“In what?” asked Dick.

“In the water,” chuckled Jack.

“You will be,” retorted Donald, “if you spring anything like that on us again.”

“That reminds me—­” began Dick.

“What does?” asked Donald.

“What is the matter, Gerald?” broke in Rand, as the coxswain, with a sudden exclamation, threw the rudder hard down and called: 

“Up oars, all!”

The boys raised their oars just in time as the shell grazed the stern of a heavy skiff, which a boy, who was rowing, had stopped just in the course of the shell.

“Hey, there!” shouted Rand as the boats swept apart:  “what are you trying to do, run us down?”

“What are you trying to do, yourself?” retorted a man, who was sitting in the stern of the skiff.  “Don’t you think anybody has any right on the river but you?  Think you own the whole place, don’t you?”

“But you had plenty of room without getting in the way,” persisted Rand.  “I think you did it on purpose.”

“Aw, go wan!” returned the man.  “Don’t get too funny or I’ll come over there and take you over my knee.”

“Come over and try it, if you think you can do it,” replied Rand hotly.

“Monkey Rae again,” murmured Jack.  “I thought we had got rid of him.”

“Keep cool, Rand,” advised Don; “it isn’t worth while making a fuss over.”

“He ought to have his head punched,” put in Dick.

“Who?” asked Jack.  “Don?”

“No; that fellow in the boat,” answered Dick.

“That isn’t the way to teach him good manners,” objected Jack.

“It’s the only way you can teach some people,” argued Dick.  “Who is he?”

“Oh, that’s the man that took our boat up the river,” replied Jack.

“What do you think he was trying to do?” went on Dick.

“Trying to steal it, of course,” replied Jack.

“I mean now.”

“Oh, smash us up so we couldn’t row to-morrow,” guessed Jack.

“But what for?” persisted Dick.

“Oh, just pure ugliness, I guess,” replied Jack.

“Then, you know, Monkey has it in for Rand for the thrashing he once gave him for beating his dog.”

“Does he carry malice like that?” asked Donald.

“He will carry it all his life,” replied Jack, “and then some more.  Then Monkey doesn’t like any of us because he was always behind us in school.  He says we got ahead by favor, for we aren’t any smarter than he is.”

“Let fall!” ordered Gerald.  “Let’s try it again.”

The boys bent to their work, but they had lost their vim, and they did not strike their pace again.

“I don’t understand about Monkey,” began Jack, as they drew into the landing.  “There is something back of all this, and I mean to find out what it is.”

“What have you been doing,” cried Pepper, who was waiting for them on the landing, “fishing?”

“No; monkeying,” answered Rand.  “Jim Rae got in the way, and we had to stop for fear of smashing into him.”