The only thing in Riverbank or anywhere near it that made as much noise as Rover’s howl was Mr. Jack Betts’s motor-boat. His motor-boat was a speed boat and was called the Skittery III, because Mr. Jack Betts had run the Skittery I and the Skittery II onto snags and mashed them to splinters. I guess that was one reason why May did not want to marry Mr. Jack Betts--she was afraid he would mash himself to splinters some day. A husband that is mashed to splinters is not much use around the house. Mr. Edwin Skreever used to say: “That’s Jack Betts all over! He uses a barrel of gasoline every time he takes out that boat of his--fourteen dollars to risk his life for ten miles of idiotic speed, and he hasn’t a dollar in the bank! Twenty-seven years old and not a dollar to his name!” Even father would not ride in the Skittery III. It was a much faster boat than the others and could make thirty-five miles an hour upstream on our old Mississippi, and that is some speed! When it was going full tilt the Skittery III stood up on about three inches of the stern end of its keel and simply skittered on the water, and all twelve cylinders screamed. It made more noise than forty airplanes. It made more noise than ten planing mills. I never knew anything that made such a noise. And go? Mr. Jack Betts and his chauffeur had to wear leather helmets to keep the wind from blowing the hair right off their heads. Father said that if the boat ever took a nose dive it would ram itself so deep into the bottom of the water that Jack Betts would have to go around to China and pull it the rest of the way through--only there wouldn’t be any Jack Betts to go to China. Well, about four o’clock on September 10th we heard a noise down the river that sounded like forty-seven sawmills and we knew Mr. Jack Betts was starting the Skittery III. Town is four miles down river and in about a minute the Skittery III came roaring up into our chute and Mr. Jack Betts shut off the power and taxied in to the shore of our island. He had a note for Mr. Edwin Skreever, and it was from May. Mr. Jack Betts stood around and asked if there was any answer. Mr. Edwin Skreever said there was not--that May only wanted him to go down a little earlier the next day than she had told him before. He was rather stiff about it, and Mr. Jack Betts was just as stiff, and after a minute or two Mr. Jack Betts went down and got into the Skittery III and skittered back to town. Wampus and I sat on the rocks of the ripraps in front of our cottage and watched the Skittery III skitter. Old Rover was there, piling all over us, and we kept pushing him away and telling him to sit down. Every now and then he would tangle us in the rope that was tied to his collar. “You had better tie up that dog,” Mr. Edwin Skreever said. “If he wanders off to-night, you may not have him to-morrow.”