CHAPTER VIII
SHARP WORDS
Even more quickly than the rain storm had developed did it pass away—and the bright summer sun came out in its resplendent glory. Frank and the girls emerged from the hut, drenched to the skin, the girls’ dresses hanging to them like so many rags.
“I am just as sorry as I can be, girls,” said Frank in an apologetic tone of voice. “Had I thought the rain was going to be so severe, even had I thought we were going to have a shower, I would not have come. But, there’s nothing to be done about it but to be miserably wet and uncomfortable until we get back.”
Minnie seemed to be in a tempest, her expression one of anger when Frank spoke.
“Your attention was called to it when we started,” she shot at him as they reached theRocketat the shore.
“Quite true, Minnie. But do you think for a moment that I came down here to get myself wet,too, just for the fun of getting you girls wet? Just remember that I got as much of it as any one else.”
“I don’t think Frank is to blame one bit,” one of the other girls spoke up. “Let’s make the best of it. The sun will dry us out a little, and the wind on the river will help. The only thing is that we’ll look like we’ve been rough dried.”
Into theRocketclimbed all the girls, while Frank shoved easily off and took charge of the engine and the wheel.
The cheery reaction of the sunshine as opposed to the drear of the rain and clouds and the breeze of the water, the open air, and the feeling of freedom—all combined to return the little group to something more resembling normal, and in a very few minutes, before they had half traversed the return distance to the picnic grounds, all the girls were laughing and giggling, making light of the incident.
Frank was delighted to see the turn of affairs, and even more pleased to notice that Minnie seemed to be regaining her former spirits, denoted by a little more freedom in her conversation with him. She sat on a steamer stool at the edge of the cockpit while he held theRocketto its course.
“Please let me run it, won’t you?” she asked.
Whereupon the length of time it took Frank topermit her to take the wheel in hand and assume charge of their path was measured by the speed with which he could slip to one side and let her get into the pit.
“Girls, isn’t this fine? I’m going to capture that port yonder. Fire when you are ready, men!”
Minnie, a driver of an automobile herself, fearless of mechanical things, swung theRocketfar out of the midstream and made a run around the little island standing in the center of the Harrapin’s course just opposite the picnic grounds.
The crowd on shore had returned to the grounds, for, as Frank learned afterward, they too, had been caught in the rain and had sought shelter under benches, inside of cars and wagons, and under doubled cloths which had been spread as tents.
Some one from the picnic grounds noticed that Minnie was steering theRocket, and sent the news around. This very largely accounted for the interest exhibited by all of them in gathering along the little bluff of the shore, watching.
Minnie took the speedy little craft gracefully around the island, making a three-quarter turn, and then dashed straight for shore.
Frank gave her directions to go slightly upstream before making the turn down again to the grounds, and then cut off the engine.
“It must be truthfully said,” laughed Lanky, ashe watched, “that Frank’s nerve for one thing and his fear of hurting Minnie’s feeling for another thing, causes him to allow her to make the landing.”
But it was smoothly done, a feat of which Minnie herself was not sure when she essayed it, but which she was determined to try now that she had the wheel.
Out of the boat all of the passengers jumped as they touched, Frank tying, and the crowd was all around them.
“Where were you during the rain?”
“Did you make Whipper’s Island?”
“Did you go into that hut?”
“Look how wet they got!”
Questions, statements, suggestions, quips and gibes, all came thick and fast from the crowd of young folks. Finally, the explanation was given, Minnie enlarging it as much as one can who is happy over a feat well performed and who, therefore, had almost forgotten the unkind remarks and cutting looks which she had directed at Frank Allen.
“I must have you drive theSpeedaway!” cried Fred Cunningham coming forward and making a very successful attempt to separate Minnie from the others.
“I certainly should love to. Can’t we get it out to-morrow?” she asked.
“No, because I am going to be out of town. Yousee, I have some business which I must attend to. My two friends are anxious to have me with them on a business deal.”
“Did you hear that, Frank?” whispered Lanky.
“I did.”
“Rather nervy, I’ll say.”
“Well, he has the right to do it, I suppose,” returned the owner of theRocket.
“Humph, he ought to have his head punched,” was the growled-out reply.
Just after lunch, about the time Frank and his group had started for the boat ride, others had strung a tennis net beyond the trees in an opening which was reasonably smooth, though far from perfect. Fortunately, some thoughtful person had put the rackets beneath the seat of an automobile, protected from the rain, and now these were unlimbered from their hiding places and a game proposed.
It had not occurred to Frank to bring along the two folding stools aboard theRocket, but this did not alter the fact that it was a rather nervy thing for Fred Cunningham to step aboard the little boat shortly afterward and take both of them, using one for himself and one for Minnie as they took seats alongside the tennis court to watch.
“What do you think of that?” Lanky asked Frank.
“I think if whatever nerve he has continues to develop, he ought to be able to get along in this world,”was Frank Allen’s very apt reply. “But he has shown me what a bonehead I carry on top of my own shoulders, anyhow.”
“I agree,” Lanky rejoined, without a smile.
However, the act was just one more little coal added to the fire of dislike which was well kindled in the breast of Frank, for, though he did not resent the act as one of gallantry when he had forgotten it, he did resent the nerve of this fellow who had gone aboard his boat under the circumstances which existed and in face of the rift which was between them. Instead of his feeling any jealousy, he had a feeling that this fellow was trying to take entire charge of things, trying to make light of Frank before his friends.
The game of tennis went merrily on, though the ground was wet and slippery, the balls soon became the same, and the rackets gradually became slow. In fact, the players knew the gut were ruined, but none of them would stop from playing. To-morrow was time enough to think of the cost.
It was just as the afternoon was getting along to a close, when the happy crowd of young folks was commencing to weary, that some one made a remark again about the race between theRocketand theSpeedaway.
“It will be only a few days more,” called out Fred Cunningham. “I have been watching theRocketof Allen’s, and I saw the way it acted this afternoon. It really will be a shame the way theSpeedawaywill run off from theRocket.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised but what you expect to run several rings around me,” declared Frank Allen, making a very brave attempt to make the speech laughingly.
“Now, that hadn’t occurred to me; but I believe it can be done.” Cunningham, instead of taking it up in the same bantering fashion, made a serious matter of it.
“Well, as you said, it will be only a few days. In the meanwhile I think I shall install a couple of pair of wings on theRocket,” answered Frank.
For a while the conversation ran in this wise, and then veered off to a discussion of the Parsons robbery case, a subject which had thus far been taboo with Frank’s closest friends.
The boys supposed none of the girls knew the inside facts of what had been going on, and the five of them, Frank, Lanky, Paul, Ralph, and Buster felt that they could keep this particular subject clear of any personal references.
But they missed their guess, for Irene Rich was the one who spoiled their hopes with the remark:
“Frank was up there, and he ought to know a whole lot. Why not tell us all about it, Frank?”
Fred Cunningham appeared to be interested in whatwas going on, and looked from one to the other as questions and urgings passed around the little crowd.
“But there isn’t anything to tell that you don’t already know,” Frank tried to stem the tide. “The newspapers have told what we saw, Lanky and I.”
“Sure they have,” Lanky now interrupted. “What’s the use of serving it all over again—cold?”
“But who do they think did it? Wasn’t that awful—robbing Mrs. Parsons and scaring her almost to death putting her in that closet?” went on another girl.
Fred Cunningham rose from his seat and walked around the group, fearful that something might be said which he would not hear.
“I think,” said Frank, “that it’s getting late and we ought to commence packing. It will be dark by the time we get back to town.”
“That is right,” spoke up Cunningham, a guest, but willing to get away from the grounds.
So, there being little else to do, the crowd being weary of the day, packing operations were started immediately.
The boys who were closest to Frank gathered about him, each doing his own part toward packing, but there seemed to be a natural gravitation of his friends toward one little group.
“Say,” Paul Bird spoke up quietly, as he was standing near Frank at one time, “what do you say ifseveral of us go up there to-morrow to see if we can find anything.”
“That’s the idea! We know more to start with than any one else, and we ought to be able to find something, provided there is anything to be found,” Lanky put in.
“A lot of time has passed,” interposed Frank. “I am not opposed to the idea, but I am fearful that we won’t find anything that will be of benefit.”
“It certainly would be too late to hunt for any tracks of automobiles or anything of that kind,” said Buster. “Even if we had a chance this morning, the rain has spoiled whatever chance remained.”
“It doesn’t seem to me that hunting for automobile tracks would help us, anyhow,” said Frank. “I don’t think the automobile had very much to do with it.”
“It took those men away, didn’t it?” asked Ralph.
Frank smiled quietly. That question had been asked before, as also the other one—where was the automobile when Mrs. Parsons came into the house?
“What time can we get started? I want to go to the hospital and then I want to see the contractors in the morning, but I’ll be ready to go after that. Say about ten o’clock?”
It was agreed at once that all the boys should be down at the boat-house at ten o’clock, and Lanky was given the job of seeing that oil and gas wereaboard, and Buster’s job was to have lunch for all on board, inasmuch as they would spend the day up the river.
Minnie joined the group of boys after a short while.
“I am having a little lawn party at the house to-morrow afternoon in honor of Mr. Cunningham,” she said. “Won’t you boys be there?”
This invitation was a bombshell in the crowd. They all looked at Frank for an answer.
“Sorry, Minnie, but all of us have agreed to make a little trip of exploration to-morrow to try out theRocket, and we won’t be able to go. If it were the next day, now——”
“It can’t be the next day. I can’t change my arrangements, and you can change yours.”
“Well, the other boys may do as they see fit, though I think they feel as if they are bound to make this trip, but I am going to make it, whether or no.”
Frank’s position rather startled Minnie. She was not accustomed to having people attempt to alter her plans.
Just at this moment Fred Cunningham walked over to the crowd.
“I say, fellows, surely you will be there. I want to get away on a business trip the day after. Surely your trial of theRocketcan wait another day.”
“I am afraid it has waited too long.”
“Going to hunt up the place where you had your two hours of engine trouble?” Cunningham shot covertly at Frank.
“No. But I’m going to find the rowboat that gets in the way at nighttime and learn where it keeps its boxes that it carries aboard.” Why Frank made such a remark he was never able to explain. But Cunningham went as white as a sheet.