Motor Boat Boys on the Great Lakes; or, Exploring the Mystic Isle of Mackinac

“I hope we don’t run across that crowd again,” observed Nick. “For they’re sore on us, and bound to do us a bad turn if they find the chance.”

“Well, we can keep our eyes open,” remonstrated George. “You know Clarence believes that Flash can make circles around my bully boat, and I’m wanting to give him a chance to prove it.”

“Chuck that, George,” said Josh. “You know you beat him out once handsomely.”

“Yes, but he said he hadn’t tried to do his level best. Anyhow, if the chance comes again I’m ready to race him.”

“How long would we be gettin’ up till the Soo now, Jack, darlint?” asked Jimmie; who being second “high notch” in the line of eaters in the crowd, had been too busy up to now to do any great amount of talking.

“That depends pretty much on the weather,” replied the leader of the expedition, who studied his charts faithfully, and was always ready to give what information he picked up, to his chums. “We are now something like one hundred and fifty miles sou’-east-by-south from Mackinac Island, where we expect to stop over a few days. If we pick out a good morning we ought to navigate the head of Huron and the crooked St. Mary’s river to the Soo in one day. The steamers do, and we can make about as fast time.”

“Of course we have to hold up for the Comfort pretty much all the way,” said George; “not that I’m complaining, fellows, for I understand that it takes all sorts of people to make a world, and lots of different kinds of boats to please everybody. And in bad weather Herb and Josh fare better than the rest of us. Well, suppose we leave here tomorrow morning, if the weather lets us, Jack?”

“We will try and make Mackinac with just one more stop,” Jack replied. “That will be easy enough; though if the wind gets around and the waves increase, we’ll have to run for some snug harbor, George, because your boat and mine are hardly storm craft on these big lakes.”

“It’s been a foine trip so far, I say,” observed Jimmie, reaching for another baked potato, which Josh had cooked to a turn in the ashes of the fire, somehow keeping them from blackening, as is usually the case in camp.

“You’re right there, Jimmie,” replied Herb. “And with no serious accidents to come, we’ll make a record to be proud of. Just imagine us sitting around the fire in our cozy club house that is right now building, while Jack reads the stirring log of our experiences up here. It will make us live over the whole trip again.”

“Yes,” chimed in George, “and think of the bliss that must bring.”

Nick colored a little, as he felt every eye on him.

“Look at the moon just peeping up over yonder, fellows,” he observed, meaning to distract their attention.

“Just about full too,” remarked Jack. “Going to be a great night for a camp.”

“Makes me think of that moonlight race we had with the Flash,” George went on, his heart always set on the matter of speed and victories.

Night was just closing in, and the grand full moon was rising from the watery depths, so it seemed.

“There comes a motor boat down yonder,” remarked Herb. “See what a fine searchlight she has. No need of that, though, as soon as the moon gets fairly up.”

“Say, she’s just humping along to beat the band, I tell you!” declared Josh, as all eyes were turned to where the shadowy form of the advancing craft could be seen, growing plainer with every passing second.

“Oh! I don’t know,” instantly remarked George, who was unable to see much good in any small craft when his pet Wireless was around. “I should say she was doing just fairly, you know; but then she doesn’t have to hold back for any elephant.”

“That’s a mean hit, George,” said Herb, though he never changed his mind about his comfortable boat because of any slurs cast by his mates, who might come to envy him in bad weather.

“Look at her cut through the water, would you?” Josh went on. “The fellows aboard don’t intend to turn in here to stop over. Must be in a hurry to get somewhere, I guess.”

“There, she’s just passing the rising moon. Why, I declare, fellows, seems to me she looks kind of familiar like!” Nick exclaimed.

Jack jumped up, and secured a pair of marine glasses. They were guaranteed for night work, and through them he could see the passing motor boat splendidly.

“Is it, Jack?” asked George, eagerly; and the other nodded.

“That’s the same old Flash, all right,” he said, looking around the circle.

“Gosh!” exploded Nick, “Crafty Clarence is on the trail once more, bent on revenge for the beat George gave his pirate motor boat. I see warm times looming up ahead of us, shipmates all. And ain’t I glad I know how to swim now!”

CHAPTER IV

CAUGHT BY THE STORM

“I wonder if they know we are camping in this place right now?” Josh ventured.

“The chances are, they do,” replied Jack. “Both of those chaps possess eyes as sharp as they make them. And there’s another reason why I think that way.”

“Then let’s hear it, old fellow,” begged Nick.

“This is a nice, attractive place to haul in, and spend the night, when cruising along in a small motor boat. As evening has come, not one in ten would think of passing the cove by; and you know it, boys,” Jack went on, with emphasis.

“But they deliberately did that same thing,” ventured Herb. “Yes, I get on to what you mean, Jack. They’d rather boom along, and take chances of being caught out on the open lake in the night, even with a storm in prospect, to stopping over near the camp of the motor boat club. Is that it?”

“Just what I meant, Herb,” nodded the other.

“And I guess you struck it, all right,” commented Josh.

“But if they didn’t want to say us agin, what in the dickens did they iver kim up this way for, I doan’t know?” remarked Jimmie, helplessly.

At that George laughed out loud.

“Wake up, Jimmie!” he exclaimed. “You’re asleep, you know. Why, don’t you understand that Clarence Macklin never yet took a beat like a fair and square man? He won’t rest easy till he’s tried it again with the Wireless. I happen to know that he hurried his poor old boat to a builder, and had him work on the engine, hoping to stir it up a peg or two. And now he’s going to sneak around till he gets the chance to challenge me again.”

“And,” went on Nick, following up the idea, “he didn’t want to drop in here with us, because in the first place he hates us like fun; and then he was afraid George might ask questions about his bally old boat.”

“He wants to spring a surprise!” declared Josh. “That’s his play all the time. When we had snowball battles, Clarence was forever hiding with a bunch of his men, and jumping out suddenly at us. That’s where he got his name of Sneaky Clarence.”

“Well,” remarked Jack, “I hope George gets a chance to show him up again for the fraud that he is; but at the same time I don’t want Clarence and Bully Joe bothering us right along. We didn’t come up here just to chase around after them.”

“Or have the gossoons chasing around afther us, by the same token,” laughed the Irish lad.

They sat around the fire, and carried on in their usual jolly way, telling stories, laughing, and singing many of the dear old school songs. Six voices, and some of them wonderfully good ones too, made a volume of sound that must have carried far across the bay to the cottages, where the summer residents were doubtless sitting out in the beautiful moonlight.

The boys began to think of retiring about ten or after. A couple of tents had been purchased after coming to the St. Lawrence river country; for somehow all of them became tired of sleeping aboard the boats, since there was little of comfort about it.

These tents had been erected under the supervision of Jack, who knew all about how a camp should be constructed, so that in case of wind or rain no damage was likely to result.

They made a pretty sight now, with the moonlight falling upon them, and the flickering fire adding to the picture.

Jack had wandered down to the edge of the water. The three motor boats were all anchored close by, and everything had been made snug; but of course it was not the intention of the boys to leave things unguarded. The chances of trouble were too positive to think of such foolishness.

“Too bad, Jack, that the wind has gone down,” said a voice at his elbow; and turning Jack saw the grinning countenance of George.

“Oh! I don’t know,” remarked the other, slowly and cautiously, as if wondering whether George could read his secret thoughts, and know that he was just then thinking of the pretty little girl whose hat he had rescued from the hungry maw of the lake that afternoon.

“Why, I think I hear voices over yonder where they landed, and girls at that,” George continued, wickedly. “No doubt the little darlings are about embarking on the return trip to the Mermaid. Now, if the wind would only suddenly swoop along, perhaps a boat might be upset. But Jack, with your clothes on, you’d have a tough time swimming out there and saving Rita’s life, like you did her bonnet.”