CHAPTER XVII—GETTING OUT OF THE MUD
Clay’s face plainly expressed the dismay he felt as he bent over the gunwale and looked downward in the growing light of the morning. The Rambler lay in a bed of soft, oozy mud, with harder ground between her and the “tow-head.”
“I presume,” Alex. said, “that the people of this country will be glad to see that the river lowered in the night! So are we?”
“We ought to have provided against this,” Clay exclaimed, in self-reproach. “We might just as well have anchored a few yards farther down. What next, I wonder?”
“The longer we wait before getting the motor boat into the water,” Alex. said, “the harder work it will be, for the river is lowering every minute.”
Clay scratched his head and estimated the distance to deep water.
“We’ll have to put on our bathing suits and take to the mud,” he decided. “By all taking hold, we may be able to get her out of this mess. Nice job it is, too!”
“Sure!” Alex. grinned. “Mud baths are healthful! There’s Mike Cogan, the Chicago politician, he goes to take mud baths twice a year! If we had him here now we wouldn’t charge him a cent for his cure! I think he’d like it, too.”
“I’ll wake Case and Jule, and we’ll get right at it,” Clay said. “I wish a lot of husky plantation hands would happen along in a shanty boat.”
“There was a group of them over on the Mississippi side last night,” Alex. explained. “We might get them, if they are there yet. Say,” he continued, with a grin, “I believe that is where the little coon went! He saw the camp-fire and heard the plantation songs, and couldn’t remain away from his own people!”
“In that case,” Clay suggested, “the little rascal will be back soon.”
“Never can tell about boys of the Mose stripe,” Alex. predicted. “He may follow the men off and never show up here again.”
Clay started for the cabin to arouse Case and Jule and then turned back to ask:
“Did that pocket book—the bag, rather, that had the diamonds in, make its appearance before or after Mose disappeared?”
“I don’t know when Mose lit out,” was the reply. “At one time I heard a splash in the river and looked to see what it was about, but Mose was not in sight then. There was only a large stick floating in the stream. Still, he might have gone at that time. If he did, he left long after the bag was thrown on deck. What about it?”
“I was thinking that he might have followed off the person who threw the bag,” Clay explained, “though I can’t understand why he should have gone away so secretly. Did the dog make any remarks about the time the bag reached the deck?”
“Nix on Captain Joe! He’s getting too sleepy! He stirred only once in the night, and that was when the boat was coming up to us. He frightened the pirates away, when Case and I had planned to shoot ’em up!”
“Then,” concluded Clay, “when we reach the truth of it, we’ll discover that it was Chet who was around here last night, and who threw the bag on deck. You know we have been thinking, all along, that he might have taken it.”
“That’s what Jule insists on,” Alex. returned, “while the rest of us think one of the visitors took it, and that Chet chased off the boat to get it back, not knowing that the diamonds had been taken out of it.”
“It seems clear now,” Clay replied, “that Chet took it. In the first place, there is no good reason for supposing that the visitors would find the bag, or take it if they did find it; or take any trouble to return it after they had found its contents of no value. Chet got it, all right, and, disappointed and chagrined at the substitution we had made, he lost no time in throwing it back at us.”
“Chet was broke, wasn’t he?” asked Alex., with a sly grin.
“So far as I know, yes. Anyway, he didn’t look like a millionaire when we took him on board and fixed him out with a suit of your clothes!”
“Then how would he ride up the river in a steamer, or ride down the river to the next town to take the steamer, or hire a rowboat and pay the captain of the steamer for letting him off in his boat as soon as he saw the light of the Rambler?”
“You smash all my solutions,” laughed Clay. “Now, give me one of your own, so I can smash that,”
“I ain’t no prophet!” grinned the red-headed boy, “but I’m gambling that when we get down to the bottom of matters we’ll find Red, the Robber, in the mess!”
“We have already found him in the mess,” laughed Clay. “He knew, according to your story, that I had put something in the safety vaults! Besides, he seemed to own the steamer you were on, didn’t he?”
“He seemed to be the boss.”
“Suppose we quit guessing and get the Rambler out of the mud,” suggested Clay, then.
Case and Jule were called out on deck, and the lads, clad only in their bathing suits, were soon wallowing in the soft mud, which was so deep that they could get no footing at all, and so could not lift on the boat. In fact, the more they tried to lift the boat, to slide it toward deep water, the deeper she seemed to sink.
“We’re up against a beautiful proposition!” Jule exclaimed, climbing back on deck and leaning over the gunwale. “If we jar the boat any more, we’ll have to take a trip to China and pull it through from the other side!”
Clay plowed out of the mud and made his way to the “tow-head” where he began examining the growth of willows. He seemed satisfied with what he saw, for he began cutting the long wands and called to the others to join him.
“What’s doing?” asked Case.
“This ain’t no island improvement corporation!” Alex. grinned.
“I know what he’s up to!” Jule shouted, and in a second he was off the deck, cutting willows and throwing them into a heap at the edge of the hard ground.
“We’ve got to make mattresses of these willows,” Jule declared, wiping the sweat from his face. “I read about that in a paper not long ago.”
“To sleep on?” asked Alex., with a wink at Case.
“Silly!” roared Jule. “Get busy, both of you.”
When a great stack of the willow wands had been cut, Clay and Jule began roughly braiding them together. In this way two mattresses a foot in thickness and nearly twelve feet square were constructed before noon. During all this time the boys had seen nothing of Chet, of Mose, or of the negroes who had camped on the shore the previous night. They had also overlooked breakfast!
The novelty of their employment had so engaged their attention that they felt no need of food until Teddy appeared on the deck sitting up like a man, begging for his breakfast! Then Alex. threw down the wands he was carrying to Clay, who was doing the weaving at that time, and sprang over to the boat with a chuckle of amusement.
“You’re all right, Teddy Bear!” he cried. “We don’t know enough to eat when we’re hungry, do we? We’ll show ’em what it is to feed up right without delay.”
“What you going to get for dinner?” demanded Jule, putting a hand to his stomach to show how empty it was. “I want a whale fried whole!”
“Get your whale, then,” advised Alex.
“Perhaps you think I can’t!” laughed Jule. “Pass out my line and rod and I’ll show you whether I’m a fisherman or not!”
Alex. did as requested and Jule waded through the mud to where there was a bit of hard ground, next the island, with a little swirl of water close by.
“Watch me now!” he cried.
But the boys did not care to watch him. Case and Clay continued the work of braiding mattresses, and Alex. got out a gun and sat on deck watching for ducks, of which there were plenty in that vicinity. Presently a yell from Jule called the attention of the others to him. He was fighting a fish which seemed to the astonished boys to be not less than ten feet in length, and the fish was pulling him down stream.
“Give me a hand!” the boy shouted. “He’s pulling me in!”
“Let go the line!” cried Alex.
“And lose it!” answered Jule. “Not much! Give me a hand!”
Case and Clay both rushed to the boy’s assistance, and with great effort a monster fish was landed in the mud. Jule was jubilant.
“The biggest catch of the trip!” he declared. “Who says I can’t produce a whale when I feel the need of a whole one fried?”
Case and Clay leaned back and screamed with amusement. Alex. looked on with a grin which was more provoking than the laughter of the others.
“Have all the fun you can,” roared Jule, “but don’t get gay!”
“Throw him back into the river!” Clay advised, poking at the catch. “That is just a big catfish, and no one eats them save the negroes! They’re tougher than the tripe at Bill’s restaurant, in Chicago!”
“I guess you won’t throw him away!” yelled Jule.
“All right!” Clay answered. “Take him to bed with you, if you want to, but kindly see if you can’t get a bass for our dinner. There are plenty of them in here.”
Reluctantly Jule started the catfish back toward his natural element, and the big fellow seemed to thank him with a parting wave of his tail as he took to the water. In a few moments he had a fine large bass, weighing six or eight pounds, and before long Alex. had a couple of ducks, so work was suspended while dinner was cooked and eaten. After the meal the work was continued until Case declared there were enough willow mattresses on hand to float a city.
Then the mattresses were hauled alongside the Rambler and a considerable part of the cargo of the boat was put out on them. Thus lightened, and having a strong footing, the lads had no difficulty in pushing the Rambler out into deep water.
“What shall we do with the mattresses now?” asked Clay, as the boat swung off the bottom. “We have spent too much time on them to throw them away!”
“Tow them along,” advised Case. “It won’t cost us anything to tote them along, and we may have use for them. A man could build a tent on them, by fastening them together, and live there. I’m strong for taking them with us.”
This was finally agreed to, and the boys were about to start down the stream again when a shout from the Mississippi side of the river attracted their attention.
“There’s that little coon!” laughed Case. “See the rascal! He’s going to swim to the boat, or going to try to!”
“He never can do it,” Clay declared. “We’ll have to swing the Rambler over that way and pick him up. He’s making a swift run, though!”
“Well,” Alex. replied, “just you look behind him and see what he’s running from.”
Half a dozen negroes and one white man were now seen running down the river bank in pursuit of Mose. They seemed to redouble their exertions when the Rambler shot over toward the boy, but were obliged to halt when the boy was picked up and the boat went on down stream, towing the willow mattresses in her wake!
Mose dropped down on deck, panting and rolling his eyes.
“Ah’m scared white!” he chattered. “Fo’ de Lawd, dat’s de man what trun dis coon an’ Captain Joe into the ribber up no’th! Ah’s scared of him!”
CHAPTER XVIII—SWEPT INTO A SWAMP
“Who threw you and Captain Joe into the river, up north?” demanded Jule. “Wake up and tell us what’s the matter with you. What were those people chasing you for?”
Mose only sat up on deck and rolled his eyes as the Rambler increased the distance between the pursuers and himself. Seeing that he was now beyond their reach, he arose and leaned over the gunwale and made funny insulting faces at them.
“What does he mean?” asked Jule, turning to Clay. “Who’s chasing him?”
“Don’t you remember how Sam, the Robber, the fellow who, with Red, captured the Rambler in the bayou, threw the boy and the dog out, and how they lay in the grounds at the old house until dusk and then came to your rescue?” asked Clay. “You must have a poor memory, I think.”
“I didn’t know whether it was Red or Sam who threw him in,” Jule explained.
“So that’s Sam over there with the negroes?” questioned Alex. “What did you do to them, Mose? Where did you go last night? What do you mean by forming an exploring expedition all by yourself and having all the fun?”
“Ah went ’shore to hear de singin’,” the boy replied, “an’ dey cotch me stealin’ de yaller leg chicken, an’ say de’s goin’ to beat dis coon up plenty!”
“You swam all that way to steal a chicken?” asked Jule. “Was it cooked?”
“Yaller leg chicken!” insisted the boy.
“Was it cooked?” persisted Jule. “Where did they get it?”
“Dey say it done lef’ de roos’ an’ follow dem into camp!”
“Did you eat a whole one?” asked Case. “A whole yellow-legged chicken?”
Mose grinned and showed the whites of his eyes.
“Ah shore did!” he replied, and Jule declared that he would willingly have helped him do it if he had only known about it!
“What were they talking about last night?” asked Clay, as the Rambler turned a bend and lost sight of the negroes and Sam, still gesticulating fiercely, on the east shore.
“They’re sho’ goin’ to get you-all!” was the reply. “They goin’ to steal dis boat, first thing you know. Ah’m scart ob dat white man!”
The little fellow could tell very little of the talk he had heard while detained in the negro camp. He knew that Sam, the Robber, was there with the negroes, and that he was continually urging them to help him secure the Rambler, but that was all. Of their plans he knew nothing but this.
During the afternoon the boys passed a great many steamers, going up the river, some with supplies for those who had been made homeless by the flood. Fortunately the levees had held, but the water had filled in back of them, in some instances and destroyed much property. The lagoons and swamps up river were still flooded, and in places farming land was still being washed away.
All the way down, until night closed in, they saw gangs of negroes on the levees, fishing drift wood out of the water. In some instances small out-houses were brought out in good condition. One shanty boat the boys saw had the cupola of a house set up on the prow, and a farm bell in the top of it was ringing as the raft bobbed in the currents of the river. Now and then families were seen gathered on the levees, evidently waiting for a steamer to take them off.
The boys kept up good speed until night and then tied up in a small cove on the lower side of an island, not far from the Mississippi side.
“We have been going pretty fast,” Clay observed, as the boat was worked in behind a point so as to be out of the wash of the steamers. “We haven’t a thing to do until we get back to Chicago, and we can take all the time we want getting back. How is that for a peaceful life, Mose?” he added, turning to the little negro boy.
Mose showed a mouthful of white teeth and a pair of chalk-white eyeballs.
“It takes a corkscrew to get conversation out of Mose!” Jule observed.
“I think I can make him talk,” laughed Alex. “Mose,” he went on, “I’ll give you a plate of honey for supper if you’ll tell me where Chet is and who threw the leather bag on deck last night?”
“Some one fro’ what?” asked the little fellow.
“Some one threw this on the boat in the night,” Alex. answered, handing the bag to the boy. “Did you hear any one around before you left?”
The negro boy rolled his eyes for a minute then took the bag and held it under the nose of Captain Joe, who sniffed at it for a second and then walked back to the place in the cabin where Chet had slept.
“De dawg sho’ know who fro’ dat bag!” he said, patting Captain Joe on the head.
“That shows why the dog didn’t make a row when the person who threw it got close enough to the boat to heave it on deck!” Jule laughed.
“It takes a little coon to find out things about animals!” grinned Alex. “Here we’ve been studying over who tossed the bag, and Mose settles the question in a minute. That is sure some coon!”
“There’s an affinity between a boy and a dog, anyway!” Clay laughed.
“I wonder if the kid is right?” Case questioned.
The boys discussed the matter during supper, and, right or wrong, Mose was given his plate of honey, which he was obliged to divide with Teddy!
The night passed away without incident, and early morning found the Rambler on her way to the Gulf again. The day was not different from other days for a week. The boys passed plantations and villages, swamps and lagoons, which seemed to have escaped the force of the flood, but now and then came to a wrecked cabin toppling from a bank.
They secured a supply of gasoline at a small place near the Arkansas line and at night found themselves in the heart of a desolate country. When they tied up they were at the mouth of a lagoon which seemed to lead into a great swamp.
“It is a sure thing that no leather bags will be thrown on deck to-night,” Clay observed, as supper was prepared. “We are even off the track of the steamers, for they seem to stick to the opposite side of the stream.”
“This would be a dandy spot for a band of river pirates to inhabit,” Jule added.
“Don’t talk about pirates!” admonished Clay. “You’ll have Mose turning white again. Some day he’ll turn so white with fright that he will never turn black again, and he wouldn’t like that, would you, Mose?”
“Ah’s ’tented wif mah color,” answered the boy.
“That’s all right, as long as you are on the boat,” Alex. put in, “but you jump into the lagoon and see how long you’ll last. An alligator will leave a fat pig any time to make a dinner off a black boy!”
“Quit scaring the boy!” exclaimed Case. “First thing you know, he will be afraid to swim ashore to steal a yellow-legged chicken roasted by tramps!”
When darkness fell a soft wind came out of the west and a slow rain began falling. It was wild and uncanny outside, but bright and warm in the cabin. Alex. entertained his chums for a time with stories of the Mississippi, and explained how Grant had shortened the stream by cutting a new channel at Vicksburg, but all were tired, and by nine o’clock all were asleep save Jule, who was to stand guard that night, and Mose who was moving restlessly about.
“Come on into the cabin, Mose,” Jule finally ordered, “and go to bed, like a good coon! You’ll get wet out on deck!”
The boy entered the cabin and sat down near the stove, in which a small fire was burning. Jule regarded him attentively.
“What’s the matter with you to-night?” he finally asked.
“Ah hear a roar!” was the reply.
“That’s the wind in the cypress trees,” Jule explained.
“Is it de win’ makes de ribber come up?” asked Mose, in a moment.
“Is the river rising?” asked Jule, going to the door and switching on the prow light. “It ought to be running down.”
By the light of the electric the boy saw that the river was indeed rising. Little knolls which were above water when the boat had been anchored were now under a swift current. The river was sweeping past the mouth of the lagoon with a new force.
Presently trees and wreckage of different sorts were seen drifting down, and there came a rushing sound which added greatly to the weirdness of the scene.
“This beats me!” Jule muttered. “The flood has been going down for nearly a week. There must have been heavy rains up to the north, and at the sources of the rivers emptying into the Mississippi. I wonder if it will do anything to us?”
At that moment a timber crashed against the Rambler, jarring it considerably.
Clay and the others were out of their bunks in a minute, and out on deck to see what had taken place. Alex. was the first one to grasp the situation.
“We’ll have to turn on the motors to hold this boat,” he said. “The anchor lies in the mud, and will pull away at the first push of a current. First thing we know, we’ll be down there in a cypress swamp!”
“You’re excited!” Case called out. “We passed the flood two days ago.”
“That’s the trouble,” Alex. explained. “We passed the flood! The crest of it is still to the north of us. It has undoubtedly been raining up river, and that has swelled the volume of water.”
“Do you mean that we got down the river in advance of the flood?” demanded Case.
“We have been going a little faster than the current, haven’t we, notwithstanding our tying up nights?” Alex. asked. “This little boat has been going some! To-night the crest of the flood overtakes us. See?”
“It doesn’t look reasonable!” Case insisted. “I don’t believe it!”
“The kid is right,” Clay declared. “I have often read about boats meeting the flood the second time, once when they passed it, and once when it caught up with them.”
The roaring sound which Mose had referred to now grew louder, sounding like the rush of a long and heavily loaded freight train.
While the lads listened, hardly knowing what to do to protect themselves, Mose pointed a shaking hand at a spot far down the lagoon. Clay looked and saw a great blaze on what seemed a wooded knoll to the west of the river.
“There’s a camp down there!” he said.
“That makes it nice!” grinned Alex. “No honest men ever made camp in that hole at this season of the year! It is dollars to tripe that if we don’t put on power the crest of the flood will wash us down, when the full strength comes, and beach us among a band of river pirates! If we don’t get under way up stream we’ll have do to something to make the anchor hold!”
While the boys were discussing some way of accomplishing this, for they did not like the idea of breasting the flood, the crest of the flood came seething down the stream, a wall of water four feet high! It swept over the point of land between the river and the bayou and dashed against the Rambler.
The anchor held for a minute, then the boys knew that they were in motion. The current seemed stronger there than in the river itself.
“The water is cutting a new channel below,” Clay shouted, as the Rambler was swept away, “and we are headed for that swamp. Now, we are in a peck of trouble!”
CHAPTER XIX—PILGRIMS FROM OLD CHICAGO
The “peck of trouble” referred to as their portion by Clay turned out to be a full bushel, and good measure at that, in a very short time. Although the boys turned on the power—a thing they should have done long before—as soon as the crest of water came in sight, the Rambler was pitched down toward the swamp like a chip.
If the boys had been able to direct her course, they might have held her in the current, and so kept out of the muck hole into which she was swept when the water cut around a bend, driving straight on the shore. But just as the craft was getting under control a mass of limbs and cane-brake tangled her propellers, and she went down with the flood, striking, as has been said, in a swamp where the head of the bayou had been, and into which the water still poured.
It was pitch dark out on the river and in the swamp, but the lights of the Rambler cast a circle of illumination about the spot where she lay, so that the black, bubbling water, with all the unclean reptiles it was forcing forth from their haunts, was in full view. It was carrying wreckage now, and this was piling up between the current and the boat, shutting off all chances of backing out, even if the current would have permitted it. It was indeed a desperate situation.
The motor boat had come to a stop against two monster cypress trees, between which she had wedged her nose. Only for this she might have been carried farther into the swamp, the water being deep for some distance ahead.
During the whirling passage down the bayou, while the boat was bumping against tree trunks and bounding off with a jar and a swish to go swinging around again, like a foolish dancer doing the time limit, Mose had clung tightly to one of Clay’s legs. At the very beginning of that mad race he had caught sight of a couple of alligators, and was in deadly fear that they would climb on board and make a meal of him!
When the boat finally lodged between the giant trees, the little negro boy bounded from the deck and, seizing hold of a mass of vines, clambered up the tree to the west like a young monkey! Believing that he would have to help the others up, he carried a rope with him! Finally, sitting astride of a limb, he called down what he considered very good advice to the boys on the boat.
“Dey done get yo’, sho’!” he warned. “Catch on de rope an’ shin up!”
Serious as the situation was, with the water trinkling in over the stern of the motor boat, the boys grinned at each other at the fright of the boy.
“Come on down!” Alex. called. “If the boat should break away from the trees, you would be left alone in the swamp. Come on down and help get the boat out of this blessed swamp! You may get out with your rope and tow her if you want to!” he added, with a chuckle.
“Fo’ de Lawd!” cried Mose, shuddering at the idea of getting into water inhabited by monsters who would leave a fat pig to feast off a black boy!
At least that was what one of the boys had said to him!
Attracted by the strange lights, walking and creeping things now began gathering in the shadows at the rim of the circle of light. Once Clay caught sight of the soft, appealing eyes of a deer, and now and then the howls of a swamp cat came to their ears above the roaring of the flood. Great water snakes struck their heads above the surface and looked, red-eyed, and hostile, at the boys.
Swamp creatures with soft fur and frightened eyes crouched on fallen trees and scanned the deck as a possible refuge. To make the scene more desolate still, if possible, two round-eyed owls answered each other’s cries from a near-by cypress.
“Say,” Jule whispered to Clay, during a little lull in the rain, “there’s a man by that tree. I’ve been watching him a long time. Look at him!”
Clay followed the line of the pointing finger and laughed.
“Why, that’s a bear!” he shouted. “A swamp bear—one of the kind Teddy Roosevelt came down here to shoot when he was president! Let him alone and he’ll let us alone. They fight like devils when wounded or molested.”
The boys all agreed to let the bear alone, but Captain Joe and Teddy seemed to have notions of hospitality. The dog barked invitingly, and Teddy did a stunt of bear talk which brought the wanderer one tree nearer to the boat. He was now in the circle of light, and could get no nearer without swimming.
“He sees Teddy and wants to ask his advice!” Jule laughed.
At that moment Mose, noting that the boys were gazing fixedly in one direction, turned his eyes that way and saw the bear. The shriek he let out might, it seemed, have been heard in New Orleans, if the wind had been blowing in that direction!
“Ah’s a gone coon!” he wailed, after that one yell. “Ah’s a goin’ whar de good niggers go! Good bear! Good bear!” he added coaxingly.
The bear looked upon the scene for a moment longer with disapproving eyes and then turned away. For a moment he was seen walking on jammed logs, alternately wading through shallow places, and then he was lost in the darkness.
“There!” Alex. called out to Mose, “you’ve frightened our bear off!”
“Dat yo’ bear?” asked Mose. “Den yo’ keep yo’ animile out our ya’d!”
Although frequently invited to return to the boat, Mose insisted on keeping his place in the tree. Now and then he called out that a bear or a deer was about to board the Rambler, but for the most part he sat still, looking about for more things to be frightened at!
The Rambler was now securely fastened in between the two trees, standing on a level, or floating on a level, rather. There was considerable water under the deck, it having worked its way down through the joints about the hatches, and the boys proceeded to lift all available covers and bail it out.
“How are we ever going to get out of here?” asked Jule, working away with a basin and a sponge. “These trees will hold us forever.”
“We’ll have to cut them down, Silly!” answered Case. “Just as soon as the water goes down, we’ll crawl out on one of the mattresses and fix the propellers.”
“Mattresses!” answered Jule. “They drifted away long ago.”
“Look ahead and see,” remarked Case, and Jule did so.
The willow and brake mattresses which had been towed down stream were loose from the motor boat, but they were in sight, having lodged against the mud bank farther in the swamp. They could be reached, the boys figured, by a little wading after the flood subsided, which it was certain to do before long.
“You see,” Case went on, “the trees will hold the boat up, like it was in a dry dock, and we can fix the propellers and the leak and then chop down the trees and get out. Perhaps we can follow this channel out to the river. If there wasn’t an opening somewhere, the current here wouldn’t be so fierce!”
“There may be a channel,” Clay agreed, “but if there is it must be full of standing trees and hidden snags. If we ever get out of here, we’d better run back to the main channel, and keep out of such holes in future!”
“There wouldn’t be any fun in river trips,” laughed Alex., swinging an axe at the head of a water snake which was trying to get up on the deck, “if it wasn’t for the adventure there is in it! I wouldn’t have missed this for anything!”
With the last word of this endorsement of the situation on his lips Alex. took a header over the gunwale of the boat into the water! A great trunk had bunted the Rambler on the port side, and she had tipped so as to knock the boy off his feet and over the railing before he could make up his mind what was coming off!
“Wow!” cried Clay, as the boy came, spluttering to the surface.
“You wouldn’t miss this for anything!” roared Case.
“Bring a couple of snakes and an alligator out with you!” requested Jule.
Mose, sitting on the limb, high up in the tree, called down to the boy that a water snake was trying to get into his pocket, and that an alligator was nosing about his leg.
Disregarding all comment and advice, Alex. crawled back on deck and sat looking wrathfully into the flood. But his anger did not last long.
“If that log hadn’t come along,” he said, “I should have forgotten my bath. When it comes daylight, I’m going to get up a race with that alligator, with the snake as referee! Mose can enter if he wants to!”
Mose shivered at the thought. He was now climbing higher. When near the top he gave another yell and hustled down to a lower limb, where he sat with his hands clinging tightly to the trunk.
“Fo’ de Lawd’s sake!” he shrieked.
“What is it now?” asked Jule. “If you don’t come down I’ll shoot you!”
Mose pointed to the rim of the light zone and cried that the river robbers had come to get the boat. The boys looked where he pointed and saw three young men standing in a submerged grove of cypress trees. All were armed and all were bearded and forbidding in appearance. As the boys looked one stepped forward.
“Just a second,” Clay called. “That is near enough!”
CHAPTER XX—THE DARKEY UP THE TREE
While Case talked with the young man Clay went back into the cabin to talk with Alex., who was now changing into dry clothing.
“Do you think the story that man is telling is all right?” he asked.
“I think he is telling the truth about the river thieves,” Alex. replied.
“I was wondering if that wasn’t just a bait to help them get on board.”
“It may be, but there are river robbers in this section. They told us that where we bought the gasoline. These may be the robbers, for all I know, but we ought to make sure of that before turning them down. They’ll starve here, if they have lost their boat and provisions. Of course they can get wild game, but I don’t see how they are going to cook it. We ought to give them a chance, anyway.”
Clay went back to the deck and listened to the conversation between Case and the visitor, who seemed a little annoyed at the doubting of his word.
“Where did you live in Chicago?” he heard Case ask.
“In furnished rooms on Elizabeth street, near Washington boulevard,” was the reply.
“Where did you work?” was the next question, impertinent and personal, but seemingly necessary at that time.
“At a machine shop on Clinton street, not far from West Madison.
“Then you are machinists?”
“Yes, all of us. Business is dull in our line just now, and we thought we’d make a hit with ourselves by spending a winter in the south.”
“When did you leave Chicago?”
“We left Chicago last September,” answered the man, turning toward the rail. “We expect to get back sometime during the next century, if all Chicago boys are as hospitable as you are! Now, with your permission, I’ll go back to my friends.”
“How do you know we are from Chicago?” asked Clay, stepping forward.
The other laughed lightly and pointed to the boat’s name on articles scattered about.
“But, aside from that,” he said, “we’d know you anywhere. The Chicago newspapers carried a lot of feature stuff about your boat and your trips.”
“All right, stranger,” one of the three answered, in rather a pleasant tone of voice. “Just as you say!”
“What do you want?” asked Alex., still shivering from his cold bath.
“We want a ride out of this consarned swamp,” was the reply.
“How did you get in here?” asked Clay. “Get out the way you got in!” he added.
“Our shanty boat is smashed to flinders and our grub is gone,” complained the other. “It don’t look as if we could walk out of here, does it?”
“Was that your fire we saw?” asked Case, drawing closer to the gunwale.
“We had a fire before the flood pounced down upon us,” was the reply.
“What shall we do?” asked Clay, facing the others. “If they are on the square we can’t leave them here. They would starve!”
“They may be pirates!” suggested Jule.
“I don’t believe it,” Case declared. “They don’t look the part. Besides, if they had designs on the boat, they could have picked us off in the darkness, and we’d never have known where the bullets came from. They’re all right!”
“One of you come aboard,” Clay instructed, “and we’ll see what you look like.”
In plain view of the boys the man who had done the talking handed his gun to a companion and struck out for the boat, walking on logs part of the way, wading part of the way, and swimming when he could do neither. In a moment he was on deck.
“The three of us,” he explained, “were out of work at Chicago. We had a little cash, and decided to come down here and spend the winter where we wouldn’t have room-rent or restaurant bills to pay. We thought we could cut and market enough fish-poles out of the brake swamps to pay our way back in the spring.”
“That wasn’t a bad idea!” Jule declared.
“We were getting along all right,” the other went on, “until the river thieves began troubling us. They stole our food, and at last began stealing our poles. We were getting ready to go out when the flood smashed our shanty boat into smithereens. Now we are up against it, unless you take us with you. And,” he added, with a quick glance around, “you’d better take us on board, for the thieves are back there in the swamp, with their envious eyes fixed on this boat. They are mostly negroes, and escaped convicts.”
“You ought to know that we’ve got to be careful,” Clay said, as the man was about to leave the boat. “We don’t know anything about you, except what you have told us, but we’re going to take a chance on you. Tell your friends to come on board.”
In five minutes the three were in the cabin, trying on some of Clay’s clothes, for their own were not only wet but they oozed black muck. When they were dressed again they passed their revolvers over to Clay, with the statement that they wouldn’t need them unless the river pirates took a hand in the game that night.
“Have the ruffians been here long?” asked Clay.
“About a month ago,” was the reply, “a lot of negroes broke away from a convict camp off to the west somewhere. They came into this swamp and built a camp on a knoll, which must, by the way, be under water now. They are murderers, housebreakers and sneak thieves of the most desperate kind. We tried to make friends with them, but it was of no use. They think their camp is unknown, and so object to our getting out and telling where it is. I half believe they will try to keep you from getting out for the same reason.”
“If it is all the same to you boys,” another of the visitors said, “we’d like something to eat. We were half starved when we came on board. I think I can catch a fish or shoot a duck, so our supper won’t cost you anything only the bother of having us around. What do you say? Do we eat?”
“I should say so!” cried Alex., sticking his head out of the cabin, “and when you are out after game get enough for me a little lunch. I haven’t had anything to eat since dark!”
“Is that rowboat at the side all right?” asked the visitor, pointing to the boat which had been found up the river. “If it is, I’ll get a little ways from the motor boat, in the shadows, and see what I can do getting ducks.”
“The boat is all right,” Alex. answered, “and I’ll go with you. I’m beginning to feel the lack of adventure. I get awfully tired of this monotony sometimes!”
They all laughed at the idea of there being any monotony in the situation, there in the swamp, with the river roaring around them and the watchful thieves in the thicket, and Alex. seemed quite annoyed at the thought that they regarded his remark as a joke.
“Perhaps something will happen before you get back,” Clay grinned.
“The boat may smash,” said Jule, cheerfully. “It has been banged about quite a lot since we got it. Or you may find some of the robbers. There’s no knowing what streak of good luck you may get into!”
“I’m not looking for any good luck of that kind!” the visitor said, as he drew the rowboat around and clambered into it. “I’ve had all the cheerful incidents of that character I care to have. When I get back to Chicago, I’m going to get a room next to the Desplaines street police station and go to bed at seven o’clock every night.”
“What’s your name?” asked Alex., abruptly as he pushed off from the Rambler.
“Gregg Holder,” was the reply. “I’m just Gregg to all my friends, but I’m Bully Gregg on South Halstead street. The others are Eddie Butler and Hank Quinn.”
“That settles it!” grinned Alex. “I’m going back.”
“What for?” asked Gregg, in surprise. “Don’t you want a duck or a fish?”
“Sure I do,” was the reply, “but I’m afraid! You’re the man that fought Murphy to a draw? What? And Eddie Butler is the boy that bested Murray!”
“You’ve got that right, kid,” was the reply. “We’ve all been in the prize ring, but we’re no slum toughs. If you think the bears and snakes and robbers are better company than we are,” he added, “we’ll get out of your boat!”
“You’re just the lads to give the pirates a good drubbing!” Alex. laughed, “and so we’ll ask you to remain with us and learn something of the rules of polite society! Let me take one oar, unless you want to keep on going round in a circle!”
“There’s something pulling on the boat,” Gregg said. “I can’t keep it on a straight line. See if you can find out what has tangled us.”
Alex. turned on his searchlight and cast its rays on the water ahead. Then he dropped his light in the bottom of the boat and stuck his hands out straight. Gregg looked up as the light fell, then dropped the oars and stuck his hands out straight!
“This is the adventure you wanted!” Gregg said, as half a dozen negroes showed on a hummock only a few feet away. “We’re held up by the river thieves!”
“What do you fellows want?” Alex. demanded, looking straight into the muzzle of a gun that seemed to have a bore as large as the Hudson river tunnel.
“We want that boat, so we can get on board the motor contraption,” said a voice.
“That’s no negro!” whispered Alex. “It is a white man blacked up!”
“Right you are!” replied Gregg.
“What are you boys talking about?” demanded the holder of the threatening gun.
“We were telling each other how glad we were to meet you!” Alex. snarled.
“You’re a nervy kid, anyhow,” said the other. “Push the boat up here, so we can get in. We were raised as pets, and don’t want to get wet.”
There was nothing to do but obey instructions. They knew the desperate character of the men they were facing. If they followed orders and waited for an opportunity to turn the tables on their captors, they might get out of the mess with whole skins, but if they forced a fight there and then there would be little hope for them. When there were four of the pirates in the boat, crouching down under the gunwales, who made the fifth, the spokesman gave his orders.
“Now you boys row back. When we get close up I’ll show myself and put the whole party under cover. See? My men will also have their guns, and if you disobey instructions in the slightest particular, you’ll be shot in the back.”
“That’s where you like to shoot, I take it!” growled Gregg. “If I had one of you out on the bank I’d break him in two pieces and feed him to the snakes.”
“Cuss if you want to!” commented the robber. “We can settle all that after a time. Just now, get over to that boat, and call out that you’ve found another castaway in the swamp! We’ll be on board before they can say a word.”
This looked like turning the Rambler over to thieves, but there was no way in which the boys could reverse conditions just then, so they rowed toward the motor boat, calling out that they had found a sick man in the jungle. The robber prodded them with the muzzle of his gun when they did not give the right inflection to their voices.
When the boat entered the circle of light the boys on board the Rambler were all leaning over the gunwale, looking for the boys and the rescued individual. There were no weapons in sight, and Alex. feared that all the revolvers were stowed away in the cabin, and that the Rambler would be taken without a shot being fired in her defense.
When the boat touched the hull of the Rambler the robber sprang to his feet, presenting two long guns as he did so.
“I’ll empty these guns into the crowd of you,” he said, in a low, even voice, “if there is one move on deck. We are coming aboard, and the better you use us the better we shall use you. Just sit still, boys,” he added, addressing his men, “until I get on deck.”
He was lithe and strong, and was on the deck in an instant, without opposition, his guns threatening the amazed boys and their visitors. Captain Joe gave forth a volley of ugly growls, and would have attacked the man, but Clay ordered him back.
“Never mind the dog,” he said. “He won’t bite!”
“If he does, he’ll get a chance to bite lead!” the robber exclaimed. “Now, men,” he went on, “climb up into the boat. Leave the rowers where they are.”
Four husky negroes, all with traces of whisky in their breath, began climbing over Alex. and Gregg to reach the motor boat. As they were steadying the rocking craft, they carried no weapons in their hands.
Then something happened which was as much of a surprise to the boys as it was to the men who were trying to capture the Rambler!
A rope with a wide noose at one end came whirling out of the sky and fell over the robber’s head, resting for an instant in a neat coil on his shoulders!
He clutched his weapons closer and looked up. Then the line tightened about his muscular neck until his feet left the deck and his face grew red with the blood of strangulation, then grew white. The revolvers clattered to the floor, and the man’s figure toppled and fell as the rope slacked.
When this strange thing happened, Alex. and Gregg were bending their heads down to permit the negroes to clamber over them. Still they saw the rope fall, saw the man gasp as it closed about his neck, and felt the negroes springing back in dismay.
Then they arose with their heavy oars in their hands and struck slashing, crunching blows at the heads below them! One negro lifted an arm to shoot, but it fell with the bones of the shoulder crushed to pulp. One by one they dropped out of the boat, some with broken arms, some with broken heads. After they had all disappeared, either under the surface of the lagoon or into the darkness of the swamp, a shrill voice came from the tree where Mose had taken refuge from the snakes and the alligators:
“Go on, white folks,” it said, “Ah goin’ hang dis immitation coon up on dis tree!”
CHAPTER XXI—DODGING A POLICE BOAT
“You little coon!” Clay gasped.
“Hurrah for Mose!” cried Alex.
“If you’ll come down here I’ll hug you!” shouted Gregg.
“How did you ever think of it?” Case called out.
Mose, now the happiest little negro boy in the United States, sat astride of his limb and grinned until it seemed that the top of his head would drop off backward!
In the meantime, the river pirate had remained unnoticed on the deck, the rope so deftly dropped by Mose still around his neck. Case finally bent over him.
“Why!” he exclaimed, shrinking back. “The man is dead!”
“Dead!” echoed Clay. “What killed him?”
Then they all bent over the still figure for a closer examination. Just as Case had declared, the robber was dead. His neck had been broken by the rope when Mose had drawn him off his feet! Alex. looked up at the boy.
“You must have a good pull in your arms!” he cried. “How did you manage to swing him up? You’re a wonder, Mose!”
Mose only grinned in reply, but Clay explained the matter by saying that the boy had thrown the rope over a limb higher up and used that as a pulley.
“Still,” he added, “it took a lot of muscle to jerk that heavy man off his feet. I didn’t think the boy had it in him.”
Then came the question as to what disposition should be made of the body. There was no hard ground near at hand so that a decent grave could be prepared. There were marshy knolls, it is true, but any excavation made there would instantly fill with water.
“Well,” Gregg said, “the best we can do is to bury him in the water. I don’t mean in the lagoon or in the river, but in a grave which will fill with water. There he will at least be out of the reach of reptiles and wild animals when the water subsides.”
“But how are we ever going to get out there and dig a grave?” asked Jule, who was not inclined to waste much effort on the body of a man who, in life, would have robbed, perhaps murdered, them!
“With your permission,” Gregg said, “we’ll take the body out and bury it. I haven’t much use for men of his type, but he’s dead, and that settles all accounts!”
“We may be able to get a couple of birds for supper while we are away,” suggested Eddie Butler. “We have been so busy lately, that we haven’t eaten, or provided anything to eat! I’m empty clear to my toes!”
“And I’ll catch a fish off the boat!” Jule volunteered. “I saw some big ones jumping up not long ago! They’ve been driven out of their nests by the flood.”
So Gregg and his friends went away in the rowboat to bury the outlaw and get a couple of ducks for supper, while Jule and Alex. angled over the stern of the boat for a fish. The first rush of the flood was past, but the water was still high. There was a strong current rushing past the stern of the Rambler, and this indicated that there must be a channel open to the main river not far below.
The boys caught a great catfish and two awkward-looking buffalo-fish and turned them loose in the stream before they succeeded in getting anything they wanted for supper. Then they caught a dozen perch of good size and proceeded to clean them.
By the time the fish were ready for the pan Gregg and his friends were back from their expedition with half a dozen fat ducks, already dressed.
“We’ll have some for breakfast, and some for dinner!” Eddie declared. “I feel now as if I’d never get enough to fill me up again!”
Something long and twisting dropped on the man’s shoulders and fell off to the deck.
“Holy smoke!” he shouted. “Look at the snake!”
A shout from up the tree told of the trick Mose had played on the man, and the rope was coiled away. In a short time Mose came sliding down the trunk.
“He smells supper!” explained Clay. “I’ve a notion to set Captain Joe on him!”
“Dat dog don’t bite dis coon!” Mose replied. “Ah’m in lub wid dat dog!”
Captain Joe and Teddy came forward and looked the three visitors over approvingly.
“That bear would make a good meal!” Gregg declared, with a wink at Case.
Mose’s eyes stuck out for a minute, and then he tickled his own chin and gave out a sound like a goat.
“B-a-a-a-a-a-a! B-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a!” he bleated.
“What’s the matter with the coon?” asked Gregg, with a look of surprise.
“He’s telling us to get wise to the alfalfa!” Jule cut in. “Alex. don’t know how to translate so white men can understand.”
“You’ll both wash dishes for a month!” roared Clay, doubled over with laughter. “We make that a penalty for talking slang,” he explained, turning to Gregg.
“But I don’t understand yet,” the other went on. “What is the matter with the boy? Has he turned himself into a billy goat?”
“He’s suggesting that you mow the lawn!” Case explained. “He doesn’t like the fire-escapes!”
Clay roared and pointed to the beards worn by the three, and then they understood and joined in the laugh until the swamp echoed back the sounds.
“You’ll all have to wash dishes, I take it!” Gregg declared.
“That’s about the way it usually turns out, when one starts talking slang,” Clay explained. “We’re all so full of it that it just bubbles out.”
“It is fine that we have something to be jolly over,” Gregg hastened to say, “for the prospects of getting out of here are not alluring.”
“Wouldn’t be no fun if everything went right!” Alex. insisted. “We have the most sport when we’re lost, or stolen, or strayed away. Now, you watch me cook these ducks.”
The boy got out a baking pan standing on three short legs. The bottom was double so as to prevent burning. Then he put two fat ducks inside, secured the cover, and removed what seemed to Gregg to be the whole top of the stove.
The short legs of the pan rested on the red-hot coals in the firebox, while the cover was always within reach. As soon as the ducks, which had previously been hastily parboiled, began to simmer and send forth appetizing odors, the boy watched them every minute, turning and basting until they were a beautiful golden brown.
In the meantime coffee had been made and the fish fried on the electric coil.
“I presume you’ll want hot biscuits for supper, too?” asked Clay.
The visitors were too busy with the game to do more than shake their heads.
“We usually have three kinds of meat, fish, baked potatoes, pancakes, light bread, pie, honey, and three or four vegetables on the side,” Alex. explained, with a wink at Mose, who sat in a corner next to the deck with Joe and Teddy watching the meat disappearing from a “drumstick” he was busily engaged on.
“An’ possum pie!” the little negro boy added, licking his chops.
“Sure! I forgot the possum pie!” Alex. declared. “Excuse me!”
“Certainly!” laughed Gregg, “and we’ll excuse you, too, for all future products of the imagination! The twenty course dinners at the La Salle haven’t got anything on this little banquet! For my part, I don’t care whether we ever get out of here, now, or not.”
“Some day,” Alex. observed, “I’ll show you how to cook a steak à la brigand! After you eat one of them you’ll go hungry for a week before you’ll touch anything else!”
“You may lead me to one of them any time you see fit!” Eddie laughed.
The river was still roaring and foaming about the Rambler, caught in the narrow space between the two cypress trees. Just where the boat lay the current turned away to the east, that is the current of the lagoon. The Mississippi was, of course, across the inundated spit of land which lay on the west shore of the river and on the east side of the bayou or lagoon.
Just as the boys finished their somewhat delayed supper the lights of a steamer showed up the stream. It passed the mouth of the bayou and hugged the opposite shore of the Mississippi for a time, then headed for the west shore.
“That’s strange!” Case exclaimed. “She sees our lights, but what is she coming over to this side for?”
The mystery became more of a mystery still when, reaching the west side, the steamer turned prow up stream and started to breast the flood, still carrying great masses of wreckage down stream. She made her way up to the mouth of the bayou and stopped, her propellers going just fast enough to keep from dropping back.
“If I’m not mistaken,” Gregg suggested, “that is a boat carrying officers on a hunt for the escaped convicts. Can’t we get out of here before they reach us?”
“Why should we run away from them?” asked Clay, suspiciously.
“Because they will mistake us for convicts,” replied Gregg. “An officer in a position to abuse his authority always does so. Many of the man-hunters along the river are little better than the men they hunt. Some of them are worse. This, of course, does not apply to the sheriffs and deputies of the counties touching the river, but to hired detectives and gunmen who come here to make a living hunting others.”
“You must be sore on the police,” Alex. exploded. “I’ve got a lot of friends on the Chicago police force. They’re good fellows, at that!”
“All right!” Gregg assented. “There are a lot of good men there. But if you want to remain here and permit those ruffians to overrun your boat, insult you, and hold you prisoners until you can get to some town where identification is possible, you can do so. We can stand it if you can.”
“There may be some sense in what he says,” Clay urged, “and if we could get out of the trap we are in and make the propellers go, I’d be willing to go on down the river and let the officers have the whole country to themselves.”
“Can’t we follow this bayou current and get out on the river below them?” asked Jule.
Clay said no; Gregg and his chums said yes.
“The water has been cutting a channel for a long time,” Gregg explained. “It needed only a slight push to send the remaining bank down. There are few obstructions in the new channel, as I figure it out, and I believe we would go through like a top once we got started. And we’d better hurry, if we are going to do anything, for, of course, they have seen your lights. They wouldn’t have stopped here if they hadn’t.”
“But the propellers!” urged Clay. “They’re broken.”
In a moment one of the men had his clothes off to the undersuit and was diving down at the stern of the Rambler. He remained under the water so long that the boys began to fear that he had met with some accident, or been attacked by a snake or an alligator. He came up smiling, however.
“Only clogged!” he cried. “You, Gregg and Eddie, get axes and chop the east tree down! The boat will then swing away from the other. You must make the cut down in the water, then we’ll have to lift the prow over the stump.”
The plan suggested proved successful, and the Rambler, under power, and trailing the mattresses, was soon feeling her way down the new channel. Then excitement was observed on the steamer, and she was headed about for the main stream again. It looked like a race was on!