CHAPTER IX

NODDY PACKS UP

“What are we going to do about it?”

“Can we stay here all night?”

Thus Bob and Ned questioned Jerry, who stood silently regarding the stalled motor. The tall lad did not answer at once.

“Kinder balked on you; has she, son?” asked Mr. Brill, softly. He and Jim Nestor had, with the others, disembarked from the _Dartaway_.

“Sort of,” admitted Jerry, with something like a frown on his face. “And I can’t understand it.”

“Does it often act up that way?” Jim Nestor wanted to know.

“Not very often,” said Jerry. “We’ve got it adjusted pretty fine. I can’t see what’s the matter. There’s a good spark, and there’s gasoline in the carburetor, for I tested the drain cock. Yet there doesn’t seem to be an explosion.”

Once more he threw in the switch, and turned the flywheel. There was a buzz as the coil vibrated, showing that the electrical connections were good, but no explosion followed.

“Ned, you try,” suggested Jerry. “Maybe I’m the hoodoo.”

Ned stepped in front of the motor. But, before he attempted to turn the flywheel he gravely tied a knot in his watch chain.

“What’s that for?” asked Jim Nestor. “Afraid you’ll break the links?”

“No, it’s to break the hoodoo,” answered Ned. “You know there are so many things that can happen to a gasoline motor that no one can number them. Lots of times a little thing like sprinkling talcum powder on the cylinder head, or giving the timer a gum drop, will make her start when nothing else will. I’m just trying the watch chain as an experiment,” and he grinned broadly.

But it was of no avail, and the more Ned labored at turning over the flywheel, the more the motor seemed to balk.

“I give up!” exclaimed the merchant’s son. “It’s your turn, Bob.”

The stout lad gravely took out a bit of court plaster, and pasted it on the magnet of the dynamo.

“What’s that for?” asked Mr. Brill, quickly.

“That’s my way of breaking a hoodoo,” said Bob.

But that, likewise, was of no avail, and the engine remained “dead.”

Jerry tried again, with no success, and then they all sat down on the shore and looked gloomily at the boat. It was getting late, no other craft was in sight, and the river at that point was too wide to admit of signalling, or calling to shore.

“I guess it’s us for an all-night stay,” remarked Bob, gloomily. “And not a bit of grub!”

“There would have been some in the box in the shack if you hadn’t insisted on eating the last box of sardines,” declared Ned, for often the boys would spend a day or two camping out on the island, and they had a small supply of provisions there.

“Well, I was hungry,” said the fat youth. “I had to eat ’em.”

“And you’re hungry now,” said Jerry.

“If we’ve got to stay here let’s go up to the cabin, and see what we can do about sleeping,” proposed Ned. “It’s pretty evident that we can’t get the motor going now. There must be something wrong with the valves. It’ll have to be taken apart. Let’s go to the shack.”

They found the cabin in good shape, and all of them could sleep there, since it was not cold, and there were enough covers on the bunks. But there was no food.

“Well, we’ll have to make the best of it,” declared Jerry. “Let’s go back to the boat, and see that everything’s safe for the night, and then we’ll turn in.”

But they were spared the discomforts of a foodless night on the island. For, when they were making their craft snug at the improvised dock, Ned caught the sound of oars on the dark river.

“There’s a boat!” he exclaimed. “Let’s yell!”

“Good idea,” agreed Jerry, and they raised their voices.

“What you want?” came the answering hail, as the sound of rowing ceased.

“We’re stuck on the island,” answered Ned. “We want to be taken ashore. Who are you?”

“Sud Snuffles,” was the answer, and the boys at once recognized the voice of a queer character about town--a man whom they often hired to do odd tasks. Sud was a person very fond of going about, and he had the faculty of getting into trouble, and out again, with ease. Just now he was a welcome friend.

“Take us ashore, Sud,” called Jerry. “Our boat has gone back on us.”

“Quarter apiece!” exclaimed the practical Sud. “Can’t do it for any less. I’m fishin’ and if I stop to ferry you folks over I may miss a nice mess. Quarter apiece!”

“That’s a go!” cried Jerry, glad of the chance to get to the mainland. “We’ll leave our boat here and come for it to-morrow. I’m sorry,” he said to the two Westerners, “that we couldn’t give you a better trip.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” spoke Jim, with a broad grin.

“Wait until you get in our airship,” suggested Ned. “When we swoop above the clouds----”

“I s’pose then, when anything happens, you just rest on a cloud bank until it’s fixed,” said the miner, grimly.

“Well, we don’t fall, at any rate!” exclaimed Jerry.

Sud rowed up, and soon had them all in his boat. It was rather crowded, but he got them safely ashore, and collected his fee.

The boys lost no time seeking their homes, and Bob was in such a hurry that he left his companions far behind.

“My! he must be hungry!” laughed Ned.

The next day, in a rowboat, they went for their disabled craft. Once more Jerry and his chums tried to start it, but without success, and they had to tow it back.

At their home dock they went carefully over it. While they were at it Professor Snodgrass, who had not been much in the company of the chums of late, came up.

“When do we start for the place of the luminous snakes, boys?” he wanted to know.

“Soon,” answered Jerry. “We are just as anxious as you are,” and he reached for a monkey wrench on a locker beside him.

“Hold on!” cried the scientist. “Don’t touch that!”

“What’s the matter?” asked Jerry. “Is it too hot, from having been in the sun?”

“No, my lad, but on the handle is one of the rarest dragon flies I have ever seen. Don’t move, any of you, and I’ll have him in a second. Oh, the beauty!” and the professor, from one of his many pockets, pulled out a small insect net. Carefully getting into the boat, he poised the net above the dragon fly on the wrench handle. There was a swoop, an excited exclamation, and the next moment the professor had leaped out on the dock and was racing along the river bank, crying:

“He got away! Oh, the little beauty! He escaped me, but I’ll get him yet!” and away he raced after the specimen.

“He’s good for all day,” murmured Jerry, as he took up the wrench.

“What are you going to do?” asked Bob.

“Take off the gasoline pipe. There must be some stoppage in it. No more gasoline drips from the carburetor, as it did at first, so there must be something in the pipe.”

It did not take long to remove the connections. Jerry probed a bit at the gasoline tank outlet and then, as a sudden flow of the fluid came, he cried:

“There it is! A bit of waste right where the pipe fits on the tank. There’s been some trick here!”

“Noddy Nixon!” exclaimed Ned.

“I shouldn’t wonder a bit. The night he took our boat he must have unscrewed the gasoline tank cover and dropped a bit of waste in. It took until now to float down into the opening, and no wonder we couldn’t start the motor with no gas in her. There must be something wrong with the carburetor, too, or she’d have run on what was in that. I’ll look.”

He found that the carburetor had been so tampered with that, while there was gasoline in the base of it there was none that could be drawn into the cylinder chambers. With the removal of the waste, and the adjusting of the carburetor, the motor started off at the first turn of the flywheel.

“Hurray!” cried Ned. “Now we’re all right. We’ll give Jim and Harvey another ride before we start for Montana and the sixty nuggets of gold! Ugh!” he suddenly grunted, as Jerry nudged him in the ribs. “What’s that for?”

“Didn’t you see Bill Berry passing just as you said that, Bob?” demanded the tall youth.

“No, I didn’t!”

“Well, he just sneaked past, and I’m sure he heard you. We’ve got to be careful.”

“Oh, I guess he and Noddy won’t bother us any more.”

“I’m sure I hope not, but I’d just as soon they didn’t know anything of our affairs. I’m going to do one thing, though.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m going to see Noddy, and give him one piece of my mind! The idea of putting our boat out of commission that way! I’ve a good notion to make a complaint of malicious mischief against him.”

“It would serve him right if you did.”

“I’ll think about it,” said Jerry.

The _Dartaway_ was soon in running order, and the boys gave the two Westerners a fine ride down the river. That afternoon, on returning to their boathouse, and recalling what trouble they had had the night before, Jerry determined to make a formal complaint against the bully.

“We’ve stood enough from him!” he exclaimed. “It’s time he found out he can’t do as he pleases!”

“That’s right!” agreed his chums, and Jerry, having secured the boat, started for the office of the family lawyer, to make a formal complaint against Noddy.

As he was about to enter he saw Andy Rush hurrying along.

“He looks as if he had some news,” mused the tall lad. “Hello, Andy!” he greeted. “What’s up?”

“Didn’t you hear?” asked Andy.

“No, what is it?”

“Noddy Nixon packed up to-day, and he and Bill Berry left town in a hurry.”

“They did?” cried Jerry. “I wonder if he heard about the complaint I was going to make against him.”

“I don’t know,” answered Andy. “But I happened to be down at the station when he and Bill took the train. And their baggage was checked for some place in Montana.”

“Montana!” cried Jerry. “Are you sure of this, Andy?”

“Of course I am!” exclaimed the small chap.

“Then he’s heard something about the sixty nuggets of gold!” murmured Jerry. “He’s going to have a try for them. We’ve got to get ahead of him!”