"All right, I'll let you do all the looking you want, but I'd like to
buy you a boat just the same."

"No doubt you would, and so would Jesse W. and Harry and Arthur and a
dozen other boys, but I am going to get one myself, and it will not
cost me much either, and will give me all the service I want. We
don't go into camp under a week, and that will give me all the time
I want to build---"

"You are not going to build you a motor-boat, are you, Jack Sheldon?"
asked Dick Percival in the greatest surprise.

"Well, not altogether build it, Dick. Put it together, I may say.
I did not mean to let the cat out of the bag, but now that she is out
you need not scare her all over the neighborhood so that everybody
will know that she is out. Let Pussy stay hidden for a time yet."

"Yes, but Jack, how are you going to-----"

"No, no, Dick," laughed Jack, "you have seen the cat's whiskers,
but you haven't seen her tail yet, and you won't until I get ready.
I have told you more now than I meant to, and you must be satisfied
with that. I'll have the boat, don't you be afraid."

The two boys were two of what were called the Hilltop boys, being
students at an Academy situated in the highlands of the Hudson on top
of a hill about five miles back from the river, as the crow flies, but
considerably more than that by the road.