THE MOTOR BOYS ON ROAD AND RIVER

Or

Racing To Save a Life

BY

CLARENCE YOUNG

AUTHOR OF “THE MOTOR BOYS,” “THE MOTOR BOYS UNDER THE SEA,” “THE RACER BOYS SERIES,” “THE JACK RANGER SERIES,” ETC.

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY

BOOKS BY CLARENCE YOUNG

THE MOTOR BOYS SERIES

12mo. Illustrated.

THE JACK RANGER SERIES

12mo. Finely illustrated.

THE RACER BOYS SERIES

12mo. Illustrated.

Copyright, 1915, by Cupples & Leon Company

The Motor Boys on Road and River

INTRODUCTION

My Dear Boys:

Sometimes, as you doubtless know, the simplest actions result in the most remarkable complications. When Jerry Hopkins picked up a lump of common-looking clay on some swamp land that his mother owned he had no idea what a strange series of events was to transpire from his simple act. Before he realized it he and his chums were involved in a strange secret, and they had set off on a trip that had, as its ultimate object, the saving of the life of Professor Snodgrass.

In this, the sixteenth volume of the “Motor Boys Series,” I have set down what followed when Jerry learned the value of that lump of clay. How he and his chums started off after the professor, who had strangely disappeared; how they found him, almost lifeless; and how they raced to bring the celebrated doctor to him—all this you will find related in this book.

You have shown that you liked the other books I have written concerning the “Motor Boys,” and I venture to hope that this one will appeal to you.

That there was really a two-tailed lizard was left for Bob to demonstrate in an unexpected manner. That is all I will say, now, regarding that strange creature. You may turn the following pages and learn the rest for yourselves.

Your sincere friend,

Clarence Young.

[1]

THE MOTOR BOYS ON ROAD AND RIVER

CHAPTER I JERRY IS ABSENT-MINDED

“Pretty good game; wasn’t it?”

“It sure was—a corker!”

“I thought our Cresville boys wouldn’t be able to pull up, after the Red Sox got that big lead on ’em, but they certainly played their heads off.”

“They sure did. The pitcher won the game for them with that last wallop of his!”

“That’s right,” remarked a stout lad, one of a group of three who were walking slowly across the green diamond at the conclusion of a ball match.

“The umpire made some pretty rank decisions,” added the boy who had made the first comment, glancing across in front of his companion, who, in the middle of the trio, separated the two speakers.

“You’re right,” commented the stout youth.

The two exchanged looks—queer glances, and, as if by mutual consent, gazed up at the face of their chum who walked between them. Then the stout lad winked.

[2]

“What’s the matter, Jerry?” he asked. “Didn’t you like the game?”

“Game? What game? Oh, yes—sure I liked it!” was the hurried response, as though the speaker’s thoughts had been far afield when the import of the question was grasped. “It was a good little game,” went on the lad in the centre of the trio. “Too bad our boys didn’t win, though!”

“Too bad!” echoed the stout lad. “Why, what——”

“Didn’t win!” interrupted the other. “Say, Jerry, what’s got into you? The Cresville team did win!”

“Oh, did they? That’s funny! I guess I didn’t pay much attention toward the last.”

“No, and not toward the beginning, either, I guess,” grumbled the stout lad. “I wonder what’s gotten into him,” he thought.

“So they won; did they, Bob?” asked the lad addressed as Jerry. “Well, I’m glad of it.”

“Of course they won, Jerry Hopkins,” was the quick answer. “And this practically clinches the local championship for them, too. It was a corking good game; wasn’t it, Ned?”

“Now you’re talking! A good crowd, too,” and Ned Slade looked at the throng pouring down from grandstand and bleachers.

“What shall we do?” asked Bob Baker, the[3] stout lad before referred to. “I vote not to go home just yet. It’s early. Let’s take a little spin down the road.”

“All right,” agreed Ned. “Shall we, Jerry?”

“Eh? Oh, yes, I’m in for whatever you fellows say. It’ll be nice on the river to-day.”

“River! Who said anything about the river?” demanded Ned. “Do you think we came to this ball game in our motor boat, Jerry Hopkins? Say, what’s the matter with you to-day, anyhow? We’re talking about taking a spin in the auto. Will you come along?”

“Oh, sure I’ll go. You know that!” exclaimed Jerry, and with an effort he seemed to recall his thoughts from whatever distant realms they roamed. “Sure we’ll go for a spin. I guess I was thinking about the ball game.”

Ned and Bob each gave their chum a queer look, but they said nothing. Only Ned thought to himself:

“Thinking about the ball game; eh? That won’t go with me, when, a little while ago, he didn’t even know which side had won. There’s something wrong with Jerry. I wonder what it is?”

But, whatever it was, it did not seem to be anything very serious, for soon Jerry smiled at his chums, and clapping Bob on the shoulder with a[4] force that made the stout youth grunt, exclaimed:

“Sure we’ll go for a spin! It will give us an appetite for supper, and I seem to need one. I’ve been a little off my feed the last few days.”

At this Bob looked worried. Eating was something in which he took a great deal of interest. Perhaps it was that which made him so stout, and had gained for him the nickname of “Chunky,” which his chums occasionally called him.

The three boys—the “motor boys” they were locally called—because they so often rode about in motor vehicles—automobiles, motor boats, or motor-driven airships—had come to the ball game in their auto which stood parked, with a number of others, back of the grandstand. Thither they now made their way.

The air was filled with the noisy chug-chug of scores of machines as they backed, turned and darted ahead to get from the ball field to the road. In and out of the receding throng the autoists guided their cars. On all sides were talk and laughter—talk of the game just finished, congratulatory calls to the winners, and expressions of regret for the losers.

“Yes, it sure was some nifty little game,” remarked Bob, as the chums reached their machine. “Are you going to drive, Jerry?” he asked.

“I will if you want me to—sure.”

[5]

“I hope he pays more attention to the wheel than he did to the ball game,” remarked Ned, with a slow shake of his head. “If he doesn’t he’s likely to have us up a tree, or in the ditch.”

But he made no objection as Jerry took his place at the wheel, and slipped in the switch key of the electric starter. Ned and Bob got in the tonneau, and Jerry, looking back to see that both doors were closed, was about to start off when a voice behind the machine cried:

“Hold on! Wait a minute! I won’t be a second! Give me a lift; will you? I forgot all about it! Terrible important message! Dad’ll be wild if I don’t deliver it! Great game; wasn’t it? Our boys won fine! Here I am! Let her go! Never say die! Whizz her along, Jerry! I’m here! Let her out, do you hear? Move the boat!”

A small youth, very much excited as to manner and words sprang, leaped, scrambled, climbed, hopped, jumped, vaulted and fell into the vacant seat beside Jerry. He sat there, his breath coming in gasps, both from his run and from his outpouring of words.

Jerry, with a quizzical smile, looked down at him; Bob, with half-opened mouth, leaned forward to gaze; and Ned shook his head in a hopeless fashion, murmuring:

“Is it all over, Andy Rush?”

[6]

“Is—is what—all over?” demanded the small chap.

“Everything,” answered Ned, throwing his hands in the air. “Your talk—your—your—well, you know what I mean. Is it all over?”

“Of course it is,” was the quick answer. “You can go ahead now, Jerry,” he added, as though they had been waiting for him.

“Well, I like your nerve!” gasped Bob, who at length found his voice.

“That’s all right. I saw you had a vacant place!” exclaimed Andy, starting off in another “spasm.” Then he proceeded:

“I’ve got to get back to town in a hurry. Important message—dad told me not to forget, but I did—went to the ball game. Say, it was great; wasn’t it? That fly of Watson’s—up in the air—thought it would never come down—run around the bases—nobody out—whoop her up! Everybody run! Nobody out—all over!”

He had reared up in his seat to “explode” this, and now sank back again.

Jerry looked at the diminutive orator.

“Are you all through, Andy?” asked the tall lad, gently. “If you are, we’ll start, with your kind permission and attention. Only we’re not going back to town right away, so if you have an important message to deliver you’d better walk, or take a hop, skip and a jump into someone[7] else’s car. We’re going to take a little ride, and we don’t know when we’ll get back.”

“Oh, well, I guess it isn’t so important after all,” spoke Andy, slowly. “I’ll go with you. I’ll leave the message when I come back. You are coming back; aren’t you?” he asked.

“No telling,” answered Ned, winking at Jerry. “We may take a notion to run over to San Francisco and spend the night.”

“Huh! I don’t care,” laughed Andy. “I’ll go along. I can telephone the message back, I guess. Let me go; will you?”

“Oh, well, there’s no getting ahead of you, Andy,” conceded Jerry. “Stay in, if you like. Only don’t blame us if your dad wants to know why his message wasn’t delivered.”

“That’s right,” chimed in Ned. “Let her go, Jerry. It’s hot sitting here in the sun.”

There was a whine and a whirr, as the electric starter spun the flywheel of the big automobile. Then came a snap, as the gears meshed, and as the clutch slipped into place the machine slowly backed to a clear place. Then, as Jerry threw in the first forward speed, it shot ahead, and, a little later was spinning down a pleasant, shaded country road.

“This is something like,” observed Bob, leaning back in comfort. “Want to go anywhere special, Jerry?”

[8]

“No, I’ll go anywhere you fellows say.”

“Let’s have a race!” burst out Andy Rush. “There goes a car! You can easy pass that, Jerry! Speed her up! Let’s race ’em! Look, they’re laughing at us! Go ahead! Whoop!”

The tall steersman made no effort to increase the speed of the car. Instead he smiled down at the excited lad beside him, and remarked:

“It’s too hot to do all that talking, Andy. Save it for the winter season when you’ll need it. We’ll have no race to-day.”

If the small chap was disappointed he did not show it. For something new claimed his attention. A big gray squirrel scurried across the street in front of the car.

“Look at that!” cried Andy. “Say, he can go some! If I only had a gun now! Squirrel pie for mine!”

“Squirrels are out of season now,” remarked Bob. “You’d be fined if you shot ’em.”

“That’s right,” chimed in Ned.

“Let’s go on to Blairtown, and have a bite to eat,” suggested Bob, after a pause. “There’s a good restaurant there.”

“Humph! Seeing that squirrel must have made you hungry,” commented Ned with a laugh. “But go ahead, if you like, Jerry. I don’t mind.”

Jerry, at the wheel, nodded, and for some time guided the car in silence. Now and then Andy[9] made some excited remark at the sight of something along the highway. Bob and Andy exchanged occasional opinions.

“How’s she running, Jerry?” asked Bob, after a bit.

“Yes, our fellows did some good running,” was the unexpected answer.

“Oh, wake up!” cried Ned, with a laugh. “We weren’t talking about the ball game.”

“No?” queried Jerry. “I thought Bob said something about runs.”

“I was asking how the car ran,” put in the stout lad.

“Oh!” exclaimed Jerry, comprehendingly. “Why, she’s going like a sewing machine—just as easy. She sure is some car!”

“Yes, I’m glad we traded in our old one, and got this,” commented Ned. “That self-starter alone is worth the difference. No more breaking our backs cranking up.”

Jerry did not reply to this. After his remark to Bob he had relapsed into silence again—a silence to which Ned called his chum’s attention by a nudge.

“Something sure has gotten into Jerry,” whispered the stout youth.

“That’s right, Chunky,” agreed his companion.

They rode on for some distance farther, Jerry[10] guiding the car skillfully enough, even though his mind did not seem to be on his task.

As he turned up a cross road, that would take them to Blairtown Ned, glancing up suddenly, cried out:

“Look out, Jerry! Where are you steering? You’re heading right for that other car!”

A big machine, coming from the opposite direction, and at high speed, was headed directly for the auto of the motor boys. But it was on the proper side of the highway, whereas Jerry was on the left.

“Look out!” Bob cried, springing to his feet. “We’re going to have a smash, sure!” He leaned forward to open the side door, as though he would leap out.

[11]

CHAPTER II JERRY EXPLAINS

“Sit still!” yelled Ned, grasping his chum by the arm.

“But we’re going to smash, I tell you!”

Bob sank back in his seat with a thud, for Ned had forcibly pulled him by the coat.

“Look out!” yelled Andy, adding his alarm to the others.

“Eh? What is it? Oh, another car!” cried Jerry, and, for the first time, he seemed to be aware that there was danger from his thoughtlessness in taking the wrong side of the road.

The driver of the other car sent out a strident blast from his electric siren, and crowded his machine as far over to the other side as possible. But a high bank afforded very little leeway.

“Look out where you’re going!” the chauffeur yelled, his angry voice accentuating the warning of the horn.

Jerry Hopkins seemed to come to life in an instant. His absent-mindedness left him in a flash, and his strong hands turned the steering wheel rapidly.

[12]

So suddenly did he shift the direction of his car that it skidded, and, for an instant slid along on two tires. Then, with another quick shift of the wheel, the steersman brought it back on the proper course.

The two machines passed safely, but, so narrow was the space between them, the thickness of one’s hand would have sufficed to fill it.

Then, in a swirl of dust, the other machine passed on, the dirt-cloud serving to hide the indignant glances of the occupants. Jerry brought his car to a stop with a whine of the hastily-applied brakes.

“Say, I didn’t see that fellow coming,” declared Jerry, turning to speak to his chums in the tonneau.

“You didn’t see him!” cried Ned. “Why, he was right in front of you, and on the proper side of the road, too. You were off. Say, what’s the matter with you Jerry, anyhow?”

The tall lad did not answer for a moment. Instead, he slowly got down out of the car, and walked over to a spring that bubbled out of a rock at the side of the road.

“Wait until I get a drink,” he said. “I’m dry.”

Ned and Bob looked at one another.

“What do you make of it?” asked Ned, in a low voice, as Jerry leaned over to drink.

[13]

“I’m sure I don’t know,” was the answer of the stout lad. “He’s been acting queer and absent-minded for the last few days. He seems to be worrying about something.”

“I wonder what it can be?” ventured Ned.

“Let’s ask him,” suggested Bob. “Maybe we can help him.”

They spoke in louder tones now, for Andy, who had been sitting beside Jerry, had also alighted to get a drink at the spring.

“Maybe he wouldn’t want us ‘butting-in,’” remarked Ned.

“Well, something’s got to be done,” declared Bob, with a sigh. “I’m not going to ride, and have him steer like that. He nearly ran over a dog a while back, and now he almost sends us into another car. Something sure is wrong. Jerry has something on his mind, and we ought to offer to help him.”

“Well, maybe we ought,” responded Ned, thoughtfully.

And while the two chums are thus debating as to whether or not they ought to interfere sufficiently in Jerry’s affairs to offer to help him, I will take a few moments to tell my new readers something of the boys and of the previous books in this series in which my heroes have figured.

Bob Baker, son of Andrew Baker, a rich banker; Ned Slade, whose father, Aaron Slade,[14] was the proprietor of a large department store; and Jerry Hopkins, the only son of a well-to-do widow, were the three “motor boys” with whom we are concerned. They lived in the town of Cresville, not far from Boston, and had been chums and companions ever since they were youngsters. They had been “lost” together, they had played ball on the vacant lots, they had gone swimming and fishing in one another’s company, and, when they grew older, they went bicycling together.

It was the bicycles that gained for them the name “motor boys,” for it was through the winning of a bicycle race that one of them gained a motorcycle as a prize, and in the first book of the series, entitled “The Motor Boys,” you may read of this thrilling contest.

But the motor boys were not content with one motorcycle, nor with winning one race. They obtained an automobile, and made a thrilling trip overland, afterward going to Mexico, where they located a buried city, coming home across the great plains.

Many and thrilling were the adventures our friends had on land, and not a few dangers encompassed them, some being due to the evil doings of Noddy Nixon and Bill Berry, two bad characters.

But action ashore was not sufficient for the[15] motor boys. They were able to obtain a motor boat, and in the fifth volume of this series, entitled “The Motor Boys Afloat,” is related their adventures in that staunch craft. They had strenuous times on the Atlantic, in the strange waters of the Florida Everglades, and on the Pacific.

As might be expected, having, in a manner, conquered the problems of the land in their automobile, and of the water in their motor boat, the boys sighed, like Alexander, for new worlds. They found one in the air, and though they themselves were a little doubtful of their ability to navigate an aeroplane they did not hesitate to try.

In the ninth book, “The Motor Boys in the Clouds,” I had the pleasure of relating to you their adventures in their motorship. They flew over the Rockies, and over a part of the ocean, and again, taking wing, they went in search of a lost fortune.

Hovering over the border between the United States and Canada, the motor boys were able to help Uncle Sam capture some daring smugglers, and hardly had they finished that thrilling work than new activities presented themselves. The volume immediately preceding this one is entitled “The Motor Boys Under the Sea.”

While out in their motorship Comet, one day, the boys saw floating on the waters of Massachusetts[16] Bay a strange object which at first they thought was a whale. It turned out to be a submarine, however, and when the boys encountered it, later, in a terrific storm, and were taken aboard the strange craft, being kept virtually prisoners, they realized that they were about to pass through some strange scenes.

Whether they did or not I will leave to the decision of those of you who have read the book. Suffice it to say that, eventually, Dr. Klauss, the commander of the submarine, though endeavoring in his insane fury to make an end of them all, was overpowered, and our friends reached safety.

A winter of comparative inactivity followed the lively times in the submarine, and now spring had come once more. The motor boys had made no plans for their vacation, but they had talked, more or less indefinitely, of a long trip to be taken, partly by auto, and partly aboard their new motor boat. Nothing had been settled, however.