stick; aren’t we?” propounded Randy. “So it’s simply a question of raising enough money.”

“Mr. Morton says that along Beach Row there is nothing in the way of first-class amusements,” Frank went on. “There’s a merry-go-round and a summer garden with a band and some few cheap side shows.”

“Then we would have the field all to ourselves,” submitted Randy.

“Unless a business rival came along, which he won’t, unless we are making money, so the more the merrier,” declared Frank, briskly. “We’ll talk the whole business over this evening, fellows. In the meantime we’ll take in the many sights and post ourselves on the prospects.”

“I do hope we’ll be able to get that place,” said Pep, longingly. “What a fine view we have! I’d never get tired of being in sight of the sea and all this gay excitement around us.”

The chums left the boardwalk and went across the sands, watching the merry crowds playing on the beach and running out into the water. Big and little, old and young, seemed to be full of fun and excitement. Early in the season as it was, there were a number of bathers.

“That would make a fine motion picture; eh?” suggested Randy, his mind always on business.

“Yes, and so would that!” shouted Pep. “Jumping crickets! Fellows—look!”

There had sounded a sharp explosion. At a certain spot a great cascade of water like the spouting of a whale went up into the air. A hiss of steam focussed in a whirling, swaying mass at one point. There was the echo of yells and screams.

“What’s happened, I wonder——” began Randy.

“I saw it!” interrupted an excited bather, who had ran out of the water. “A motor boat has blown up!”

“Then those on board must be in danger of burning or drowning, boys,” shouted Frank. “To the rescue!”

CHAPTER II—THE MOTOR BOAT

Frank Durham was just as practical as he was heroic. While the frightened people in the water were rushing up the beach in a panic, and strollers along the sands stared helplessly toward the scene of the accident, Frank’s quick eye took in the situation—and in a flash he acted.

There was a reason why he was so ready-witted. In the first place he—and also Randy and Pep—had for an entire season been in actual service at the outing resort near their home town of Fairlands. It had been an experience that fitted them for just such a crisis as the present one. Boating on the lake had been the principal diversion of the guests. There had been more than one tip-over in which Frank and his chums had come to the rescue.

In fact, while the boys had regular duties, such as acting as caddies for golfers, as guides and chauffeurs, the proprietor of the resort expected them to keep an eye out at all times for mishaps to his guests. This had trained the chums in a line where common sense, speedy action, and knowing how to do just the right thing at just the right time, would be useful in safe-guarding property and human life.

Frank did not have to tell his companions what to do. They knew their duty and how far they could be useful, as well as their leader. The motor boat was about a quarter of a mile out and was on fire. They could see the flames belching out at the stern. There seemed to be three or four persons aboard. As far as they could make it out at the distance they were, one of the passengers had sprung overboard and was floating around on a box or plank. The others were crowded together at the bow, trying to keep away from the flames.

Randy had dashed down the beach to where there was a light rowboat overturned on the sand. Pep was making for a long pier running out quite a distance, pulling off his coat as he went. Frank had his eyes fixed upon a small electric launch lying near the pier. He did not know nor notice what course his chums had taken. He realized that if help came to the people in peril on the motor boat it must come speedily to be of any avail.

It took Frank less than three minutes to reach the spot where a light cable held the launch against the pier. A rather fine-looking old man stood nearby, glancing through his gold-rimmed eyeglasses toward the beach, as if impatient of something.

“Mister,” shot out Frank, breathlessly, “is this your craft?”

“It is,” replied the gentleman. “I am waiting for my man to come and run me down to Rock Point.”

“Did you see that?” inquired Frank, rapidly, pointing to the burning motor boat.

“Why, I declare—I hadn’t!” exclaimed the man, taking a survey of the point in the distance indicated by Frank. “What can have happened?”

“An explosion, sir,” explained Frank. “You see, they must have help.”

“Where is that laggard man of mine?” cried the owner of the launch, growing excited. “If he would come we might do something.”

“Let me take your launch,” pressed Frank, eagerly.

“Do you know how to run it?”

“Oh, yes, sir.”

“I don’t. Do your best, lad. You must hurry. The boat is burning fiercely.”

It only needed the word of assent to start Frank on his mission of rescue. There had never been a better engineer on the lake near Fairlands than our hero. He was so perfectly at home with a launch that the owner of the one he had immediately sprung into could not repress a “Bravo!” as Frank seemed to slip the painter, spring to the wheel and send the craft plowing the water like a fish, all with one and the same deft movement.

Frank estimated time and distance and set the launch on a swift, diagonal course. He made out a rowboat headed in the same direction as himself, and Randy was in it. Frank saw a flying form leave the end of the long pier in a bold dive. It was Pep. Frank could not deviate or linger, for the nearer he got to the blazing craft the more vital seemed the peril of those now nearly crowded overboard by the heat and smoke. Besides that, he knew perfectly well that the crack swimmer of Fairlands, his friend Pep, could take care of himself in the water.

It was because the three chums were always together and always on the alert that nothing missed them. Some pretty creditable things had been done by them and that training came to their help in the present crisis.

In the first volume of the present series, entitled “The Motion Picture Chums’ First Venture; Or, Opening a Photo Playhouse in Fairlands,” their adventures and experiences have been given in a way that showed the courage and enterprise that infused them. Frank Durham was the elder of the trio, and it was he who had started a partnership that soon outgrew odd chores about Fairlands and making themselves handy around the lake during the outing season.

Early in the Fall preceding, after a great deal of thinking, planning and actual hard work, Frank, Randy and Pep had become proprietors of a motion picture show at Fairlands. It had been no play-day spurt, but a practical business effort. They had worked hard for nearly a year, had saved up quite a sum, and learning of the auction sale of a photo playhouse outfit in the city, they had bid it in and started the “Wonderland” in the busy little town where they lived.

In this they had been greatly helped by a good-hearted, impulsive fellow named Ben Jolly. The latter was in love with the novel enterprise, liked the boys, and played the piano. Another of his kind who was a professional ventriloquist, had plied his art for the benefit of the motion picture show, delaying the auction sale with mock bids until Frank arrived in time to buy the city outfit.

They had enemies, too, and the son of a