Frank Allen and his motor boat; or, Racing to save a life

“Cunningham really wants a race, does he? Well, I’m ready after to-day to give him a chance to beat the Rocket; but, Lanky, he’ll have to handle the Speedaway better than he handles himself or he will find himself taking the rough water of this little boat mighty quickly.”

Frank Allen and Lanky Wallace were out on the Harrapin river giving the regular daily try-out to the Rocket. Lanky’s father, after their return from a recent trip to the West, had presented Frank with this neat, little, rakish-modeled motor boat for three reasons: first, because he liked the upstanding leader of the Columbia boys and felt that his own son, Clarence (though Lanky was the name known best) could be in no better company; second, because he was himself a lover of the great out-of-doors and felt that kinship to Frank which the outdoor life develops in men; and third, he felt that Frank had done him a great turn out at Gold Fork when he had so successfully outwitted those who had tried to rob him of the gold which was rightfully his.

“You know, sweet little Clarinda—” and Frank started “kidding” his pal.

“Listen, boy,” Lanky spoke up quickly, “the Harrapin’s wetter than usual to-day. One of us might get damp.”

“As I was saying,” and Frank’s eyes sparkled, “Clarice,” keeping a watch on Lanky, “you know that a gas engine has fifty-seven varieties of tricks in it, just like a good Missouri mule, and before I get into any contests I am going to learn a few of the tricks this one has.”

At the moment there seemed to be no reason why Frank Allen should doubt the faithfulness of his motor, for it was running smoothly, hitting regularly, and had been responding to-day to its master’s touch. Which very fact was stated by Lanky Wallace.

“That’s all right, Lanky—what you say. But you heard me compare a gas engine to a mule, didn’t you? That is using other words to say that when you think things are the smoothest is when they are getting ready to be the worst.”

The words had just left Frank’s lips and reached Lanky Wallace’s ears when there was a loud pop and the engine’s explosions ceased.

“Oh, ye prophet!” and Lanky started laughing.

“Here! Grab the wheel, hold her straight ahead, and let me tickle this thing into action,” and Frank let Wallace have his place.

His wrenches in hand, he took out a spark plug and immediately found this particular trouble. Cleaning the plug and respacing the two points across which the spark leaps, he replaced the plug and started the engine. Again it worked smoothly, and he threw it into gear with the propeller shaft.

“I wonder who Cunningham is, really,” he said as he wiped his hands on some waste and stood again alongside Lanky Wallace.

“Beats me. But I don’t like him, no matter who he is nor where he’s from. There’s something about him that isn’t square, Frank. His eyes are shifty and he seems too anxious to be the leader in everything in Columbia. I don’t see what Minnie sees in him——”

The mention of Minnie Cuthbert’s name along with Cunningham’s was not at all pleasing to Frank Allen, and a little frown stole across his face. There was silence between the two boys while the Rocket continued up the river at a medium pace, taking them on an errand for Frank’s father.

“Well,” Frank broke into the put-put of the exhaust, “I guess it’s just a strange face and new ways and new words and lots of great things he has done, and all of that. They say a woman’s intuition is unerring, but I believe that you and I have better intuition in this case than the girls have. I’m going to venture this: I don’t believe Cunningham is here for any good reason, and I believe that fast motor boat of his is for some other purpose than just to challenge us fellows to a race.”

Silence fell again between the two boys while the Rocket passed one after another of the beautiful, green, wooded islands which dot the Harrapin and make it one of the prettiest water-courses in the country. From among the trees on each of them peeped out pretty houses or cottages or partly built summer homes, the finished houses possessed of neat boat landings where week-end parties often stopped during the solstice days and spent a merry time as guests.

“What a summer!” suddenly exclaimed Lanky.

“How?”

“Well, first out at Rockspur and Gold Fork, and lots of fun and go almost every minute, and dad’s map being stolen, and the sudden appearance of Lef Seller, and the hot chase we had, and Lef’s getting away, and your finding all the gold for dad, and his giving you a bunch of it, and now back here—all of it, you know.”

“And don’t forget we’ve got to have a good camp yet before the summer’s gone,” put in Frank. “I’ve been thinking of it all the summer and I don’t want to see the time get away from us before we pull that off.”

“You’re sure right,” agreed Lanky.

For a while they chatted about the pleasant times in store for them on a camping trip, then the conversation again drifted back to their adventures in the West. All the while Frank was listening, even through the spoken words, to the action of the motor, feeling all the time as if something might be wrong with it.

“Something’s out of adjustment,” he said to his companion, breaking suddenly into one of Lanky’s speeches. “This motor is good, a perfect daisy, a four-cycle type that is hardly without equal, and yet it isn’t acting right, Lanky. I’m not so awfully expert that I can figure it all out, but there is a noise here that isn’t right. Listen! Just as I pick her up for some speed, there’s a peculiar sound.”

With this Frank increased the speed of the boat, and in perhaps sixty seconds the Rocket was heading up the Harrapin at a pace which Frank had not previously held it to.

“Gee, Frank,” cried Lanky enthusiastically, “what chance has Fred Cunningham with this? This is speed, I’ll say!”

“Righto—it’s speed. Look at her nose! Up and after ’em! Look back of us at the wash. But also listen to that sound. Some of these days when I need speed and think I’m going to get it, I’m going to find myself in trouble if I don’t find the cause for it,” and Frank’s tone was one of extreme worry.

“What’s the use of worrying? I don’t hear anything half as much as I see some speed. This is great!”

Gradually the speed of the Rocket was lessened, for Frank was not inclined to take chances on something which he did not understand.

“How far do we go?” asked Lanky.

“Up to Crescent Island. Father asked me to deliver that message in my coat pocket up to Mr. Sneed on the Island. I guess it must have been important, or he would have sent it by mail.”

Around a long bend of the river they went, past one of the prettiest of the island group, whereon a handsome summer home stood back of the shrubbery.

“I wonder why Mrs. Parsons keeps that big place on the island and also her home on the shore of the river,” idly observed Lanky Wallace, nodding over to the very handsome old home on the shore of the river, standing back on a knoll, protected from the view of the river boats by great trees and row upon row of shrubs.

“I understand she has become a sort of miser since Mr. Parsons died. I have heard that she keeps lots of her family heirlooms and silver and all that sort of thing up there.

“I’ve heard all sorts of mysterious things about her place, among them that she has secret chambers to keep her money and jewels,” and Lanky looked back at the place. “But, Frank, I don’t believe half of those stories. You know that lots of the small talk we hear in town about many folks isn’t so.”

“That’s true enough,” agreed Frank. “Of course, there is the old saying that where there’s smoke there is also fire, but I can’t help but think that a sensible person who is rich is not going to keep stuff of that sort about the place, exposed to thieves and burglars.”

“I wonder if she’s afraid to stay there unguarded.”

“Then why doesn’t she move into town, where she would be close to neighbors and friends?”

“On advice of counsel, I must refuse to answer,” said Lanky banteringly, striking a mock heroic attitude.

Just at this juncture the expected happened. Frank’s exclamation of “Now! what’s the matter?” showed that his fears were being realized. The engine stopped dead, and the Rocket was going upstream merely because of its own headway.

Lanky Wallace took the wheel at the suggestion of Frank, so that he himself could get down to tinker with the engine.