The Motor Boys Bound for Home; or, Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Wrecked Troopship — Edition Insights

gnal honor, the three boys sharing in the general praise.

“I wonder how things are going back in Cresville,” mused Ned, after a period of silence on the part of himself and Jerry.

“That’s queer! I was just thinking that same thing myself,” the taller lad exclaimed. “It will seem mighty quiet after the hail-storms we’ve been through.”

“Hail-storms is right,” agreed Ned Slade. “But it can’t be too quiet for me. All I want to do is to sit under a tree back of the house, with plenty of books and magazines to read, clean clothes--real clean clothes--to wear, a bath-tub where I know where it is, and----”

“Something to eat!” interrupted a voice behind him, and, turning, Ned and Jerry beheld their stout chum, Bob Baker, who smilingly held out some sandwiches.

“Running true to form,” murmured Ned, as he accepted one, and also a bit of chocolate candy his friend extended. “How’d you manage to do it, Bob?”

“Oh, my hypnotic eye. Just told one of the cooks I had to have something if they didn’t want the captain to read the service for burial at sea. And the cook allowed he didn’t want that to happen so soon after we’d got started. This is the result,” and Bob began munching on his share of the auxiliary rations, an example followed by Ned and Jerry.

“Am I right?” mumbled Bob, between bites.

“Right-O, Chunky!” murmured Jerry. “This touches the right spot.”

“Do you accept my amendment regarding the necessities you require on reaching home, Ned?” asked Bob, after a period of eloquent silence.

“Amendment accepted, all in favor say ‘aye!’” exclaimed Ned, adding, a moment later: “The ayes have it!”

“Didn’t see anything of Professor Snodgrass, did you?” asked Jerry of his chums, as they disposed of the last of the sandwiches and chocolate Bob had procured in some mysterious way.

“No,” answered Ned. “The last I saw of him was when he had seen to it that Gladys Petersen and Dorothy Gibbs were safely on their way home and he was packing up his pictures and specimens of bugs and things to ship to the college.”

“He said he might possibly join us on this transport,” said Bob. “And he may be here, for all we know. Looks as if everybody I ever met in France is on board.”

“Not that pretty little girl with the black hair and brown eyes you were so fond of in the restaurant--she isn’t here, is she?” asked Jerry.

“Oh, cut it out!” growled Bob. “You know what I mean.”

“But did she know what _you_ meant?” asked Ned pointedly. “You know you never could get the hang of the French words, and she used to rip them out like a drygoods clerk tearing off a yard of muslin.”

“Say, if you fellows think I’m going to rustle grub for you, and then have you insult me, you’ve got another guess and a half coming!” cried Bob hotly--so hotly, in fact, that Jerry quickly interposed.

“That’s all right, Bob,” he said quietly, laying a cautioning hand on Ned’s shoulder. “We two were just as fond of Marie as you were, only she seemed to take more of a notion to you than she did to us.”

This admission apparently brightened Bob visibly, and his anger slowly died away.

“And, going back to the original subject,” said Ned, “did either of you see the professor?”

They had not, they admitted.

“Well, we’re not likely to hear from him until we get across, then,” decided Bob.

But it was not to be long before his words were disproved.

Gathering speed, the transport moved ahead, and the craft was approaching the open sea, leaving behind, in a misty haze, the camp at Brest, when without warning she suddenly slowed up, not gradually, as if making a regular stop, but with a jar and a shudder that seemed to go through her whole structure.

“What’s that?” cried Bob, as he and his chums felt the tremors and the vibration.

“Something’s wrong!” said Ned in a low voice.

“Could we have struck a mine?” asked Bob in a half whisper, as though he feared to start a panic. “It couldn’t be a sub, could it? I thought----”

He did not finish the sentence, for in the midst of it the vessel started on again; but, to the surprise of all, she began turning slowly back toward the port she had so recently left.