CHAPTER XXII—THE SHERIFF KNOWS A LOT
It was still raining when the Rambler headed into the Mississippi, and there was no glimmer of light in sight save that which came from the steamer, still puffing at the mouth of the bayou, and that which lighted the path of the motor boat. The wind had gone down, and the slow, soft rain dominated the night.
It was evident from the very start that the steamer was no match for the Rambler when it came to a question of speed. As well might a delivery truck attempt to compete in swiftness with a perfect touring car.
Besides the power of speed, the Rambler had another quality which enabled her to rapidly increase the distance between the two boats. The river was still covered with wreckage, and the motor boat was a good dodger! She responded quickly to her helm, avoiding the driftwood ahead easily, while the steamer was slower in picking her way.
“Your boat is a peach!” Gregg exclaimed, enthusiastically, as the lights of the steamer dropped out of sight behind a bend in the river. “Nothing would please me better than a long trip in her.”
“Well,” Clay replied, “why not? We are going to the Gulf, and are in no hurry to get there. We are shy sleeping bunks, but if you boys can put up with beds on the floor you are welcome to go along with us. I reckon you’ll manage to supply your share of the provisions!”
“The prospect is an attractive one,” Gregg replied, “but I think we’d better stop at Vicksburg and find employment of some kind. Later, we may go on down the river in a houseboat of our own. That depends on how lucky we are in getting good jobs.”
“We shall be sorry to part with you,” Case put in. “We have been together only a few hours, but a great deal has happened in that time! Only for your warning, the river thieves might have sneaked aboard the Rambler and captured it. In that case, you know very well what would have become of us. We should have been murdered!”
“I have no doubt that you would have taken care of yourselves,” Eddie declared.
“There’s one thing I want to ask you,” Clay went on, “and that is about the outlaw you buried back in the swamp. He was a white man, wasn’t he?”
“Yes; a white man blacked up like a negro.”
“Did you look him over carefully enough to be able to give me a description of him?”
“Well, we washed him up a little when we saw that he was a Caucasian, and I got a fair impression of his face, which wasn’t a prepossessing one, by any means.”
“Can you give me something of a notion of it in a few words?” asked Clay.
“Some old acquaintance of yours?” asked the other, with a smile at Case.
“He might have been. The fact is, I thought I recognized the voice of the spokesman.”
“There!” Alex. exclaimed. “I had that same notion. Mose,” he added, turning to the negro boy, “was that the man who threw you and the dog into the water?”
“Ah sure done thought so!” was the reply.
“You think it was Sam, the Robber, the man who accompanied Red?” asked Jule.
“I didn’t know but it might be!” answered Clay, and Alex. at once insisted that it was the same man. Mose was ready to swear to the fellow’s identity by this time!
“Tell us how he looked after the black was washed off,” requested Clay, after a short pause, during which the three men compared notes—mental notes—of their impressions of the man they had left in the lonely grave in the swamp.
“We have decided on one word that expresses our thought of the man,” Gregg finally replied. “You know that all human beings in some manner resemble some wild animal species. Some men are lions, some are monkeys, some are dogs, some are bears, some are foxes. Well, this man was a fox!”
“I thought so,” Clay exclaimed. “I thought the fellow’s voice sounded like Sam’s.”
“There are many men with fox-faces,” Gregg warned. “This man may not have been the individual you refer to as Sam. If he is an enemy of yours, keep looking for him.”
With this bit of good advice the matter was dropped for the time. The steamer was no longer in sight, but the Rambler was kept on her way to the Gulf.
In the middle of the next forenoon they came to Delta, which is at the bottom of the Vicksburg cutoff, on the west bank of the river. Here, with many handshakes and expressions of regret at parting, the three men left the boat.
“If we have any luck at all,” Gregg said, as the Rambler pushed out, “we’ll meet you somewhere south of New Orleans. We’ve always wanted to see that swamp country.”
The boys moved slowly down the river after that.
Again they were enjoying themselves, fishing, hunting and exploring the country on either side of the great stream.
There were lowlands, swamps, winding bayous and forests in places. Again, there were plantations, with noble houses showing from the river. Whenever they halted at a plantation landing they were received most hospitably.
The wreckage of the flood was running out of the stream, and the water was dropping down to normal. Occasionally they left the boat at night and built rousing camp-fires on high banks. At such times plantation hands often gathered about them with banjo and mandolin and violin and made the night musical.
They heard no mention of the Rock Island warehouse robbery until they approached Baton Rouge. The night before they sighted that beautiful city they camped on a piece of high land on a small island. No sooner was their fire blazing high than a couple of rowboats skimmed across the river and drew up near the little camp.
There were three men in one boat and two in the other, and the whole five hastened to greet the boys. They were evidently planters, for they were well dressed and gave the impression of being gentlemen.
The man who seemed to be the leader looked keenly around the camp, peered into the cabin of the Rambler, and then approached Clay with outstretched hand.
“I don’t need to ask who you boys are,” he laughed. “I am a regular reader of the Chicago newspapers. One of them, not long ago, printed your pictures, including those of the dog and the cub! If you’ll desert this camp and come over to the house, I’ll be glad to put you up for the night.”
“I hardly think we would sleep well under a roof,” Clay laughed, “but we’re all very thankful for your kindness. Besides, we’ll have to remain here and watch the boat. We’ve had some trouble coming down, and are determined to be on our guard.”
“You won’t find any river thieves around here,” smiled the visitor. “I’m sheriff of this parish, and I’ve taken considerable trouble to clear the country of them. You say you’ve had trouble on the way down? Then this must be the party that gave the officers such a race up above Vicksburg?”
“There was a steamer chased us—for a little while!” grinned Clay.
“Yes, I understand,” replied the sheriff. “The newspapers were full of the incident the next day, and you were held forth to the public as the boldest of river brigands! Why did you run away from the officers?”
“We only suspected that they were officers,” was the answer.
“It wouldn’t have taken long for you to have found out,” smiled the officer.
“It might have taken us a long time to get away from them,” Clay answered. “You know how eager some officers are to make a capture. Well, we didn’t want to be bothered with them, so we just took to our heels.”
“The officers were looking for a boy believed to be on your boat,” the sheriff remarked. “They had information that he had been seen with you on two occasions.”
“He must refer to Chet Vinton,” Case interrupted.
“I don’t know his name,” the sheriff went on, “but he is the boy believed to have taken a hand in the Rock Island robbery.”
“That is the lad,” Clay answered, with an amused smile. “We have had him on board the Rambler on two occasions, and each time he has mysteriously disappeared.”
“Where did you see him last?”
“At Memphis.”
“That was after you rented a deposit box at a bank?”
“You seem to know all about it,” grinned Clay. “Yes, he left soon after I rented the deposit box in the bank. By the way, do you know a giant of a man, red-headed and kind-hearted, who is a gentleman of leisure one moment and a river pirate the next?”
Clay thought he saw suppressed excitement in the face of the sheriff as he asked the question, and waited expectantly for an answer. The officer hesitated before saying a word, then he pushed the direct question aside.
“There are a good many men along the river who might answer to the description,” he said, “but I can’t call any names to mind just now. What about him?”
“Why, I met him on the river,” Clay answered, resolved to be just as secretive as the officer, “and I also met a man I took to be him at Memphis. I have a notion that I would like to meet him again some time. He’s all right, that man!”
“Tell me this,” said the sheriff, then, “what did you boys discover in the old house on the bank of the lagoon? I understand that at least two of your party spent the day there. I’d like to know what they saw and heard in the house.”
Clay regarded the sheriff suspiciously.
“Has there anything happened to us on this trip that you don’t know about?” he asked, then.
“Why,” replied the other, “we’ve been hearing about you all down the river. Don’t forget that we have telegraph wires in this country, as well as up north. Yes, we’ve heard a lot about you, and, to tell the truth, I’ve been waiting rather anxiously for you to make your appearance. What about the old mansion, where the negro boy and the dog got your friends out of a bad mess?”
“Say,” Alex., who had been listening, cut in, “what do you know about that old mansion? What kind of a gang is it that holds forth there?”
“You ought to know!” smiled the sheriff. “You called on them.”
“Yes, and they insisted on our making a longer visit!” grinned Alex.
“Now, what is it about the boy?” the sheriff said, changing the subject.
“You know all that I know about him,” replied Clay. “He ran away from us following the visit to the boat of the bank cashier and two friends.”
“Yes, I heard about that,” said the officer. “Now, will you be good enough to tell me if you have seen him since that night?”
“We have not, except that he returned to the Rambler during the dark hours and restored something he had taken away from her.”
“Are you sure it was the boy who came back with the leather bag?” asked the sheriff, with a most exasperating laugh. “Are you sure it was the boy?”
“I am not,” Clay answered, wonderingly. “I spoke too hastily. Come, Mr. Sheriff, tell me how you know anything about that leather bag.”
“I don’t know much about it, that’s the trouble,” was the reply. “I wish I knew more. Now, tell me this: Have you an appointment with this boy farther down the river? Do you expect to meet him again during your trip?”
Clay replied that he hoped to, and the sheriff said little more on the subject. He expected the sheriff to ask for the key to the deposit box, but he did not.
CHAPTER XXIII—A NIGHT IN NEW ORLEANS
“I believe,” Clay declared, after a long pause, during which the voices of negroes along the levee came softly through the night, “that you know something about the three persons we are just now interested in.”
“Name the three,” laughed the sheriff. “Who are they?”
“First, the man we have always called Red, the Robber.”
“You have referred to him before, my boy.”
“But you gave me no satisfaction,” urged Clay, eagerly. “Do you know him?”
“I have heard of a man who sometimes answers to the name of Red. What next?”
“The boy, Chester Vinton, accused of having had a hand in the Rock Island robbery.”
“Why do you think I know anything of him? If I knew where he was I’d be sure and keep him long enough to find out what he knows about that robbery!”
“And the third person is the cashier of the bank where I left the packet. What did he come on board the Rambler for? Who were the men with him?”
“The cashier said he was curious to see the famous boat, didn’t he?”
“Pshaw!” exclaimed Clay. “That wasn’t the reason he came on board! Honest, now, didn’t he expect to find some of the plunder taken from the warehouse on the boat?”
“I don’t know what he expected to find, I’m sure. I have never talked with him.”
“Now,” Clay went on, “you have referred to the leather bag, the one thrown on the deck of the Rambler. Who told you about the bag if the cashier didn’t? I begin to think the cashier took the bag and threw it back, or caused it to be thrown back, when he discovered that it contained nothing of value.”
“What did it contain when you first saw it?” asked the sheriff, a twinkle in his eyes. “Let us talk about that, for a time!”
“I’m going to show you,” Clay replied, half angrily, “that I can be just as secretive as you can! I don’t know anything about the leather bag!”
“Well,” the officer went on, with a puzzling expression on his face, “if you come across this boy Chet will you let me know about it?”
“No, I won’t!” replied Clay.
“That’s right! Speak right up, promptly! Now I know just what to expect!”
“You might clear up the whole matter,” Clay complained, “and yet you won’t open your mouth! I’m not going to assist you—not if I get a chance, which is doubtful.”
“Well,” said the sheriff, moving toward the boats, “I must be getting along! I may see you later. If you come back this way don’t forget that you are all to be my guests for a few days. I really want to get better acquainted with you boys.”
“We’ll think it over,” laughed Clay. “We’re thankful for the invitation, anyway.”
“And when you get down below New Orleans,” the officer suggested, “look out for the real thing in pirates! That boat of yours would make a fine craft for a freebooter. And human life is not regarded as very valuable down there.”
“We’ll be careful, thank you!” Clay answered, and the sheriff and his men went off in their boats, leaving the boys looking wonderingly at their retreating forms.
“Now,” Alex. grumbled, “what did they come here for, anyway? They simply let us know that they were wise to our troubles and went away—without finding out anything, or giving us any information except that they were acquainted with our movements.”
“They did ask for the boy Chet,” suggested Case.
“Don’t you suppose they know what it was I put in the deposit box at the bank?” asked Clay. “Of course they know! Now, why didn’t the sheriff demand the key and claim the diamonds as stolen property?”
“It is peaches to prunes that he has opened the box long before this, or that some one has!” Alex. put in. “He’s the original little pry-in!”
“I’m all out of guesses,” Jule declared, “and so I’m going to bed.”
The boys saw nothing of the sheriff the next morning. They were on their way at an early hour, and, going at a swift clip, were within sight of New Orleans by nightfall.
“Shall we spend the night in the city?” asked Case, then.
“And where would we leave the Rambler?” asked Jule. “If we left it on the river we wouldn’t have any boat in the morning.”
Without deciding the point the boys tied up some distance above the city and prepared supper. The moon arose in a clear sky about eight o’clock and the boys did not turn on the electric lights after eating. They sat in the moonlight on the deck and watched Captain Joe, Teddy and Mose tumbling about.
“If it wasn’t so much trouble to dress,” Case said, after a time, “I’d like to go to a theatre to-night, and have a swell supper afterwards.”
“You don’t want much!” laughed Clay.
“Why not go, then?” asked Alex. “I’m not too lazy to put on a decent suit.”
“Do you mean it?” demanded Case, rising from his chair.
“If the others will stay and guard the boat I mean it,” was the reply.
“Go if you want to,” Clay answered the inquiring look, “for Jule and Mose can help me keep off the pirates! Only don’t remain away all night.”
“Ah done like to see dis town!” Mose suggested.
“You’ll have to wait until some other time, Mose,” Clay replied. “You must stay on board and help repel boarders now!”
The little negro grinned as if perfectly satisfied with the arrangement, and went on with his boxing match with Teddy. Case and Alex. dressed as rapidly as possible and were taken ashore, in the four-oared boat captured above Memphis, at the foot of a street not far from a trolley line running to the business center of the city. When Clay returned with the rowboat, Mose was on one of the willow mattresses which had been brought down the river.
In a few minutes Clay called to him to come on board, but there was no reply. Mose was nowhere in sight. He had evidently started out to see the city on his own hook!
“I reckon that is the last we’ll ever see of him,” Jule commented, as they gave up the search for the boy. “He’ll get to shooting craps in the city and live there forever. Can’t do anything with a kid like that.”
“It is hard work to knock any sense into the head of a boy brought up on the St. Louis levee,” Clay admitted, “but I hope he’ll return.”
“Perhaps he followed Case and Alex., and will return with them,” Jule suggested.
“That would be like him,” Clay admitted.
The boys were not sleepy and the moonlight was fine, so they sat on the deck until midnight, waiting for the others to return. They had not returned at one o’clock, and the watchers were becoming anxious when a call from the shore came to their ears. In a moment the call was repeated, shriller than before, and then there followed a splash in the river and a shot.
The boys saw a figure swimming toward the Rambler and got out their guns.
“Doesn’t look very formidable!” Clay observed, as the figure came nearer. “It looks like Mose! Now, what the mischief is the little coon up to, I’d like to know?”
“It is Mose, all right,” Jule assented, “and there’s some one on shore shooting at him. He may have been up to some of his pranks on shore.”
Directly the shooting on the shore ceased, and then Mose came on faster, not being obliged to swim under water half the time. He crawled, chilly and dripping, on deck and rolled his eyes at Clay.
“Dey done got um!” he exclaimed.
“What about it?” demanded Jule. “Who’s got them?”
After much questioning it was learned that Mose had left the Rambler in time to overtake Case and Alex., that he had followed them into the city, and had seen them talking with Chet Vinton, the mysterious boy who seemed to turn up in the oddest places and to disappear in the strangest manner.
The boys had talked with Chet for a long time, the little negro said, and had not gone to the theatre at all. Instead, they had gone into a disreputable part of the city with the boy, and had there met two men believed by the negro to be thieves.
At last, at a late hour, the boy declared, still with much hesitation, Case and Alex. had attempted to leave the little cottage where they were sitting and had been forcibly detained. Chet, Mose said, had been the first one to oppose their departure. Then he, Mose, had dashed away to warn those on the boat and had been followed by some of the men he had been watching.
He described in glowing terms and very bad English how he had jumped fences and chased through moonlit backyards, and how he had been shot at at every step of the way!
“I reckon you were shot at because some one mistook you for a thief.”
Mose looked reproachfully at Jule, and rolled his eyes wider than ever.
“What are we going to do now?” questioned Clay. “I don’t know how much of this story to believe.”
“One of us might leave the boat and go back with Mose,” the other suggested.
At mention of his going back to the place from which he had fled, Mose rushed into the cabin, lowered his bunk, and covered up, head and ears, in the bedclothes! Captain Joe tried to worry him out, but without success.
“I believe the dog can find them,” Clay remarked, presently.
“I’m willing to go and try what he can do,” Jule answered.
“If we could get that foolish negro to come along!” Clay commented.
Jule went back to the bunk and shook Mose by the shoulder.
“Come on,” he cried. “We’re going to take Captain Joe out with us and find the boys. You’ll have to go along and show the way!”
“Fo’ de Law’d’s sake!” wailed the boy. “Let dis coon die in hes bed!”
“Come on!” insisted Jule. “You’ve got to come.”
After many arguments and many promises of reward in the shape of yellow shoes and red shirts, the boy consented to go ashore again. Clay warned Jule to be watchful and cautious and saw him go away with Mose and Captain Joe with a feeling that a great deal depended on his good judgment.
Jule and Mose were obliged to wait some time for a late car, and the walk to the quarter of the city toward which their steps were turned was a long one, so it was nearly three o’clock in the morning when they came to a dilapidated old shanty near the river front. Mose declared this was the place, and Captain Joe seemed to think so also, for he said quite positively, in his best dog-English, that there were people he knew in that old ruin, which was dark in every window and door.
Now and then, as the boys and the dog stood in front of the house, loiterers of the night paused in their aimless wanderings and regarded them speculatively, possibly mistaking them for disreputables like themselves. For a long time there was no sign of life in the house, and then a soft footstep was heard at the front door and the boys heard a knob stealthily turned.
Listen as they might, they heard nothing more for a long time, and then a figure dropped softly out of an open window and moved off toward the river, evidently failing to see the watchers crouched near at hand.
“That’s Chet!” Jule muttered, starting away, but Mose shook his head vigorously.
CHAPTER XXIV—SOMETHING DOING ALL THE TIME
Jule was at a loss what course to pursue. The boy who had left the house might be Chet, in which case he felt that he ought to follow and induce him to return to the Rambler, if that were possible.
The diamonds which had been placed in the deposit vault belonged to Chet. At least the boy had had them in his possession when he came aboard the boat, and in the absence of any other claim upon them they belonged to him. If they did not belong to him, then their owner ought to be found. If they did, he ought to have possession of them.
Just how a boy had become possessed of a fortune in precious stones, Jule was not trying to figure out at that time. What was in his mind was the thought that the question of ownership ought to be settled at once. This question, he believed, could best be settled by the boy himself.
He waived, for the time being, all consideration of the possible connection of the gems with the Rock Island robbery, all consideration of the possible connection of the boy with the man known to him as Red, the Robber. Chet himself could best decide the question of ownership, and Jule thought he ought to be taken back to the boat, by force if necessary.
Just as the boy was on the point of pursuing the figure, now fast disappearing in the shadows along the levee, Mose pulled at his arm and pointed to Captain Joe. The dog, with short ears and tail rampant, was crouching close to the closed door of the house, uttering low growls as his paws moved toward the threshold.
“Alex. in dar!” the little negro exclaimed.
Then there came a heavy, stumbling footstep along the walk, and a burly man in the garb of a riverman paused at the door, overlooking the boys crouched at the angle of the house, but cursing the dog drunkenly. Captain Joe behaved remarkably well under the kicks delivered at him, and the newcomer took a key from his pocket and opened the door. Before he could enter the dog had disappeared in the darkness of the interior.
“I reckon Alex. is in there, perhaps Case, too,” Jule muttered.
“Yo’ sure cain’t fool dat purp!” Mose whispered.
The boys did not attempt to follow on into the house by the open doorway, but passed on to the window and entered there. All was still dark inside. They could hear the man who had just entered moving about, still striking at and cursing the dog.
Directly another key was turned, and then all was confusion. Jule switched on his flashlight and the circle it cut in the darkness revealed the man standing in a doorway with a long-barreled revolver in one shaking hand. The casings of the doorway appeared to be of two-inch plank, and the door itself was crossed by iron bands.
The man turned as the light flashed out and fired, the bullet going wide of the mark. Then a voice came from the interior of the room, a voice which brought joy to the hearts of boys outside. The voice of Alex.
“Get him, Joe!” the voice cried. “Get him good!”
The man wheeled and shot at the springing dog, but the bullet went off into the ragged ceiling instead of into Captain Joe’s head, as intended. Directly the dog and the man were in a struggle on the floor, the only light Jule’s electric.
Alex. and Case came out of the room, leaping over the fighters, and seized Jule and Mose in enthusiastic embraces.
“Wait!” Jule commanded. “Get the man on the floor first. The dog will take his life. Joe!” he added, “let go!”
“Take him away!” shrieked the man. “He’s chewed my arm off now!”
Jule picked up the fallen man’s revolver and held it to his head while Alex. forced the dog away. There was blood on Captain Joe’s jaws, and the man on the floor was breathing heavily.
“Shut the door and put down the window!” Alex. said, presently, “and put the light out! There’s no more fight in this chap just now.”
“Here, I’ll fix him,” Case said. “I’ll chuck him into this refrigerator and lock him up. See how well he likes his own medicine.”
“But he’ll get right out!” advised Jule.
“Oh, will he!” Alex. answered. “Then he’ll do more than we could. I’ll bet the walls of that hole are a foot thick! And the air? I’m choked to death.”
“We tried our best to get out and couldn’t,” Case added.
“Suppose we see if he is badly hurt before we leave him?” Jule put in.
An examination showed that the dog had seized the fellow by the shoulder and bitten through the flesh, making an ugly though not serious wound.
“That won’t hurt him!” Alex. declared. “His chums will come and get him in the morning, anyway. Chuck him in and lock the door and we’ll climb out of this!”
“Isn’t the place watched?” asked Jule, peering out cautiously.
“It would be if the outlaws weren’t drunk,” Alex. replied. “There’s a copper over on the other side of the street. Probably he heard the shots. We’ll duck out of a back window and make for the Rambler.”
The boys were watched furtively by the policemen in that section of the city as they made their way along the streets with the dog, but they were not molested. When they came to the residence district where there was little fear of their being followed, Jule turned to Alex. with a grin.
“How did you like the play?” he asked?
“You saw about as much of it as we did!” was the reply.
“How did you come to get into such a scrape?” was the next question.
“The outlaws followed us from the boat,” was the answer. “Oh, yes they did,” the boy insisted as Jule grinned. “They were waiting for the Rambler to come down stream! They thought we had the diamonds and were going into the city to dispose of them. They swore they’d keep us in that hole, without food or drink, until we told them where the stones were! I wish I’d never heard of the diamonds!”
“Who was the other boy?” asked Jule.
“The other boy? Where? When? Oh, that was Chet! We’ll settle with him!”
“The lad who jumped out of an open window just before we got in and ducked away toward the river. Was that Chet?”
“Blessed if I know!” Alex. answered. “It might have been.”
“I believe that really was Chet!” Jule declared. “It looked like him.”
“How did you get here?” asked Case. “You’re a wonder! And Mose and Joe, too!”
As the boys walked along the story of Mose’s runaway expedition was told, and Alex. immediately grasped the little negro boy by the collar.
“You’re a little brick!” he exclaimed, “and I’m going to see that you have a ’possum for dinner to-morrow—or to-day, rather—if there is one to be found in the city.”
“It is a wonder,” Case commented, “that the fellows didn’t make an attack on the Rambler! After they searched us, they talked for a long time in whispers and then started away. I believe they did go to the boat—and Clay there alone!”
“We ought to make better time,” Jule observed. “Where do we get the trolley?”
“Unless we get an owl car,” Alex. replied, “we’ll get none at all until the early run, and that will be after five o’clock. Guess we’ve got to walk it.”
Eager, yet almost dreading, to learn the exact state of affairs on the motor boat, the boys traveled fast, breaking into a run now and then, much to the wonder and amazement of the few negroes they encountered making their way to the business section.
At last, just before daylight, they came in sight of the boat. A short distance up the bank a bright camp-fire was burning, and several figures could be seen moving around it. All was quiet on board the Rambler. No lights were in sight, either from the cabin or the prow. The boys waited a short time, wondering, and then Jule went to the levee and looked for the rowboat. It was not there.
“They’ve got possession, I reckon,” he said, when he came back.
“Then all we’ve got to do is to take it away from them!” Alex. suggested.
“But how?” asked Jule. “We can’t go on board without their seeing us.”
“First,” Alex. went on, “I’m going to make a sneak up to that fire and find out what those men are talking about. They may be all-right fellows, for all we know.”
The others waited breathlessly for the boy’s return. When he came back he said:
“They’ve been on board and ransacked the cabin. They found no one there! Now, what do you think has become of Clay?” he added.
“It’s a wonder they didn’t run off with the boat,” Case said.
“Oh, they wouldn’t do that,” Alex. ventured. “They want to get us. I half believe the men are officers. What gets me is what they built that fire for?”
“Probably thought we were fools enough to run up to it,” hazarded Jule.
“But where is Clay?” demanded Case. “We’ve got to find him. Do you know if they left any one on board the boat?”
“I didn’t hear anything said about that,” was the reply, “but it is a cinch that they did. And I believe there’s more than one on board, too.”
“Hard luck to lose the boat after getting so far on our journey!” Jule commented.
“We don’t lose the boat, if they are officers,” Alex. hastened to say. “What they want is the crew! We’ll fool ’em at that. I’m going to swim over and see what’s doing on board. If everything is all right, I’ll make a noise like an owl.”
“That’s a nice long swim,” Case objected. “I don’t think you can make it.”
“Mose made it, didn’t you, coon?” Alex. replied. “I’m the boy that poured the water into the Mississippi! Nice adventure this?” he continued. “I’m going to give the residents of the valley a chromo each for the manner in which we have been entertained by them! Here goes for the Rambler!”
“You act like you meant to walk back to Chicago,” Case suggested, as Alex. started away, turning away from the river in order to avoid the people at the fire.
“Oh, I’m only going to walk up a little way and drift as I swim down.”
“Come up on the other side, then,” Case cautioned. “Then you won’t be seen.”
When Alex. started away on his perilous trip Mose disappeared, and Captain Joe was nowhere to be seen the next minute. Case searched and grumbled, but did not find them.
“They’ve gone with Alex.,” he suggested. “They always do. Well, let them go, they can swim better than I can! Wish I was along, also.”
“If they are officers, the men at the fire,” Jule asked, “why don’t we go right up to them and find out what’s doing? They won’t lock us up, will they?”
“That is just about what they will do if they get us,” was the slow reply. “We would get out of jail in time, but who wants to lie in a cell when there is so much fun to be had on the river? These fellows have been wired to head us off, probably by the sheriff we met up there. It may be that the diamonds Clay put in the deposit box have been identified as the ones stolen from Rock Island. I wish Chet would show up right now!”
“Oh, well, if they want to coop us up,” Jule agreed, “we’d better cut our luck until they find out who stole the diamonds—or, at any rate, find out that we didn’t.”
The boy ceased speaking suddenly, for the motor boat was getting under way, heading down toward the business wharves!
CHAPTER XXV—COMMONPLACE, AFTER ALL
“Can that be Alex. moving the Rambler?” asked Case, as the motors sputtered out their insistent clamor. “I don’t believe he has had time to get on board yet.”
“Well, Captain Joe has, anyway!” Jule declared, as a sharp bark came from the craft, which now seemed to be turning around. “That’s the Captain’s voice, all right.”
Standing high on the levee, with the lights of the city growing below them, the lads watched the Rambler for a moment and then started on a run up the stream toward a small landing that was not far from the camp-fire.
“If Alex. wasn’t on board,” Case reasoned, “Captain Joe wouldn’t be there. If Alex. is running the boat up to that landing, it is safe for us to go there.”
The Rambler did tie up at the landing, and then the boys saw that the rowboat they had missed was tied to her stern. The willow mattresses were also still hanging on to the cords to which they had been tied. The men at the fire started up toward the landing as the boys reached it, but, much to the surprise of the lads, they did not attempt to go on board. In a moment Clay, Alex. and Mose showed their faces on deck.
“Come aboard!” shouted Alex. “I’ve arranged a surprise party for you here.”
“What is Chet doing on there?” demanded Case. “I thought we left him with his new friends, the thieves, in that old house in the city.”
“This is no time for story-telling!” said another voice on board, and the man who had been known as Red, the Robber, came out of the cabin and sat down, calmly, on the gunwale. The boys on shore were, by this time, prepared for almost anything. When they reached the deck, Red waved a farewell to the men on the levee and the boat whirled down toward the Gulf of Mexico.
“You see,” Alex. grinned, “we don’t know where we are going, but we are on our way.”
“I know!” Clay insisted, “we are going to complete our trip to the Gulf of Mexico. We’ve had all the mystery we need on this voyage, and the next one that starts anything in that line will be banished to one of the mattresses!”
“All right,” Alex. retorted. “We don’t care about knowing what this all means! I reckon it is too commonplace to refer to again.”
He grinned at Red and Chet as he spoke, and they both laughed back at him.
“We have with us to-night,” Alex. went on, in a very good imitation of the after-dinner orator, “Red, the Robber! His specialty is taking boats away from boys and sneaking off down the river with them—until some one gets the drop on him!
“We also have with us,” he continued, “Chester Vinton, the waif who was rescued from a barren island in the Mississippi with a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of diamonds in his possession! He will soon do his stunt of telling how he found them in a piece of pie at a Rock Island restaurant.
“This wonderful Chet is also the last word in friendship. When he sees boys who have befriended him, it is his habit to turn them over to thieves, who lock them up—not in anger, but to protect them from other naughty boys!”
Instead of showing anger at this blunt talk, Red and Chet sat down on the gunwale and laughed until the river echoed back their voices. Clay also seemed much amused.
“What’s the answer?” demanded Case, turning to Chet.
“Now you boys just wait a short time,” Red observed, “and you’ll know all about it. I would tell you right now, only I see how hungry you all are. And, seeing that I have a monster beefsteak in the cabin, with ducks ready to roast, and eggs ready to fry, why, it seems like we ought to eat before we mix with any long yarns!”
So Case and Alex. took to the cabin, and the odors of steak and coffee and roasting duck soon filled the boat. While the good things were cooking the Rambler dropped down to a wharf where a tank wagon of gasoline awaited them, and there, also, loads of provisions of all kinds were put on board.
And the strangest part of it all was that there was nothing to pay! Red appeared to have temporary charge of the boat, and the bills seemed to have all been paid in advance. They were headed down stream when breakfast was eaten.
“We ought to reach the Gulf in three or four weeks, if we hurry!” Red observed, as he carved the ducks. “That is, if we hurry in the right way!”
“I thought it would take until spring,” Chet broke in. “I hoped so!”
Alex. regarded the two with a whimsical smile on his freckled face.
“How long will it be before you’ll both disappear?” he asked.
“Never again!” laughed Chet. “Say, boys, I did make a quick get-away a couple of times? What? I hated to go, but I just had to.”
“Yes, and you prevented Case and I making one at the house in the city,” Alex. said.
“It is all as simple as twice two,” Red observed, sitting back from the table. “The robbery at Rock Island was planned and carried out by Sam, the outlaw who assisted me in the capture of the Rambler. I knew that at the time I was with him—at the time I let him go—or when you boys did, rather.”
“But why didn’t you pinch him?” demanded Alex. “There’s a reward.”
“Because I hadn’t then discovered the goods which had been taken. He was going to take me to them, I being a possible purchaser!”
“Well, of all the nerve!” Jule cut in. “Just think of that, now!”
“Were they in that old house on the bayou?” asked Alex.
“Some of them were. As soon as I got off your boat I wired back to have the place surrounded and searched. They found all the silks and furs there! You boys did a good job for me when you permitted yourselves to be trapped.”
“It was Captain Joe and Mose who did the good job when they got us out!” Jule said.
“Did you find Sam again?” asked Case, in a moment. “He was a corker!”
“You boys found him in the swamp,” Red replied soberly, “and Mose executed the sentence of the law upon him—hanged him by the neck!”
“So you are a detective?” asked Case. “Why didn’t you say so?”
“I am not,” was the reply. “I am the owner of the warehouse that was robbed, and I set out to get the goods back, that is all.”
“But you asked us to take Chet on down the river when he had the diamonds in his clothes!” Alex. exclaimed. “What about that? It was a funny stunt.”
“Of course I didn’t know that he had the diamonds,” added Red, now to be known as Mr. George Redmond. “He told me about his having had them when I told him that Sam was dead, that was last night, in New Orleans. Then he told me that he had taken the diamonds from Sam because he wanted to restore them to me, but had promised Sam that he would never reveal his, Sam’s, connection with the crime. Of course Sam never knew positively that the boy had stolen the diamonds, but he suspected.”
“And sent this riverman, Gid Brent, on board at Cairo to see if the boy was there?”
“Yes, he did that. By that time I was satisfied that the boy had been in on the robbery—that he had been forced to enter the building by way of a window and open the door for the thieves to enter.
“I knew that the boy would tell the whole story to me if I could get him away from the robbers, and not scare him half to death by putting him in jail. So I followed him along down the river. As the robbers were making their way down toward New Orleans, too, I was doing a pretty good job following him—and especially as the robbers were after him, too. They believed, all but Sam, he had taken the diamonds, you see.
“They got him last night and searched him, but found nothing. Then they told him that if he would get Alex. and Case into their hands they would let him go. So Chet did that very thing, and now the two boys are witnesses that the robbers admitted to them that they were in on the robbery!
“When they let Chet go he made for the Rambler on a run, and found me on the way. All the people who were in the old house are under arrest. And the diamonds are up at Memphis in the deposit vault, and all is well.”
“How do you know that?” demanded Clay.
“Why, we opened the box, the cashier and I,” was the reply. “I knew they were there before I knew that Chet had ever had them. My one great difficulty was to get hold of the boy after he ran off at Memphis! Your boat was watched all the way down, you know, of course.”
Then Clay told of his talk with the sheriff, and they all laughed at the idea that they had not seen through it all long before.
“If Chet had kept to boats I could have found him,” Red went on, “but he rode on wreckage, and that made it difficult. I might have saved you boys and Chet some of this mystery talk if I had told you about it when I had Alex. in the cabin of my boat, after I knew where the diamonds were, but I thought I would let it work out for itself, especially as I was having the time of my life.”
“I suppose those three mechanics were detectives, too?” asked Case.
“They were just what they represented themselves to be,” was the reply, “and they got good positions at Vicksburg. They are expecting to meet you down the river, in a houseboat of their own. I saw them soon after they left you.”
“I don’t wonder the robbers wanted to get hold of Chet,” laughed Alex. “They must have been red-headed when they found that the diamonds had been stolen from them!”
“Yes, they were,” replied Chet, “but they didn’t suspect me, at first. The man Brent, who came on board the Rambler at Cairo, would have killed me had he found me there. I was afraid he would, so I took to the river.”
“And you took to the river again the night you threw the bag back on deck, too.”
“Yes, I got pretty cold, too. I knew where the bag was, in the cabin, all the time, and I thought the diamonds were in it. Believing it would be safe, I did not take it and run away, as I had threatened to do, but when the cashier and another came on the boat I did take it and skip. When I found that the diamonds were not there I threw the bag back just to let you know I was wise to the game,” he added.
“It is a commonplace story, after all, when you come to get it all told,” said Mr. Redmond. “If it has spoiled your river trip I’m sorry for it!”
“We wouldn’t have had any fun only for that!” cried Alex.
“Well,” Clay cut in, “now we’ll go down the river and have fun! We’ll spend two months or more on the way to the Gulf, and then we’ll put the motor boat on board a ship and sail her around to some point where we can get into the St. Lawrence river. The St. Lawrence comes next, you know.”
“Why not put her on a gondola car again and take her as near to the headwaters of the St. Lawrence as we can?” asked Case. “I’d rather float down than sail up, any day.”
“We will decide that when we get done here,” Clay answered.
Those were two golden months for the boys, and Mr. Redmond seemed to enjoy the outing fully as much as any of them. They fished and hunted and loafed in the numerous passages of the delta of the Mississippi, and built roaring fires on the knolls, when they found them, and lived the care-free lives boys enjoy so much.
And then they were off for Chicago, and from there to the headwaters of the St. Lawrence. Their adventures on this noble river will be found in the next volume of this series; entitled:
“The Six River Motor Boys on the St. Lawrence; or, the Lost Channel.”
THE END.