Then began the telling of the overheard conversation.

"Well, what do you know about that?"

"The nerve of that chap wanting a race!"

"We'll race _him_, all right!"

"And so they're going to do up old Denny, eh?"

"Well, I guess we'll have a hand in that!"

These were the comments of Jack and his chums.

"Now don't do anything rash," begged Cora.

"We've got to do _something_," insisted Jack.

After some consultation it was agreed that the boys should go over and have a talk with the fisherman, and then, among themselves, they would decide on what was best to be done.

Meanwhile the girls would go back to the bungalow, there to await the report of the boys. Nothing would be said to Mrs. Lewis, for she had had alarm enough.

It was anxious waiting for the girls, and they were so nervous that they did not enjoy the dinner Mrs. Lewis had prepared, at which lack of appet.i.te she wondered much. But she ascribed their distraction, and their rather strange comments, to the alarm of the day before.

Finally the _La.s.sie_, which had somehow been induced to "mote," was descried coming across the bay from the direction of the old fisherman's cabin.

"Come on, girls!" called Cora as she saw the boys. "We'll go down and meet them." She did not want Mrs. Lewis to hear the talk.

"Well, Jack?" asked Cora, as the boat came in.

"Not well--bad," he said. "Denny wasn't at home, and no one knew where he had gone. So we left a note for him, and we'll be on hand to-night."

"What about us?" asked Bess.

"You'd better stay here," said Jack. "No telling what sort of a row we may run into, and you're better at home."

"I think so, too," agreed Cora, but the look she gave her chums had more meaning in it than the mere words indicated. Bess and the others understood.

"And now," went on Jack, "we'll proceed to find out why the _Dixie_ won't mote. We want her in shape to-night."

"That's right," a.s.sented Dray. "I think it's the carbureter. I'll get a man from the garage to look it over."

"We'll want a fast boat if the one those fellows have is as speedy as you girls say," remarked Walter.

"Couldn't we take the _Chelton_?" asked Ed.

"The _Pickerel_ beat us to-day," said Cora. "Besides, it might be good to have her in reserve. Try and have the _Dixie_ fixed up."

"We will!" promised her owner.

The remainder of the day seemed like a dream to the girls. Never had time pa.s.sed so slowly. They were waiting for what the night might bring.

The boys made several other trips to the fisherman's cabin, going afoot through the woods, as the _La.s.sie_ had again gone on a strike, and a man from the garage was working over the _Dixie_.

The fisherman's cabin could be reached in two ways, but the water route was preferred by the young people, even though it was longer.

The boys could not find Denny at home, however, and planned to be at his cabin just at dusk, and to remain there until something happened.

"So we'll be sure to be there when the men arrive," said Jack.

Finally twilight came, and with the falling of night the repairs to the _Dixie_ were completed. She seemed to be running better than in some time.

"Well, here we go!" remarked Walter, as the boys took their places in the swift craft. "We'll let you girls know what happens--as soon as it happens."

"You'd better!" laughed Cora. "We'll be very anxious."

She and her chums had come down to the dock to see the boys leave on their trip to save Denny from an unknown danger.

Then came more anxious waiting.

CHAPTER XXI

THE BREAKDOWN

"Well, he hasn't come back yet."

"No. It's sort of queer, too. I wonder where he can be keeping himself, all day?"

"Maybe those fellows have got to him after all."

Jack Kimball and his chums, landing at the fisherman's dock from the _Dixie_, thus commented when they paid another visit to Denny's cabin, and found him still absent.

"No, I don't imagine anything has happened," said Jack. "You know he often goes off and stays a long time in his boat. He's got a crazy sort of motor in it, that runs about as often as the one does in the _La.s.sie_. He may be stuck somewhere."

"Or else waiting the turn of the tide," suggested Ed.

"That's right," chimed in Dray. "I've heard him say that certain fish won't bite when the tide's running out, and that you can catch others only when it's coming in. Maybe he is hanging around for that."

"Then he ought to be back soon," declared Jack, "for the tide turned a half-hour ago."

"If he's far out in the bay it will take him a long while to come in.

His boat doesn't make very good time," observed Walter.

The boys walked around the cabin. It was closed and locked, and the warning note they had left for the fisherman was still pinned to the door.