CHAPTER V

PLANNING A CRUISE

Ned was steering, and, having passed two or three large craft he put the boat over to the Cresville side of the river, to gain the advantage of the better current. He was peering ahead into the darkness, lighted up by the slender pencil of fire from the search lantern, when he suddenly made an explanation, and threw the steering-wheel over so quickly that the _Dartaway_ careened to one side.

“Look out!” cried Ned. “Slow her down, Jerry! There’s a boat ahead!”

Before Jerry could do this, however, the motor boat rushed past some dark object in the water. There was a crash and splintering of wood, and the occupants of the _Dartaway_ dimly saw a man crouching in the bottom of a small boat as they rushed past.

“We only smashed one of his oars,” said Ned, as he turned the wheel back to avoid running the craft into the bank. “I just saw him in time. He wasn’t making a sound or I might have heard him. He should have shown a light.”

“Could you see who it was?” asked Bob, between bites at a chicken sandwich, for he had again attacked the lunch.

“Probably a lone fisherman after eels,” responded the steersman.

By this time the _Dartaway_ was approaching Cresville, the lights of the town being visible.

The girls and boys from the rowboat were landed at the main dock and the motor boys started back for their own shelter.

“I wonder if we did much damage to that boat we hit,” mused Bob. “Whose was it any way?”

“I can’t tell you whose it was, but I think it was the one the girls were out in, and which floated away from us,” said Ned. “But I can tell you who was in it.”

“Who?” asked Jerry sharply.

“Bill Berry!” spoke Ned.

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. I had a good glimpse of him just before I swung the wheel over. I’d know him anywhere. We have good reason to. I’d know him and Noddy Nixon, his bosom friend, wherever I met them.”

“Bill Berry, eh,” said Jerry softly. “Well if he and Noddy are in town together it means that some mischief is afoot. They never get together but something happens. We’ll have to be on our guard. They may try to pay us back for getting ahead of them as we did on several occasions. I wonder if Bill and Noddy have met since Noddy came home.”

“What do you suppose he was doing in that boat, if it was the one that floated away from us?” asked Bob.

“He was probably hanging around near the river bank and saw it when it floated down,” said Ned. “He thought it was a chance to earn money by selling it or by returning it to the dock, and he just got in it.”

A little later the boys had housed their boat and started for home.

“We ought to go off on a cruise somewhere,” suggested Ned. “It would be a fine thing to go down the river to Lake Cantoga, and spend three or four days camping there. We could hunt and fish and have a bully time.”

“Say, that would be sport!” agreed Bob. “We could take along a lot to eat in case the fish didn’t bite or we didn’t kill anything.”

“Say, Chunky,” spoke Jerry solemnly, “if you mention eating again to-night, after the way you devoured chicken sandwiches to-day, I--I’ll hit you, that’s what!”

“I can’t help it,” said Bob with a little sigh, “I guess I was born hungry.”

“Well if you weren’t, you certainly have acquired the habit since,” observed Ned dryly. “But that aside, what do you think of my plan, Jerry.”

“Nothing better, only I guess we’ll have to wait until the term closes. I don’t want to flunk in my exams, and I guess you don’t, either of you. I’m a little bit shaky on my algebra, and my Latin is none of the best.”

“Oh, of course we’ll wait until the academy closes,” agreed Ned. “That will only be three weeks now. In the meantime we can take short trips and get acquainted with our boat. If there are as many kinds of trouble that can happen as are down in the book, we will no more than have learned how to remedy them by the time we want to start.”

The next day, Sunday, the boys went down to the dock for a look at the _Dartaway_. As they approached they saw some one peering through a side window into the house where the boat floated.

“Some one is nosing around,” observed Ned.

As they came closer the person did not move away, evidently not hearing their footsteps, as the wind was blowing in the opposite direction.

“It’s Noddy Nixon!” cried Bob, as the person turned with a start.