“Do you suppose it is somebody trying to see what kind of an invention you have here, Dannie?” asked the awed Billy.
For the second trip of the motor iceboat had convinced the younger Speedwell lad that his brother was a marvel. He wasn’t talking much about that trip, but if John Bromley had considered the speed of the _Follow Me_ quite surprising, how much more impressed was Billy—and even Dan himself.
It was true they had had a favoring breeze—and a stiff breeze, too. The wind would have driven the boat at high speed, alone. But with the auxiliary motor at work the _Follow Me_ had traveled at a breath-taking pace. She had gone the length of Island Number One, and the island beyond it, rounded the farther end of that second island, and come rushing back down the river to John Bromley’s dock in an almost unbelievably short time.
“It doesn’t matter who the fellow was,” said Dan, finally; “you know we don’t want anybody examining this boat. John understands that; don’t you, John?”
“I’ll keep me eye on her,” growled the boatman. “They’ve got to be wide awake to beat old John. You leave it to me.”
But both boys felt some worriment of mind as they scurried around that evening in the motor truck, picking up the cans of milk from the dairies.
If it had begun to snow they might have felt better about it. With a storm under way it would not be likely that anybody would seek out the _Follow Me_ at John Bromley’s lonely dock, for any purpose.
The Speedwell boys got back to the house, however, finished the chores for that night, and went in to supper before a single flake of the promised storm had fallen.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The telephone tinkled in the kitchen just after Dan had pulled off his boots. He and Billy were the last to go to bed on this evening, for it was so cold that they had gone out to the milk room to blanket all the bottled milk for fear the bottles would freeze and burst their caps.
Billy, still having his boots on, went down the back stairway and Dan heard him speaking into the instrument. It was several moments before the older boy realized that Billy was growing excited.
And no wonder! Billy was listening to something over the ’phone that quite amazed him. In the first place he was surprised to hear old John Bromley’s voice.