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."
"That's evidently what one man had that the others wanted," was
Mr. Damon's opinion.
"Probably," agreed Tom. "But what could he or they want with
wooden braces?"
That was a puzzler for Mr. Damon, but he answered:
"Perhaps they wanted to damage your boat and those two men were
mad because the other got ahead of them."
"Taking out the braces wouldn't do much damage. I can easily put
others in. All it would do would be to cause the tank to sag down
and maybe cause a leak in the pipe. But that would be a queer
thing to do. No, I think there's some mystery that I haven't
gotten to the bottom of yet. But I'm going to."
"Good!" exclaimed Mr. Damon. "I'll help you. But can you run
your boat back home?"
"Not without fixing it a bit. I must brace up that tank and put
in a new high-tension wire from the spark coil. I can do it here,
but I'd rather take it to the shop.
Pages:
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151