CHAPTER I

DISAPPOINTMENT

“Might have known it would turn out this way if we let _him_ manage things,” grumbled Ned Slade in disgusted tones as he slumped down on one of the forward lockers of a motor boat that was drifting slowly in the middle of a blue lake. “Why didn’t you look after the details yourself, Jerry?”

“Why, Bob said he would see that everything was all right and----”

“Yes! And this shows how much he ‘saw.’ A chap with compound astigmatism in both blinkers could see better than Bob Baker!”

“Oh, come now,” protested Jerry Hopkins in soothing tones. “Aren’t you a bit rough on our fat chum,” and he glanced toward a stout chap who was bending over the motor of the boat, tinkering with its various parts in an endeavor to set it going again.

“Rough on him?” expostulated Ned. “I should say not! I’m like a piece of silk compared to a bit of sandpaper when I think of the things I could say--and haven’t the heart.”

“Don’t stop on my account!” snapped the heavy-weight, over his shoulder. “Get it out of your system and maybe you’ll feel better.”

“I won’t feel better until you get the engine started, so we won’t have to stay out in this broiling sun. And to think there’s a fine feed waiting us at the other end of the lake if we could only get to it! I should have thought you’d have had common sense enough, Bob, where the eats were concerned, to make sure of getting to them.”

“Say! Look here!” and Bob turned fiercely on his tormentor. He tried to seem angry but the effect of a smudge of oil on one cheek, with a daub of black grease on the end of his nose, while one eye appeared as though it had come off second best in a fistic encounter, caused his two companions to laugh, which altogether spoiled the effect of the vigorous protest on which the youth had started.

“How did I know this was going to happen?” he asked, waving a grimy hand at the engine, while, with the other, he beat a tattoo with a monkey wrench on the nearest cylinder. “Could I tell she was going to break down as soon as we got out in the middle of the lake?”

“Break down nothing!” scoffed Ned. “You’re out of gasoline, that’s what’s the matter. You didn’t have sense enough to see that the tank was full before you started.”

“Huh! I s’pose _you_ never overlook a little matter like that?” sneered Bob.

“Of course not,” and, having spoken thus loftily, not to say superciliously, Ned turned away and gazed across the blue waters of Lake Carmona, now sparkling and rather uncomfortably hot under the June sun.

“Guess you don’t remember the time you invited the girls out in the car and got stalled on Mine hill just because of the same little old fact that you forgot the gas?” asked Bob. “How about that?”

“There was a leak in the tank,” defended Ned.

“It takes you to tell it.”

“Oh, dry up and get started!” exclaimed the other.

“Easy, boys,” counseled tall Jerry Hopkins. “This won’t get us anywhere. Is the gasoline really gone, Bob?”

“I guess it is,” answered the stout lad. “I did forget to have ’em put some in the tank, but I thought there was enough for the trip. Anyhow, you needn’t worry about starving. I put in a little sort of snack, as I thought we might get hungry on the way.”

A smile replaced the frown that had come over his face during the contention with Ned, and Bob brought forth from a locker a large box wrapped in paper.

“Look what he calls a little snack!” mocked Jerry, laughing. “There’s enough for a whole day’s rations.”

“Oh, not quite,” declared the stout lad. “This lake air gives me a wonderful appetite.”

“Never knew you to be without an appetite,” commented Ned, and his voice was more friendly. “I’ll take back some of what I said, Bob. But for the love of sulphur matches, what are we going to do? Eating, pleasurable as it is, isn’t going to move the boat.”

“I’ve a little gasoline in the can that I use for priming the cylinders,” returned Bob, after rummaging in the engine locker. “That might take us a little way.”

“Pooh! not a hundred yards,” scoffed Ned.

“Anyhow, lack of gasoline isn’t the only trouble,” went on Bob. “One of the cylinders doesn’t work. It began missing a while back, before the gas gave out. Even with a tank full I couldn’t run the boat until that’s fixed.”

“You get out!” advised Ned. “You forgot the gasoline and that’s all there is to it. And you wanted to have charge of all the arrangements on this little cruise. Well, you’ve had your way, but you won’t again if I know it.

“There’s nothing to do now but row,” he went on. “Not another boat in sight and there isn’t any likelihood of any coming up to this end of the lake to-day. They’re all down at those races. We’re booked for a row, and we ought to make you do it all, Bob Baker.”

“I’ll do my share,” offered the smutty-faced, fat engineer.

“Break out the oars!” cried Jerry. “Never say die! It might be worse. It’ll give us an appetite--rowing. It might be a whole lot worse.”

Ned went aft to where, in a space along the locker tops, the emergency oars were kept. He turned to Jerry and said:

“It couldn’t be!”

“Couldn’t be what?” the tall youth asked in some wonder.

“Any worse. There aren’t any oars!”

“No oars?” cried Jerry.

“Nary an oar!”

Both lads gazed at Bob. He regarded them with a crestfallen countenance.

“Aren’t--aren’t they there?” he asked falteringly.

“Look!” and Ned pointed to the vacant space.

“Hang it all! I did take them out when I was at the dock,” Bob admitted. “I couldn’t get at what was in the locker with the oars on top, so I laid them on the wharf. I meant to put them back again, but----”

Ned groaned and pretended to weep with his head hidden in his arms. Jerry smiled grimly. Bob scratched his head in perplexity.

“Well, I guess the only thing to do is to let the boat drift and wait for someone to come along and give us a tow,” sighed Jerry. “Meanwhile, there are the eats. Break out the grub, Bob, and we’ll solace ourselves with that.”

“This is the limit!” complained Ned. “If ever I come out with you again, Bob Baker, you’ll know it!”

“And if ever I ask you I’ll kick myself all around the campus,” was the retort.

For a time Ned refused the tasty sandwiches which the stout lad had, with prudent foresight, stowed aboard the motor craft. But the appetizing odor was too much for him and he capitulated, but in no good spirits.

“Cheer up,” advised Jerry. “You’ll get indigestion if you eat with such a sour face, Ned. We’ll get there some time.”

“Yes, and find that my father and Bob’s have gone on with their trip and we have missed seeing them. Dad was going to bring me some dough, too. And I need it,” he added as he turned his pockets inside out. “Not a nickel left, and I want to get tickets for the show to-night.”

For a time the spirit of gloom seemed to settle down over the motor boat and her occupants.

The three chums, Ned, Bob and Jerry, had set off early that afternoon from Boxwood Hall, where they were students, to cross Lake Carmona. They were going to Haredon, a small town on the other side of the body of water, and there Ned and Bob expected to meet their respective fathers who were on a business trip together, and had written that they would stop off to see their sons, and have dinner with them, before resuming their journey.

The boys had hired a large motor boat, as their own, the _Neboje_, as well as their automobile, had already been shipped to Cresville because of the approach of the summer vacation, and started on the trip. The details of the expedition had been left to Bob. Jolly and good-natured, Bob never thought very far ahead, and the double calamity of not having had the gasoline tank filled and having taken out the oars, by which the boat could have been surely, if slowly, propelled, had left the boys becalmed in the middle of Lake Carmona on a hot day.

Owing to the fact that there were some races being held on this day, nearly all the other students had gathered at the lower end of the lake, as had most of the craft of persons living on the shores. This made the middle and upper end deserted of the usual flotilla; so there was scant chance of the boys getting a tow.

They ate for a while in silence, and then Bob had an inspiration.

“I believe it will work!” he cried.

“What now?” asked Ned. “Have you found some way of getting ashore and buying some gasoline?”

“No, but we can put up a sail,” Bob went on. “Here’s the boat hook, and the canvas cover of the engine is stuffed away in the stern.”

He scrambled aft, hauled out a bundle of canvas, and then got the boat hook. For a few seconds Ned and Jerry watched him. Then the tall lad said:

“I believe it will work at that. Bob, you’re not so worse.”

The motor boat, being heavy, did not move very fast under the small sail area the boys spread. But at least they did move, and it was better than being becalmed under a hot sun.

They sailed on for perhaps two miles when they spied another motor boat which was evidently going to pass near them.

“Hail him!” suggested Ned, and they attracted the attention of the lone skipper by toots on the electric horn. The man was a baker who made the round of the shore resorts delivering bread and pastry. He agreed, for a small sum, to tow them to Haredon and, several hours after they had expected to arrive, the boys reached the hotel where Mr. Baker and Mr. Slade had promised to meet them.

“Your fathers aren’t here now,” the clerk told them. “They waited until the last train, then said they’d have to go. They left a note for you, however,” and he handed over a long envelope.

“It’s for you, Ned,” said Jerry, reading the superscription.

“But there’s something in it for each of us,” Ned declared, opening the envelope.

“Mine’s a letter from mother,” Jerry remarked, as he recognized his parent’s handwriting. Mrs. Hopkins was a widow.

“Mine’s from dad--short and to the point,” chuckled Bob. “He says he reckons I took so much time to eat that I missed connections and couldn’t arrive on time. They’ll be here again next week, though.”

“That’s what my father says,” sighed Ned. “Well, it’s a disappointment,” he went on, turning over the paper in his hand, “especially as I did need that money.”

“Maybe he left some for you with the hotel clerk,” suggested Bob. “Ask, and, if he didn’t, I can lend you some.”

“Thanks,” returned Ned. “I’ll ask.”

The hotel clerk was apologetic enough, but, unfortunately, no money had been left for any of the boys. Ned turned away, disappointment showing on his face. As he was debating with himself what was best to do he saw, on the floor, half concealed by a time-table rack near the front desk, a folded paper.

Half mechanically, he picked it up, unfolded it and, as he glanced over the first few lines of writing, uttered an exclamation of surprise.

“What’s the matter?” inquired Jerry. “Did you find some money after all?”

“Not quite as good as that,” was Ned’s answer. “This seems to be a letter to my father from his ranch foreman. Dad must have dropped it from his pocket when he was standing here paying his bill. And it’s got _some_ news in it, fellows! Listen to this!

“Rustlers have been stealing cattle from the ranch, and the foreman suggests that dad come out in a hurry, or else send someone, to take quick action, as they haven’t been able to get the thieves. This is bad business sure enough!” and Ned’s face took on a serious look.