CHAPTER XI--A LONG SWIM

"Ocean Point strikes me as being just all right," said Bob, as he stretched out luxuriously in one of the comfortable chairs on the shady porch.

"Right you are," agreed Joe, heartily. "We ought to acquire a coat of sunburn here that will last over the winter and into next spring."

"It wouldn't take long out in that sun to get cooked nice and brown on both sides," said Bob. "It's going to be hot work putting up the aerials."

"Yes, but the best of it is that, no matter how hot you get, you can always cool off again in jig time by taking a dive in the ocean," said Joe. "And that's what I'm going to do pretty soon, too."

"You won't have to go alone, I can promise you that," said Jimmy. "I don't want to go in before we get the antenna strung up, though, because when I once do get there, I shan't want to come out in a hurry."

"You'll come out soon enough, Doughnuts, when you find a big shark chasing you," said Herb, with a sly wink at the others. "I've been told that there's a big man-eating shark around here that's just lying in wait for somebody to come in and furnish a nice dinner for him."

"Shark, nothing!" exclaimed Jimmy. "Anyway, if there were sharks around here, they'd be just as apt to eat you or Bob or Joe as they would be to go after me."

"Not a bit of it," said Herb seriously. "This shark I'm telling you about doesn't care for any one but very fat people. That's what makes me think it would be dangerous for you to go in."

"Well, I don't know that I can blame the shark for preferring me to you," said Jimmy, refusing, with the wisdom born of long experience, to take Herb's story seriously. "If the shark swallowed you, I'll bet he'd die of indigestion afterwards."

"All right, then, do as you please, but don't say I didn't warn you," said Herb resignedly. "You don't get much gratitude for trying to do people favors anyway, I've found."

"If you fellows put as much energy into getting that aerial strung as you do in chinning with each other, we'd be receiving messages by now," said Bob, laughing. "Let's get busy and get things fixed up, and then we'll go down and see if there's any sign of that shark friend of Herb's."

The radio boys all agreed to this, and without further delay took up the business of stringing the antenna. They had brought two masts with them, and these they proceeded to mount on the roofs of the two bungalows occupied by the Laytons and the Atwoods. These were so situated that the umbrella antenna ran directly over the community living room, thus giving an ideal condition for sending, as the boys intended to set up their apparatus in the big living room, so that everybody in the little colony could get the benefit of the nightly concerts and news bulletins sent out by the big broadcasting stations.

As the radio boys had surmised, getting up the aerial was a blisteringly hot job, and before they had been at it many minutes the perspiration was running off them in streams. They kept doggedly at it, however, and at last the final turn-buckle had been tightened up, and everything looked taut and shipshape.

"There!" exclaimed Bob, looking with satisfaction at the result of their labors. "I guess it will take a pretty strong gale to knock that outfit over."

"A cyclone, you mean," said Joe. "I don't think anything short of that would even bother it."

"Well, we'll hope not," said Bob. "Who's going for a swim? It would take a whole school of sharks to keep me out of the water now."

The others were of the same mind, and it did not take them long to jump into their bathing suits and make a dash for the white beach. A gentle surf was breaking with a cool, splashing rumble that seemed almost like an invitation to come in and get cool. The boys were not long in accepting it, and dashed in with shouts and laughter. They were all good swimmers, and they gave themselves up to the delight of breasting the incoming breakers, rising and falling with the slow heave and swell of the cool, green ocean. Puffing and blowing, flinging the spray from their eyes, they passed beyond the surf, and then slowed down, just exerting themselves enough to keep their heads above water.

"Wow!" exclaimed Jimmy. "This is the life, eh, fellows?"

"I'll say so!" agreed Bob. "Where's that shark of yours, Herb?"

"Oh, I suppose he's away visiting some friends of his," said Herb. "But if you wait around long enough, we'll probably see him. Just have a little patience, can't you?"

"All the patience in the world," laughed Joe. "I don't really care how long he stays away, myself."

"He couldn't catch me if he did come around," boasted Jimmy. "I'll bet none of you hobos can catch me, anyway," and he was off in a smother of foam.

This was a challenge not to be overlooked, and the rest were after him like hounds after a fox. Jimmy soon found it an impossibility to make good his boast, and before he had gone fifty yards he was overhauled by Bob, and then by Joe. Herb did his best for a while, but soon decided that it was more trouble than it was worth, and turned over on his back and floated instead.

"Why, you couldn't beat a lame crab, Doughnuts," chaffed Bob, as they all slowed up to get their wind. "I thought from the way you talked that you were the boy wonder of the world."

"Oh, I don't care. I made you fellows work hard, anyway," panted Jimmy, puffing out a mouthful of water that he had inadvertently shipped. "This is one place where I can exercise without getting overheated, anyway."

"No danger of that," said Joe. "I'm about ready to go in for a while. How about you fellows?"

"Guess it might be a good idea," said Bob. "We're out further than I thought, as it is."

In fact, when the boys looked toward the shore, it did look a long distance away. But they swam in easily, with long, easy strokes, reveling in the clean tang of the salt water and the joy of the brilliant sun on their faces as they clove through the sparkling waves. Before long they had reached the outer line of gentle combers, and let themselves be carried shoreward in a rush and swirl of white foam. A little further, and they felt the hard sand of the beach, and got on their feet, somewhat winded, but intoxicated with the joy and sense of glorious well being that comes of salt spray, glinting sun, and salty breeze.

"That was the greatest ever!" exclaimed Bob, flinging himself down in the soft, hot sand. "Fresh water is all right, but give me old ocean for real sport."

Each boy burrowed out a comfortable nest in the sand, which felt very warm and grateful after the cold sea water. But it was not very long before the sun began to make itself felt, and pretty soon their bathing suits were steaming.

"Say!" exclaimed Jimmy, at length, scrambling to his feet, "it's me for the water again. I can begin to feel my skin drying up and getting nice and crispy. Who's game for another swim?"

It appeared that they all were, and with shouts and laughter they once more dashed into the surf. They did not stay in so long this time, however, as it was drawing on toward evening, and they all had ravenous appetites that told them it must be nearly supper time.

Jimmy was the first to put this thought into words.

"I feel as though I hadn't eaten anything in days," he remarked. "I've often heard that salt water was a great thing to give a person an appetite, and now I know it."

"Yes, but I don't believe that you have to come all the way to Ocean Point, Doughnuts, to get one," said Herb. "I don't see how you could very well eat more than you do when you're in Clintonia."

"Huh! I don't suppose you feel hungry at all, do you?" asked Jimmy.

"Well, I must admit I feel as though I could punish a pretty square meal," said Herb. "But if I were as fat as some people I know, I'd be ashamed to talk about eating, even."

"Maybe if I floated around on my back while I'm in the water, instead of really swimming, I wouldn't feel so hungry, either," said Jimmy scathingly, and this turned the laugh on Herb.

"He's got you there, Herb," said Bob. "If you keep on you'll be getting fat yourself. If you ever do, you'll be out of luck, because Jimmy will never get through pestering you about it."

"I guess I won't have to worry about that for a while yet," said Herb. "It will take me a good many years to catch up with Jimmy."

"Don't you worry about me," said that aggrieved individual. "I don't worry about you just because you look like an animated clothespin, do I?"

Herb was still trying to think up some fitting reply to this when his meditations were cut short by their arrival at the little bungalow colony.

There were several small bungalows grouped about one much larger one. This latter contained a large dining and living room and a kitchen big enough to supply the needs of all the families residing in the smaller buildings. It was in this large central living room that the boys had started to set up their radio apparatus when the lure of the ocean had tempted them away.

They returned none too soon, for the evening meal was ready, but, as Joe remarked, "It was no more ready than they were." They did all the good things ample justice, and then went out on the wide veranda to rest and allow digestion to take its course.

"We ought to be able to get the set working this evening," remarked Bob, as they sat looking out over the sand, with the boom of the surf in their ears, "provided, of course, we all feel energetic enough to tackle it."

"Well, I'm willing to take a fling at it a little later," said Joe. "But just at present I don't feel strong enough even to handle a screw driver."

"I'll bet Jimmy's crazy to get to work, anyway," said Bob. "How about it, old energetic?"

But the only answer was a gentle snore from Jimmy's direction, and everybody laughed.

"Guess that swim has tired him out," said Joe. "Swimming in salt water always seems to leave you mighty lazy afterward."

"You boys must be more careful when you go swimming, and not go out so far from shore," said Mrs. Atwood, Joe's mother. "This afternoon I was watching you from the porch, and it seemed to me you went for a dreadful distance before you started back."

"Oh, that's two-thirds of the fun of swimming, Mother," said Joe. "There's no use in puttering around close to shore. What's the use in knowing how to swim, if you do that?"

"We keep pretty close together, anyway," Bob added. "So if one should get tired, the others could help him in."

"Yes, I know," said Mrs. Atwood. "But just the same, I wish you'd be careful."

The boys promised that they would, and then, feeling somewhat rested, they woke Jimmy, after some difficulty, and went inside to rig up their receiving set.