"Take it easy," counseled Garry, as he put his arm beneath the other's shoulder. "Better rest until you get your breath and feel stronger." The young fellow brushed away Garry's arm impatiently, and after a brief struggle managed to lift himself to a sitting posture. His sullen eyes swept the lake. "Where's my motorboat?" he asked sharply. "Gone, Lent," Jerry answered, with an airy snap of his fingers. "Burned up." "Burned up?" said the other boy, looking incredulously at Jerry. "Why, the boat was brand new! I just bought it. Burned up! I don't believe it!" "I don't suppose it makes much difference whether you believe it or not," Jerry replied. "There's a fragment of it left, as you can see by looking on the other side. Maybe it can be rebuilt and maybe not. For myself, I should say it wasn't worth towing home. Sorry, but you can't get away from facts." Garry, who had been listening to the dialogue with interest, now spoke. "Your boat struck a rock and something exploded," he explained. "We saw that you were in trouble and came as quickly as we could. But the boat burned fast, and, as your friend says, there isn't much of it left." "Grayson seems to have left out the most important part of it," Jerry put in at this point. "He saved your life, Lent, which ought to mean at least as much to you as the loss of your motorboat." He spoke with a touch of irony which seemed to be lost altogether on his companion. The boy addressed as Lent looked at Garry with a gleam of interest for a moment. "You're the Grayson that played quarterback on the Hill Street eleven last year, are you? You made me lose a lot of money that I bet on the Webster Street team." It was a queer way of expressing gratitude, and Garry was irritated for a moment. "You ought to have used better judgment in picking the team to bet on," he answered curtly. But Lent Stewart was not listening. He dragged himself to his feet and, steadying himself, gripped the rail and stared out frowningly over the water. Then he turned savagely on Jerry Cox, ignoring the other boys. "If my new motorboat's wrecked it's all your fault, Jerry Cox!" he snarled. "If you hadn't grabbed my arm, I'd have steered clear of the rocks all right." "Yes, you would!" jeered Jerry. "If I hadn't done my best to stop your crazy piloting, we'd have been at the bottom long before. I warned you that you were going straight into danger, but you wouldn't listen. You always think you know it all." "It would be queer if I didn't know more about a boat than you do," retorted his companion. "You as much as wrecked that new boat, and you ought to pay for it." "Watch me," returned Jerry derisively, and there followed what promised to be a long drawn out and acrimonious dispute had not Garry intervened.