ed, so he humored it and they ambled along at "sumpty-sump miles
an hour," as Roy said, "but what care we," he added, "as long as she
goes." They anchored for several hours in the middle of the day and
fished, and had a mess of fresh perch for luncheon.

Naturally, the topic of chief interest was the possibility that Harry
Stanton was living, but the clue which appeared to indicate that much
suggested nothing further, and the question of why he did not return
home, if he were indeed alive was a puzzling one.

"His sister said he had been to Costa Rica, and was fond of traveling,"
suggested Tom. "Maybe his parents objected to his going away from home
so he went this way--as long as the chance came to him--and let them
think he was drowned."

Roy, sitting on the cabin roof with his knees drawn up, shook his head.
"Or maybe he left the boat again and tried to swim to shore to go home,
and didn't make it," he added.

"That's possible," said Tom, "but then they'd probably have found his
body."

"We aren't sure he's alive," Roy said thoughtfully, "but it means a
whole lot not to be sure that he's dead."

"Maybe he was made away with by someone who wanted the boat," said
Pee-wee. "Maybe a convict from the prison killed him--you never can
tell. Jiminys, it's a mystery, sure."

"You bet it is," said Roy. "The plot grows thicker. If Sir Guy Weatherby
were only here, or Detective Darewell--or some of those story-book ginks
they----"

"They probably wouldn't have noticed the plank from the skiff,"
suggested Pee-wee.

Roy laughed and then fell to thinking. "Gee, it would be great if we
could find him!" he said.

And there the puzzling matter ended, for the time being; but the _Good
Turn_ took on a new interest because of the mystery with which it was
associated and Pee-wee was continually edifying his companions with
startling and often grewsome theories as to the fate or present
whereabouts of Harry Stanton, until--until that thing happened which
turned all their thoughts from this puzzle and proved that bad turns as
well as good ones have the boomerang quality of returning upon their
author.

It was the third afternoon of their cruise, or their "flop" as Roy
called it, for they had flopped along rather than cruised, and the _Good
Turn's_ course would have indicated, as he remarked, a fit of the blind
staggers. They had paused to fish and to bathe; they had thrown together
a makeshift aquaplane from the pieces of an