Front matter (continued 2)

"Sure," the latter flung at Pence with a laugh. "There's nothing secret about this warming up. Now, old man, put something on it."

Midkiff whipped in a fast one, but it was wide.

"Very bad," said Horace Pence, pleasantly.

"Rather," agreed Kirby.

"They didn't like that one, Jawn," Rex Kingdon said sadly. "Didn't think so much of it myself. Try again."

In a regular game John Midkiff could stand the chaffing of the enemy pretty well, but the remarks of these strangers, looking on at practice, seemed to fret him. He tried to curve his ball, and made a mess of it. Kirby laughed. Pence drawled:

"Strike one—not!"

Even Pudge MacComber giggled at the next one, it was so wild. Midkiff turned to glare at the group.

"Look out, Horrors!" Kirby said to Pence. "He's going to bean you."

"If he did," said Red Phillips, "old Kid Horrors would certainly have something in his bean beside atmospheric pressure. He'd have a dent in it."

"Never mind the remarks from the side lines, Jawn," Rex found it necessary to say. "Keep your mind on that spherical object in your lily white hand. Let's do something with it. Now——"

He signaled again, and squatted to get the drop he had called for. Midkiff, steadied as he usually was by the captain's voice, sent in one that fairly grooved the pan.

"Bravo!" acclaimed Pence. "Quite pretty. But no speed."

Kingdon would not let his roommate use all his speed. Midkiff had not been using his arm much for a fortnight, and there was a reason for petting it a little. After a few more passes, Harry Kirby said impatiently:

"You fellers make me ill. Stop throwing kisses at each other, and let a real man pitch."

"I'd like to catch for a real swift ball tosser," Rex said meekly.

"Believe me, you'd think you were doing it if you tried to hold Horrors."

"Is he good as all that?" queried Kingdon, picking a rather wild one of Midkiff's out of the air.

"He is," declared Kirby.

"Maybe I couldn't hold him," Rex said gently.

"You'd know you'd been catching something when you got through," the other laughed sneeringly.

Kingdon looked quizzically over at the silent Pence.

"You've got a good booster," he said. "Wish you'd show me a few."

"Oh, I can wait my turn," Pence drawled.

"No time like the present. Come on in, Mid. Our friend here is going to show us something fancy."

"Think you can hold me, do you?" asked Pence.

"I can try," Rex rejoined modestly.

"I've heard you think yourself the real thing," said Pence, rising languidly as the scowling Midkiff came in.

"Put 'em anywhere within reach and I'll grab at 'em," Rex promised.

CHAPTER X.

KINGDON STATES A DETERMINATION.

"'Minds me of Wash Hornbrook, Red. 'Member?" whispered Peewee Hicks, watching the tall, dark fellow going out to the mound.

Kingdon had already noted the resemblance of Pence to the clever, good-looking athlete who had once been the leading spirit at Walcott Hall. Horace Pence did not look at all like Hornbrook, but his manner suggested the prep. school hero, now gone to college.

That Pence was a leader the attitude of his mates plainly revealed. He was a personable fellow, and as graceful as a panther. Kingdon smiled and settled himself to receive the first pitched ball.

Kingdon had succeeded as captain of the school ball team, principally because he was a good reader of character. He gave less attention now to the muscular development of Horace Pence than he did to his face.

He saw in Pence's handsome, reckless visage with its sneeringly uplifted lip, a certain cool determination that Rex could not but admire. The black-haired chap was going out there with the intention of making the Walcott Hall backstop flinch before his speed. He saw, likewise, that Pence was a left-hander; for when the chap reached the pitcher's station he turned his right side to Kingdon. He took little time for his wind-up, merely tossing over his shoulder:

"Ready?"

"Waiting," answered Rex.

The horsehide struck the catcher's mitt, seemingly the next second.

"Oh, boy!" yelled Red Phillips, giving credit where credit was due. "Some speed!"

Kingdon tossed the sphere back. The bullet that next shot over hummed like a bee. Kingdon spread his legs wider and waited impassively for the third ball. Pence took more time about it and put even more speed into his throw. It was a wonder. The Walcott Hall lads, camped in the shade, gasped.

A flush had come into the dark fellow's face. He rolled up his sleeve with a vexed motion, spat upon his hand, grinned at the waiting backstop, and drove in his fourth ball.

It was caught as the others had been, but the force of the delivery was so great that Kingdon stepped back to recover his balance. Then he drawled:

"That's four balls. Man takes his base. Say, the speed is all right; why not put over a strike now and then?"

"Your eyesight's bad," declared Pence, poised for another throw. "You're weakening."

"Maybe," Kingdon said, holding up his hand. "But I don't think so. What's the use of having all that speed if you have no control?"

The pitcher's black eyes flashed. "Who says I don't get 'em over?" he snapped.

Kingdon beckoned to Harry Kirby. "You umpire," he invited.

Kirby looked at Pence for permission. The latter said:

"Oh, go ahead. The blond person's beginning to feel weary already. When I've poured a few more into him he'll claim his lip's cracked, or something, and quit."

Kingdon smiled as Kirby ran to take his station, adjusting his mask.

"Now, son," muttered the Walcott Hall backstop, "keep your eye on the ball."

The southpaw wound up again, and the ball whizzed in and slapped against Kingdon's glove. The latter held it and looked at Kirby.

"Ball!" Kirby was forced to proclaim.

"What?" ejaculated the boy on the mound. "Give me that——"

He caught Kingdon's accurate throw, and immediately flung another hot one. "How's that?" he demanded exultantly.

Kirby actually flushed. "Ball again," he said.

"Why, you poor bat!" Pence exclaimed. "Can't you see anything?"

Kingdon chuckled and tossed up the ball. "Two to one, Mister," he said. "You've got to do better than that. Your speed's all right; but you're as wild as an Igorote. Come down to Mother Earth."

Horace Pence recovered from his momentary display of spleen, and smiled. That uplift of his lip was not pleasant to observe. He was cool again.

He marked the plate well, poised himself with more care for the throw, and grooved the pan. Kingdon caught the ball in his ungloved hand.

"Right over," he said. "But the batter could have poled it over the fence, if he'd had any kind of luck at all."

"That's all right," Pence said easily. "I'll work up to my speed in a minute or two. You don't want to stop many of them with your bare hand."

He flung another that cut the corner of the plate. Then another. His arm seemed tireless, and the balls were soon whizzing in again with terrific speed. About half of them the prejudiced Kirby pronounced strikes.

Kingdon beckoned to Red Phillips. "Let's see how these limited expresses look to a real batsman," he said. "Bring your club, Red. See if you can aeroplane one of these hot ones. Run down toward center, Peewee, and watch it sail."

"Don't let that lanky chap hit me, King," said the red-haired youth. "He's as wild as a hawk."

Pence smiled his canine smile and waited for Red to take his position. Without accepting any advice from the catcher, he sent in the first ball. Red was not on the job, and Kirby shouted:

"Strike!"

"Hold your bat out, Carrots, and I'll hit it," drawled the black-haired chap.

"See that I don't hit you one," warned Phillips. Then he swung, with a grunt. The ball came like a shot from a cannon, but Red was well used to fast ones. Bat and ball connected, and the latter sailed high over Horace Pence's head into center field. Peewee retrieved it; and it was relayed home; for Midkiff had gone out by the second bag rather than sit with the crew from the other camp.

"You see," said Kingdon softly, "that's what a real good batsman would do to your fast balls when you got 'em over."

"Not to all of 'em," returned Pence, his black eyes flashing and the red deepening in his cheeks.

"Enough to make you tired," drawled Kingdon.

"You're mighty smart!" scoffed Kirby, as Pence made no reply. "Who told you so much, Curly?"

Phillips continued to connect with about two out of every three balls Pence pitched. And the dark chap grew hotter and hotter—inside. On the surface he was like ice. Kingdon admired him.

"Red," the backstop whispered while Peewee and Midkiff were relaying the ball on one occasion, "that lad will be a pitcher some day."

"He thinks he is now," returned the batter.

"You're the only man I know could bump his speed this way. Things aren't breaking good for him, but he keeps his head. And he's a southpaw. Red, I'd give all my old hats to have that chap at Walcott Hall!"

Phillips stared at him. "What's the matter with you?" he demanded. "Some of your gears are loose."

"Believe me," said Kingdon, softly, "if it can be did, your uncle is going to bring it about. Don't you think that you are the only real, blow-in-the-bottle scout for the old school. There are others. You lassoed me into the Hall, didn't you?"

"Aw—well—you——"

"I wasn't as good as this Pence," admitted Kingdon, honestly. "I tell you I yearn for Blacky on our pitching staff, and I hope to see him there."

"The foolish factory's where you belong," returned Red.

CHAPTER XI.

ENOS QUIBB AGAIN.

Pence got down to curving a few, and Red Phillips did not find it so easy to hammer the ball. The black-haired fellow's benders weren't remarkable; it was evident that he had gone in for speed almost entirely, and had not tried for control.

Without doubt Horace Pence felt that his showing was not of the first class. Used as he was to lording it over his fellows, being superior to them in almost every sport and pastime, it cut him to be criticized right where he felt himself to be strongest.

He was a small town ball-player, used to playing with High School nines and factory teams on Saturday afternoons. No real coach had ever trained Pence, and it is doubtful if he—with his excellent opinion of himself—would have taken at all kindly to the advice of an ordinary coach. That was really the principal trouble with Horace Pence; he had never been disciplined.

Rex Kingdon was different from the ordinary coach. Pence had gone up to the pitcher's position with every expectation of making the blond chap flinch and cry quits. Kirby was a husky fellow, with hands toughened by hard toil; for his father made him work in his coal and wood yard when he was out of school. Harry at times had difficulty in holding Pence.

This catcher from Walcott Hall was not feazed by all the speed at Pence's command. He came up smiling every time. Not only that, but he had used Kirby to display the fact that few of those speedy balls would ever pass muster in a regular game where there were good batters.

Kirby had scoffed at Kingdon and Red Phillips; Ben Comas had sneered; while Pudge's expression of countenance was disdainful. Nevertheless, Pence knew his exhibition had not been distinctly brilliant.

These Walcott Hall fellows knew more about baseball than he and his friends. The confidence of that red-haired chap with the stick, the force and accuracy with which Midkiff flung the ball from behind second, and Kingdon's ease and attitude of nonchalance, showed Pence that they all had attainments superior to his own.

He remembered Rex Kingdon from the time when the latter had come down out of the backwoods with the Ridgewood High nine to play a local team of which Pence was a member. Rex had pitched part of that game. The black-browed chap had nursed a grudge against Kingdon since that occasion because of some few personal remarks that were passed in the heat of argument over a play. Kingdon, of course, had forgotten all about it long ago.

At the time of that gone-by game Horace was sure he was a better pitcher than Rex, though he had little opportunity of learning much about Kingdon's all-round ability in the game. Learning, through the refusal of the Manatee Lumber Company to grant Ben Comas and his friends permission to camp on Storm Island, that Rex Kingdon was to be there for the summer, Horace had instantly made up his mind that he desired to cross swords with the blond fellow of whom he had taken such a dislike.

With the two parties encamped upon the island, there would be plenty of opportunity to try conclusions with Kingdon. Pence had no intention of having the meetings of his party with the Walcott Hall boys to be so friendly. Somehow, Kingdon's careless good nature had removed the friction.

Horace had the elements of a decent chap in his makeup. His standard of honor was not high; yet he was not of the caliber of Ben Comas. Having actually challenged Kingdon, and having been given a square deal, Horace could not bring himself to end the session in an open wrangle with Rex and his crowd.

"There!" he finally observed, sending in a twister that quite puzzled Red Phillips. "That's my last for to-day. I've amused you chaps enough."

"Didn't want to suggest it," Kingdon said seriously, coming forward to meet the black-haired fellow, "but I do think, old chap, that you rather overdo it. No wing will stand such a steady strain. You've got a lot of speed in that left arm, and you ought to take care of it. Where's your sweater?"

"This hot day?" laughed Pence, uncertain that Kingdon was not chaffing.

The backstop picked up his own discarded jacket and held it out so that Pence could easily slip his arms into it.

"No josh," he said as Horace slowly got into the coat. "I'm going to make my cripples work a little—if you fellows don't want your diamond for a while."

"Your cripples?" repeated Horace, interested in spite of himself.

"Cloudman and Midkiff, our two star pitchers. Both have done some good work this last term. And both of 'em have the spring halt in their elbows." Kingdon laughed.

"Help yourself," said Horace carelessly. "I want a rest, and Harry and the others won't play if I don't."

Kingdon's voice dropped a point or two as he said:

"I'd like to show you a few, Pence, if you'll stand without hitching. You don't play regularly with any team, do you?"

"No."

"If our coach could get hold of you he'd turn out a real ball-player before he got through with you, believe me!"

"Indeed?" drawled Horace. "I had no idea you had a coach at that fresh-water kindergarten. Thought you were the whole cheese there."

"Oh, no," laughed Kingdon, apparently not at all ruffled. "There are other cheeses at Walcott Hall."

He turned away and called his crew together, while Pence went back to his friends and sat down in the shade.

"Say!" exploded Ben Comas. "You're thicker'n hasty-puddin' with that blond fellow. What's the idea?"

"Why didn't you knock his head off?" growled the glowering Kirby. "He's too fresh!"

"He wasn't fresh with me," Horace Pence returned cheerfully. "Knock his head off yourself, Harry—if you think you can do it."

"Huh!" grunted Ben. "You said you was going to fix him if he came to Storm Island. Didn't he, Pudge?"

"That's what you did, Horrors," agreed the fat chap.

"Wait till he gives me an opening, will you?" snapped Horace with some fretfulness.

"What sort of an opening do you want?" demanded Ben. "Look what he did to us last night."

"Old stuff," responded Horace, cool again. "We've made a bargain, haven't we, that wipes that out?"

"Bargain!" sneered Ben.

"He stole our canoes," said Kirby.

"And he did it to make the bargain," laughed Pence. "Smart chap, that Rex King. You got to hand it to him."

"Wait till Joe Bootleg gets a chance at him," said Ben. "He'll hand him something he won't forget. Joe's eye is in mourning, and he's as lame and bruised as though he'd been through a threshing machine."

Horace remained silent.

Kingdon sent out his men to bat and practice base running, and Hicks gave an exhibition of his ability to steal sacks, being highly successful. Horace Pence was really interested in this practice. Such snappy work he had never seen before. Kirby and Ben Comas lighted cigarettes.

"You fellows better cut out the coffin-nails if you want to keep your wind," Kingdon advised them.

"You better smoke a few yourself, Blondy," growled Kirby, "if they'll really reduce your supply of hot air."

"He's right," drawled Horace. "I guess I won't smoke now." But his real reason for not smoking was that he had discovered he was not wearing his own coat.

The sun was getting low when Kingdon called it a day's work. Horace and his party scrambled to their feet, too, when the Walcott Hall boys collected their possessions and prepared to go down to their camp. Horace tossed the borrowed jacket to Kingdon, saying:

"Much obliged."

"Same to you," Kingdon returned, "for the use of your lay-out here."

"You're welcome whenever we're not playing," Horace said lazily and walked off with his crowd.

"What d'ye think of that bunch?" Cloudman said as the Walcott Hall boys approached camp.

"That Horrors has some speed," little Hicks stated wisely.

"He's an ugly brute," was Red's opinion.

"So are you," laughed Kingdon. "There are no medals on you, Bricktop, for politeness. And as for Mid—he's got a grouch that won't rub off."

"Well," said Midkiff, decidedly, "I don't like one little thing about that gang."

"And here is this blue-eyed beauty," said Red, "wants to inveigle Horrors into——"

He broke off suddenly; but it wasn't a warning from Kingdon that hushed Phillips. They had come in sight of the camp. Moored to the bank below it was a motorboat. A fellow with a straw-colored chin whisker and a plentiful sprinkling of freckles on his red face, sat on a rock before their tent.

"Hullo! Who's the guest?" drawled Kingdon.

"Look!" whispered Hicks. "It's a constable! See his badge, fellows?"

The freckle-faced officer was none other than Enos Quibb, of Blackport.

CHAPTER XII.

AN UNEXPECTED DIFFICULTY.

Quibb was eyeing the Walcott Hall boys with disfavor as they approached. In truth, his usual expression seemed to be sour, and his look now registered nothing pleasant for Rex Kingdon and his friends.

"That's what I thought," he said sharply, squinting at Kingdon. "You ain't—narry one o' ye—the boys I seen over to t'other camp when I was here before."

"Do tell!" drawled Kingdon. "Your eyesight hasn't gone back on you. You are just as unfamiliar to our eyes as we are to yours."

"Ha!" said Enos. "Who d'ye s'pose I be?"

"The Czar of all the Russias—in disgeeze," said Rex airily. "I see you're not toting your scepter, and it's too hot a day, of course, to wear a crown. You'd ruin the sweatband."

The constable glared. "I'll tell you who I be. I'm Constable Quibb, of Blackport, that's who I be! And I wanter know by what right you boys air camping on this here island?"

"Oh, buttons and buttonhooks!" murmured Red Phillips. "I knew he couldn't be toting that tin star just for decorative purposes. You can see he's round shouldered from carrying it."

"Come on!" commanded Enos Quibb, rising threateningly from his seat. "Who are you youngsters, and what are ye doin' here?"

"How abrupt you are," Kingdon said soothingly. His hand was fumbling in the inner pocket of his jacket. "Suppose we have a permit to camp on Storm Island?"

"Wal, s'pose you have," snapped Enos. "Le's see it."

"All in good time——"

"Ye can't fool me none," interrupted the constable. "I know who's got the permit from the Manatee Company. And there ain't but one party been give it, neither. Can't fool me."

"I wouldn't try," Rex said with apparent awe. "It would be Lèse Majesté—no less."

"Huh? I dunno what ye're sayin'," said Quibb suspiciously. "Le's see your letter from the Manatee Lumber Company."

The other fellows were by this time staring at Kingdon wonderingly. He did not produce the permit.

"Oh, we have it," the blond chap said, waving his hand. "Don't let it worry you, Mr. Constable."

"Ya-as. So ye say. An' I s'pose you'll tell me, too, that your name is Kingdon?"

"Why, yes, that does happen to be my name," said Rex. He stopped searching his pockets and stared at Enos Quibb with increasing interest. Quibb broke into a raucous laugh.

"There's a big fam'bly of you Kingdons, I reckon?" he rasped out. "Ain't you ashamed—lyin' like that? Your name ain't no more Kingdon than mine is Obediah Smoke! I'm ready for you city chaps, I be. And you git off this island. You ain't got no permit from the Manatee Company—and you ain't Kingdon and his party. Now, git!"

Kingdon laughed as though highly amused. But, aside from Peewee's echoing giggle, the remainder of the company seemed more vexed than amused.

"Aw, show him the letter, Rex, and put the poor thing out of his misery," Midkiff urged.

"He's too noisy for comfort, Kingdon," said Applejack. "Why torture him so?"

"I'm warnin' ye," Enos sputtered. "I was goin' over east to Collings Point on an errand, and I see your boat. I knowed only one party belonged here——"

"How do you know we're not that party?" asked Rex, with sudden seriousness.

"'Cause I already been to that other camp—t'other day. And they told me who they was all right."

"Did they?" drawled Kingdon. "Did you see their permit?"

"Huh? Wal—I can't say I did—exactly," admitted the constable. "But 'twarn't necessary. I knew who they was."

"How did you know?"

"Why, they told me," said Enos, in a most innocent manner.

"Say!" snickered Hicks. "Who did they say they were?"

Kingdon made a gesture for Hicks, as well as the others, to keep quiet and let him do the talking. "If you didn't ask to see their permit, Mr. Constable," he said, argumentatively, "I don't see how you could know for sure who they are. Why should you expect to see ours?"

"Never you mind about that," returned Enos, very red in the face again. "I'll do my own business in my own way. You show me your permit."

"No," Kingdon refused quite earnestly. "The other crowd was here first. Take a squint at their permit—if they have one. That's only fair."

Midkiff grumbled. "What's the matter with you, Rex?" he demanded. "Always hunting trouble."

"Aw, give him a squint at the letter, and let him be on his way," said Red. "He wearies me."

But Kingdon was obdurate. When Enos insisted, the blond youth waved him airily aside.

"See those other chaps," he said. "Ask to see their permit from the Manatee Company. Why try to play favorites, Mr. Constable?"

"I tell you what!" cried Enos Quibb threateningly. "You'll jest take down your tent and pack your duds aboard that boat to-night. That's what you'll do."

"Say not so!" groaned Rex.

"Yes, you will. I'd a mind ter let ye stay till mornin', when I come back from the P'int. But not now. You'll go to-night."

"How about those other campers?" insisted Kingdon. "If they stay, we stay."

"I'm going right along there now, and look at their permit. I neglected to ask for it before, but I meant ter. An' then I'm comin' back. If you boys ain't purty near ready to go aboard that catboat when I return, I'll help ye off this islan' in a way ye won't like."

He stamped down to the shore and clambered over the rail of his motor-launch. In a minute or two the boat chugged away.

CHAPTER XIII.

REX OWNS UP.

"I'd like to know what's on your mind," quizzed Phillips. "It appeared right foolish to me."

"What seems idiotic, Tobasco?" drawled Kingdon beginning to scrape away the ashes of the old fire so as to lay a new one over which supper might be cooked.

"Look here!" exclaimed Midkiff, quite warm. "Why didn't you show that man the letter from the Manatee Company, and let him go about his business?"

"He's gone about his business, Jawn—hasn't he?"

"He's gone to stir up trouble for that gang up at the other camp," said the big fellow.

"Oh, hooky!" chuckled Peewee Hicks. "Was that what you was up to, Rex? Just making trouble for Horrors and his crowd?"

"Then you really want 'em put off?" asked Red slowly. "After what you said to me about that slim chap being such good baseball timber?"

Whistling softly, Kingdon made no reply. Cloudman said, with confidence:

"We don't none of us know what he's up to. He's got something in his sleeve."

"Something up his sleeve?" queried little Hicks wonderingly.

"Well, it doesn't matter," Midkiff said, much displeased. "That constable is bound to come back here and pick a quarrel unless King shows him the letter. What's the matter with you, anyway? You're as mysterious as——"

"As Mysterious Billy Smith," chuckled Red, who couldn't hold a grouch long. "I bet it's a joke. Tell us, you Blue-Eyed Beauty. Let us chortle, too."

"You'll chortle when the time comes," Kingdon told him, with a grin that was quickly effaced, however, by a serious expression of countenance. "Now, come on and help get supper. How about those flapjacks you promised?"

But Cloudman advised against the cakes, and canned beans again became the main staple when the meal was announced. Kingdon tossed up some "panbread," and there were canned peaches to eat with it. They were making out a pretty good supper when the put-put-a-put of the motor-boat was heard again.

"Here we have Mr. Quibb the rural Sherlock," said Peewee. "What will we do to him, Rex? Invite him to supper, or drown him?"

"I vote against wasting food," declared Red. "There isn't enough for guests, anyway."

"Where's your hospitality, Phillips?" demanded Cloudman. "Of course we'll feed him. He deserves something after the way he's been rigged."

"Now, show him that paper, Rex, and let him go," advised Midkiff seriously.

"Hey, you!" yelled the constable from the water.

"Straw, you!" returned Peewee. "Come ashore and join us."

"If I come ashore," threatened the redoubtable Quibb, "you'll all move mighty lively out o' there. Didn't I tell you to git?"

"We're hard of hearing, Mr. Constable," drawled Kingdon, without even turning around to look down at the wrathful officer. "Better come up and talk it over."

"I'll come up there and do suthin' ter you, ye fresh kid, that ye won't like!" threatened Quibb, as he hopped ashore and tied the boat's painter securely to a sapling.

"And I wouldn't blame him," rumbled Midkiff. But he stopped eating and watched the man narrowly as he approached Kingdon. Midkiff was half a foot taller than Enos and much more muscular.

"I wanter know why you raskils ain't makin' no move ter git out o' here?" demanded the constable, glaring at Rex, whom he considered the principal and leader of the crowd.

"Why, now," drawled the blond chap, "I didn't really think there was any need of doing so."

"What d'ye mean?" snapped the constable. "You ain't got no right here——"

"No more than those other fellows?" suggested Rex.

"They're all right. They told me the truth. I knowed who they was before."

"And who are they?" asked Kingdon softly, while his friends stared at Enos Quibb in amazement.

"They're them fellers that the Manatee Company said could camp here for the summer," declared the constable.

"They told you so?"

"They did. They told me so before, when I come here."

"That they were Rex Kingdon and party?" demanded the blond chap from Walcott Hall, quite seriously.

"Murder!" gasped Red Phillips. "What do you think o' that?"

"The gall of them!" exclaimed Midkiff.

"Prithee, hush," advised Rex, with a gesture. "Tell me, Mr. Quibb, do they claim to be Mr. Kingdon and friends?"

The constable swelled so with importance that he seemed about to burst, "I want yeou to understand that I know my business," he said. "I didn't take their word for it. I seen the permit."

"What permit?" burst from Midkiff.

"From the Manatee Lumber Company, of course," Quibb told him. "I seen it."

"The permit!" chorused Midkiff, Cloudman, Phillips and Little Hicks.

"A letter from the lumber company permitting 'R. Kingdon and party' to camp on Storm Island for the summer?" asked Kingdon, softly.

"That's what I said," declared Enos importantly. "You fellers needn't think you kin gull me. I know——"

"Are you sure the permit was valid?" asked the blond youth, just as seriously as before.

"Huh?"

"For instance," he said, "was it typewritten on a Manatee Lumber Company letter-head?"

"Of course it was!" snapped Enos. "Think I'm a idiot?"

"Oh, I wouldn't say it out loud," returned Rex pleasantly. "Do you know the company's letter-head when you see it?"

"Think you are so smart!" cried the constable. "Look at this."

He drew forth the letter he had received from the company announcing the coming of the camping party to the island. The lumber company gave Quibb a small present each year to look out for Storm Island and see that nobody without authority landed there.

"My goodness, Rex!" whispered Midkiff. "What do you make of this?"

Kingdon made no immediate reply. He was looking seriously at the constable, whose inflamed face was not far from his own.

"You are quite convinced, Mr. Constable," he said politely, "that the party over yonder is the one mentioned in your letter?"

"Of course I am. They got the permit. They showed it to me."

"But you did not see it when you interviewed them on a previous occasion?"

"I didn't ax for it," admitted Enos, "when I was here before. But I've seen it now. You ain't got no right on this island, and off you go."

"Mr. Quibb," Kingdon said, "you're being fooled. I'm the 'R. Kingdon' referred to in that letter and in the permit. Don't suppose anybody over at that other camp declared himself to be Rex Kingdon?"

"Huh? Not in so many words, mebbe," said the puzzled constable.

"I do so declare. Here! I have letters to prove it. Here is my bill-case with my initials stamped on the flap of it. What do you say to that?"

Rex had flashed these articles as he spoke—and so rapidly that Quibb stood open-mouthed, staring.

"You may not believe that I am the 'R. Kingdon' named in your letter; but give me a week and I will prove it to your satisfaction."

"But—but them other fellers?" demanded Enos weakly.

"Oh—now! Don't ask me about them," Kingdon said easily. "I haven't got to swear to their identity, have I?"

"But they've got the permit."

Midkiff began to murmur again. Kingdon turned on him quite savagely.

"Will you keep still, Jawn? You're a regular old Betty." Then to Quibb he said: "There is nothing in your letter, Mr. Constable, and nothing in the permit, limiting the number of Mr. Kingdon's camping party? Am I right?"

"Why—er—no. That's so."

"So I thought," said the suave Kingdon. "I tell you we are members of the party permitted to land and camp here. Never mind if those other fellows have the permit; we have just as good right to be here, and we'll show you."

"It don't sound reasonable to me," grumbled Enos Quibb. "One of you two parties is lyin'—an' lyin' like all git aout! I ain't goin' ter be fooled. I'm too smart a man for that. None of you schoolboys can bamboozle me." His chest swelled until there was danger of his shirt losing its buttons.

"We wouldn't think of such a thing," declared Kingdon.

"Huh? Well, I tell ye I know those other fellers are all right. I saw their permit. I'll give you fellers till mornin', when I come back along from Collings P'int. No longer! Ye hear me?"

"Thank you, Mr. Squibb," said Rex, meekly.

"Quibb!" snarled the constable.

"Certainly. Fribb; thank you. But I know you'll think differently about it when you've had a good sleep."

Enos turned away. He was fumbling a cigarette that had evidently been given him at the other camp. Now he lit it, puffed it importantly, and scrambled down to his boat, and went aboard.

"Why be such a dunce, Rex?" demanded Red, tartly. "Haven't you strung the man along far enough? Show him your letter from the Manatee Company."

"Yes," Midkiff echoed. "Why keep up a poor joke?"

"What are you trying to do, King?" demanded Cloudman.

"He'll only come back and bother us again," said Peewee Hicks apprehensively. "What's the idea?"

Enos, fussing with his flywheel, was out of earshot when Rex spoke.

Rex chuckled. "I've lost the permit, fellows, I don't know when, or how. I've got to stall along until I can get a letter from the lumber company."

CHAPTER XIV.

A LIVELY TIME.

"You don't mean it, Rex?" asked Midkiff, seriously. Cloudman and Hicks were open mouthed.

The motorboat began to sputter. They saw Quibb pottering about in her cockpit, the red spark of his cigarette showing plainly as the boat moved slowly out from the island.

She had crossed not more than a cable's length of the placid sound when there was a dull pop and a flare of light. Enos Quibb squealed affrightedly and tumbled sternward, seemingly surrounded by a halo of flame.

"Great Scott!" shouted Cloudman, bounding shoreward. "He's touched off his gas tank with that fool cigarette!"

What had caused the explosion aboard the motorboat did not matter. It was the effect that held the attention of the Walcott Hall boys, who stampeded to the edge of the water after Cloudman. Before any of them reached the shore, Enos Quibb had pitched backward still yelling, over the boat's stern, and disappeared under the surface of the water.

The boat, now well alight, kept on its way across the sound. There was no other craft in sight save the boats belonging to the two parties of campers on Storm Island.

Kingdon's wits were quite as active in this emergency as they were while he was bandying words with the unfortunate constable. He hesitated not an instant in hauling on the mooring line of the Spoondrift.

"Come on!" he commanded. "Get aboard and help me up with a hand's breadth of sail, you fellows. Maybe Quibb will drown if we don't look sharp."

"In this calm sea?" sniffed Midkiff, though first to assist his friend.

"You can't tell. Maybe he can't swim."

"He doesn't seem able even to float," squealed little Hicks. "I don't see him come up."

"Keep your eye on the place he went down—hullo! Blacky to the rescue!" exclaimed Rex suddenly.

One of the canoes was darting from the direction of the other camp, and Horace Pence, alone in it, was making his paddle fly. Before Kingdon and his mates were fairly aboard the catboat the canoe was over the spot where Enos Quibb had disappeared.

"He'll get him, King," said Cloudman.

"No chance for us doing the rescue act," Rex observed.

"Get a move on, you fellows!" commanded Rex. "Never know what may happen——"

"There he is!" shouted Hicks from the shore. "He's come up."

"There's a pretty breeze," said Kingdon. "Up with the sail! I wish I'd tinkered with this old engine instead of fooling around on shore to-day."

Midkiff gave the flywheel a sharp turn. The spark began to sputter.

"What's the matter with that?" cried Red. "And she pos-i-tive-ly refused to say a word out there when that squall struck us yesterday."

"Great!" laughed Kingdon. "Give her some gas. That's the boy! Never mind the sheet."

The Spoondrift began to move, and Kingdon shoved the tiller down. Hicks shouted again from the shore:

"That man's goin' to have him overboard! There—she—blo-o-ows!"

The constable, perhaps more frightened than hurt, had come to the surface, blowing bubbles and sputtering like a bad exhaust. The moment the canoe came within reach, he had seized its gunwale.

Only one thing could happen then—to a canoe. She dipped and shipped several buckets of water. Pence began to bawl:

"Wait! Let me give you a hand, you idiot! Don't tip her like that."

But Enos Quibb bore his weight on the frail craft, and he was heavier—with all the water he had swallowed—than Horace. The latter could not balance the fragile craft, and, just as little Hicks let out his bellow, the canoe went over, and the black-browed youth was shot in a perfect parabola over the head of the sinking constable.

The latter went down again. It was plain that water was not his natural element. He remained under longer than Pence; but when he came to the surface for the second time, Pence seized him.

"Now we'll see some fun," prophesied Phillips as the Spoondrift slowly moved toward the spot. "Quibby has lost his head completely."

"And no great loss," muttered Midkiff. "Maybe he'd get some sense."

"Hush! Hush! This is a serious moment," breathed Kingdon, manipulating the tiller with care.

And it was a serious moment for the two struggling in the water. Quibb got a strangle hold almost immediately on Horace Pence, and they went under. Pence was a strong swimmer, but a person needs a chance to breathe if he is going to do anything in the water.

Their heads again showed above the surface, and the constable let out a gurgling yell. Horace was grimly silent. In that very exciting moment Kingdon felt a thrill of admiration for the leader of the other camping party.

"Hit him a clump on the head!" shouted Red Phillips, leaning over the catboat's rail as she approached the imperiled pair.

Horace, however, was in no position to do that. He had his right arm around the constable, holding his head above water; and, as the man continued to struggle, his rescuer needed his other hand, as well as his feet, to paddle with. Besides, to strike a really heavy blow while in the water is all but impossible.

"Here, Mid! Take the hel-lum!" cried Kingdon.

He had already kicked off his canvas shoes. As his roommate seized the tiller, Rex poised on the dipping rail and took a long dive. He merely skimmed under the surface of the water, rising directly beside the overturned canoe.

"'Ray! Rex! King! King!" cheered Peewee from the shore. "That's the lad!"

Midkiff brought the catboat sharply around, and shut off the engine. Kingdon had seized the now weakly struggling Quibb.

"Let him go—I've got him," he advised Horace Pence. "The boys will give you a hand over the rail, and then we'll get this fellow aboard."

But Pence needed no help, once freed of the incubus of Enos Quibb. He scrambled aboard, while Kingdon raised the constable so Red and Cloudman could get hold of him.

"Oh, boys! boys!" gasped Enos. "I'm drownded!"

Kingdon was laughing at him as he climbed aboard. "You would have been, all right, if it hadn't been for Blacky here," he said. "You want to remember him in your will, Mr. Squibb."

"Quibb," corrected Enos faintly.

"Excuse me, Fibb. Hold on, Pence! Where you going?" asked the Walcott Hall youth as the black-browed one started forward with the boathook.

"Want to spear that canoe. I can get her over—and yonder's the paddle," Horace responded.

"Why so hurried a departure?" demanded Kingdon, smiling at him. "Aren't we hospitable enough?"

Horace made no answer, quickly drawing the overturned canoe within reach. Cloudman helped him, and they soon had the canoe out of the water, emptied, and again on its keel.

"Why the rush?" Kingdon asked.

Pence, still speechless, got into the canoe with care. His paddle was within reach, and he seized upon it. Then he drove the canoe back toward his own camp at an easy clip.

"Social sort of a beggar," grumbled Red Phillips. "Didn't even stop to thank us for saving him from a watery grave."

"Better get after that launch, Rex," Midkiff said. "She's still burning."

"Right-o!" agreed the curly-haired chap. "If she keeps on she may bump her nose into those rocks across the sound. See if you can start our engine again, Jawn."

The Spoondrift's engine, after some sputtering, concluded to pop regularly, and Rex went back to the helm. The speed of the catboat under its auxiliary was not great; but the breeze was so light that they would have made small progress by hoisting sail.

The constable crept down into the cockpit, coughing and ill.

"You're not much of a fish, Mr. Squibb," Kingdon said, smiling at the man cheerfully. "You'd ought to do your sailing in a shallow spot."

"And you ought to do your smoking ashore," advised Midkiff. "What's the idea of carrying a lighted cigarette near your gas tank?"

"It leaked," said Enos feebly.

"What leaked? The cigarette?" chuckled Red.

"There's a leak somewhere—no fear," Kingdon said with grimness. "Any grown human being who would smoke one of those things—and near gasoline—Well! You want to have a care, Squibb."

"Quibb," faintly corrected the constable.

"Is it your launch?" Cloudman asked.

"Yes," Enos said gloomily. "And I guess 'twon't be wuth much. Oh! I'm jest as sore as a bile where I was burned."

"Gosh!" drawled Phillips. "You're like the man that tried to commit suicide. You was somewhat undecided whether to burn or drown, I s'pose."

"No laffin' matter," whined Enos.

They overhauled the launch without much trouble, for her engine had gone dead. Only the woodwork in the stern was scorched; but the tattered awning had gone up in smoke. There was little serious damage done.

"Better luck than you had a right to expect, Mr. Constable," Kingdon told him cheerfully. "Don't believe you'd better go on to your destination to-night. We'll tow your launch back to our anchorage, and give you some supper. You'll be welcome."

"Wal;—I dunno but I'd better," Enos groaned. "Oh! them burns do smart."

When they got back to the camp both boats were carefully moored and far enough apart so that they would not scrape sides in the night. Kingdon was prepared with a first-aid kit, and he anointed the burns of the victim of the accident, while Red Phillips heated up some canned beans and some of the panbread for him.

Mr. Quibb elected to sleep aboard his own boat. When he had departed for the night and the boys crowded together at the tent opening, there was a general—and somewhat excited, if low-voiced—discussion.

"It's so, I suppose," Kingdon yielded finally. "Our black-browed friend, Horrors, has got the permit. Swiped it out of my jacket pocket up there at the diamond. I am positive it was in my coat when we went up there."

"Sure!" cried Peewee. "This constable tells us he saw it. Of course Horrors displayed it as his own."

"Then he's posing under your name, Rex," Midkiff said, in anger.

"I tell you what!" said Phillips. "Let's go over there and take it away from them. The cheap scrubs! I bet that letter isn't the first thing they've stolen."

"No, Larry," Kingdon said quietly, and shaking his head. "That isn't the way to go about it. I've got a better scheme than that."

CHAPTER XV.

WHAT'S SAUCE FOR THE GOOSE.

Kingdon invited the woebegone Quibb to breakfast the next morning. The constable had passed a painful night, being scorched rather seriously on neck and arms.

"I wouldn't have that surly old boy around for a minute," Red Phillips growled, as he helped Rex prepare the morning meal.

"Don't be so ha'sh, Larry," Kingdon advised. "'Soft words butter no parsnips,' but they help a lot, just the same. Don't you see, too, that it's the part of wisdom for us to make a friend of this tin-badger. We should be as wise as serpents but harmless as doves."

"Huh! Don't see it! If you'd just be reasonable and let us all go over there to that other camp and wade into that bunch."

"Would that prove anything?" chuckled Kingdon. "Even to a country constable?"

"Well!"

"Your idea of proving the case smacks of ancient times, my child. It might have worked well five or six hundred years ago," his blond friend said lightly. "'Trial by force of arms,' or something like that. But it isn't done now, Larry; it really isn't done—not in the best circles."

"Great snakes!" rejoined the red-haired youth. "You're the coolest fellow, Rex, to let that Horrors take your name——"

"The black-browed villain!" chuckled Kingdon.

"And let him get away with it!"

"He hasn't got away with anything yet," was the quick rejoinder.

"I'd like to have you show me why he hasn't," returned Red. "He's got that permit and made a monkey of this constable."

"Well," drawled Kingdon, "I don't mind that, you know. Squibb is no relation of mine."

"But why all the tenderness for Horrors? He didn't even thank you for getting him out of his pickle last night."

"Presume he was too full of gratitude for speech."

"He was—like fun! He didn't have the decency to thank you. A fellow that would steal——"

"Hush-a-by-baby!" chided Kingdon. "Old Mid and I pilfered their canoes, didn't we?"

"That was only in fun."

"This is going to be fun before we are through with it, my dear fellow."

"Ah—well——"

"Let it go at that," advised his blond friend cheerfully. "Leave it to yours truly to pull all the chestnuts out of the fire. We must not get into further trouble with the Sheriff of Nottingham. Go on, Red; call him up to breakfast."

So the constable remained to eat with the Walcott Hall boys. If there was a good deal of quiet fun thrust at him, Enos Quibb did not know it. Aside from his high opinion of his own importance as an officer of the law, he was rather a thick-skinned individual.

He seemed to feel, however, that there was something due his hosts. He stood about after breakfast and coughed for a time, finally blurting out:

"Wal, of course, you boys understand I ain't got nothin' personal against you. Quite the contrary—yes, sir! Ye sartainly did me a good turn last night. And I'd like ter do you a good turn in re-turn."

"Fly to it, old boy," Peewee Hicks urged. "Put us down in your will for a good fat sum."

Enos did not give heed to this chaff. He added:

"Of course, I know you boys ain't got a mite of right on this island. That Kingdon chap showed me his permit, fair an' square, over to t'other camp. Dunno where you got them letters and that wallet with his initials on it that ye give me a peek at," he pursued, looking at Kingdon. "'Tis abeout as much as my job's wuth, I guess; but I'll try not ter see ye over here when I pass by. But I wish ye would find some other place ter camp on."

"Nothing doing. We're just wedded to Storm Island," Kingdon declared.

"Wal, if anybody sees ye and tells me abeout it, course I gotter take notice then. Guess I'll go," finished Enos, evidently much disturbed in spirit. Descending the steep shore to his launch, he got under way this time without accident, and the motorboat chugged away.

"I'll be hanged," muttered Red, "if I'm not rather sorry for the old lad, after all."

"Rex! You've got to send to the lumber company and get a copy of that permit," Midkiff declared with vigor. "Show those fellows up——"

"And get them put off the island?" drawled Kingdon.

"Why not?" Cloudman asked.

"Oh—well—I've another use for that bunch," said Rex. "Why use the rough stuff when guile and strategy—to say nothing of intrigue—are on tap?"

"Aw, drop that, Rex!" begged Midkiff.

"Why so, Grouch? That Horrors chap has got the laugh on us. He got it without honor, to be sure; but he didn't use a blackjack or brass knuckles. Shall we have it said of us that a crowd like that worked something fancy on us, and we had to volley with a knock-down-and-drag-out argument? Say not so! We got away with their canoes, they filched our permit. Tit for tat. Should we cry baby? Where's your sporting instincts?"

"Sporting instincts!" repeated Midkiff with disgust.

"Great snakes alive!" grumbled Red. "Listen to him rave."

"Needn't put me on the same plane as those fellows over yonder," objected Hicks, with a comic show of virtuous importance.

"Reckon you're too easy on 'em, Kingdon," said the Western lad. "That affair of the canoes wasn't serious. Stealing our permit and posing as the rightful owners of it is sure different."

"If your morals are as weak as your reasoning," laughed Kingdon, "I'm sorry for you chaps. What's sauce for the goose is good gravy for the gander."

"Oh, have it your own way; you always do, you blue-eyed mama's darling!" cried Larry Phillips. "No use fighting you. You'd raise a row if you didn't have the biggest apple and the reddest candy cane."

Derision left Kingdon unruffled. Opposition in any form made no difference to him when he once had a course of action mapped out. As he intimated, he had future use for Horace Pence and his friends on Storm Island. Just what this was Kingdon had no intention of divulging at the moment.

The fellows of the other camp kept well away from the Walcott Hall boys that day, and the next. Rex and his friends on either day went up to the clearing in the center of the island for short practice only, and they saw nothing of Pence and his comrades.

Kingdon insisted upon knocking down the engine of the catboat and going over the parts carefully. Both he and Red knew a good deal about automobile engines, and this was not so much different.

"It looks to your Uncle Edison Marconi," quoth Rex finally, "as though the main trouble with this bunch of junk is that, in a moment of hallucination, the owner mentioned it as an 'engine.' Old age has crept over this machine, and Father Time has left his indelible mark on certain parts of it. They must be renewed if we are to place any dependence at all in this form of motive power this summer."

"To get down to cases," scoffed Midkiff, "you want some new parts?"

"The engine does," Kingdon said sweetly. "I, personally, am fairly new."

"Quite," agreed Red. "And fresh."

"How're you going to get the parts?" Cloudman asked practically.

"Go after them to Blackport. To-morrow, if 'tis fair and there's a breeze ruffling the surface of yon sound."

"All of us going?" questioned Midkiff. "Who's to watch camp?"

"That's right," Phillips said. "I don't trust those chaps yonder."

"They have been keeping away from here, all right," Peewee observed.

"That isn't saying they wouldn't come over and grab all our stuff if we left it unguarded," Red said.

"Don't you think we'll have to risk that sometime, Red?" Kingdon asked.

"Not if you have that gang put off the island as you should," put in Midkiff with tartness.

"Now, is that so?" mocked Rex. "They could hang around and do us plenty of damage if they were put off, I suppose? If we are going to spend our entire summer worrying about a lot of amateur pirates like them, we'll have a fine time—I don't think."

"Well, they've robbed us once."

"And you have embraced Quaker doctrines, Rex," Red added, with some sharpness. "Turn the other cheek stuff, and all that."

The blond youth's eyes twinkled. "If they touch our lares and penates, I agree to lead you against the Philistines, and we will smite them hip and thigh—and on the nose. How's that?"

"It's a promise," grunted Cloudman.

"Most sensible thing I've heard you say since we landed on Storm Island," said Red Phillips.

CHAPTER XVI.

WHITE WINGS.

With that understanding, the Walcott Hall lads sought their beds that night, and arose betimes in the morning. The sun was scarcely up when they were aboard the catboat and drifted out of the tiny cove in which she had been anchored.

They selected to have breakfast aboard and, as he knew very little about sailing a boat, Cloudman agreed to be the "doctor" during the cruise.

There is no more comfortable, roomy, or safe boat for her size than a cat, and, despite her broad beam, with a stiff breeze blowing, the Spoondrift could walk the water in amazing fashion. Beside, Kingdon was skillful at sailing a craft of her kind.

"How did you learn so much about it, Rex?" asked Peewee Hicks.

"Sailed in pretty near every kind of a one-man or two-man dish all around the seven seas," declared Kingdon airily. "From a catamaran to an outrigger, or an Esquimaux kaiak, yours truly has tempted Father Neptune."

"Wish to goodness you'd be really serious once in a while, Rex," grumbled Midkiff. "Never know whether you're dreaming or just plain fibbing."

"There!" ejaculated Red Phillips. "Some rap that, Old Grouch; right in the solar-plexus."

"But you surely have traveled, Kingdon?" put in Cloudman, who had come up from the low-roofed cabin to breathe.

"That used to be my middle name—before my father settled in Maine for the sake of mother's health, and went into the lumber game. Rexford Traveler Kingdon—that's me. Isn't it perfectly delightful to hear me boast like this? I'm so modest about it, what?"

"There's another sail over yonder," cried Peewee suddenly. "Is she heading in, too, Kingdon?"

"She's making a leg that way," announced the skipper. "Blackport Channel is narrow, but deep. We'll have to make about the same number of tacks as she'll make to get in. Another cat, too; but bigger than the Spoondrift."

"And a whole lot fancier," Red Phillips declared.

"See her canvas!" cried Peewee. "White as snow."

"And this old tub looks like a slop bucket," complained Midkiff.

"Handsome is as handsome does," laughed Kingdon. "We know how well the Spoondrift acted the other day in that squall."

"She certainly spoke her little piece coming up from Boston," Red admitted.

"That other boat's going to cross our bow, Kingdon," Peewee announced excitedly.

"Don't you believe it, infant," was the prompt rejoinder.

"But she is, I tell you——"

"Watch out!" called Kingdon. He swung the tiller hard over and the Spoondrift turned almost on her heel. The white spume flew across the decked-over bows into the cockpit, Cloudman getting about half a bucketful down the back of his neck.

"What do you think you're doing?" he yelled, leaping up.

"Hold on!" advised Red, choked with laughter.

The sail of the Spoondrift caught and held every ounce of wind possible. She was shooting along, splashing through the waves with a lift of her nose that shook her from stem to stern.

"Hold on to what?" cried the Colorado lad, grabbing the edge of the centerboard well. "She's pitching like a wild bronco!"

"Stick to the saddle," chuckled Pewee. "You should like this."

"I do—like fun!" grumbled Cloudman. "Spilled my kettle of hot water. How can I wash greasy pans without hot water?"

"Let 'em stay greasy till the next meal. Then they're all ready to use again," Red suggested.

"We ought to have a dog," Peewee declared.

"What for?"

"Like the lazy woman's dog. She called it 'Three Waters' and when folks asked her if her dishes were washed clean, she always said, 'Just as clean as Three Waters can make them.'"

"That's an awful chestnut," Red said. "We'll have no such housekeeping as that. Better let 'em stay greasy."

Meanwhile the Spoondrift was tearing through the jumping waves, with the wind in the most favorable quarter. The strength of the wind was increasing, too, and the Spoondrift was distinctly a heavy-weather craft.

In saving her from being "cross-bowed" by her handsome rival, Kingdon had lost a bit on the length of that leg. Now the Spoondrift rushed down toward the opening of the channel like a steam tug. As the other sailing craft was about to tack, the Walcott Hall boys crossed the stranger's bows.

So near were the two catboats that a biscuit might have been tossed from one to the other. No biscuits were tossed, but certain chaff was.

"Oh, you lubbers!" shouted a young fellow in a yachting cap, rising upon the forward deck of the strange catboat, and hanging to a stay for support. "Some sailors! Where are you from? What cart is that?"

There seemed to be half a dozen persons aboard the hailing craft, all young fellows. Kingdon answered the laughing challenge:

"Spoondrift, from Storm Island; Kingdon, skipper; bound in. What boat's that?"

"Nothing To It, Blackport Boat Club. My name's Yansey. Will see you fellows later. Some tub you got there."

"Tub!" flung back Peewee. "Like your nerve! We've got her entered for the International Cup Races."

"Sure you have. Tea cup races, you mean," gibed the other. "Come, now, get that old catamaran out of our way, so we don't fall over her. We're going to tack."

"Look like a lively lot," Red Phillips remarked as the Spoondrift pulled ahead and got into the choppy channel.

"Blackport Boat Club boys. We ought to know them," Kingdon agreed. "I understand they've set up a fancy eight-oared shell, too. That's where we are weak, fellows."

"Where?" Midkiff asked.

"Rowing. Walcott Hall should pull as good an oar as any prep. school in the East. What do we do?"

"It's what the other schools have always done to us, not what we do," sighed Red Phillips.

"Why is that?" demanded Cloudman, who knew little about boating of any kind.

"We never seem to develop good rowing material," Midkiff said.

"Don't go after it," Kingdon rejoined, with vigor. "Not as we do after football and baseball timber."

"Ain't that the truth?" drawled Peewee. "I'd like to see Old Hall set up a good eight-oared boat—I'd be cox."

"You're the right size—below your ears," said Red.

"If we had a shell," began Kingdon.

"Where? Here?" Midkiff demanded.

"Yes. Why not? Plenty of quiet water in that sound."

"But there aren't eight of us," squealed Peewee.

"More than eight on the island," Kingdon returned with a sudden grin.

"Jumping jacks!" Red exclaimed. "He's raving again. Thinks he can work those loafers over there on Storm Island into rowing material. Going to make a Christy Mathewson out o' that Horrors kid, too."

"Like fun he will!" said Cloudman, mockingly.

"What's the matter—jealous, Eat-'em-alive Jack?" drawled Kingdon. "Don't be narrow—don't! If we could put in some practice this summer——"

"Get up a crew and race these Blackport fellows, I suppose?" Midkiff asked, scowling.

"Your supposing is good, Jawn," observed Kingdom, shifting the tiller just a little so as to ship the cap of a wave that came inboard with a mighty splash and broke up the group of critics forward of the centerboard.

The Spoondrift kept well ahead of the Nothing To It through the channel. It was a fine day, and there were plenty of small sailing craft, as well as motorboats, astir on the ample bosom of Blackport Cove.

To the westward, toward the Beaches, was the anchorage of the Boat Club, where, if any inshore gale did hit them, the small fry would find no rocks to go ashore on.

The Nothing To It wended her way to these moorings; the Spoondrift, with reefed sail, loafed in to a dock near the middle of the water-front.

Rex and Midkiff went up to a machine shop for the new engine parts and needed repairs. On their way back to the dock, the big fellow again tried to reason with his roommate.

"Why not send a letter while we're here to the Manatee Company, and tell them how the permit was lost?" he begged. "They'd give us another, wouldn't they? That Enos Quibb will be coming around again—and he isn't going to be put off so easy a second time. You can see that."

"Beautiful day, Midkiff," Kingdon observed, his head in the air.

"Don't you hear what I say?"

"We're going to have some job beating back against this wind—if she doesn't change."

"Hang it all, Rex! Come on! Take a fool's advice——"

"No, Jawn; I'm foolish enough myself. Why load up with an overstock of the same goods?"

"Hang it all!" ejaculated Midkiff again.

"Do, Jawn," Kingdon advised mildly. "Hang it all up—and forget it."

"You'd try the patience of a saint!"

"Don't know. Never knew one personally. You don't claim to have been canonized, do you, Jawn?"

Midkiff flung up his hands and fell silent.

CHAPTER XVII.

AN OFF-SHORE BLOW.

Before the two friends reached the dock an automobile drove across their path. There were several men in it, but Midkiff did not give the party any attention—being in a retrospective state of mind—until one of the men hailed Kingdon jovially.

"Ahoy, Rex! 'Ullo, boy! How's Rex Kingdon?"

The curly-haired lad looked up, with a smile, and waved his hand in response to the greeting as the automobile whisked away.

"Who's that?" Midkiff asked.

"Ahem!" coughed Kingdon, a twinkle in his eye. "A man who knows my father."

"Humph! He seemed to know your father's son, too," said the dark fellow, and then forgot the incident.

But there was somebody within sight and hearing of the occurrence who was not likely to forget it. The two Walcott Hall boys, however, went on down to the dock without marking the presence of this curious individual.

The fellow, who had said his name was Yansey, skipper of the Nothing To It, was sitting on the stringpiece of the wharf, swinging his legs and chaffing with the trio aboard the Spoondrift.

He was a smart-looking, cheerful lad, with the spirit of a sparrow—a friendly soul who even made Midkiff warm toward him. He hailed the latter and Rex as though he was an old friend.

"Say," he began on the blond chap, "I hear your name is Rex Kingdon?"

"Who told you so much?"

"These chaps here in the tub."

"Of course. They are devoted to the unadorned truth," said Kingdon whimsically. "You know, Old Till wants a chair of Truth endowed at Walcott Hall."

"Maybe he feels the need of one there?" suggested Yansey cheerfully.

"Don't be so dazzling! What have you come over here for—to try to get our angoras because you couldn't beat us out with that old log of wood you were attempting to sail?"

"Came because I fell in love with you all at first glance," returned Yansey, grinning up at the curly-haired lad. "Bet you can't say that of me."

"Your crew look like good sports," said Rex. "Come aboard?"

"Yes. If you'll sail me over to the clubhouse. I came on purpose for you fellows," explained Yansey. "It's almost lunch time, and we want you to eat with us. Got a darkey for a cook, and he makes a fine chowder—and apple pie! My eye!"

"Home made apple pie? Say not so!" croaked Red Phillips. "You make my mouth water like a hydrant."

"You can stuff yourself," assured Yansey. "What say?"

"Is this just a polite invitation, or is it a dare?" asked Kingdon.

"Dare you to come!" laughed Yansey, hopping down into the Spoondrift.

"We never take a dare," responded Kingdon.

"Never!" was the chorus from the other Walcott Hall lads.

"But you don't know what you are getting that darkey cook in for," Cloudman warned. "We haven't had a square meal since we left Boston."

The wind was shifting and unsteady as they sailed across the broad cove. "Hope it comes into the right quarter for us to get back easy on," Kingdon observed.

"Think we're in for a spell of weather?" Red asked Yansey, who was Blackport born and seemed to be weather wise.

"Shouldn't wonder. Though we don't often have anything out of the no'theast this time of year. Just the same, there's been bad wrecks along the coast in June. They keep the life-savers on the job through this month nowadays."

None of the visitors thought of the weather, however, when once they were ashore at the boathouse. It seemed to be a club including all ages and the owners of all manner of craft. But the youngsters had it to themselves just now, as it was too early in the season for their fathers to get away save on Saturdays.

The visitors looked over several of the better-sailing craft while dinner was preparing. Kingdon took up the eight-oared shell question with Yansey, and learned that in August there was always a race with two other boat clubs, and that the Blackport eight considered themselves to be a little the best oarsmen anywhere along the Maine coast.

"To be real modest," Yansey grinned, "there's nothing to it for the other eights. We've got the race cinched already."

"Modesty adorns you," Kingdon told him. "I can see that. Also, why you chose that name for your catboat, too."

"Right! There's nothing to it!" proclaimed the optimistic Yansey. "We've got a new shell, and we keep her greased. Wait till you see us out practicing some day. I'm stroke."

"What did you do with your old shell?" Kingdon asked, reflectively.

"It's for sale over yonder at the boat builder's. Good boat, too, though battered some. Come and see our new one."

Kingdon went, and said nothing more about the thought that had become fixed in his mind regarding the eight-oared shell race.

The Walcott Hall boys had a good time at the boat club; but they were delayed in getting away, and when the Spoondrift ran down toward the Channel it was plain the wind had come around into the north and was blowing strongly. The sea outside was streaked with foam over the caps of the jumping waves.

"Guess your old wind's changed, all right," grumbled Peewee.

"We won't have to beat up against it all the way back to the island," Rex responded with cheerfulness. "Keep up hope, infant. All is not lost."

"I don't want to lose everything," said Cloudman as the cat began to pitch in the choppy sea. "That apple pie was too good to waste."

"Stop that talk!" groaned Peewee, his hand upon his stomach.

Cloudman really suffered from seasickness before they got out into open sea. There the waves were less choppy, and the Spoondrift rode them like a seafowl. It was easier on all hands.

But the wind increased in strength, and to beat up into the sound—which was all a-streak with foam and very blusterous to look upon—was really more of an undertaking than Kingdon cared to tackle.

"We can do it all right. She's safe enough," Rex said to Midkiff. "But it will make rough going, Jawn—awful rough. These lubbers will be set on their ears."

"Never mind them. They'll feel better after it's all over."

"Unfeeling words, old boy. That's a narrow breach into our little cove where the camp is. Believe I'll go t'other side of the island."

"To the seaward side?"

"Right. The island will break the wind. I noticed one good anchorage, at least, over there. We can make it easily with the wind like this."

"You're the doctor," said Midkiff. "I suppose you know what you are about once in a blue moon."

"Your confidence in me almost brings the tears to my eyes. Shake a reef out of that sail, Jawn. We're going to run down wind for a long lap."

With this change in the sailing of the Spoondrift, Applejack and Peewee felt greatly relieved. With the wind practically astern, the catboat was less acrobatic in her motions. But when the high eastern point of the island began to draw in on their port quarter, the other fellows wanted to know where they were bound.

"What're you aiming to do, King?" asked Red Phillips. "Sail us clear over to Spain? You're heading that way."

"Get out your Spanish phrase book, and learn to speak the language with a pleasant accent," advised Kingdon, "if you think we're likely to reach that coast. Forewarned is forearmed."

"What do you mean, 'four-armed'?" grinned Red. "Think I am an anthropoidean quadrumanous animal? Isn't that a good one? I learned it by heart after Old Yad suggested I might be one on occasion."

"I'd have had him arrested," Cloudman said, weakly. "Didn't know Yad could talk so mean to a fellow."

It was growing late when the catboat swung into the smoother patch of ocean south of the island. On their left, the surf roared far up the rocks and narrow beaches, and the swell, forerunning a storm, was quite apparent. The boat sailed on more even keel.

Kingdon pointed her for the sheltered gulf that indented the island coastline, which he had noticed when they battled with the squall the day they had reached Storm Island.

"We'll have to stay aboard all night, I suppose?" Cloudman groaned. "Oh, boy! Terra firma for mine as soon as possible!"

"We might as well stay on the boat," Midkiff said. "No knowing what those other fellows have done to our camp."

"Cheerful, aren't you, Jawn?" chuckled Kingdon.

At that moment Peewee Hicks seemed suddenly to have a brainstorm. He had crept forward and was standing, hanging to a stay, looking off at the tumbling sea east of the island. Now he began to dance and yell.

"Come down out of that!" ordered Red Phillips. "What are you—going crazy? That's no place to be fox-trotting."

"Look there! See 'em! There's going to be a mess now."

"What do you mean?" questioned Red, climbing gingerly upon the deck to get a glimpse of what Peewee evidently saw.

The bulging sail shut out Rex Kingdon's vision. He called to know the cause of the disturbance. Red Phillips turned a perfectly pallid countenance to the stern, shouting:

"Canoes! Blown off shore, I guess. Two fellows in each, Rex. What will we do about it?"

CHAPTER XVIII.

"THE HAPPY FAMILY."

"It's that Horrors kid and his chums," Cloudman cried. "They're in for it, I reckon!"

"They're out for it, you mean," Midkiff said.

"What can we do?" wailed the dancing Peewee. "They're trying to paddle back to the island."

"Right into the eye of the wind," said Phillips, who now had a good view of the two canoes.

"They'll be drowned!" declared little Hicks.

"Easy there, Midget," Kingdon requested. "Don't weep yet. Steady, you fellows. I'm going to wear ship. Give me the course, Red."

"You're sure not going to run down to them, Kingdon?" questioned Cloudman.

It looked dangerous to him. Even Midkiff said:

"Better look before you leap, Rex."

"Pshaw! As our Blackport friend says, 'There's nothing to it!' We can reach 'em all right—without shipping a capful of water."

"Yes," Midkiff muttered. "But can we get back to the island again?"

Kingdon did not answer that question. He knew he had a sound craft under him. A catboat of merely the Spoondrift's length has run many a mile out to sea and lived through an offshore gale; but it wasn't a chance he fancied, and Kingdon fully felt the responsibility of taking the risk. Nevertheless, he could not think of letting those other fellows drown.

Drown they might unless they received immediate aid. Under the lift of the boom, Rex caught a glimpse of the two canoes. One fellow in each was paddling madly while his companion was bailing out the water shipped from the curling top of every wave.

It was a bad outlook for Horace Pence and his friends. Undoubtedly they had been fishing off the eastern point of Storm Island when the wind shifted. If that was so, then for nearly two hours the boys had been battling to get back to safety.

"Careless goats," Kingdon said to Midkiff, who stood beside him. "They ought never to have brought such dinky craft out here. Canoes are all right in the sound when it's quiet; but to try to manage a canoe out here, with the surf running the way it does on this south shore of Storm Island, is craziness."

"Guess they know all that now," grunted Midkiff.

"True for you, Jawn. Stand by to give them a hand. Save the canoes if you can. I've got to run her in between the two, and you and Red will each have to handle one of the cockleshells."

"Cockleshells. Now you've said a bushel, Rex," Midkiff rejoined. "Those fellows ought to be at home sailing chips on a puddle."

"They're putting up a plucky fight, just the same," Kingdon said, peering ahead. "Take your place. Speak to Red. Stand by the sheet to lower!" he bellowed.

"Aye, aye, skipper!" Phillips shouted back.

"Come aft here, Peewee, and help Cloudman pull 'em over the side. Keep your wits about you, Applejack."

"Oh, thank ye!" grunted the boy from the West. "I didn't spill them back there in that choppy channel."

Carried on by her own momentum, the Spoondrift shot in between the two canoes. The struggling boys paddling at the moment—Pence in one canoe and Pudge MacComber in the other—might have ceased their work, seeing the catboat so near, had not Kingdon shouted:

"Keep it up, you fellows! Stick to the paddle. We've got to snake those other fellows inboard first."

Cloudman and Peewee each seized their man, while Red and Midkiff, lying precariously themselves on the decked over portion of the catboat, got a grip on the gunwales of the canoes.

Ben Comas and Kirby were hauled into the cockpit; but each canoe shipped so much water it began to sink.

Pudge was frankly crying; but he tried to balance his boat and use the paddle on the starboard side. Pence's countenance wore its usual sneering smile. His black eyes flashed and his glance did not quail in the least.

"Awfully decent of you, Kingdon," he shouted. "Try to save the canoes, if you can."

"Scramble aboard!" commanded the skipper of the Spoondrift. "Never mind the canoes."

But Midkiff and Phillips did their part nobly. They hung onto the sinking craft until Horace Pence and Harry Kirby could aid in dragging both upon the deck of the catboat.

"Lash 'em there," commanded Kingdon. "Give us more sail. We've got to make headway against this breeze."

He had brought the Spoondrift into the eye of the wind and, when a reef was shaken out, the sail got the breeze on such a slant that she staggered and rolled like a drunken man.

"Oh, Rex!" squealed the frightened Peewee. "You'll have us turned turtle!"

"Don't worry, infant," responded Kingdon. "You couldn't tip this old girl over. She's as safe as a house."

The plunging of the catboat made them all hang on for dear life. Pudge had stopped crying, and he showed a courage far superior to that of his cousin. Deathly pale, Ben Comas was accusing Horace of having dragged them all into this perilous adventure.

That Pence had elements of the right stuff in him was proved by what he said in return: "You keep that to yourself, Comas, or I'll chuck you over the side. Thank Kingdon and his friends—as I do. We'd all been by-low in a few moments if it weren't for them."

"Huh!" grunted Ben. "What chance have we now?"

"If we are to drown we'll go down with these fellows who have done their best to save us," Pence put in curtly. "Don't forget that. Let's be decent—or, as decent as we can be—if we really have got to drown."

Kingdon smiled at the black-browed fellow.

"You're improving, Horrors," he said. "But we're not going to be swamped. We'll pull through all right."

"You'll never get us safely around to the other side of the island with the wind this way," Kirby shouted.

"Am not going to try," retorted Kingdon, shrugging his shoulders. "But we'll be all right—in time."

"Yes we will!" sneered Ben Comas.

"Drop that, or I'll punch you!" threatened Horace Pence, edging over toward the coward.

"Nice crowd, aren't they?" said Red Phillips, happening to be near Kingdon. "They must get along fine together in that camp up there. Regular happy family, such as you see in the sideshows—what?"

Kingdon laughed and shook the damp hair out of his eyes, for the spray had wet them all pretty thoroughly. Their oilskins had saved the Walcott Hall boys; but the canoeists were saturated above their waists.

"I'd feel better if I co-could get dry," chattered Pudge.

"So say we all of us, Fatty," Cloudman told him. "But no use trying to light the oilstove below. Might set the cabin afire."

"Don't take any favors from 'em, Pudge," ordered Ben in his nastiest way.

"Why don't you get out and walk," demanded Peewee hotly, "if you don't want to accept any favors? You're a fine chap—I don't think."

"Close up, infant," commanded Kingdon, hearing this. "Try to be hospitable."

"Hospitable!" muttered Hicks. "They've been so nice to us—stealing that permit and trying to get us put off the island——"

Horace Pence actually grinned at this. "You must have put it all over Enos Quibb," he said in his drawling way. "How did you do it? Gratitude for saving him from a watery grave, no doubt?"

"If he showed gratitude, it's more than somebody else," snapped Midkiff, boiling over.

"You're the fellow they call Grouch, aren't you?" Horace asked, still smiling. "Name seems to fit."

Kingdon interfered before the slow Midkiff could get back at his tormentor.

"Let them rave, Midkiff," the skipper said. "They got the best of us the other day. We have to admit it. But the affair isn't over yet."

"We got the permit just the same," laughed Horace openly.

"We'd ought to take it away from them," put in Red Phillips, inclined to feel as Midkiff did.

"Remember they are our guests," drawled Kingdon. "Hands off. We must put them ashore in safety. After that——"

If the truth were told at that moment, Rex would gladly have gone to a clinch with the sneering Pence. There was something about the crass ingratitude of the cheeky fellow that made it hard for Kingdon to restrain himself. Pence and his crew were unbeaten cubs.

But Rex gave his first, and very earnest attention to the sailing of the Spoondrift. She staggered along for an hour, making very heavy weather, and very short legs in her tacking, but finally, the eastern head of Storm Island began to break the wind.

"We're pulling out of it," Red shrieked in Kingdon's ear, for the roar of the nearby surf was now almost deafening.

"By the way," Rex asked of Kirby, "where's your Indian friend?"

"He didn't come out with us."

"Oh! I fancied he might have been drowned. That would have been a sad calamity. I think he has it in for me."

"Maybe he has," Ben said, overhearing this conversation. "But he doesn't dislike you any more than the rest of us do."

"Aw, Ben!" said Pudge MacComber, "I'm sure I'm grateful to Mr. Kingdon and his friends. He may not believe it——"

"Oh, I do," Rex interrupted, sweetly. "But don't lay it on too thick. I begin to feel slight symptoms of mal de mere. A little of the kind of gratitude you fellows feel goes a long way with me."

CHAPTER XIX.

MORE OF MR. QUIBB.

"Lower away!" shouted Rex, as he put the nose of the Spoondrift into the passage between the two charging files of breakers. In a moment, it seemed, the catboat drifted on the heaving but quiet bosom of the small cove.

Rex Kingdon dealt in melodrama; no doubt of that. He liked to do things to startle his comrades. But they were not always chance things done on the spur of the moment. More often he shrewdly molded circumstances to lead up to his most startling successes. He had had both his friends and "The Happy Family," as Red had named their guests, speculating during these last few minutes. It had looked as though the old Spoondrift could not possibly be brought into this haven in safety.

"By George!" Horace Pence unwillingly said. "You're some pilot, you are!"

"Me!" Rex returned lightly. "If I'd sailed with Columbus, we'd landed at New York, not at a little picayune island down in the West Indies."

"Well, we'll be getting our canoes over and going ashore, I guess," Horace said in rather an embarrassed tone for him.

"So long," returned Kingdon carelessly. "Come up and give me another look at that fast ball of yours to-morrow."

"Perhaps," said the black-eyed fellow, non-committally.

The four went ashore. The Walcott Hall boys saw Joe Bootleg meet them at the edge of the water with a lantern. He had evidently been aware of their peril, and from the headland had watched the Spoondrift making her anchorage.

"Good riddance to bad rubbish," muttered Red Phillips.

"All but the fat chap," Peewee observed. "He isn't such a bad sort."

"Most onery crowd of coyotes I ever saw," Cloudman acclaimed with force.

"Forget it!" advised Rex, with more tartness than he usually displayed. "Not worth talking about."

"Those chaps from the other camp have really gotten under his hide at last," Peewee whispered to Red.

They spent the night in some comfort. The summer wind-storm blew itself out before midnight, and in the morning they were able to sail around to the little cove below their camp. Nothing had been disturbed there. They found the tent-fly laced down as they had left it.

Kingdon insisted on taking his two pitchers to the top of the island for practice in the afternoon. Neither Horace Pence nor any of his chums appeared. The Walcott Hall boys caught only distant glimpses of the other campers-out during the day.

The morning following Kingdon was too busy with Midkiff, tinkering with the engine of the Spoondrift, to bother about the rival campers. The other Walcott Hall boys went fishing off the rocks in the still water, and caught a mess of cunners that made a nice change from the usual cod, or flounders.

"Never knew there were so many kinds of fish," Cloudman admitted. "Always thought, till I came East, that fish was just fish. All tasted the same. But even those squirmy eels taste better than Texas venison."

"What's Texas venison?" questioned Phillips.

"Jackrabbits," Applejack replied, grinning.

"Fellers in N'York, they tell me, pay a dollar a pair for them. They kill 'em in big drives in Texas, and use flivvers instead of ponies to run 'em. Then they cold storage the jacks and push 'em up to the Eastern market. All they are worth in Texas is a bad word; and a dollar a pair in the effete East. Some dish, jackrabbit stew—if a feller has good teeth."

Pudge MacComber came over to the Walcott Hall camp about dark, to borrow a hatchet. He seemed rather embarrassed about asking for it, his cousin's insistence evidently having been all that brought him.

"We've mislaid ours somewhere," he confessed. "We've got to cut some more firewood and a few tent pegs. The wind, the other day, pretty near blew our tents away."

"You're welcome to the hatchet," Kingdon said. "Thought you had a fellow with you who knew all about camping—and was cookee, too?"

"That Injun," Cloudman put in.

"He's a good deal of a frost," admitted Pudge. "He's lazy. Won't work any more than he can help. And his cooking!" The fat youth sighed, shaking his head mournfully. "I know I'm going to reduce all right if we stay on Storm Island. I do all the work and haven't had a square meal once since we landed."

"You're looking bad. I noticed that when you came along," Red Phillips said with commiseration. "You tottered. I bet you've lost half a pound."

"Oh, you can laugh——"

"No laughing matter," said the lean Cloudman, "to lose flesh. I lost some once, and it made me lopsided. Got thrown from my pony and scraped off some thigh meat against a rock, on one leg. Walked with a list to starboard, as you mariners would say, for a couple of weeks."

"I wouldn't care to lose flesh that way," Pudge said. "When I'm not fat I don't feel so well. I begin to get weak and all run down——"

"So that you don't cast a shadow, I s'pose?" suggested Peewee.

"Oh, I guess I always cast more of a shadow than you do, little feller," Pudge told him, to the amusement of the others.

"But if you get thin, I suppose you are afraid of losing your right proportions," Kingdon chimed in gravely. "You know, a fellow hates to lose his shape."

"According to what kind of a shape he's got," muttered Peewee.

"Why, the rules for perfect pulchritude are easily remembered," the curly-haired youth said with serious mien. "You know, 'Twice around the thumb, once around the wrist; twice around the wrist, once around the neck; twice around the neck, once around the waist'——"

"And in this fellow's case twice around the waist, once around the 'big top' at a circus, I s'pose?" put in Red. "Just about."

"Oh," said Pudge, mildly, "you fellows can poke fun if you like. I don't mind. I'm used to it anyway. I'd rather be fat than uncomfortable. Besides, after what you fellers did for us the other day——"

"Now don't get maudlin," begged Kingdon quickly. "The least said the soonest mended. We had to save you from a watery grave! We're not proud of it."

This rather closed Pudge up, and he mournfully went away. Midkiff said with scorn:

"They must be having a nice time over at that camp! They don't open their tent-flies before nine o'clock. Sleep away the best of the day. Then they lay around and squabble most of the time, I s'pose."

"Don't let their behavior worry you, Grouch," Red advised. "You haven't got to play father confessor to that bunch."

"I'd like to give 'em penance, all right," growled Midkiff. "What they need is a rattling good shaking up. Being half an ace from drowning the other afternoon wasn't enough."

It looked, the next forenoon, as though the "shaking up" was about to come to the first party of campers on Storm Island. Kingdon and his mates had got the engine of the catboat into running order, and were just about to try her out, when the sound of another motor approaching brought them all up standing. Motor crafts, thus far, had not been very plentiful in the sound.

"See who's coming to be in our midst again," invited Peewee. "It's the jolly constable."

"Now we're in for it!" predicted Midkiff, looking solemnly at Rex.

The latter seemed the least disturbed of any of them. Indeed, he smiled quietly and went about preparing for the trial of the catboat.

"Is he coming here?" queried Cloudman after a minute.

"Not first, I guess," said Red, who was likewise pretty solemn. "But he'll be here all right. He's going over to take another squint at that permit, I s'pose. If you had only let us get that paper away from those fellows, Rex——"

"Never mind the ifs and ands, Red," said Rex. "Let's go over there and see what happens."

"He's got something in reserve," declared Peewee.

"I believe he has," muttered Red.

Kingdon went about his business, without further word. In a minute or two their own engine was going, and soon the Spoondrift moved easily out of the cove. By that time Enos Quibb's motorboat was almost at the landing where the two canoes lay.

The Walcott Hall boys could see that the fellows at the other camp had been rounded up by the excitable Pudge. They were all at the landing when Enos Quibb shut off his engine and stepped forward to make fast a line. Joe Bootleg remained in the background; but even he, it seemed, was more than usually interested.

The boys aboard the catboat could not hear what first was said by the constable, but they heard Horace Pence laugh his sneering, musical laugh, and reply:

"You're going to have some job proving that, aren't you, Mr. Quibb? We have the permit——"

"Then, by gum," the excited constable shouted, "you stole it! That's what you did. You ain't got no right to it."

"You'd better try to prove that, Enos," Horace said, still laughing.

"I'm a-goin' to," cried Quibb. "I'm a-goin' to take you fellers—all of ye—over to Squire Lowder's, an' let him decide this business. No school of tomcods like yeou, is goin' to fool Enos Quibb right along. No, sir!"

CHAPTER XX.

KINGDON'S SURPRISING MOVE.

The catboat's engine was suddenly shut off, and then there was no sound from the water to break the silence that had fallen on the group ashore. Before anybody aboard the Spoondrift could speak, Kingdon gestured for silence.

"All right," muttered Red. "I'm willing to get it from here."

Down from the bank above the mooring place came the voice of Horace Pence, cool as ever. Kingdon, who had begun to consider the fellow's bad qualities as uppermost, again felt a thrill of admiration for him.

"Now, Quibb, you know very well you can't do that," Horace was saying soothingly, but with restrained laughter in his voice. "Why bother to try and frighten us?"

"I'll show you——"

"You'll show us nothing but warrants for our arrest," retorted Pence. "You know that's the best you can do—summons us to court. If you think we have been trespassing here, that's your limit. You can't scare us a little bit."

"Oh, I can't, hey?" blustered Enos.

"No. Remember we have shown you the permit from the Manatee Lumber Company."

"I know all about that," said Enos, his lean jaws seeming to bite off the tart words. "But 'tain't yours. You stole it—or somethin'. I know you ain't that Kingdon feller, now. That's flat."

"You know a lot," said Pence. But, before speaking, he had hesitated just an instant. His black eyes had glanced downward and marked the catboat under the bank, and the listening party in her. For that instant, indeed, his gaze fell on Rex Kingdon's face. The latter had smiled suddenly.

"You know a lot," repeated Horace Pence.

"I got you foul, young feller," said Enos, evidently happy to say so. His pale eyes gleamed; his freckled face was roseate; he showed all the venom of the shallow mind and vindictive nature. "You pack up—all five of ye—an' git off Storm Island. I'm giving you a chance, when I might have got warrants and pulled ye."

"Say not so!" begged Pence. "You wouldn't really arrest us, Mr. Quibb?"

"Wouldn't I?" returned the constable. "I wish I'd gone to Squire Lowder fust-off and got the warrants. No use doing sech fellers a decent turn. I dunno but I could get ye for false pretenses, takin' another feller's name the way you did."

"I didn't take the name!" cooed Pence. "You gave it to me."

"You showed me that permit, and acted like it was yourn."

"And isn't it?" chuckled the black-eyed fellow.

"Not by a long chalk!" cried Enos. "I know who Rex Kingdon is now." He turned and pointed to the catboat. "There he is—that curly-haired chap that thinks himself almost as funny as you be. I l'arned who he was t'other day when he was over to Blackport gettin' fixin's for that engine. I heard Val Spear—he's treasurer of the Manatee Company—call him Rex Kingdon right on the street. You ain't him, an' you ain't got no right to that permit."

For the instant Horace Pence seemed to have no reply ready, although he was quite at ease. His friends were flustered and terrified.

"There! What did I tell you?" the Walcott Hall boys heard Ben Comas say.

"Nice mess you've got us into," whined Pudge.

"The game's up," said Kirby, rather stolidly.

Kingdon made a sign to his friends, and they gathered close about him in the stern of the catboat, which was drifting in nearer to the shore.

"Fellows, I'm about to play the trump," he said, his eyes laughing but his lips grave. "Are you with me?"

"What do you mean, Rex?" demanded Midkiff suspiciously.

But Phillips said promptly: "We're always with you, Blue-Eyes. Go to it."

"It's some foolishness," began Midkiff again. But Peewee whispered:

"Put on the muffler, Grouch, and let him have his way. King's always good fun, no matter what he does."

"What's on your mind, Rex?" asked Cloudman, his curiosity also aroused.

"Yes, what are you going to do, pitch in and help Enos clean up the bunch?" asked Red, hopefulness in his tone. "That would have my approval."

"I'll give you another guess," laughed Rex. "I've a plan that beats thrashing that crowd, much as they deserve it."

"Unfold it to us," urged Midkiff, still in doubt, "if it's anything sensible."

"Bide a wee," restrained Rex. "You've got to back me up. No balking."

"Confound it!" exclaimed Cloudman, "you haven't told us your scheme."

"No time to discuss it," said Kingdon. "You've got to take my plan on trust."

"Now I know it's something foolish," declared John Midkiff.

The nose of the catboat rubbed against the beach, and Rex was the first one ashore. "Follow your resourceful leader," he called, laughing over his shoulder at the gloomy face of Midkiff. "Bring a line ashore, Jawn, and moor the old girl. We don't want to lose her, now that we've just got the engine to working like a chawm."

Cool as ever, he led the way up the bank. For the last few moments the Walcott Hall boys had given no attention to what was being said or done on the island, but now they saw that Enos had stepped back a pace, and had his little black billy in his hand. He was threatening:

"You fellers pull up them stakes and begin packin' your stuff, or I'll crack a few heads. I know what I'm doin'. Squire Lowder'll stand back of me."

Kingdon came up to the constable, with a good natured smile, and laid a soothing hand upon his shoulder.

"Why all the disturbance, Mr. Squibb?" he asked. "Don't get overheated on this sweet and pleasant day——"

"And this bunch of fellows is a sweet and pleasant crowd, I s'pose, Mr. Kingdon?" snapped Enos. "And my name's Quibb, not Squibb, if you please."

"Sure, Mr. Fibb. My mistake," said Rex. "What's doing?"

"You know well enough," said the angry Enos. "You helped fool me, too——"

"Never!" groaned Kingdon. "You know, Mr. Constable, you are a man who can't be fooled by a parcel of boys. You said so."

"Aw—well. I wasn't sure. This chap had that permit from the Manatee Company."

"Of course," said Kingdon easily. "It didn't matter who showed you the paper—as long as we had it and you saw it?"

Midkiff uttered a grunt that was almost an ejaculation of pain. "I knew it!" he growled.