The Rover Roys on the Ocean | Page 2

over to starboard!" sang out, Dick Rover. "And be quick about it -- or we'll have a smashup sure!" And he leaped to his brother's, assistance, while Tom did the same.
The Rover brothers were three in number -- Dick, the oldest and most studious; Tom next, is full of fun as an egg is full of meat, and Sam the youngest.
In a former volume of this series, entitled, "The Rover Boys at School," I related how the three youths had been sent by their uncle, Randolph Rover, to Putnam Hall, a military boarding school, situated upon Cayuga Lake, in New York State.
Whether the three boys were orphans or not was a question that could not be answered. Their father, Anderson Rover, had been a geological expert and rich mine owner, and, returning from the West, had set sail for Africa, with the intention of exploring the central region of that country in the hope of locating some valuable gold mines. The boys and their uncle knew that he had journeyed from the western coast toward the interior with a number of natives, and that was all they did know, although they had made numerous inquiries, and hoped for the best. The lads' mother was dead; and all these things had happened years before they had been sent to boarding school.
Randolph Rover was an eccentric but kind hearted man, given over entirely to scientific farming, of which, so far, sad to relate, he had made a rather costly failure. He spent all of his time over his agricultural books and in the fields, and was glad enough to get the boys off his hands by sending them to the military school.
When vacation came he wondered what he should do with them during the summer, but the problem was solved by the boys, who hated to think of remaining on the farm, and who proposed a trip up and down the Hudson River and through Long Island Sound, providing their guardian would furnish the boat and bear the expense of the outing. The outcome was the chartering of the yacht Spray, and all of the boys took lessons in sailing from an old tar who knew exactly how such a craft should be handled.
At Putnam Hall the boys had made a number of friends, and also several enemies, and had had several surprising adventures, as my old readers already know. Who their friends and their enemies were, and what further adventures were in store for the three brothers, I will leave for the pages following to reveal. At present let us turn our attention to the boat which seemed on the point of running down the Spray.
Like their own craft, the other boat carried but a single mast. But the stick was at least ten feet longer than the mast of the Spray, and the boat was correspondingly larger in every respect. As she came nearer the Rover boys saw that she contained two occupants, a boy and a somewhat elderly man.
"Sheer off there!" cried Dick, at the top of his lungs. "Do you want to run us down?"
"Get out of the way yourself!" came back the answer from the boy in the other boat.
"We can't get out -- we are almost on the rocks now!" yelled Tom. Then he gave a start of surprise. "Why, it's Mumps!"
"By jinks, it is John Fenwick!" muttered Dick. "I remember now that he came from the Hudson River and that his folks owned a boat." He raised his voice, "Are you going to sheer off or not?"
By this time the two boats were nearly bowsprit to bowsprit, and Sam Rover's heart almost stopped beating. But now Mumps spoke to the man with him, and his craft, called the Falcon, sheered to port, scraping the Spray's side as she did so.
"Mumps, what do you mean by such work?" demanded Dick, when the immediate danger was past.
"Ha! ha! I thought I would give you a scare," laughed the former sneak of Putnam Hall.
"You needn't be afraid but what I and old Bill Goss here know how to keep the Falcon out of danger."
"It was foolishness to run so close," said Tom.
"Don't you talk to me, Tom Rover. I've had enough of you, mind that."
"And I want you to mind and keep off next time, Mumps. If you don't --"
"What will you do?"
"I'll be tempted to come aboard the Falcon and give you a thrashing."
"You'll never set foot on my boat, and I'm not afraid of you," roared Mumps. "You think you got the best of me at Putnam Hall, but you didn't, and I want you to know it."
"How is your friend, Dan Baxter?" cried Sam. "Has he landed in jail yet?"
"Never mind Dan Baxter," growled Mumps, growing red in the face; and then the two yachts