a time it appeared that they would leave their bones in the bleak
northland. But the skillful resource and pluck of Jack and Noddy won the
day. We now find them enjoying a holiday, with Captain Toby as host, at
a fashionable hotel among the beautiful Thousand Islands. Having made
this necessary digression, let us again turn our attention to the
situation which had suddenly confronted the happy three, and which
appeared to be fraught with imminent danger.

Like their own craft, the other boat carried a single mast and was
sloop-rigged. But the boat was larger in every respect than the
_Curlew_. She carried a great spread of snowy canvas and heeled over
under its press till the white water raced along her gunwale.

As she drew nearer the boys saw that there were two occupants on board
her. One was a tall, well-dressed lad in yachting clothes, whose face,
rather handsome otherwise, was marred by a supercilious sneer, as if he
considered himself a great deal better than anyone else. The other was a
somewhat elderly man whose hair appeared to be tinged with gray. His
features were coarse, but he resembled the lad with him enough to make
it certain he was his father.

"Sheer off there," roared Jack at the top of his lungs, to the occupants
of the other boat; "do you want to run us down?"

"Get out of the way then," cried the boy.

"Yes, sheer off yourselves, whipper-snappers!" came from the man.

"We've got the right of way!" cried Jack.

"Go chase yourselves," yelled Noddy, reverting in this moment of
excitement, as was his habit at such times, to his almost forgotten
slang.

"Keep her on her course, Donald; never mind those young jack-a-napes,"
said the man in the other sloop, addressing the boy, who was steering.

"All right, pop," was the reply; "they'll get the worst of the smash if
they don't clear out."

"Gracious, they really mean to run us down," cried Jack, in a voice of
alarm. "Better sheer off, Noddy, though I hate to do it."

"By jinks, do you see who they are?" cried Bill Raynor, who had been
studying the pair in the other boat, which was now only a few yards off.
"It's that millionaire Hiram Judson and his son Donald, the boy you had
the run in with at the hotel the other day."

But Jack made no reply. The two boats were now almost bowsprit to
bowsprit. As for Noddy, the freckles stood out on his pale, frightened
face like spots on the sun.

CHAPTER II.

"SPEEDAWAY" VS. "CURLEW."

But