Page:Boys of Columbia High on the River.djvu/63

Rh come across those wicked men. And I'm glad they ran away without trying to do anything desperate. One of the boys said Chief Hogg had come back early this morning, but without either of the kind gentlemen who turned that buggy over to you so politely, Frank," laughed Minnie.

"I wonder, now. When I get a chance I'd like to run over and see how he missed them. But just now I don't seem to have the heart for anything, I feel so bad over this plagued trick of those schemers," and Frank sighed heavily as he spoke.

"Didn't some one tell me that the boat was wrapped in green stuff?" asked Minnie, suddenly.

"Yes, it was, for I walked down and saw it myself," answered Helen, promptly.

"That's funny," remarked the other girl, and Frank looked at her curiously.

"Why do you say that?" he asked.

"Was it anything like this?" she continued, stooping down and picking some object out of a pile of bricks that stood in front of a tall office building that was being erected, and which was to be Columbia's "sky-scraper" when finished.

And Frank held his breath when he saw that the girl actually held in her hand a torn piece of green burlap similar to that which had been around the missing boat!