do. Now you crank up!”
Dent Wilcox tried again, but his inherent laziness was against him, and nothing resulted. The boat was in the grip of the current, and was rapidly drifting toward the dangerous rocks.
“By Jove! He’ll wreck my boat!” thought Tom. “Say!” he cried desperately, “can’t you get that engine going somehow, and avoid the rocks?”
“I guess there’s no gasolene,” retorted Dent.
“Yes, there is, the tank’s full.”
“Then the batteries have given out.”
“Can’t be. They’re new. Oh, you big chump, to take out my boat when you don’t know how to run her!” and Tom looked at his drifting craft in despair.
“Can’t you come out and get me?” suggested Dent, as he looked helplessly at the engine.
“Well, of all the nerve!” cried Tom. “But I’ll have to, I guess, if I want to save my boat!”
He hurriedly cast off his rowing craft, jumped in, and was soon pulling out toward the drifting motorboat.
CHAPTER III
OFF FOR ELMWOOD HALL
“Talk about lazy fellows!” murmured Tom, as he bent to his oars, “that Dent Wilcox certainly is the limit. He’s too lazy to row, so he borrows my motorboat. Then he’s too lazy to learn how to crank the engine, and too lazy to turn the flywheel over hard enough. It’s a wonder he ever got started, and when he does get going he doesn’t take enough pains to look out where he’s steering. If he wrecks my boat I’ll make him pay for her.”
Tom cast a glance over his shoulder toward his craft, and the sight of the boat nearer the rocks made him row faster than ever.
“Why don’t you try to steer, or crank her?” he yelled to Dent.
“What’s the use?” asked the lazy lad indifferently.
“Use? Lots of use? Do you want to go on the rocks?”
“No, not exactly,” spoke Dent, and his voice was quicker than his usual slow tones, as he saw his danger. “But you’ll be here in a minute, and you can run things.”
“Yes, that’s just like you,” retorted Tom. “You want someone else to do the work, while you sit around. But I’ll make you row back, and pull the boat too, if I can’t get her going.”
“Oh, Tom, I never could pull this boat back.”
“You’ll have to,” declared our hero grimly, “that is if the engine won’t run. Stand by now, to catch my painter.”
Dent stood up in the stern of the drifting motorboat, and prepared to catch the line Tom was about to throw to him. Tom was near enough to his motorcraft now so that the headway and the current of the river would carry him to her.
“I hope I can get that engine going,” he remarked to himself, as he saw how dangerously near he was to the rocks.
“Catch!” he cried to Dent, throwing the end of his line aboard, and Dent, forgetting his usual lazy habits, made a quick grab for the painter. He reached it, took a turn around a cleat, and in another moment Tom was aboard.
“Pull my rowboat closer up,” he ordered Dent. “I’m going to have a try at the motor, and if she doesn’t go, we’ll have to row out of danger.”
He gave a quick look at the engine, and then cried:
“Well, you’re a dandy!”
“What’s the matter?”
“You didn’t have the gasolene turned on.”
“I did so. Else how could I have run out from the dock?”
“With what was in the carbureter, of course. But when that was used up, you didn’t get any more from the tank. You’re a peach to run a motorboat! Don’t you ever take mine out again!”
“I won’t,” murmured Dent, thoroughly ashamed of himself.
With a quick motion Tom turned on the gasolene, saw that the switches were connected, and, with a turn of the flywheel, he had the motor chugging away a second later.
“There you are!” he exclaimed, as he sprang to the steering wheel.
“Glad I don’t have to pull in,” said Dent, thinking of the work he had escaped.
“Well, it was a narrow squeak,” said Tom, as he steered out of the way of the rocks, and then sent his boat around in a graceful curve.
“How’d you come to take my boat?” asked our hero, when he had a chance to collect his thoughts.
“Oh, I just strolled down to the dock, and saw it there. I heard you were out of town – taking the Elmwood Hall examination – and I thought you wouldn’t mind.”
“I did take the exams., and I passed,” spoke Tom, his pride in this rather making him forgive Dent now. “I’ll soon be going there to school, and I’ll have swell times. I came down to tell Dick and Will that I just got word that I’m to enter the Freshman class, when I saw you had my boat. You want to be more careful after this.”
“I will,” promised the lazy lad, as he settled himself comfortably on the cushioned seats, and watched Tom steer. The latter, after running ashore, and tying up his rowboat, started for the fishing hole, intending to look for his chums.
“Can’t I come along?” asked Dent, who had not offered to get out, nor help Tom tie his boat. “Take me along,” he pleaded. “If you go to school I won’t get any more rides.”
“Well, you have got nerve!” laughed Tom, and yet he felt so elated at the prospect before him that he did not seriously protest. “First you take my boat without permission, then you nearly wreck her, and next you want to have an additional ride. You have your nerve with you, all right.”
“Might as well,” spoke Dent, lazily, as he lolled back on the cushions. “If you don’t ask for things in this world you won’t get much.”
“I guess that’s right,” agreed Tom. “You’ve got more sense than I gave you credit for. But crank that motor now. Let’s see if you can get it going. You’ll have to work your passage, if you come with me on this voyage.”
Dent turned the flywheel over, and after a few attempts he did succeed in getting the engine to go. Then Tom steered down to the fishing hole. Dick and Will saw him coming, and called and waved their welcome.
“Any luck?” asked Tom, as he ran his boat close to shore.
“Pretty fair. Did you hear from Elmwood?” asked Dick.
“Yes, just got word, and I passed. I’ll soon be a Freshman. I wish you fellows were coming along. Come on, get in, and I’ll tell you all about it. You’ve got fish enough.”
His chums were glad enough to ride back, and soon, with their fish, they were in the motorboat. While Tom was showing them his letter from the school, Dent managed, by a great effort, to steer properly.
“How
