by the way, was enduring all manner of torture on account of the suspense; he had had a glorious prospect opened up before him, if only the curtain would not suddenly fall and shut it out.
“That is not nearly all that these gallant boys have done,” declared the narrator, after a time. “I could sit here for an hour and tell you innumerable instances where Rob, and some of his chums into the bargain, did things that would be counted big under ordinary conditions. Why, it has come to that pass in Hampton nowadays that when anything beyond the ordinary is attempted they have to get the scouts interested in it first, and then people begin to believe it must have some merit.”
“What you tell me is indeed wonderful,” declared the professor. “After that recommendation I am strongly disposed to offer them the carrying out of my mission if they could see their way clear to accept the task.”
“It would give them a chance to spend some weeks at the Exposition without incurring any expense, is that the idea, Professor McEwen?” asked the judge, who looked as happy as though he had discovered some wonderful bug which had been eagerly sought after for years and years by all scientists and collectors.
“Yes, a month, if they cared to stay that long,” replied the other, who seemed to have been fully convinced, and ready to throw the load of responsibility from his own shoulders to those of Rob and his chum. “The particulars can be gone over a little later, either to-night, if they care to see me again, or to-morrow. There is no great need o’ haste, though what I am carrying out to California is being eagerly expected by my colleagues there.”
“Let me congratulate you, boys, on your good fortune,” said the kindly judge, as though he wished to settle the matter in such a fashion that there could be no drawing back on the part of the gentleman. He then shook hands first with Rob and then with Andy Bowles.
Rob was looking a little pale from excitement, but there was also a happy glow in his eyes. As for Andy, he could not prevent a wide grin from spreading over his features. His father owned a livery stable in Hampton, but was not considered at all well-to-do, so that the boy had never been able to do more than dream of taking expensive trips. That one down into Mexico had come like a gleam of golden sunshine, for Tubby Hopkins’ old uncle had footed all the bills.
“Do I understand you to make this proposition to us, Professor McEwen?” Rob asked bluntly, not wishing to be laboring under any delusion.
“Aweel, aweel, I dinna ken how I could do better; and I feel that I am indebted to ye baith for my life. After hearing what bonny lads ye are, from my friend Judge Collins here, whose opinion carries great weight wi’ me, I am mair than pleased to offer to stand all the cost of a trip to California and back; as well as the expense which you will necessarily be under while seeing the great Exposition in San Francisco. Do ye think ye can ha’e the permission of the auld folks to take so lang a journey?”
“There will be no trouble on that score, Professor,” urged the judge. “These lads have so amply demonstrated their sterling ability to look out for themselves that I really believe Rob’s parents would not object if he wanted to go to hunt for the South Pole, or explore the unknown regions of tropical Brazil. And so we shall call it settled, I presume, Professor?”
“I ha’e made the offer, and shall tak’ it hard if they turn it down,” said the peculiar little man of science, whose name, Rob afterward learned, was known throughout the whole length and breadth of the world wherever men of intellect gathered to discuss their theories and discoveries.
“So far as we are concerned,” said Rob, after receiving an entreating look from the excited Andy, “we are disposed to accept right on the spot, subject to the reservation that our parents may have the final deciding of the matter. We will run over here by moonlight to-night, Professor, and if everything is satisfactory, we will talk matters over with you, and make all arrangements.”
“That suits me nicely, laddie,” declared the visitor pleasantly; “and I shall ha’e to think mysel’ unco’ lucky to have found competent and trustworthy messengers so soon after the necessity arose. I shall look for ye then this same evening; and I hope that there may be no barrier thrown in the way of your acceptance of my offer. The mair I see of ye the better satisfied I feel that I will ha’e no regrets after entrusting my mission in your hands.”
Soon afterward the two scouts said good-by to the professor, and started down to the dock. Even in his distress of body and mind, the thoughtful scientist had not forgotten Captain Jerry; and the boys were entrusted with a message to him to the effect that ten pounds awaited his acceptance when he was ready to install that new three-horse-power engine in his launch.
The old bayman was glad of the chance to have his wrecked boat towed back home; and when Rob delivered the message of the professor, the look of concern on his weatherbeaten face vanished as the mist does with the coming of the sun.
All the way across the broad bay the two scouts were jabbering to each other in connection with the astonishing streak of good fortune that had just come their way.
“Seems to me I must be dreaming!” Andy declared for the fourth time. “Please give me a pinch, Rob, to let me make sure I’m awake.”
“Oh! you’ll get used to it by degrees,” the other told him, though he felt somewhat uncertain himself at times, and had to convince himself that it had all actually happened, and was not the result of a fevered imagination.
“Talk to me about luck,” continued Andy rapturously, “there never could happen again such a wonderful combination of things. First, that the feed-pipe aboard the Sea Gull should be leaking a trifle; second, that Professor McEwen was aboard the same; then he tossed that lighted match the wrong way, so instead of going overboard it fell down and slipped between the bars of the wooden grating into the oil-covered bilge water, and last of all that we chanced to be close by at the critical moment, ready fixed with a fire extinguisher to put out the blaze, and capable of hauling the ship-wrecked mariners aboard.”
“Everything of that kind is always a combination of minor happenings that seem to dovetail in with each other,” Rob explained. “In this case it worked perfectly. All other boats were so far away that there’s no telling what might not have happened.”
“We’re getting close in now, and, Rob, there’s somebody waving to us from the dock. Why, it looks like our inventor chum and fellow scout, Hiram Nelson, the queerest fellow in the Eagle Patrol. He must want us to stop and take him out for a ride on the bay. You didn’t promise him anything like that, did you, Rob?”
“Why, no, not that I remember,” replied the other slowly; “but now that you mention him acting as though he wanted to see us so badly, I remember that Hiram has been talking to me several times lately about some wonderful secret he was carrying around with him. He said he hoped to be in a position soon to open up and take me into his confidence; and that he might have a proposition to make that would give me a great, though a pleasant shock.”
“You don’t say?” chuckled the happy Andy. “Well, seems to me the shoe is on the other foot just now, and that we’ve got something to tell Hiram that will take his breath away for a minute. Look at him dancing around, Rob! I suppose now he’s gone and invented some sort of contraption that never can be made to work, and he wants to tell you he’s saved up enough hard cash to get a patent on the same. But chances are it’ll be money wasted, because, so far as I know, nothing Hiram has done so far has proved much of a success.”
“I’m a little afraid it’s as you say,” added Rob, in a low tone, for they were now fast nearing the dock where the other boy waited for them, his face wreathed in such broad smiles that they could easily see his news was of a pleasant nature. “Three times Hiram has tried to go up in that aëroplane of his and failed. I hope he’s switched his genius off on some safer track than this sky traveling. But we’ll soon know, for here we are at the dock.”
Andy stood by with the boathook to fend off, and old Captain Jerry got in readiness to take charge of his launch and pole it along the border of the bay to the mouth of the creek, up which he had his mooring place.
When Rob had made the motorboat fast to a cleat on the dock, he joined