The Hilltop Boys on the River

"Never mind what it cost, Dick. You spend a lot more money than I can afford to spend, and you have a gilt-edged affair, of course. I want a boat to use as well as to look at."

"But you want a serviceable boat, Jack?"

"I am going to have it, and it will not cost me anything like what your boat cost. Just let me look around a bit, Dick."

"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.

Jack Sheldon was a universal favorite in the school, and although he had been obliged to work to pay for his schooling at the start he was not thought any the less of on that account.

Two or three strokes of fortune had given him sufficient money to more than pay for his education, and to provide his widowed mother with many extra comforts in addition, so that now he could give his time to study and not be distracted by work.

He had long known the value of money, having learned it by experience, and he was now averse to spending more than was necessary on things that gave pleasure rather more than profit.

He would not let Dick Percival, who was the son of rich parents, and had more money to spend than was really good for him, buy him a motor-boat, nor would he spend too much money on one himself when he would use it only for the smallest part of the year.

The school term was over, but Dr. Theopilus Wise, the principal of the Academy, had arranged to continue it for a portion of the summer, not in the Academy, but in a camp on the river where the boys would have plenty of open air, exercise, relaxation, and all the fun they wanted, besides doing a certain amount of school work to keep them from getting rusty as they expressed it.

The summer school was to begin its session in a short time, and, meanwhile, Jack remained at the Academy instead of going home, some distance away in another county, giving his attention to certain matters in which he was interested.

He had done work for the editor of a weekly paper of a town on the river, the nearest large town to the Academy and was well known in the place besides, having many acquaintances there among business people.