y for what we do, but if it can be
arranged, I--I--well, we sure would like to see that 'movie.' Can't you
send one to the Woodbridge Theater?" said Bruce.

"Huh, send one to the Woodbridge Theater! Why, I'll bring the first
release of it to Woodbridge myself and show it in your headquarters.
How'll that suit you fellows?"

And the enthusiastic replies of the scouts convinced the "movie" manager
that he had hit the right idea.

CHAPTER VIII

THE PRIZE CONTEST

"Well, fellows, there's this much about it, if we are going to build a
real sure enough motorboat this year we've got to get a hustle on us and
earn some money. With the rent we received from the Historical Motion
Picture Company and the money we secured from the circus ticket wagon we
have just $73.75. We need $94.00 to buy the motor alone, even with the
reduction that Mr. Clifford can get for us. And added to that is the
expense of extra lumber and fittings, which will be at least thirty
dollars more. Now where do we stand, I'd like to know?"

Thus did Bud Weir unburden his mind to the other boys of the Quarry
Troop, sometimes called, because of their mechanical skill, the Boy Scout
Engineers.

All spring the scouts had been planning to build a motorboat to be used
on Long Lake. They had had their summer camp on the shores of this lake
for the past two years, and they intended to have a camp there as usual
this year, but they had decided to make it a construction camp and spend
most of their time building a thirty-foot power boat, which would be the
largest vessel on the lake. The idea was to increase the troop's fund in
the treasury as much as possible during the Winter and Spring and use the
money to purchase a three horsepower gasoline motor, which they
calculated would be large enough to drive the boat faster than any craft
thereabout.

But somehow the months had hurried past and the fund had not increased at
a proportionate pace. Indeed if it had not been for a windfall of forty
odd dollars from the Historical Motion Picture Company, the treasury
would have been in a very bad way. The scouts really could not
understand it at all. They had worked hard, or at least they thought
they had, and they had contributed every cent they had made toward the
engine fund, but somehow the balance in the Woodbridge bank looked mighty
small to the scouts.

"What the dickens is the matter with us anyway, are we lazy?" queried
Nipper Knapp, break