“We’re catching them!  We’re creeping up on them!” cried Mr. Damon.  “Keep it up, Tom.”  There was nothing to do, however, save wait.  The boat ahead had shifted her course somewhat and was now turning in toward the shore, for the lake was narrow at this point, and abandoning their evident intention of keeping straight up the lake, the thieves seemed now bent on something else.

“I believe they’re going to run ashore and get out!” cried Mr. Damon.

“If they do, it’s just what I want,” declared the lad.  “I don’t care for the men.  I want my boat back!”

The occupants of the arrow were looking to the rear again, and one—­Happy Harry, Tom thought—­shook his fist.

“Ah, wait until I get hold of you!” cried Mr. Damon, following his example.  “I’ll make you wish you’d behaved yourselves, you scoundrels!  Bless my overcoat!  Catch them if you can, Tom.”

There was now no doubt of the intention of the fleeing ones.  The shore was looming up ahead and straight for it was headed the arrow.  Tom sent Andy’s boat in the same direction.  He was rapidly overhauling the escaping ones now, for they had slowed down the motor.  Three minutes later the foremost boat grated on the beach of the lake.  The men leaped out, one of them pausing an instant in the bow.

“Here, don’t you damage my boat!” cried Tom involuntarily, for the man seemed to be hammering something.

The fellow leaped over the side, holding something in his hand.

“There they go!  Catch them!” yelled Mr. Damon.

“Let them go!” answered the lad as the men ran toward the wood.  “I want my boat.  I’m afraid they’ve damaged her.  One of them tore something from the bow.”

At the same instant the two companions of the fellow who had paused in the forward part of the arrow saw that he had something in his hand.  With yells of rage they dashed at him, but he, shaking his fist at them, plunged into the bushes and could be heard breaking his way through, while his companions were in pursuit.

“They’ve quarreled among themselves,” commented Mr. Damon as high and angry voices could be heard from the woods.  “There’s some mystery here, Tom.”

“I don’t doubt it, but my first concern is for my boat.  I want to see if they have damaged her.”

Tom had run so closely in shore with the red streak that he had to reverse to avoid damaging the craft against the bank.  In a mass of foam he stopped her in time, and then springing ashore, he hurried to his motor-boat.

CHAPTER XIX

A QUIET CRUISE

“Have they done any damage?” asked Mr. Damon as he stood in the bow of the red streak.

Tom did not answer for a moment.  His trained eye was looking over the engine.

“They yanked out the high tension wire instead of stopping the motor with the switch,” he answered at length, and then, when he had taken a look into the compartment where the gasoline tank was, he added:  “And they’ve ripped out two more of the braces I put in.  Why in the world they did that I can’t imagine.”