a motor boat with several men aboard, while Lanky Wallace yelled as loudly as he could to attract Frank’s attention to the fact that Paul Bird had gone over.

But Frank needed no cry, nor warning, to tell him what had happened. As he threw the Rocket so far over to evade a collision with the other boat—and succeeded, missing the other craft by the width of a hair, he saw Paul thrown by centrifugal force into the water.

Frank knew that Paul could swim. But—was it possible that Paul had been thrown with enough force to cast him against the other boat, or might the other boat hit him in the water and thus bring unconsciousness to him?

There was no time to look around. No time to go into reverse, for he would first have to check speed forward. No time to throw a lifeline or a belt. It was swifter, surer action that was demanded at this moment.

All the alertness, the ability to think quickly and to think surely, the mental strength of Frank Allen, this boy who had been through just as tight places on the field and the track, who had several times before thought himself out of a hole, came to his aid now.

Holding the wheel hard over, Frank sent the Rocket on a complete circle, and within a radius of about one hundred yards he brought the boat back again toward the downstream, but above the point where the collision had so nearly taken place.

During this narrow circle, with centrifugal force tending to cast Ralph West off the bow of the Rocket, Lanky Wallace was holding tight to the gunwale, stooping low in an effort to keep his center of gravity close to the boat.

As the Rocket now faced downstream again, Frank cut off the speed, and reached for the searchlight. But the plug had fallen out in the trip around, and no light was cast forward!

“Paul! Paul! Are you all right?” yelled Frank as soon as he realized that his chance of seeing the boy was gone.

“Here!” came a voice from the water, and Frank got the propeller into reverse, churning the Harrapin into a wild foam in order not to go past the point and also in order that he might not run down his friend.

Suddenly a hand shot up out of the water, and Lanky grabbed quickly to give the boy help. In another minute a very wet Paul Bird came into the boat from the waters of the Harrapin River.

“Wow! Some wetting!” he gasped.

In the meanwhile the other boat had gone its way quietly, or it seemed quietly, for no sound had come from it after the cry that preceded the sudden swerve of the Rocket which averted the collision.

There was no chance to continue down the river without lights, and Frank called to Lanky to hold the wheel while he made the repair.

However, Lanky Wallace was not to be denied that single thing which he could do, for it had become his part of the operation of the Rocket to see that the lights were in order.

Instead of obeying Frank and taking hold of the wheel, Lanky, knowing what had happened, or surmising it as well as Frank, groped his way to the searchlight and felt around for the loose wire. He found it in a moment, felt along the fallen wire until he found the plug, and slipped it back into the socket of the swinging search. It almost seemed that they heard the swish of the light when the connection was made and the beam suddenly shot out and lighted the Harrapin in a bright glare.

“Where is that other boat?” asked Lanky Wallace, looking around and moving the light to and fro over the river. But no motor boat was in sight. Advantage had been taken, if there was any advantage wanted by the occupants thereof, and it had disappeared.

“Paul, throw on that rubber coat that’s in the locker aft,” Frank said to his friend. “I’m as sorry as can be that we gave you that ducking, but it couldn’t be helped. I had to dodge those fellows, whoever they were. Wonder why they didn’t stop to help—surely they knew that some one had gone overboard.”

“I’ll be all right in a little while,” answered Paul. “I’ll get into this slicker. Keep her going, Frank. Let’s see if we can’t miss everything between here and Coville.”

He said it with a hearty laughing sound in his voice that brought about a feeling of cheeriness to the others, who had become nervous as a result of the double incident.

Frank put the propeller into gear again with the engine, and the Rocket answered as the steady muffled sound of the exhaust told them the engine ran smoothly and was ready to do its part of this arduous night’s duties.

As the Rocket regained its speed, Frank carefully wiped the surface of the river clean with the bright beams of the electric light, and, seeing nothing as they proceeded, he allowed the speed to increase until, within a few minutes, they were again rushing headlong down the Harrapin.

“Hope that delay won’t cost too much,” breathed Frank through gritted teeth as he firmly grasped the wheel and held the Rocket down the center of the river.

Paul and Ralph were no longer lying forward on their stomachs, trying to see things first. Instead, they were both seated firmly aft of the cockpit, each holding a rope so that no more such accidents should happen.

Paul’s teeth chattered for a while, as the wind struck against him, but the slicker soon had him warmed, in prisoning the heat of his body, and though the clothes were soaked thoroughly, he was suffering no inconvenience.

Frank’s eyes were even more watchful of the river than they had been before, and his grip on the wheel was firmer, every muscle tensed, ready for action.

A log or two came swinging into sight, floating, but as they were moving downstream with the steadily flowing current with the narrower part toward the boat, he was easily able to evade them, though each of them brought a slight twinge of nervousness.

“How long have we been coming? How far are we?” asked Lanky.

“It’s quite a distance yet to Coville,” muttered Frank, speaking slowly. “We ought to make it pretty soon, but it’s going to take speed to get us there and back again, I’m afraid. I only wish there had been some quicker way to get to that drugstore than this. And, the worst of it is, that we have to go back yet, and we’ll be going against the current.”

“Don’t let that worry you, Frank,” replied Lanky reassuringly. “The Rocket’s showing what’s in her. We’ll get back in nothing flat.”

It was quite true that the Rocket was showing what was in her, for the bow stood far out of the water now, with the load well aft, and the wash of the river showed behind them that they were cutting a slight, though rapid, furrow through the water.

Time brings about a healing influence, and time also brings about a lack of watchfulness. Just so it was this night.

As the conversation between the boys went on, not spiritedly, but continuous nevertheless, Frank’s grip on the wheel was relaxed, though his eyes seemed never to leave the river ahead.

They came to a hairpin bend in the stream, one which was famous as a place for picnics on the point which jutted into the Harrapin. The searchlight, fixed ahead, swung around as Frank negotiated, or started to negotiate, the bend which he had never met before while in command of a craft.

Like a huge mountain there suddenly loomed from out of the darkness a great bulk which blocked their path!

“Look out!” yelled Lanky, as the thing came into sight.

But Frank had seen it, had seen the lights on either side, had seen the tremendous bulk of the thing which looked down upon them frowningly.

Again the call came to the relaxed muscles to act. Again the mind of wearied Frank Allen awoke to the necessity for dodging the danger which impended. Again Frank’s alertness was to the fore.

This time Lanky was ready to help, and a willing and sure hand he gave as he swung his long body low to the deck of the Rocket, and braced against Frank who stood behind the wheel, turning it as hard as possible, while his foot reached down to cut off the speed of the engine.

An old-time barge, its broad, straight-front nose high out of the water, was floating easily along upstream, with a tugboat at its side, the steady puff-puff of the tug plainly heard as the rush of the wind died down.

This time there was some co-operation, however, from those on the other craft. They had seen the flashlight ahead of them in the bend, and the helmsman of the tug had been wondering what it was. He had been alert to any danger.

There was a clanging and clinking of bells, and then the sudden swish of the water as the towboat’s rudder went into reverse and the engineer tried hard to slow the pace of the great load which was hitched alongside.

The Rocket’s propeller was again in reverse, for the second time within a very short while, and the motor boat came against the side of the towboat, where great manila ropes stood outward from the gunwales, and slid with a bump to the midships of the tug.

“Hi, there!” called a heavy voice from the wheel-room of the tug. “What’s down there? Why not a signal?”

“Beg your pardon, captain,” called back Frank. “I didn’t see you soon enough. I thought the river was clear and did not slow down much to make this bend.”

“Go easy, boy,” answered the man at the wheel of the tug, as half a dozen faces showed up in the dim lights here and there on the sturdy craft. “Always take that bend same as you would in an auto. Can’t always tell about these roads.”

There was a heartiness about the voice that was reassuring to the boys on the Rocket’s deck—the heartiness that is so often met among sea-faring men.

The boys jollied and talked with the man aboard the tug for a few minutes, long enough to be courteous, and thanked the skipper for his work in holding back the speed of the huge bulk until they could get control of their own craft.

Then Frank got the Rocket under way again, and was soon well past the obstacle, past the hairpin bend of the river, and headed downstream again toward Coville.

“There it is!” Paul Bird, his spirits still high notwithstanding his ducking in the river, was the first to sight the far-off lights of the town to which they were going.

All the boys looked through the darkness, past the strong beam of the searchlight as it tried to find everything on the surface of the water, and saw the flickering lights of the town.

“But I can’t understand,” Frank was still thinking of the incident, “what became of that motor boat back there and why it disappeared right at the moment when most folks would have stopped to help.”

“Guess they were like a whole lot of folks on the roads,” replied Lanky Wallace. “You see lots of them in cars who won’t stop to give a fellow a helping hand when they see he’s in trouble.”

Fifteen minutes more of steady running of the Rocket brought them to the landing place at Coville, and there, standing under an electric light, was a man waving to them to come to him.

It was the druggist with the package for the doctor at the hospital in Columbia.

“Doc told me to meet you boys down here at the wharf—and here is the package. Keep your motor running and turn her upstream right away. And here’s another package I brought. It’s a lot of cold drinks for you and a sandwich for each one. You’ll need them, boys.”

“That’s mighty good of you.” Frank felt very grateful to the man for his kindness. “Send the bill up to the doctor and it’ll be paid right away. Thank you ever so much.”

Lanky reached out for the packages as the Rocket ran in close to the wharf, running alongside, Frank holding a foot off so that they might slip easily by and start back up the Harrapin with the least possible loss of time. Minutes were counting now. Frank realized it, and feared it as well.

“Gee, that was good of him,” Paul was munching on one of the sandwiches, the Rocket back in the middle of the river, the engine humming at full speed, and the bow of the motor craft holding high out of the water as it moved rapidly forward.

Mile after mile slipped from under them, Frank’s grip on the wheel sure and steady, while Paul and Ralph lay back and went to sleep. Lanky, though, was alert to every movement of the boat.

“Here’s where we passed that boat, about,” he muttered to Frank, when it seemed that many, many hours had passed.

Just then the motor spit, puffed, throbbed, popped at the exhaust, and came to a dead stop. Something had gone wrong. Frank recognized that series of noises of a gasoline engine. It could be nothing else. Out on the Harrapin, miles away from home, fighting their way back to Columbia as hard as they could, they were out of gasoline!

CHAPTER XV

SCHEMING VOICES IN THE NIGHT

“What’s the matter?” asked Lanky, who, though he had been much with Frank, failed to recognize the kind of trouble, but merely knew that they were in trouble when they could least afford it.

“Out of gas!” muttered Frank, though his reply was mechanical. He was already thinking hard as to what they should do.

“Out of gas?” echoed the tall youth. “Oh, Frank, are you sure?”

“Certainly am,” was the laconic reply. “See for yourself, if you don’t believe it. Gee, but it’s rotten luck, just at a time like this!” and Frank gritted his teeth and heaved a long sigh.

The momentum of the Rocket at the time the engine stopped, when Frank quickly threw it out of gear, was great enough to carry it quite a distance against the stream’s current.

“Wasn’t that an island over there?” came the question from Frank as he recalled what had been said by Lanky only a few moments before. “Here, Lanky, grab the oar and paddle awhile, and I’ll turn toward that island and drift back. The current will take us down stream, and we ought to land at the island, provided I can get far enough over to that side.”

Already Frank was turning the Rocket to the opposite side, trying to get in line with the island, above it, so that he might drift back to the boat landings which he remembered were on the upstream side, for this place had for a long time been a summer resort island.

Lanky grasped the oar, as he had been bidden, and began using it to good effect, aiding the Rocket to make through the current as it began to turn down the river. The trick was to hold it upstream as much as possible while Frank maneuvered at the wheel to get across.

He reached for the searchlight, turned it toward the island, the long beam of light seeking here and there to find the landing. Then, suddenly, it went out!

Lanky Wallace quickly pulled the oar from the water and started to fix the searchlight, when Frank called to him to stop, asking him to keep on paddling instead, as this was much more necessary than that the light should be fixed.

Ahead of him, since his eyes had become somewhat accustomed to the night-lights of the river, though darkness was prevailing, he could see the trees of the island and knew that a little more time would bring to his eyes the bulk of the landing.

The other boys, Paul and Ralph, were not conscious of any trouble, sleeping soundly on the small after deck.

It was a long guess on Frank’s part, yet, when analyzed, it was the only sensible thing to do, this attempt to land on the island. If there were other boats tied there, and it was altogether probable there would be, it should not be very difficult for them to obtain an amount of gasoline sufficient to take them back to Columbia. And, whether this should prove true or no, the landing at the island instead of drifting aimlessly down the stream would be by all odds the wisest thing to do.

In a few minutes, sent more and more rapidly down the stream, Frank saw through the darkness, or what might be described as a night half-light, the landings at the island. As he drew closer he was able to make out the blurred outlines of other boats tied there, rocking slowly to and fro with the lapping of the passing current.

Now came the problem in Frank’s mind of making a landing safely without bumping into other boats or without putting the Rocket against the landing with too much force, nose first.

“Lanky! Quick! Get forward with your oar. No! Take the oar!” for Lanky had started to lay it aside in obeying the sudden command. “Hold it out in front and reach the landing. Then hold us back from hitting too hard!”

Lanky did as he was told and his long arms and body reached forward of the bow, with the oar held as far in front of him as was possible, until he touched the landing with its blade. All his muscles froze tight as he felt the rush of the Rocket toward the landing. For a second it seemed he would be swept back, but he held tensely to his position. The strength of the lad’s arms was great enough, and success came of the trial. The Rocket’s speed slowed down.

Bump! It was only slight, not enough to do damage to the bow of the boat, but it awoke the sleeping Paul and Ralph.

“What’s the matter?” cried Paul, rubbing his eyes and tried to locate himself. “Are we back in town?”

“No, just at the island where we had that accident. Out of gas and trying to find some,” muttered Lanky Wallace.

Frank’s imaginings now were of the worst, though he tried to keep a stiff upper lip, and did so, thinking hard as to the best course to take. How long would they be in their quest for gas? What would this loss of time mean in the race for a life that he was making? Would his father, fighting for his life back at the Columbia hospital, be strong enough to hold out until he could get back with the heart stimulant? Would the doctor fight for all he was worth while waiting for him, and would he succeed in staying the fatal moment until he could arrive to give his father one more chance at life?

All four of the boys stepped to the landing, Lanky taking the end of the rope to make it fast to the tie-stake.

“What’s the first move? Where do we find gas?” Paul asked.

“Let’s look around and see what we’ll do,” slowly said Frank. “I think the best thing is for you two fellows,” indicating Paul and Ralph, “to remain here and watch the boat. Lanky and I will scout around to find some gas. We’ve got to do it quickly, too.”

“Tell you, Frank!” Lanky was spurred into action. “Let’s hunt in these boats and see what we can find. You go one way and I’ll go the other. If you find it, whistle, and I’ll do the same.”

“Yes,” drawled Frank, thinking the while. “Look, Lanky. If you find a can of gas in one of the boats, or any way to get some, try to leave the owner a note telling him who we are so that we shan’t be stealing. Hear? Got a pencil and paper? Write the owner a note and tell where he can find us.”

Lanky Wallace started in one direction along the boat landing and Frank in the other.

As Frank came to the first of the several boats which were tied there, he looked through the gloom to see if there might be a can of gasoline aboard, carried as an extra for the sake of precaution.

The first boat was not so provided, nor was the second, and he wondered if Lanky were having the same sort of luck along his part of the wharf.

“But,” thought Frank, “its the law of averages, as the salesmen all say. That means that if we look into enough boats, provided there are enough boats tied up there, we’ll find a can of gas, or maybe a gas-tank filled that we can get at.”

He had looked in three boats and had come to the end of the string. Through the darkness he tried to discern more of them tied to the landing. Stooping low, in order to peer on a level with the wharf, and aiming his gaze out over the water, he tried hard to see at least one more boat.

Faintly, hazily through the gloom, he thought he saw one other craft moving up and down on the stream, with its nose to the landing.

“That’s the law of averages,” he smiled to himself at his own humor. But, deep down in Frank’s heart was a feeling akin to despair, though it could not be called that properly. He was not despairing, but hope was having a struggle to reach out far enough to grasp at the very small straws which were floating his way.

Picking his way along the wharf, which was of oddly laid planks, trying to hurry yet fearing to trip if he should run, Frank went toward the one remaining craft which he could see more plainly now, though there were trees growing at that spot, their great branches hanging out over the wharf.

Suddenly a great hole yawned in front of him! Planks had been removed from the wharf, or had rotted out. It was too wide to leap, and one of the big trees leaned out, its branches like ghost-arms, to grasp at him.

Turning carefully, picking his steps, he stepped from the wharf to the sandy shore behind, and started around the big tree trunk. He was in the midst of half a dozen of them, forming a shady retreat at this point of the island.

Pitchy darkness prevailed. Frank realized that the gnarled roots of the great old trees were sticking up from the ground like giant knees peeping from a sandpile, and he picked his way carefully.

At the farther end of this little grove of trees a match suddenly flared, lighting a limited area, and the man holding the match lifted it to his cigar and carefully lighted it, the yellow glow of the light reflected on the man’s face by the cup of his hands.

Frank Allen stopped. Three men were there, he felt quite certain, though the others were but shadows dimly limned by the match’s glow.

This was a queer hour of the night for three men to be standing at such a place, evidently talking together in low tones, for he had heard no sound of voices as he came. And it was quite evident they had not heard him.

Yet, he thought, if this were not a queer time of night for him to be groping around on this island, why should he be sitting in judgment and assume that this was a queer time for these men to be abroad? It was possible that they belonged on the island, residents during the summer.

Whether to step forward to ask them for help was the question. He decided this was the best action to take, and certainly he stood a far better chance of getting the gasoline.

Thereupon he groped forward, still picking his steps, and in being so careful of his own safety, he was, quite naturally, quiet in his action.

The three men had become two. One of them had disappeared as another match lighted up the little area only a few yards away.

“Yes, I mean Jed Marmette.” Frank’s keen ears caught the words. He stopped instantly, all his senses even more alert as this name came to him.

Forgotten for the moment was all thought of his errand, his quest for the necessary gasoline to get him back to Columbia.

Not that he was forgetful of the duty owing to his father, of the necessity for getting the stimulant back to the doctor at the hospital. But, his mind having been filled with the things which he had learned on the farm of Jed Marmette, is it at all out of the ordinary for him to have hesitated and to have lost this time in seeking to learn why that name was spoken here, in this lonely spot, at this unseemly hour of the night?

Moreover, was it to be expected that he would now be able to get any help from these people? For if they were using this name, it was almost certain they had something to do with the stolen goods that were in that barn loft.

The next sentence he could not hear, spoken so quietly as it was—and he moved, stealthily, every nerve keenly applied to getting closer unseen and unheard.

“If we get there to-night and load it all in suitcases we can make a getaway before any one is the wiser,” said one of the voices.

A grunt was the only response, and the two stood there smoking in perfect silence while Frank Allen’s ears were turned to catch every sound.

What had become of the third one of the party? And, if they were going to the Marmette place (provided that was where they were talking about going) why were they waiting here?

But that question was very soon answered. It seemed, and Frank often thought of it afterward, that all the Fates combined at this eerie hour of night to help him.

“If the kid would only hurry and get his bags we could get away from here. If I knew how to run that blamed boat I’d start her off right now,” said one of the shadows.

“Oh, well, what’s the use of getting impatient. We’ve loafed along for a while now, things have died down, we’ve got the police guessing, the stuff is safe, and we’ll soon be on our way,” the other shadow replied.

With this there came the flare of a match as one of them lighted still another cigarette. Frank started violently as the glow became bright, fearing lest he be discovered, and held his breath in fear that they might hear.

“It is a good thing we’ve got a can of gasoline on board. That was a wise idea, getting an extra five gallons. We can get a long distance away before daybreak, and then take a train. I wonder what’s keeping him so long.” One of them was still very impatient to be on the way.

A five-gallon can of gasoline aboard that boat!

The thought struck Frank fairly in the middle of the brain, and he wondered whether it might be possible to get it.

Just then the Fates stepped in.

“Let’s walk along and see if we can help,” one of the men suggested.

With this the two walked quietly away from Frank toward the center of the island.

Their boat was the one he had seen. It was tied to the wharf near by and it had a five-gallon can of gasoline on board, waiting for him to help himself?

CHAPTER XVI

RACING BACK TO HIS FATHER

In Frank’s mind there was no idea of theft. Just as he asked Lanky Wallace to do, he now did.

When these two men had calmly and slowly sauntered away from the trees, Frank stole silently to the boat and climbed aboard.

Here to his hand was a five-gallon can of gasoline waiting for proper use. And he knew the best use to which it could be put! For a moment he hesitated. Then, digging deep into one pocket he pulled out a pencil and a scrap of paper, writing thereon the name and address of a gasoline man in Columbia and saying that he had taken a five-gallon can of gasoline, to be charged to F. A. He was not going to give his own name to these unknown ones.

In what might have been another minute he was on the wharf with the can and had made his way stumblingly through the little grove of trees, over the gnarled knees and rough spots of the ground, breaking out again on the wharf at the point where the planks had been removed or had rotted away.

Just then came a shrill whistle! Through the silent night-atmosphere it had a ghostly sound, but he knew what it meant—Lanky Wallace had found a store of gas!

Frank knew also that both of them, chums, were making their separate ways back to the boat, each with the needed fuel.

There was on Frank Allen’s face a smile as he stooped once again and grabbed up the can which he had filched from the thieves who had broken into the Parsons’ house.

Not resting a single time, he made his way back to the Rocket, moving swiftly, surely, as he recalled every step of the way along the wharf.

Back at the Rocket he found Paul Bird and Ralph West, each on the qui vive, for they had heard the whistle of one of the boys, not being sure which it was, but knowing that a can of gasoline had been found or a cache of some kind was there for their taking.

These two boys, loyal to the last ditch, had conversed in low tones over the plight in which they found themselves, each anxious to know what the two leaders were doing, but knowing that if help of any kind were to be found on that part of the island, one of these two boys would find it.

“Got a can of gas!” he muttered, an optimistic tone in his voice as Frank told the news to the waiting boys.

“Did you whistle?” asked Paul.

“No. That must have been Lanky. He’ll be along in a minute with another,” replied Frank.

At that moment out of the gloom came the long, lean body of the lad, lugging at his side a can of gas, the same size as Frank’s!

When Frank saw Lanky and Lanky saw Frank they each fell to chuckling. But Frank had the better of it.

They hurried in their efforts and poured both cans into the gas tank aboard the Rocket—Lanky’s much-rehearsed duty of pushing off from land or wharf then became necessary, and the Rocket moved out from the landing at the island.

But all four of the lads heard the sudden explosions of a motor from the distance, along the wharf, and they knew that a boat at the farther end of the landing-wharf was moving quickly out into the stream of the Harrapin.

Frank alone knew that a race was on between the two craft. One of them had to win!

“What is that boat?” asked Paul Bird.

“Those are the fellows who loaned me one of the cans of gasoline, only they don’t know yet that they loaned it to me,” laughed Frank Allen grimly.

“How about fixing our searchlight before we get going?” asked Lanky. “We’ll need it to make any speed.”

“Let’s save every minute we can, Lanky,” replied Frank. “You work on the searchlight and I’ll get her out and start upstream as fast as we can without the light.”

Suiting the action to the word, Frank turned the Rocket as he backed away from the landing, and soon was headed up the Harrapin.

It was slow work, while Lanky and Paul worked on the connections at the light.

As yet Frank had had no time to tell the other boys what he had overheard, and reserved the telling of it now until they had finished the work which was necessary to be done. Frank realized as he swung the Rocket into the stream that he would have to use the light before he could go very fast. But, at any rate, they were saving a little time.

The Rocket had gone about a mile up the river when Lanky found the connection which was loose, and, having made it tight, switched on the search.

Immediately Frank gave the Rocket the full speed of the engine. The fast little craft almost moved out from under the boys as it leaped forward under the suddenly applied power, the propeller churning up the water furiously.

Ahead of them, its beams darting here and there, jumping about the river to pick up anything which might do them injury or which might hold them back, the searchlight played under the guiding hand of Lanky Wallace.

“Fellows,” said Frank, “if you’ll stand close so that I can keep my eyes on the river, I’ll tell you something that I just learned.”

Instantly the three boys were alert with interest.

“That boat that just went out of the island ahead of us is on the way to Jed Marmette’s place to get that stuff up there. It’s going up to-night and they are going to make their getaway.”

Nothing that Frank might have said could have brought to all three of the boys a greater shock of surprise than this.

They started to ask questions, but he stopped them:

“Wait a minute. Don’t be so fast with the questions. I’ll tell you all about it.”

Whereupon he recited the proceedings in the little grove of giant trees, the three boys keen to hear each word, and not a question from any of them to interrupt him.

“Now, they’ve pulled out. We’ve got to beat it back just as fast as possible to get this medicine to dad, and, if the doctor says I may leave, I’m going to see the police and get up there as quickly as we can.”

“But suppose—” started Lanky.

“I’ve thought about that, too,” answered Frank, knowing what Lanky had intended when he hesitated. “In case dad is not doing so well, I’m going to ask you three fellows to go to the police, tell them the story, tell them everything I saw as well as what you saw; and then take them up on the Rocket yourselves. Lanky knows exactly where the place is, and you’ll have to depend on Lanky’s ability to run the Rocket.”

“But, Frank,” asked Paul Bird, “what boat was that at the island—the one that’s ahead of us?”

“The one from which I got the gasoline,” Frank answered, though his tone was a noncommittal one.

“Don’t you know what the boat’s name is?” Paul continued.

“It bore a mighty strong resemblance to the Speedaway,” came the low-spoken words from Frank.

“The Speedaway!” All three of the boys muttered the word at the same time.

“I said it very much resembled the Speedaway. I could not make out the name, and I didn’t stop to look closely at it. I was in a hurry to get the gasoline and I was in a hurry to get away before they returned.”

“But,” urged Paul, “that is Fred Cunningham’s boat, and you did not say you saw him!”

“I didn’t,” Frank held back from making any accusation or from saying anything which might be interpreted as an accusation. “There were only two men there when I got close, though I know there were three men when I first saw them, and I also know they were waiting for some one to join them. He must have come along just as I succeeded in getting away.”

“Wonder how well filled their gas tank is,” muttered Lanky. “If they had a full tank they could get quite a distance. The extra gas would have given them the additional chance.”

All stood in silence while Frank held the wheel of the Rocket and sent the sturdy little craft up the Harrapin at a speed that might have been a little less than the speed they had when going downstream, but they did not notice any difference.

Frank’s mind was on the question of whether there was any possibility of their catching the boat ahead of them, perhaps of passing it. Yet, thought he, the chance was very remote, inasmuch as they had gotten away a full three minutes before the Rocket. Not for a moment did he consider the idea that the Speedaway, if that were the boat, could outdistance the Rocket. Frank Allen considered that the men ahead of him were merely the same distance ahead as at the start.

“I wonder if that is the boat which crossed our path and caused Paul to go over,” remarked Ralph.

“If it is, I want to catch the fellows that are in it and duck all of them,” Paul replied.

Frank paid no heed to the two boys who now started bantering each other, all crouching low to the deck of the boat as it sped along.

“Lanky,” spoke up Frank after everything had grown quiet, “when we get to Columbia I’ll run up to the hospital, and I wish you’d get to police headquarters as quickly as you can, tell them the story of those fellows—where they are going and what we saw to-day. Tell them that the Rocket will see them through. And I wish Paul and Ralph would find some gasoline and fill up the tank.”

The boys agreed at once to this program.

“I have an idea we’re going to have a race this night after those fellows, and we’ll need plenty of gas aboard. So, be sure about it. We’re getting near town now, and I must get this package up to the hospital post haste,” Frank went on.

As they neared the landing place at Columbia Frank cut off the engine, relying on its momentum to send the Rocket to the boat-house, so that he could listen for the exhaust of the boat ahead of them.

“That’s it!” cried Lanky, as all the boys plainly heard the steady put-put of an exhaust ahead of them up the river.

“We’ve come along behind them,” Frank said quietly. “The Rocket must be a pretty speedy boat, after all.”

They warped the craft into the landing place, did not attempt to enter the boat-house, but, instead, tied at the outside. The instant they touched Frank was on the wharf and started on a dead run for the hospital. He had no idea of the time of night or early morning, whichever it might be.

The three boys now conferred in low tones as to the duties of each, and Lanky started away for police headquarters, all unmindful of the hour of night.

Frank dashed up the steps of the hospital, and there at the head of the steps leading to the second floor stood the doctor. Behind the medical man were Mrs. Allen and Frank’s sister Helen, who had reached Columbia an hour before.

“Is he all right?” gasped Frank.

“All right, Frank. We need this stimulant badly, but we’ve held him steady while you were gone. You made a quick trip.”

“I thought we would never get back here! We had trouble.”

The doctor took the package and hurried into the room where his patient lay. Frank greeted his mother and sister with a kiss and followed close behind.

The doctor made up his mixture for the hypodermic injection, and he and the nurse administered it to Mr. Allen, who lay on the cot breathing slowly, his mouth wide open as if he were trying hard to get as much air as possible. Frank’s heart went out to his father and suffered with him and for him. Would the fight be won? Would his father survive? Had the race been a winning one?

All was silent as they stood by, the doctor intently watching the patient with the practiced eyes of the man who has stood with many close to the shadow and who has seen the battle for life won and lost many times.

It seemed they stood there looking down on the man for an interminable period, when, with a smile on his kindly face, the doctor turned and laid a hand on Frank’s shoulder and grasped Mrs. Allen’s hand.

“He’s winning.” He spoke very quietly.

Tears came to Frank’s eyes, tears of sheer joy. It had been worth the while, that race to Coville! He had helped bring his father back! The doctor listened with his stethoscope, lay it down on the small table at the head of the cot, and again there appeared that sweet, kindly smile.

“You must go now, boy, and get a rest. Come back in the morning, and I’m sure we’ll find him considerably better. He’s safe now, thanks to our getting that stimulant in time,” the doctor spoke in low tones. “Run along now and get a rest.”

“Yes, go home by all means, and get a good sleep,” said Mrs. Allen.

“You’ll need it—after such a run on the river,” added Helen. Then she added impulsively: “Oh, Frank, it was grand of you to get that medicine! I’m so proud of you!”

Frank walked slowly out of the room into the hall and down the long flight of steps to the first floor.

How much better the whole world seemed! How much lighter the load on his shoulders. The doctor said his father would be better in the morning and his mother was here to lift part of the burden from his shoulders.

Reaching the front door, walking out into the night, Frank saw three people running down Main Street, and, just behind, came two more. As he darted under a street light Frank recognized the lean form of Lanky Wallace in the lead.

He had the police! They were on their way to the Rocket! Down the steps he bounded, over the fence of the hospital yard, and before they reached the boat-landing, Frank had caught up with them. Another race was on!

CHAPTER XVII

THE LOOT AND THE LOOTERS

“Is there plenty of gas?” he asked as he leaped on the deck of the Rocket, addressing himself to Paul and Ralph.

“Plenty. We got it at the gas station up the street, and had just got it when we saw you coming. How is your father?” It was Paul speaking.

“Getting along all right, the doctor says,” Frank answered with a smile of gratitude to the thoughtful boy who, even in his moment of excitement, knowing that they were now proceeding on an errand fraught with much adventure, had not forgotten the trials through which his friend had gone. “And mother and Helen have arrived and are with him,” he added.

“Good!” shouted Lanky.

In another moment, with the police chief and his men aboard, the four boys got the Rocket out into the stream, turned its nose against the current, and started away.

“Now, Allen,” the chief edged over close to the cockpit where Frank was maneuvering the boat, “can you tell me what this story is? Wallace tried to tell me about it, but I haven’t got it all in my head.”

Frank replied by telling the chief that he would be glad to tell him the story in detail just as soon as he got the Rocket around and going at a better speed.

“They’re ahead of us only so much as the time since we landed—how long has that been, fellows?” he asked the boys.

“A little more than half an hour. Time has been going slow, all right, but things have been going fast.”

Lanky had peered at his wrist watch before replying.

“That’s long enough to put them up at Jed Marmette’s place,” Frank muttered, while the bow of the Rocket stood up from the river’s surface and the muffled exhaust told them they had full speed ahead. “Keep the spotlight ahead of us, Lanky, and watch close, so I can talk to the chief. They’re just about landing there now if they haven’t had any trouble.”

Frank detailed the story of the day’s exploits. He began with the search across the Parsons’ lawn; the discovery of the place where the rowboat had been landed and which they had seen on the night of the robbery; continued with the story of their lunch under the willows where the same rowboat had in all probability hidden from them on that same night; went on through the part of having to do with the discovery of the Marmette farm, with the old rowboat tied at the bank, of the trip of Jed Marmette to the barn, of his burying a small box under the grape arbor, and of their looking into the trunk.

He told of the things which they had seen in the trunk; then of their return to town for the purpose of informing the chief of police; then of the sudden summons for a trip to Coville; ending with the race back up the river after they had learned at the island of the proposed trip of another motor boat that night to the farm of Jed Marmette for the sole purpose of getting away with the loot from the Parsons place.

“Have you any idea who the men are?” asked the chief, when Frank had finished the story.

“I haven’t the slightest, Mr. Berry. The only thing that I am guessing at is that the Speedaway is the boat that left the island to-night and went up ahead of us.”

“What about Fred Cunningham? Did you see him? Is he on the Speedaway? Surely, he is not mixed up in this thing!” and the chief of police showed his surprise.

“No, I did not see Cunningham. I don’t know who is running the boat, and I am not sure it is the Speedaway. I said I was guessing. I couldn’t see well in the dark what boat it was, but it had her lines.” Frank wished to get his position very plain and definite with the chief.

Silence prevailed for several minutes, while Frank looked far ahead along the river, trying to make short cuts so that every foot of the distance which could be would be saved. The only sound was the exhaust of the Rocket as it slipped its best along the Harrapin River.

“I am trying to picture this whole thing over again. Will you tell me why you went back to the Parsons place?”

“Sure,” Frank replied like a shot. “Lanky Wallace and I both had the same idea—that the rowboat we met on the river that night as we came home was the same rowboat that we saw in front of the Parsons place at the river bank. And both of us were puzzled about the fact that those men left in a car after Mrs. Parsons had come home in a car, yet her chauffeur had not seen the robber’s car—and everything pointing to their being in the house all the time.”

“Why didn’t you tell me these things at the hearing?” asked the chief.

“Because I wanted to tell what I knew and not what I was guessing at. Also, chief, don’t you remember that you practically accused Lanky and me of having a hand in the robbery?”

The chief did not make answer to this.

“And why did you try to have me come to your office when you saw I was in trouble? Something was the matter. Some one had put some kind of a notion into your head. Is that so?”

The chief was standing at the cockpit, saying nothing while Frank continued to pour out his thoughts.

“Those men down at the island said to-night they had the police fooled, so they’ve caused some kind of a story to get to your ears. Now, chief, there’s more to this than we think. They planned things out pretty well, and it is only an accident that we have any trail of them.”

Frank continued to talk at and to the chief while he kept an eye on the river, covered as it was with the spotlight handled by the lean lad. He went on:

“I’ll make the guess that they got the loot into that rowboat a short distance up the river, then one of them took the auto into town while the others saw to the safe conduct of the stuff to Jed Marmette’s place. And they’ve trusted the stuff with Jed because they felt that he would not get away. But he was double-crossing them, just as thieves will do.”

“I guess that part is right.” The chief spoke for the first time in several minutes.

“If they get that stuff packed into suitcases at Marmette’s place, they will load it aboard the boat they’ve got, and then, to play safe, they can run up the river for a short distance and get away by train,” continued Frank. “Only, they’ll get away without the jewels in that box unless some one takes an inventory.”

The chief started noticeably.

“By jove,” he exclaimed, “that’s a fact! They are taking suitcases to pack that stuff in, and that means that Jed will have to make good with the jewels. Wonder what that might do to things?”

Frank was developing the same idea in his own mind. The whole thing was exciting to the last degree. There might be a showdown between Jed Marmette and these two men who seemed to have engineered and carried out the plans for the robbery—in which case there might yet be a chance to catch them.

“There’s the place!” Lanky called out in a hoarse whisper. “Shall I keep the spotlight open or shut it off?”

Frank peered far over the wheel and they saw they had reached the island where the willows grew so far over the river.

“Turn it off, Lanky. I’ll slip in as easily as I can, though we’ve got to keep the motor going. Every one keep still.”

When the light snapped out they were in total darkness for several seconds, but finally their eyes accustomed themselves to the peculiar light that stretches over bodies of water at night.

Frank reduced the speed of the Rocket, and it seemed that the exhaust did not make as much noise as they might have expected. However, any one with an ear for such noises could easily have recognized the exhaust of a motor-engine from a long distance.

“Look! See that light?” The chief pointed to a yellow spot which dodged here and there for a moment through the bushes and small trees along the river bank on Marmette’s side.

“I’m going in right here and we’ll crawl up there,” Frank suggested, looking at the chief, who nodded his approval of the scheme.

In a few minutes they touched at the bank, running slowly with the motor cut off, the three boys poling with the oar and pulling along by grabbing at bushes and trees until the Rocket touched at a firm spot.

All crawled off the craft and made their way up to the bank through the bushes. They were about a hundred yards below the flicker of light which they could see moving toward the bank.

“I’ll take the lead,” said the chief. “You boys be ready with your guns and we’ll catch these fellows.” He was issuing instructions to his policemen.

Slowly, stealthily, in Indian file, they made their way along the river’s bank, now and then catching a glimpse of the yellow lantern-light.

Not a word was spoken by any of them, though the boys behind the police were breathless in their excitement. Frank wanted to see more of what was going on, but he had to sacrifice his desire to the general scheme of keeping quiet and unseen as well. The darkness of the night was an ally of the robbers.

Now they were close enough to hear angry words passing between men, but not plainly enough to give them an understanding.

A few paces more and they were fairly upon the group of four men—three of them together, while a fourth one held a lantern and led the way. They were on the path which the boys had followed before, the one leading from the river bank to the barn.

Stealthily, like cats, lifting their feet slowly, without causing the slightest noise of a bush or twig, the entire party moved along with their chief still leading, never having stopped his advance upon these men.

Now they were within a few yards of the spot where they would cross at right angles the path leading to Marmette’s barn. And the little group from Jed Marmette’s was at the crossing!

With the little light shed by the lantern over the scene, they saw that two men were holding a third one, each carried a suitcase, and the man with the lantern also carried a traveling case. The loot was ready to be gotten away with!

“Look here, Marmette,” one of the men spoke in low but harsh tones, deadly anger buried in his words. “We’re going to play fair. You’re to get a hundred dollars. That’s what you get, and we’ll pay you. But you’ve got to tell us where that box is.”

“I told you I don’t know anything about no box,” sullenly replied the man in the center.

One of the men put down his suitcase as they came to a halt on the river bank. The man with the lantern also set down his bag.

The fellow who had set down his suitcase first now reached back of the center man and brought a rope more tightly around him. The watching party saw that Jed Marmette was bound tightly with a heavy rope, his only freedom being his legs.

“You know that the chest was not in that place when we put it there. Some one uncovered it. You were the only one who knew where it was, and you uncovered it. You’ve been into it. You got that little box out of there, and we want to know where it is.” The second man spoke tensely, hoarsely, a severe threat in every tone of his low-voiced words.

Again the prisoner said he knew nothing of the box.

“All right then, bo, we’ll see what we can do about it,” and he, too, set his suitcase on the ground.

With this he helped the first man tighten the rope around Jed Marmette, pinioning his arms securely to his sides, fixing him so that he could offer no resistance.

The party of trailers stood in the shadow of the bushes, looking on at this drama between thieves, catching every word that was said, seeing every move that was made.

The chief made no attempt to regain the silver which was in all probability in the three suitcases.

Paul and Ralph wondered why he waited. Why did he not step forward, armed as all of the police were, and get these fellows while the chance was good? There were only three, really, as the fourth was trussed so that he could do nothing.

But the chief was waiting for further disclosures. It was evident they were getting more and more information as this drama unfolded itself, and all of this conversation could be used against the thieves when the trial came.

“Now, Jed, we’ll give you one more chance. When we leave here you’ve got no more than a Chinaman’s chance.”

“I don’t know a thing about where that box is,” gruffly, morosely came the answer from the prisoner.

“If you don’t tell us where that box is, do you know what will happen?” The leader was speaking slowly, intently, trying to make Jed know how serious the matter was.

But Jed was quiet this time.

“When we start out in that boat—” his thumb indicating the motor boat—“you go with us. And when we get to the middle of the river you go overboard. We’ve got enough rope to tie your feet, and you haven’t got a chance. See? Now, tell what you know, or down you go.”

Every one waited for the man to reply, which he did:

“All right, I’ll tell. That young feller that has that motor boat came up here with some of his friends and got the box!”

He was accusing Frank Allen of getting the jewels!

CHAPTER XVIII

THE ROCKET RACES THE SPEEDAWAY

Lanky Wallace made a move as if would leap out and throttle the fellow for making such an accusation.

Frank’s arm restrained him, though, and the chief of police quickly signaled for all of them to be quiet.

“Marmette, you’re not telling the truth. That young fellow knew nothing about this. If he had known as much as you say, he would have had the police on us by this time.”

The leader of the little gang spoke menacingly to the prisoner. There was no answer from Jed Marmette, and he continued:

“You’ve hidden that box somewhere. No use to lie out of it. Come across, or you go down in the river. No more foolishness!”

These were tense moments. Frank Allen wondered why the chief did not step forward and take command of the situation, for he was surely backed by a crowd large enough to take these three prisoners.

What had Jed Marmette done with the jewels? Was it possible that he had seen the boys or was this merely a ruse which had risen suddenly in his mind?

“I tell you those young fellows were up here in their boat—I seen ’em! And there were five of them—too many for me to stop. They went into the barn, two of them, while the other three watched outside. And they got away with the box. I seen ’em!”

Frank was startled by the things this fellow Marmette was telling. Then, he had really seen them! He had known they were there—had seen them go into the barn—else how would he have known they were five?

What would the chief think now? But what was the use of worrying about it? Frank knew where the jewels were buried, under the grape arbor, and it would be an easy matter to recover the metal box just as soon as these fellows were taken prisoner.

“You’re lying, Marmette! You can’t pull that stuff on us. We’ll put him aboard, fellows, and throw him in. Get that other rope ready. Is everything ready to go?”

The leader was preparing to settle matters for Jed Marmette.

“Throw up your hands—all of you!”

Into the small circle cast by the lantern’s light stepped the chief of police, his revolver drawn. The other police were directly behind him, all with drawn weapons. It had been done so quickly that even Frank, behind them, did not realize that the chief had given his signal to act.

The four conspirators turned at the sound of the voice. The fellow with the lantern made a move toward the boat, still holding the light.

“Halt! Stand where you are or I’ll fire!” commanded Chief Berry. The fellow stood still. “Now, get your hands up, all of you!”

This command was obeyed.

“Boys, while I keep them covered, you take the ropes and tie them. Slip the handcuffs on those two big fellows, and tie the one with the lantern. Hang the lantern where we can have light.” The chief was in full control of the situation.

“Chief,” whispered Frank while the men performed their duties. “Let us four go up there and get the box of jewels. I know where they are buried—in the grape arbor!”

“Sure,” the chief acquiesced in the scheme. “Take the boys and go along. Here is a box of matches and here is a flashlight,” and he slipped a long cylinder out of his pocket, handing it to Frank.

Immediately the four boys started along the trail leading to the barn, through the barnyard, and thence up toward the grape arbor by the dilapidated old farmhouse. The flashlight helped them on the way.

Not a word passed between the boys as they filed, Indian fashion, through the long weeds. It was only when they reached the grape arbor that anything was said. It was Frank who spoke:

“I wonder why Marmette tried to pull such a stunt as that? Yet, of course he didn’t know we were standing there listening to all of it.”

“Just the same, Frank,” Lanky argued the matter, “if we had not been there his story would not have gotten him anywhere. That fellow didn’t believe it—wasn’t he going to drown Jed?”

At this moment they were at the entrance to the grape arbor. Frank flashed the light under the dark place and saw that the stone was still in place!

Frank started the work post haste.

“Paul, you and Ralph pull that flagstone aside. There is a new hole right there and the box is in there.”

The two boys heartily grabbed the stone and laid it aside. One of them stooped and started pulling aside the dirt with his hands, but Frank halted him.

“You can’t get it away quickly enough that way. The hole is deep. Lanky, find a spade or a stick of wood.”

In only a moment or two Lanky Wallace found a sharp stick that could be used for the purpose, and went at the work of uncovering the metal box with a willing vim.

Pound after pound of the soft earth came out of the hole, but there was no evidence of the box containing the jewels.

Frank was becoming nervous with the excitement of this search, and, particularly, because there was as yet no indication of success.

“Push the stick straight down to see how far it goes before it strikes the box!” he hoarsely called to the boys.

Lanky sent the stick downward, then pushed on it with his foot, but, despite the stick’s length of about a foot and one-half, it struck nothing to impede its progress.

“That box isn’t there, fellows!” said Frank. “I know the hole was not that deep. Jed Marmette took it out and has hidden it somewhere else!”

Just now it came forcibly home to Frank Allen that the boys had been seen by Jed Marmette. Of course, he knew they had not taken the jewels, as well as Marmette knew it, but Marmette had used this fact as his excuse for not having the jewels, and, unthoughtedly, unknowingly, he had evidenced to Frank that, having seen the five boys on the place and having feared they would come back or send back to get the metal box, he had dug it up and placed it in some other spot after they had gone.

The three boys looked askance at Frank.

“What’ll we do?” he took the question from their lips before they had done so. “We’ll go into the house and see what evidences there are there of Jed’s having placed it somewhere around inside.”

With this all four of them trooped into the small farmhouse, and their nostrils were struck by the odors of dankness, of old coffee, of burned grease, showing that this ill-kept man did not permit the fresh air that nature so freely gave to every living being to pass through the house.

The beams of the flashlight darted here and there, and Frank handed his supply of matches to Lanky to use so that they could get a better light. In a few seconds Paul saw an oil-lamp, which was immediately lighted, and with this as an aid they stood at the center of the back room and carefully studied the general features.

Nothing in this room gave the boys any indication of a hiding place, and Frank led the way, holding the lamp, into the next room, a combination of bedroom and general living room. Two broken chairs, a wobbly old table, a box used for a washstand or dresser and a cot were the only pieces of furniture.

All four of the boys stood, rather breathless, at the doorway and peered in.

“What’s that?” Frank nodded his head toward the broad, old-fashioned fireplace. “Go over there and see what those ashes are. It looks to me like burned string lying there.”

Lanky was the first to get there. He knelt and studied the hearth closely, not disturbing anything with his hands.

“This is a piece of burned string, Frank,” he said, “and it looks as if this is the ash of a piece of paper. Looks to me as if he had burned the wrapper around the box.”

“Yep, look here!” It was Paul Bird who had found something else. “Here is a little fresh earth, yellow, too!”

The lamp was brought close, and all four of the boys on their knees looked carefully and closely at the little specks of brown or yellow on the floor. There was no mistaking it—it was damp earth from outside under the grape arbor!

“I don’t think that this was brought in on his feet,” ventured Ralph West, “for I don’t see any heel print right here, and the heel would have brought it in.”

For a long minute the four boys looked here and there along the floor, at the hearth, at the fresh particles of earth, and at each other.

“Let us go through everything in this room,” said Frank decisively. “I believe he has unwrapped the box, burned the paper and string, and has hidden the box somewhere in the house, so that he could guard it more closely.”

With this the boys, having set the lamp on one of the wooden boxes, started a search of the room. Under the cot, behind the boxes, back of the clothes hanging on the hooks along the wall opposite the fireplace, they looked closely for a metal box. But to no avail. Several minutes were passed in this search.

From here the search spread into the kitchen, or combination kitchen and dining room. Into all sorts of boxes and tin cans and cardboard containers they went, finding particles of food in all these places. A looking glass on one wall was brought down for fear the jewel-box might rest behind it.

The search was getting nowhere, excepting failure.

“Let’s look in the stove,” said Lanky Wallace, as he reached for the lid-lifter and started to raise part of the top.

“That gives me an idea!” cried Frank, wheeling on his heel and looking toward the bedroom which was now dark.

Grabbing up the lantern he strode into that room, the other boys directly and very breathlessly behind him. What kind of idea had their leader now? They instinctively felt it was a good one, and probably a winner—but what was it?

“That box was black. All such document boxes are black—they are made of thin iron and are japanned, as they call it.”

Frank was starting the disclosure of his idea by setting down a premise on which to work logically to his conclusion.

“Now, if it is black, then the logical place to hide it is where everything else is black. Is that right?”

“Up the flue!” exclaimed Lanky Wallace happily.

Before Frank could answer, before he could turn to make an investigation, the lean lad had dived past him to the fireplace, had stooped to the hearth, and a long arm was reaching far up the flue—on to the ledge which is formed at the top of all fireplaces, and out of there, covered with soot, bringing down a perfect storm of the black, sifting, fine powder, he brought a metal box!

He shook it. There was no doubt. It was black—it was metal—and it contained a great many pieces of things which seemed to be small.

Frank took it and looked at the lock. It was locked, he ascertained. Was this the thing they wanted? Every circumstantial indication pointed to an affirmative. But he thought they should be sure, rather than take back a box full of something else than jewels.

He remembered seeing an old case-knife on the kitchen table, and one of the boys brought it quickly.

With this they pried open the top, tearing the lock loose, and opened the cover. There, exposed to their gaze in the dim yellow glow of the oil-lamp, lay diamonds, sapphires, rings, necklaces, all sorts and kinds of jewels and fancy pieces of women’s jeweled wear! The loot from the Parsons’ safe!

They had expected this—yet they gasped in surprise and delight.

“Come on, fellows. We’ve got what Jed Marmette stole from his thieving friends, and we’ve found the jewels for Mrs. Parsons. This is all too good to be true! Let’s get back to the chief.”

Frank took the box, tucked it under his arm, and indicated that they should turn out the oil-lamp while he switched on his flashlight.

Out of the house they trooped, a happy crowd of boys, all but the end of the mystery solved—in fact, the mystery itself was solved, the trial and conviction of these thieves being the only thing left.

The flashlight darted hither and yon as the four boys found the trail and started for the barnyard.

Bang! A shot rent the air just as they got to the barn. It came from the direction of the crowd on the river bank!

All was quiet for a moment, then they heard the call of one man.

“Halt! Halt, or I’ll kill!”

Another crack of a weapon tore through the air.

The boys stopped dead in their tracks at the first shot, as they heard the command to halt. But started on a wild run for the river bank when the second shot was fired.

Crashing and breaking through the weeds and brush, they came to the little cleared place, where they saw the entire party looking toward the river.

The chief was just taking aim to fire again. The motor boat was already out from shore, its motor had started, and the occupant was turning it downstream!

“What’s the matter? Who is it?” cried Frank.

“It’s Fred Cunningham! He was the third one. He got away and is on that motor boat!”

CHAPTER XIX

WHEN THE ROCKET SHOWED HER SPEED

It was the Speedaway! And it was Fred Cunningham running it! He was a party to this robbing of Mrs. Parsons—at least, all the evidence was that he was a party to the plan to get away with the loot this night!

Out into the stream the Speedaway was moving, the engine running in excellent shape.

“Get your boat and catch him!” cried the chief of police. “Men, watch those fellows close. Don’t let one of them get away. Shoot to kill if one of them starts. I’ll go with the boys to help ’em get off!”

Saying this, the chief pushed Frank roughly by the shoulder, and all five of them, the four boys and the chief, dashed through the weeds and brush along the bank of the river to the point where the Rocket was tied.

Out on the river they could plainly hear the put-put of an exhaust. They reached the Rocket. Frank stopped a moment to listen.

“He’s going downstream, chief. If I catch him I’ll take him to the jail. But how shall we get you?”

“Send some one back here to get us,” replied the chief sharply, as he urged the boys to get aboard and start quickly.

Already Paul and Ralph were on board, and Lanky had untied and thrown the rope to the deck of the sturdy little craft that was now entering another race for the day.

Over to the deck of the boat Frank went, Lanky cast the boat off from shore, leaping aboard at the same moment. Frank gave a twist to the flywheel of the motor and they were off on the race!

It was when he reached to take the flywheel that he laid down the package which he had been carrying.

“Chief,” he called as the motor started and they were moving out to the stream, “I’ve got the box of jewels. I forgot to give them to you. We found the place where he had them hidden—so they’re safe!”

“Fine work, lad! Good luck to you! Catch that fellow and we’ve done a good day’s work!” called back Chief Berry.

Lanky had the searchlight going in another second, flooding the river’s surface in front of them.

Downstream they started, skirting past the island on the bank side instead of going around it, thus saving some distance.

The steady exhaust of their own engine kept them from hearing anything of the boat which was in front. And, quite naturally, their failure to hear the engine of the Speedaway caused Frank to raise a question as to whether they might miss the wily fellow in front.

What if he should duck to one side of the river in the darkness of the early morning—for it was well pass the midnight hour and the darkest time of the night—and disappear in the shadows of the growth along some island or along one of the shores of the Harrapin?

Studying over this problem, Frank brought a solution to mind and determined that after they had run a mile or so he would put his plan into effect.

It was not a meandering or shambling or loitering gait that the Rocket had taken—quite the contrary. The bow of the craft was well up from the surface of the river, the propeller blades were churning and whirling the water into foam behind them, and the breeze created by the speed was at once cooling and invigorating.

Frank had his accustomed position in the cockpit, his steady hand on the wheel. Ralph and Paul had their places, flat on the after deck, helping hold the bow out of the water and permitting the Rocket to skim and glide along the Harrapin at the fastest rate of speed it had ever made.

This was a race worth the while—a race with a thief to be caught or one who had conspired with thieves, and also a race between the two motor boats.

“See him?” asked Frank of Lanky, as that long lad twisted the searchlight from side to side.

“Not a see,” muttered Wallace. “If this light were only stronger we might see him ahead of us. I can’t even hear the exhaust.”

Just at this moment Frank cut off the motor. All was silent on the Rocket. From far ahead of them came the steady, rapidly firing put-put of the Speedaway! It was ahead of them down the stream! Were they gaining or losing in the race? It was almost, if not quite, impossible to determine.

Before they could lose much of their momentum Frank had whirled the flywheel over again, the heated engine picked up explosions at the first turn, and the Rocket seemed to fairly leap from under them as it dashed forward.

Feeling sure of their quarry now, Frank’s mind went back to some of the doings of the past few hours and the past few days. To his mind came, for a second, a thought of his father, and he wondered if everything at the hospital was going on as the doctor had said it would and that his father would show improvement after his heart had been stimulated by the drug. Then came a brief thanksgiving that his mother had reached home.

Who was Fred Cunningham? Was he one of the gang of thieves or had he merely fallen in with these fellows because he owned a fast motor boat and they could use one?

Why had he come to Columbia, unheralded by any one who knew him or knew anything of him? Was it he and his influence that had caused Mrs. Parsons to turn against Frank and his boy friends after they had been the cause of her release?

How had these men got the silver and the jewels to that rowboat? Had they gone up the river or down? Was their car really standing outside on the road during the time when Mrs. Parsons’ car came in?

And, since there were two robbers who looted the house and tied Mrs. Parsons, who was it driving the automobile that took the thieves away? That is, there must have been a third one if the auto was really standing outside the place and had received a signal from the house.

After all, was the lighting of the match on the river a signal?

“Stop the motor again and see if we can hear him,” Lanky interrupted Frank’s thoughts.

Frank cut off the engine, and from a distance down the river came the sound of the exhaust from the Speedaway. Instantly the engine was started again.

“Was it closer this time?” asked Frank.

“I couldn’t tell with certainty, but I believe it was. I believe we’ve gained a little, but the next mile will tell the story. He has to go around the broad island, and he’s running without lights—taking all kinds of chances.”

“Well, he ran upriver without lights,” replied Frank. “I wondered while we were coming up behind him to-night how he was doing it.”

There was no way to increase speed. The engine was doing its utmost. There was only one way to gain—except that the Rocket might be faster than the Speedaway—and that was to beat Cunningham at maneuvering.

Frank set his mind to the task. From the several recent trips up and down the river he began to put together the knowledge he had gained.

Standing steadfastly at the wheel, his entire being now put into this purpose of catching the man on the Speedaway, Frank Allen cut off every inch in the bends and around the islands that could possibly be cut.

“Better be careful, old boy,” called Lanky, as Frank made one close shave past a bank at a bend in an effort to cut off distance.

“Can’t—right now.” Frank smiled as the spirit of this race seized full control of him. He was determined, more than ever, to catch the Speedaway!

Taking a long chance at losing some of the space that he felt he had gained, he suddenly cut off the engine and listened.

They were nearer! They were gaining rapidly! There was no doubt of it now.

The lights of Columbia came in sight on the far side of the river. Their engine was running full tilt and the Rocket was bounding forward like a smoothly running race-horse.

“We’ll catch him right in front of the town!” called Lanky Wallace as he swung the searchlight about the river.

“Hope so. It’ll make things easy. But maybe he has a gun,” suggested Frank.

“Couldn’t have, unless it was on the boat. The chief’s men disarmed them,” laconically replied Lanky.

The lights of the town, only a few in number but enough to act as beacons to the boys, came closer and closer. They could not yet discern the Speedaway ahead of them, though they knew it must be close.

“What do we do when we catch up?” Paul Bird sat up and asked. “Better lay out a plan so we’ll all do the right thing.”

Frank was once again making a short cut on the last bend above Columbia. “Well,” he said, “we shall try to get alongside. Then you two fellows go over and engage him if he shows fight, while I hold the Rocket close up, and Lanky can take the tie line with him to tie him.”

That was all there was to the plan. Just general in nature. No use, thought Frank, of crossing this particular bridge until they got to it. Time enough to do the right thing after they had caught up with their man.

“There he is!” cried Lanky excitedly, pointing to the motor boat that loomed directly in front of them as Frank made the last twist to gain ground.

Cunningham was peering back over his shoulder as the searchlight from the Rocket lighted that part of the river.

Suddenly he veered to one side; probably, thought Frank, in an effort to get to the side opposite Columbia and there beach his craft and run for it.

Lanky shot the search behind him.

“Look out!” Frank fairly screamed as he saw a tremendous obstacle loom in front of the Speedaway, less than fifteen feet away—too close to permit the helmsman to again maneuver his boat.

Up out of the darkness, totally unexpectedly, arose the great bulk of a barge, loaded and piled high with boxes and bales, the towboat on the farther side.

So exciting had been the chase that neither Fred Cunningham in the first boat nor Frank and his friends in the second had seen the small lights of the tug as it steadily pulled its great burden upstream.

Crash! There was nothing else to be expected! Into the side of the big barge went the Speedaway, full power ahead!

There was a noise of splintering wood, cries and yells of warning and of horror from the men on the barge, yells from the four boys on the Rocket.

The bow of the Speedaway telescoped as if a giant were squeezing down on it, and the stern dipped deeply into the stream.

There was a flash of light for a second, then the gasoline tank exploded, spreading gasoline to all parts of the water.

The Rocket, being far enough to the rear, could be properly maneuvered to avoid a repetition of such an accident.

Frank Allen threw the boat over slightly, cut off the engine and tried to reverse. Even in his excitement, though, he realized that his momentum was too great to permit anything of the kind.

Throwing the engine into action again, he went down past the barge and made a wide circle, coming back upstream in a minute or two after the plunge of the Speedaway against the barge.

The three boys watched closely as Lanky Wallace turned the searchlight from point to point, seeking to find the wreck.

Débris was scattered over all parts of the rapidly flowing Harrapin.

“Where is Cunningham?” asked Paul Bird.

The wreck of the Speedaway was slowly settling into the river as the water rushed into it and the weight of the engine helped to drag it down.

The skipper of the towboat was now around on their side of the barge and five or six men had ropes, ready to cast them for a rescue.

Suddenly a head bobbed up out of the water. It was Fred Cunningham! There was a faint cry for help, and he sank again.

“Lanky, hold the light there. Paul, take the wheel and keep going around in a circle,” ordered Frank, at the same time grabbing the boy and pulling him into the cockpit.

Splash! Over the side of the Rocket went Frank Allen, to rescue the fellow who, if not actually his enemy, was certainly no friend to the boy who was risking his own life to keep him from drowning.

CHAPTER XX

WHEN ALL ENDS WELL

Though Frank Allen was an expert swimmer, the best in Columbia and the surrounding country, he found trouble in going to the aid of Fred Cunningham.

The explosion of the tank had spread blazing gasoline over the surface of the river; the wreck of the Speedaway was settling by the stern quite rapidly; the hundreds of splintered pieces were moving here and there, jagged and rough, a menace to the swimmer; the barge had come to a stop and was rocking to and fro while the tug held it.

Men aboard the barge were yelling and calling warnings and suggestions and the searchlight of the Rocket danced about the water as Lanky tried to compensate for the failure of Paul Bird, not very expert at the wheel, to hold the Rocket where it belonged.

Down into the river went the intrepid boy, bent on bringing Cunningham to the surface if possible—and determined that it was possible.

It seemed hours to the three boys on the Rocket before they spied Frank’s head on the surface, bobbing suddenly from the water, and saw that he was tugging at a heavy load.

“Here, Ralph! You take the searchlight! Keep it squarely on Frank and I’ll get the boat over!”

Lanky got Ralph West into active service, and, as he felt he could handle the Rocket better than Paul Bird was doing, he took hold of the wheel and brought the Rocket around to the spot where Frank struggled to keep himself above water and hold the other at the same time.

“Paul, give him a hand! Grab him when I get up close!” called Wallace, the engine cut down to low speed, as he glided easily toward the boy in the water.

It was the work of but a few more seconds to get Frank out of the water and to drag Fred Cunningham along with him.

“Let’s try to save him,” gasped Frank, unmindful of his own condition.

A cry went up from the barge when they pulled the two boys over to the deck of the Rocket, and now the skipper of the towboat yelled:

“Ahoy there! Can I help you any? Is he all right, or can you get him over to town?”

“I’ll attend to him. Thank you ever so much!” called Frank, as three of the boys turned their attention to the injured lad. Lanky had already started the Rocket for the landing at Columbia. The searchlight was bearing straight ahead, since it had been abandoned in that position, and Lanky could see his way.

Frank gave instructions to the others at once, with a snap like an officer, and they went to work with vim.

Just as they touched the landing at Columbia Frank heaved a sigh of relief—Fred Cunningham was showing signs of coming back to life. Frank saw the first flush and noted that he was gasping for breath.

As they landed they saw a dozen people standing on the wharf, having been attracted by the crash of the motor boat against the barge and also by the sight of the fire.

Into an automobile the boys placed Cunningham’s limp body quickly, Frank giving directions:

“Get him to the hospital! Quick! Don’t waste a minute!”

As the automobile pulled out, Frank turned, soaking wet, a laughable sight notwithstanding the seriousness of it all and the stress and tragedy of the race.

“I’m going back for the chief. You fellows want to come along?” he asked.

The question was almost unnecessary. Lanky and Paul and Ralph, weary and worn as they were, ready to drop off to sleep except for the excitement of the day and night, were ready to follow their leader. But a thought came suddenly to Frank.

“I’ll tell you, fellows. Paul and Ralph ought to stay here to take care of that fellow and see that he doesn’t get away if he revives quickly. Maybe he’s not badly hurt and he could be released from the hospital. You two fellows stay here and see that things are ready when we get back. Tell the doctor I’ll be back in an hour or so to see dad—and all that, you know. Tell mother, too, if she’s still at the hospital.”

The two boys, sensible, realizing a division of forces was now the best, grabbed Frank and Lanky by the hands, wished them well and promised to see about Cunningham.

Before the Rocket left the wharf, they brought back a bottle of hot coffee and warm rolls, which Frank and Lanky barely gave thanks for as they grabbed, in their hunger, for the viands.

Just as the sun broke through the far horizon and shot its first shafts of light into the world, the Rocket got away from the landing at Columbia and started back to the Jed Marmette farm.

Though as tired as two boys can ever be, a morning breeze which blew across the Harrapin was an invigorating one, their worries were almost over—the principal ones were over except for Frank’s father, and the boys fell to chatting gaily while they raced the Rocket upstream as rapidly as the engine would take it.

“Frank,” said Lanky, as they had gained their full speed and stood looking ahead of them along the river, “the Rocket is a better boat than the Speedaway.”

“Right now, you mean?” laughed Frank.

“No, I mean she always was. She gained on the Speedaway to-night in straight running.”

“Not to-night.” Frank felt in a teasing humor.

“Well, last night, then. But, believe me, Frank, you surely did do some clever headwork! By jove, that was good the way you made those bends and beat him to the punch.”

Full daylight was upon them as they made the landing at the Marmette place.

“Did you catch him? I know you did!” called the chief as the Rocket warped into the shore.

“I’ll say we caught him—out of the water!” cried Lanky from the bow. “He smashed into a barge and tore his boat all to pieces!”

The chief had to hear the entire story before he brought his charges on board, which was done very shortly.

The two strangers and Jed Marmette were led aboard, their arms pinioned and locked with handcuffs.

“Here is the jewel box!” said Frank, when they were ready to leave the shore. He reached down into a locker and brought out the black iron box, no longer mat-surfaced with soot, but shining brightly from the new japanning on it.

The chief took it, raised the cover and peered within. Then he gasped with surprise. Here, surely, was a fortune which these fellows had almost made away with. He carefully closed the box and tied it with a piece of the rope which his sharp knife clipped off from the arms of Marmette.

The trip down the river was without event. The chief asked many questions of the two boys, and the boys, in turn, asked how things had gone after they had left so hurriedly.

“What’s all the crowd about? Some one hurt?” asked Chief Berry, pointing to the throng that had gathered at the river in Columbia.

They had not long to wait for the answer. As glasses in the hands of some of the people told them the approaching boat was the Rocket, a series of wild cheers went up, hats were thrown into the air, and as rapidly as cheers died away someone started them over again.

“What’s it all about?” asked Frank.

“Sounds as if they’re cheering this boat for some reason.” The chief seemed to understand.

“Three cheers for Frank Allen and Lanky Wallace!” they heard some one cry from the shore, and the cry was followed by wild cheering by the crowd.

Frank brought the Rocket up to the main landing, with the crowd laughing, cheering, waving and talking, and allowed the chief and his policemen to take the three prisoners off the boat. Then he very easily pulled out and circled to the boat-house where the Rocket slipped in easily, seeming still to have the same go and pep that it had in the beginning.

“She doesn’t seem to be a bit tired,” said Frank.

To this Lanky replied that the indicator on the gas tank said she ought to be feeling quite run down, inasmuch as the pin was standing close to the word “empty.”

“Oh, well, before we take her out again we can fill her,” and the two boys walked out of the house and locked the door.

Instantly they were seized by friends in the crowd, and a thousand questions of all kinds were shot at them.

Frank spied the doctor in the crowd, and before answering any of the questions, before hardly being civil to his friends, he called to that gentleman:

“Doctor, how’s dad? Any good news this morning?”

“Nothing else but good news, boy!” the doctor waved back at him. “Don’t worry—he’s getting along nicely. Going to get well, quick!”

Tears of joy welled up into the lad’s eyes as he heard these words so cheerily spoken by the man who had fought so sturdily at his father’s bedside.

Just then Minnie Cuthbert accompanied by Helen Allen made her way through the crowd close about these two boys and grasped Frank by the hand.

“You’re a real hero! I’m so glad you did all those things they tell about you,” she exclaimed, her eyes shining brightly.

“Who tells about me?” asked Frank.

“Why, Paul Bird and Ralph West haven’t done anything else since early this morning but tell every one on the streets and telephone all those they didn’t see!” she laughed.

So that was what caused this crowd to be here!

“Come on, Lanky, let’s get away from here as soon as we can. I want to catch those two fellows and lay them across my knee,” muttered Frank in an undertone to his chum.

The two boys finally got free of the crowd, Minnie and Helen walking along with the heroes of the hour, while the crowd followed behind, talking loudly, cheering every once in a while.

“There’s Mrs. Parsons. She’s trying to attract your attention.” Minnie nudged Frank and nodded toward the street, where an automobile was moving slowly along.

Looking that way, he could not help but see the excited beckonings of the wealthy widow up the river, who had been robbed.

“Frank, I want to apologize to you and to your friends for the way in which I have acted. I’m not going to explain anything—I’m just awfully sorry for the way I treated you.”

“Mrs. Parsons,” and Frank spoke very evenly, though pleasantly, “that is all right. I know that things were awfully exciting, and you probably didn’t think of lots of things. I don’t blame you at all.”

“And that’s the way all of us feel,” spoke up Lanky.

“I am awfully glad to hear you say that. I’ll tell you!” and a happy smile spread over her face, “won’t you organize a party and come up to my place on a great big picnic—just any day you say? Minnie, can’t you organize it?”

“Surely! We’ll make it day after to-morrow, too!” cried the young lady.

“You are to bring absolutely nothing to eat with you. I shall have all the things that a really nice picnic needs. Now, I’m going to depend on you, Minnie, to get up the picnic and be there day after to-morrow—the whole day!” Saying this she gave a nod to the driver of her car and waved the young people a happy good-bye.

“I guess I can organize a picnic, all right,” Minnie laughed gaily, as she took Frank’s arm and they stepped back to the sidewalk. “She ought to give you boys a first-class picnic, and I’ll see that she does.”

The girls said good-bye, and then over to the hospital walked Frank, his clothes dried on him, but looking slouchy, rough-dried, and anything but the neatly dressed boy that Frank Allen was. Lanky walked alongside.

There the news the nurse gave was of the very best, and Frank walked into the room, to see his father lying on the bed smiling happily, holding up his arms as if he would take his boy in them.

Fred Cunningham had suffered contusions which were very painful, and the doctor kept him in bed, announcing that he would not allow the young man to leave the hospital for several days.

At the preliminary hearing it was learned, through telegrams which Chief Berry sent out, coupled with the admissions of the men themselves, added to which were letters on their persons, that these men were professionals who looted the homes of wealthy people after careful, painstaking study of the locale, of the habits of the people, their friends, and their goings and comings.

It was shown that Fred Cunningham was a tool of one of them who had some things on the young man. It could not be learned exactly what that “something” was, though it was surmised that it was a boyish indiscretion which had been multiplied strongly by the man in order to force the boy to do his bidding.

The picnic turned out as Minnie Cuthbert had planned it should: a perfect repayment by Mrs. Parsons for all the insulting looks and remarks she had made about these boys. The picnic was an entire success.

But Mrs. Parsons was to do still more for Frank and his chums, and what that was will be related in the next volume, to be called, “Frank Allen at Old Moose Lake; or, The Trail in the Snow.” In that volume we shall learn the particulars of a stirring vacation in a winter camp and solve a very perplexing mystery.

THE END

The New Western Series

The Movie Boys Series

The Dave Fearless Series

The Larry Dexter Series

The FRANK ALLEN SERIES — Transcriber’s Notes