After the departure of Alex and Case from the Rambler, Clay and Jule drew out the two mysterious messages they had received and studied them over carefully.
“What do you think about this lost channel proposition?” asked Jule.
“If a channel ever went through the neck of land as shown by the map, that section must have been visited by an earthquake,” Clay laughed. “There isn’t a sign of a channel there. Instead, there’s a great high ledge of rock crossing the peninsula, just where the line shows the channel ought to be. It is my private opinion that no water ever crossed that peninsula. There must be some mistake in location.”
“The men who made the map might have drawn the line indicating the channel in the wrong place,” Jule suggested.
“Well,” Clay concluded, “we’ll have a look at it when we go back, but what I can’t understand is why the map should have been given to the wrong party. If a man had such a map in any way accurate, he would have presented it to Fontenelle in person and demanded a stiff price for it.”
“It looks that way to me!” Jule agreed.
There was a volume in the cabin of the Rambler descriptive of the St. Lawrence river from the gulf to Lake Ontario. This the boys brought out and studied diligently until a late hour.
At last Clay arose, yawned, and looked at his watch.
“I wonder why Alex and Case don’t return!” he asked. “It can’t be possible that that little scamp has gone and lost himself again, can it?”
“Just like him!” snickered Jule. “If I had a dollar for every time he’s been lost I’d have all the money I will ever need.”
“That’s pretty near the truth!” Clay agreed. “However, we’ve got Captain Joe and Teddy left with us to help look him up.”
He leaned back in his chair and whistled to the dog, but no Captain Joe made his appearance. Teddy came shambling into the cabin and held out a paw, suggesting sugar. Clay glanced up at Jule with puzzled eyes.
“Isn’t the dog out on deck?” he asked.
The boy hastened out and returned in a moment with the information that the bulldog was nowhere in sight.
“Have you seen him since Alex and Case left?” Clay asked.
“He was here quite a spell after they went away, but he didn’t seem contented. All the time I was on deck he was walking back and forth looking longingly over into the city.”
“Then he’s followed the boys,” Clay agreed. “We won’t see him again until they return. The only wonder is that Teddy didn’t go with him.”
“We’ll have to get steel cages made for our menagerie,” Jule proposed. “We can’t keep a single member of our happy family on the boat when Alex is away. No one else seems to count with them.”
The boys were not inclined to sleep, so they sat watchfully in the cabin with the electricity off. Spears of light came from warehouse offices on the pier, and far up the street a great arc light made the thoroughfare almost plain to the eye as day. The roar of night traffic in the city and the wash of the river drowned all individual sounds, and the boys sat in what amounted to silence so far as any noises directly on the boat were concerned.
Somewhere along toward midnight, when they had about given up hope of the immediate return of the boys, there came a quick jar, and the boat swayed as if under the foot of a person mounting the deck.
“There they are, I reckon!” Jule shouted, passing to the cabin door which was open to admit the cool breeze of the night.
Clay stepped forward, too, but paused in a moment and drew Alex back. A crouching figure was now discernible on the prow, and Clay reached for the switch which controlled the lamp there.
With his hand almost to the switch Clay stopped and turned back to where Jule stood, searching his bunk for an automatic which had been placed there. Then the boat swayed again, and there were three figures on the deck instead of one. The light from the street showed only bare outlines. The whole scene was uncanny.
“I don’t know what to make of this,” Clay whispered. “Shall we turn on the light, or shall we begin shooting right now?”
“If we turn on the light,” Jule whispered back, “they’ll see us. At present, they undoubtedly believe the boat to be deserted.”
“I think they’ll run if we turn on the lights,” Clay suggested, softly. “They’re probably river thieves looking for plunder.”
The men on the deck now grouped together, evidently whispering, and trying to decide upon some course of action. In the faint light, they seemed to be hulking, heavily-built men, and the boys were not anxious to come into close contact with them.
“It may be just as well,” Clay finally decided, “to remain quiet for a short time and see what they intend to do.”
“That’s easy,” Jule whispered, “they intend to steal the boat.”
“A good many other people have tried to steal this boat,” Clay responded, “but we still seem to be in possession of it!”
After standing for a minute or two near the prow, the intruders moved stealthily toward the cabin. The door was open, but all was dark inside. As they slouched forward, their footsteps made no sound upon the deck.
“Shall we shoot to kill?” whispered Jule. “I’m tired of having the scum of the earth always attempting to rob us.”
“I’d never get over it if I should kill some one,” Clay replied. “We’d better frighten them away and see that no more get on board to-night.”
As he spoke, the boy reached for the switch and turned it. Greatly to his amazement, the prow lamp remained dark. In some strange manner the intruders had disconnected the wires or broken the globe. The click of the switch seemed to have reached their ears, informing them that some one was on board.
They rushed toward the cabin and came solidly against the door which was quickly shut, almost in their faces. The lock rattled sharply under the assault of a muscular hand, and the whole front of the cabin quivered and creaked under the weight of a burly body.
“Open up here!” shouted a gruff voice. “Open up, or we’ll break the door down. We knew you were here all the time!”
“This begins to look serious,” whispered Clay. “We may have to shoot.”
“Say the word,” Jule suggested, “and I’ll make the front of the cabin look like a sieve, and every bullet will count, too.”
“I’d like to aid in the capture of a couple of those fellows,” Clay said, “and I wonder if one of us couldn’t get out of the rear window, jump over on the pier, and call the police. Such ruffians ought not to be at liberty.”
“All right,” Jule whispered. “You go, and I’ll stay here and talk to them until you get out. I can keep them amused all right.”
While this short conversation had been in progress the pounding at the door had continued, and now something heavy, like a timber or a very heavy foot, came banging against the panels.
“Just a minute more,” one of the midnight prowlers shouted, “and we’ll break this door down and get you boys good!”
Clay moved to the rear of the cabin, drew in the swinging sash, and stepped lightly out on the after deck. The lights along the river front were fewer now, and the windows of the warehouses, illuminated an hour before, were dark. A roaring wind was blowing up the river, and the wash of the waves was rocking the Rambler unpleasantly.
In all the long street in sight from the pier there was no sign of a uniformed officer. Clay did not know how far he would have to run to find one, so he decided to remain where he was for a time and, if necessary, perhaps attack the intruders from the rear.
Crouching low on the after deck, he could hear Jule talking to the outlaws, and smiled as he listened to the boy’s attempts to interest them.
“If you break down that door,” he heard Jule say, “you’ll have to pay for it! That door cost money.”
A volley of oaths and river billingsgate followed the remark, and blows which fairly shook the cabin came upon the sturdy panels.
While Clay sat listening, half resolved to make his way over to the pier and fire a few shots over the heads of the ruffians, a figure dropped lightly on the deck at his side and Teddy’s soft muzzle was pressed against his face. He stroked the bear gently.
“I don’t blame you for getting out of there, Teddy,” he said. “They’ll wreck the boat if we don’t do something pretty soon. What would you advise, old chap?” he added whimsically.
Teddy sniffed the air in the direction of the pier and clambered clumsily up to the top of the cabin.
“I wouldn’t go up there if I were you,” Clay advised.
Teddy continued his way over the roof and finally came to the forward edge. Clay raised his head to the level of the roof and watched him. As he did so a round circle of light sprang up at the head of the pier, flashed toward the river for a moment, and died out. The next moment a sound of some one stumbling over a bale of goods reached his ears. Then the light flashed out again, and the pounding on the cabin door ceased.
“Now I wonder,” Clay pondered, “if that isn’t Alex and Case! They usually have their searchlights with them, and Case is always stumbling over something. It would be fine to have them appear now!”
Directly a finger of light shot down the pier, and under it a white body swung toward the boat. Clay crawled back through the window and approached the door, where Jule was still standing with his automatic in his hand.
The pounding had now ceased entirely, the men evidently having been warned by the light. It seemed to Clay that the unwelcome visitors were now crouching in the darkness ready to attack any one who might attempt to come on board.
“Just wait a minute,” whispered Clay in Jule’s ear. “Just you wait a minute, and there’ll be something pulled off here! If I’m not mistaken, this drama is going to shift to a comedy in about one minute.”
“I don’t understand what you mean by that,” Jule declared. “What new deviltry are those fellows planning?” he added.
“In just about a second you’ll see,” Clay repeated. “The only wonder is that Captain Joe hasn’t pulled off his stunt before this.”
“Captain Joe isn’t here,” replied Jule doubtfully.
Then the boat swayed frightfully, tipping toward the pier. There was a heavy thud on deck, and cries of fright and pain, followed by another thud.
“Captain Joe isn’t here, eh?” shouted Clay unlocking and opening the door. “Just look at that mess out there.”
The white bulldog was mixing freely with the intruders, who seemed to be devoting their best energy to getting off the boat. There was a struggling, cursing, growling mass in the middle of the deck, and then from the roof of the cabin leaped another combatant!
Seeing the dog mixing with the pirates, and evidently believing that some new game was in progress, the cub leaped fairly into the midst of the struggling mass! If the men had been frightened before, they were now wild with terror. It seemed to them as if the bear had dropped from the clouds. They felt his teeth and claws, and the rough hair of him appeared to bristle like the quills of a porcupine.
Frightened beyond all measure, rendered more desperate still by the onrush of the boys from the cabin, the outlaws finally succeeded in breaking away and springing to the pier. As they did so, they nearly fell over Alex and Case who were making all haste to ascertain the cause of the excitement on the Rambler.
In a moment, however, they were up and away, clattering like race-horses up the pier.
When Alex and Case reached the deck of the Rambler, they found Clay and Jule leaning against the gunwale laughing hard enough to split their sides. A searchlight in the latter’s hand revealed Captain Joe and Teddy standing by the cabin door, looking around as if inquiring what it all meant.
“Well,” Alex said, producing his own searchlight, “if there’s anything funny going on here, you’d better be passing it round.”
“Where have you been?” demanded Clay the next moment.
“Been?” repeated Alex. “We’ve been up in the air!”
“That’s no fairy tale, either,” Case cut in. “We’ve been arrested, and released, and attacked, and pommeled, and now we strike some kind of a minstrel show. What’s been going on?”
“You’ve been arrested, have you?” laughed Jule, paying no attention to the question. “Any old time you go away from this boat and don’t get into trouble, I’ll wire the news back to Chicago. What did you get pinched for, and how did you get away?”
“We got pinched because of Max,” replied Alex, “and we got out of it because we came upon a white policeman. We escaped from Max’s cronies because Captain Joe butted in and chewed up a few. That’s some dog, that is.”
“And he came back here and helped you out, too, it seems,” Case said. “I should think he was some dog!”
“And Teddy helped, too,” Clay laughed. “We had a show here for a little while that was worth the price of admission.”
“It didn’t look funny to me,” Jule protested. “I was scared stiff most of the time.”
After Alex and Case had replaced a broken globe on the prow light, told the story of their adventures, and explained that the chief of police had requested the privilege of looking over the boat in the morning, the boys moved the Rambler to a slip farther down the river and went to bed, Jule remaining on watch for the remainder of the night. The day had been a busy one and they were all tired.
Alex was out first in the morning, poking along the water front in the canoe which Max had deserted. After a time Clay came out of the cabin of the Rambler and called to him.
“Got a fish, Alex?”
Alex shook his head.
“The fish won’t bite my hook this morning!” he shouted back.
“Well,” Clay returned, “there’s a gudgeon up on shore that evidently wants to get hold of your hook, and you with it.”
Alex turned quickly and looked up the slip at the foot of which the canoe lay. He was just in time to see Max and another boy about his size disappearing behind a collection of goods’ boxes.
“Why didn’t you shoot him?” Alex called out to Clay. “You saw him first. He ought to be shot for what he did last night.”
Captain Joe now came out on the deck, yawning and stretching, and elevated his fore feet to the gunwale of the boat. Clay patted him on the head and pointed to the goods’ boxes behind which Max had disappeared.
“Do you think, Captain Joe,” he said to the dog, “that you could go and get a wharf rat this morning? I think there’s one behind that pile of boxes. You better go and see, anyway.”
Of course the dog did not understand all that was said to him—although the boys sometimes insisted that he did—but he did know what the pointing finger meant. He was over the gunwale in an instant, tearing up the side of the slip, barking and growling as he went.
“You’ll get that dog killed yet,” Alex called out to Clay. “That wharf rat of a Max is just like a snake. You don’t want to get near him unless you step squarely on his head.”
Both boys whistled return orders to the dog, but he would not come back. He seemed to remember that an old enemy was near at hand and turned the corner of the heap of boxes with a vicious snarl.
The next moment, Max appeared at the top of the heap, fending off the dog with a board he had ripped from a box.
“Call off your dog!” he shouted. “I want to get my canoe. You get out of it, kid, and leave it tied to the slip.”
“If you live long enough to see me give you this canoe,” Alex laughed, “you’ll be older than Noah before you die, and have whiskers forty feet long.”
“I’ll set the police on you!” threatened Max.
“You tried that last night,” grinned Alex.
“Come on down here,” urged Clay. “I’d like to know what kind of a penitentiary you received your early education in.”
“You’d like to have me come down there, wouldn’t you?” sneered Max. “You think you’ve got the police on your side, don’t you? But I know a couple of detectives that will fix you, all right. You needn’t think I’m going to let you run away with my canoe.”
“How’d you get up the river so quickly?” asked Clay. “Did you dive in east of the peninsula and swim under water to Quebec?”
“Oh, I got up on a steamer, all right,” was the reply, “and I’ve been here waiting for you ever since.”
“Do you happen to have a sore head this morning?” taunted Alex. “You must have got a bump or two last night.”
“You’ll get two for every one I got,” Max shouted, angrily. “Are you going to give me that canoe? I’m going to have it, you know.”
Alex deliberately paddled the canoe over to the Rambler, secured it with a light line, climbed to the deck, and set the motors in motion. Max yelled out a few threatening sentences and disappeared.
“We may as well be going up to the old pier,” he said, “for this dandy chief of police I discovered last night will be down to see us before long. He’s a right good fellow, that chief is.”
“You better hold up a minute,” Jule announced,
“Captain Joe is still behind those boxes. If Max could capture him, he’d have him in all the dog fights in Quebec.”
But Max was at this time taking to his heels up the street which ran down to the slip; and Captain Joe soon made his appearance, looking very much discouraged. He was taken on board, dripping with water, and Teddy received quite a bath by approaching him too suddenly. The bulldog enjoyed that.
The chief of police made his appearance soon after the boys had partaken of breakfast, and sat down to talk over the events of the preceding night.
“This boy, Max,” he explained, “is one of the queerest customers we have anything to do with. He lives in the streets, apparently without money or friends, and yet he frequently appears at a swell hotel handsomely dressed and with plenty of money in his pockets. He seems to have been well educated, as you have probably noticed from his conversation.”
“He talks like a graduate,” admitted Clay.
“Yes, and he’s one of the sharpest little chaps in the city. We are certain that he has had a hand in several bold robberies, yet it has up to this time been impossible to convict him. He is usually defended by first-class criminal lawyers, and his wharf rat companions seem to be very desirable witnesses for him.”
“Isn’t it possible,” asked Clay, “that the boy lives along the river front for some well defined, perhaps criminal, purpose of his own?”
“I’ve often thought of that,” answered the chief, “for he always takes great pains to make friends of the creatures of the underworld. Now and then he disappears from the city for a few days, or weeks, but always comes back to his old haunts.”
“Of course,” Clay said, “you are familiar with the Fontenelle land claim and the story of the lost charter and the missing family jewels?”
“Oh, yes,” answered the chief, smiling tolerantly, “every man, woman and child in Quebec knows all about the Fontenelle case. Old man Fontenelle is almost a monomaniac on the subject of the lost charter. He has spent thousands of dollars searching for it and claims that he would have discovered it long ago only for the active and criminal opposition of men who might lose heavily if it came again into his possession.”
“And the story of the lost channel?” asked Clay.
“There is a queer story of a lost channel,” the chief laughed, “but I’m afraid that it will always be a lost channel.”
“But Fontenelle is continually trying to locate it,” suggested Clay.
“Yes, but he has no more idea where to look for it than a child in a cradle. There is a place down the river where he thinks it might once have existed, but he has no clews of any kind.”
“Hasn’t even a map?” asked Clay, resolved to know exactly, as far as possible, what knowledge the Fontenelles had of the lost channel.
“No, not even a map,” answered the chief. “I tell you that the family has absolutely nothing to go by. Young Fontenelle, who is making most of the searches now, only goes out to please his father and to give his friends a pleasant summer vacation.”
And so the crude map which had been so mysteriously delivered to the boys was an entirely new element in the case! Who had drawn it, who had connived at its delivery, who had supplied the information buried in the legends of more than three hundred years!
Clay puzzled over the matter while the chief chatted with the other boys, but could reach no conclusion. Again he was tempted to reveal to an outsider the existence of the map, and again he forced himself to silence when the words were almost on his lips.
“I shall be laughed at if I say anything about the map,” he mused. “The chief will tell me that many a joke has been played on the Fontenelles, and that this was intended to be another. He will tell me that the Rambler was mistaken for the Cartier, and that there is no mystery, but only fraud, connected with either one of the messages we received that night.”
“You spoke of the Fontenelle claim in connection with the strange conduct of this boy Max,” the chief finally said to Clay. “Why did you do that? Can you see any possible connection between the two?”
Then Clay told of the boy’s appearance on the Rambler, referring also to the fact that he had been accompanied, apparently, by men who sought to seize the Rambler after it had been beached.
“And Fontenelle claims that these men were not river pirates at all,” Clay went on, “but says they are ruffians sent out to prevent his making a thorough search of the district where his father believes the lost channel to have been. In that case, this boy Max might in some way be connected with the enemies of the Fontenelles.”
“That is very true,” answered the chief, “and I’ll keep my eye on him after this, although I don’t take much stock in this lost charter business, at all.”
After a pleasant hour the chief shook hands with the boys and departed. Then the Rambler was headed upstream again. The boys had had enough of Quebec during that one night.
Thirty miles or more up the St. Lawrence from Quebec, the Jacques Cartier river enters the St. Lawrence from the north. The boys sighted the mouth of the stream just before twelve o’clock. At the same moment they saw a river steamer coming down toward them. The steamer was large for one plying above Quebec, and, fearing that the wash from her propeller would make trouble for the Rambler, they edged over to the mouth of the entering stream, in front of which lay a great, partly submerged sand bar.
The steamer came down, whistling and ringing, and the boys signaled for her to pass off to the right. Apparently scornful of so small a craft, the pilot kept her headed directly down stream in a course which would have brought about a collision with the motor boat.
The boys swung away toward the sand bar, trusting to good luck to keep them clear of it.
Just as she came opposite the bar, the helmsman of the steamer did what he should have done before, turned the prow sharply to the south. A wall of water from the stern of the boat came sweeping down upon the Rambler.
It caught her broadside, and in an instant she was beached high and dry on the bar, lying with her keel exposed and the furniture and fixtures in the cabin and store rooms rattling about like hailstones in a blizzard.
Tumbling heels over head, catching at the gunwale, scrambling away so as to be beyond reach of the boat if she should go over farther, the four boys, the bulldog and the bear brought up on the hot, dry sand.
Alex sat up, brushed the sand from his eyes, felt tenderly of a peeled nose, and shook his fist at the departing steamer.
“You might come back here and pull us off,” he shouted.
The people on the steamer gathered at the rail for a moment to laugh and joke at the plight in which they had left the boys, and then evidently forgot all about it.
“Now, what do you think of that?” cried Jule. “We’re thrown out of water for the first time in the history of the Rambler. Do you suppose she’s busted up much, Clay?”
“Aw, you couldn’t bust her up with a cannon,” shouted Alex. “We’ve probably lost some provisions, but this river will feed us all right.”
As for Teddy and Captain Joe, they turned astonished eyes at the boat which they had never seen in exactly that position before and started to clamber back on board. Teddy shambled clumsily up on deck, but Captain Joe, evidently changing his mind, returned to the hot sand and lay down.
In a moment a great crash came from on board the motor boat. Then Teddy came rolling down the incline of the deck hugging close to his breast with two capable paws, and taking many a bump in order that he might save his burden, a two quart can of strained honey.
“That stream,” Alex said, “will be just about large enough to clean up the bear after he has finished with that stolen honey.”
“That ain’t no stream,” said Jule, “That’s the lost channel.”
Teddy ran away to a distant part of the bar to eat his honey in peace, and the boys ruefully watched the river in hope of rescue.
“A lost channel and a lost boat! Still if we didn’t have adventures just like this, we’d be contented to remain on the South Branch in Chicago,” said Case. “It wouldn’t have been any fun if we had passed up the St. Lawrence without getting dumped on the sand.”
“Say, kid,” Jule said, pointing to Alex, “do you think you can swim over to the shore?”
“Swim over yourself!” advised Alex. “What do you want me to swim over for?”
“To get timber to block up this boat so you can cook dinner,” laughed Jule. “We can’t live on the sand which is here—that’s a pun, eh?”
“What have we got for dinner?” Clay asked, ignoring the pun. “Perhaps I’d better go aboard and look over our larder.”
“If you want to know where I’m going to get my dinner,” Alex observed, “just look down into the river. Those fish look pretty good to me, and I’m hungry enough to eat a whale.”
“If the time ever comes when you’re not hungry,” Case cut in, “the sun will rise in the west. You’re empty to your heels.”
“And I’m glad of it, too,” Alex shouted back. “But what I want to know,” he continued, “is how we’re ever going to get off this bar.”
“If we stay right here,” Case advised, “some boat will come along and pull us off. You don’t have to do anything unless you want to.”
But at that moment there were no boats in sight. Instead, a great raft of hewn timbers with a rough shanty in the middle of it came drifting down. Half a dozen river men ran to the edge of the float and eyed the Rambler keenly. They seemed amused at what had happened.
“Ship ahoy!” one of them called.
“Give us a rope,” Jule shouted.
“Got anything on board?” the man called back.
“What do you mean by anything?” Jule asked.
“Oh, anything under a cork!” answered the other.
“Row over here with a couple of cases and we’ll pay you for them,” said another voice.
“What do you take this for, a floating saloon?” asked Alex.
“That’s what!” came back over the water. “If you don’t send over something, we’ll come and get it.”
“Now that’s a nice proposition,” Case said to Clay. “Here we get turned almost bottom-side up on a sand bar, and a lot of wops think we’re bartenders and have whiskey to sell.”
“We ought not to let them on the bar at all,” Alex advised. “If they get here and can’t find what they want, they’re liable to take anything they can get their hands on. I’m for pulling out the guns and spattering a little lead over the water.”
“Are you going to send it over?” called the man from the raft.
“Go take a drink out of the river!” advised Jule.
“I’ll show you whether we will or not!”
All this time the raft had been drifting down stream, and the Rambler had, of course, remained stationary. As the man uttered this implied threat, he cast off the line of a boat, motioned to two men who stood near, and the three entered and began rowing toward the sand bar.
“We’ll overtake you in a half an hour,” the man who had done most of the talking from the raft called out to his companions, “and we’ll bring back something cheering if it is to be had on that boat.”
“About the only thing you’ll get on this boat,” Case shouted, “will be bullets. If you don’t sheer away, you’ll get a volley right now.”
The men stopped rowing and backed water as the boys drew their automatics and stood in a row at the edge of the bar.
“Aw, come on kids, give us a couple of cases and we’ll go on our way. We’re going to get it anyhow.”
“There isn’t a drop of intoxicating liquor on board,” Clay assured the man. “This is not a bumboat. We’re just boys out on a pleasure trip.”
“That’s what they all say!” roared a husky brute from the fast disappearing raft. “Go on, Steve, and get the goods.”
“You bet I will!” answered the raftsman, and again the men bent to their oars. Clay fired a warning shot and the boat paused again for a moment.
“Will you send us a case?” shouted the leader of the boat party.
“Send you a case of cartridges!” laughed Alex.
Two of the men now turned to the oars in order to keep the boat from drifting farther down, while the leader sat close to their seat, saying something to them in a low tone. The two oarsmen were shaking their heads, but the other was beating one hand against the other vigorously.
“I know,” the boys heard him say, raising his voice as he became excited “that that is the same boat, and that these are the same boys. You remember what I told you when I came up the river on a fast boat and hired out on the raft!”
The boys could not hear the reply, but presently the leader’s voice sounded again above the wash of the river. He was evidently under great excitement, and was speaking rapidly and vehemently.
“There is more value in that motor boat,” he said, “than there is in the whole raft. What does it matter if the timber does float down without us? We’ve got a boat and can put up any old yarn that comes to mind.”
The rowers still seemed to object to the plan the leader seemed to be urging, and finally the boat was allowed to drift down with the current.
“This old world is a pretty small place after all,” Clay remarked as the stern of the rowboat disappeared around a little bend. “If you don’t believe it, just consider the events of this trip. We meet Max on the river and he laps over on us at Quebec. We meet outlaws on a rocky island three hundred miles away, and they show themselves at the mouth of the Jacques Cartier river.”
“And we’re likely to meet them again, unless I’m very much mistaken,” Case warned. “I don’t believe they went down after the raft at all.”
“What was that you said about swimming over to the shore?” asked Alex.
“To get a fish for dinner,” Jule cried.
Alex dashed into the cabin, tumbled about in the wreckage for a short time, and came out clad only in a bathing suit.
“I’m going to swim to shore all right,” he said, “but I’m not going over there to get a fish for dinner.”
“If you see one, catch him by the tail,” Case shouted as the boy entered the water.
Alex wrinkled a bruised nose in the direction of the sand bar and dived under, to reappear on the shore line a couple of seconds later.
“Now, what do you think that little monkey is after?” asked Jule.
Captain Joe and Teddy seemed to be asking themselves the same question. At any rate, they decided to go and see, and both were soon in the water. The boys saw Alex race up a sandy bluff and disappear in a thicket.
Here and there on the other side of the river were scattered houses, but he seemed to pay no attention to these. The animals trotted after him and soon all were out of sight. The boy was gone only a short time and when he returned on board and dressed his face looked anxious.
“Do you know,” he said, “those fellows never went down the river at all. They dropped down under the bend and landed. If we don’t get off this sand bar this afternoon, we’ll have to sit up all night waiting for trouble.”
“Then we’ll get off this afternoon,” Case observed. “I’m so constituted that I have to have my sleep regularly.”
“Keep me awake nights if you want to,” laughed Alex, “but don’t let me go hungry! I was reared a pet and can’t stand it.”
There were now various crafts in sight on the river, but none came near the bar. Signals made by the boys met with no response.
“They are a suspicious lot of fellows,” Clay decided.
After several vessels had passed without paying any attention to the shouts and signals of the boys, they gave up trying to secure immediate assistance and devoted themselves to the preparation of dinner—to the great joy of Captain and the eminent disgust of Teddy, the cub, who had certainly eaten too much honey.
The cabin was indeed in bad shape, standing at an angle of about thirty degrees. Many of the dishes were broken, and some of the food which had been cooked in the morning lay in a messy heap on the floor.
However, the boys managed to boil coffee and cook eggs, and so, with bread and butter and canned food, they made a very good meal.
“Now, what are we going to do?” asked Jule. “We can never get this boat off alone, and the vessels on the river won’t help us.”
“I wonder if the tide doesn’t come up here?” asked Clay.
“If it does, it was not far from high tide when we struck the sand bar,” Jule replied, “and the situation will grow worse instead of better.”
“Let’s get out our shovels and dig a canal to the river,” Case suggested. “We can’t play any Robinson Crusoe stunt here very long.”
“And the bold, bad men from the raft will be down on us to-night if we stay,” Alex added, “so I’m for doing anything to get off the bar.”
The boys were actually preparing to dig a trench across the bar when a steamer to which they called more as a matter of form than with any expectation of receiving assistance, turned toward their side of the river and slowed down.
“Hello, there, boys,” came a voice from the bridge. “You must have been having a head-on collision with a sand bar.”
“Why,” Clay exclaimed, “that’s Captain Morgan! What was it I was saying about this being a pretty small world?”
“Right you are, Captain,” called Case. “We’re up against it all right. Can you send us a line?”
“Certainly,” answered the captain. “I’ll have you out of that in no time.”
And he did! The line was sent in a rowboat, attached to the prow of the Rambler and slowly, steadily, so as not to strain the timbers or produce cracks in the hull, the motor boat was drawn from her uncomfortable position, practically uninjured. Clay was soon grasping the captain by the hand. The other boys shouted their greetings and remained on board to tidy up the Rambler.
“Young man,” Captain Morgan said, “if I had a hundred boys, and the whole mess of them, combined and individual, got into as many scrapes as you four kids do, I’d keep them under lock and key!”
“You’d miss a lot of fun if you did,” said Clay.
“When you get a hold of a nice, choice mess of boys, like the Rambler crew, you want to give them plenty of room and fresh air. They’ll come out all right!”
“You do, at any rate,” admitted the captain. “Let’s see,” he added, “what was it you were going to find when I left you? A lost channel or something like that? You didn’t find it, did you?”
“We found a scrap, and a lot of ruffians, and a friend,” Clay replied, “and that’s all we did find, but we haven’t given it up.”
“And that’s all you ever will find,” declared the captain. “There may be a lost channel somewhere in the world. In fact, there is one on the New York side up near the big lake, but I’m afraid you are wasting your time. Why don’t you come on down the river with me?”
“That would never do,” Clay replied. “When we left the delta of the Mississippi, we promised ourselves that we would look over every inch of the St. Lawrence, and we’re going to do it. We’re going to Lake Ontario and then back to find the lost channel. And after that, we’re going to return to Ogdensburg and ship the Rambler to little old Chicago. That is, unless we decide to sail up the lakes.”
“Well, good luck to you,” said Captain Morgan, as Clay passed down the side of the Sybil. “If I get tangled up with a lost channel anywhere, I’ll send it to you by parcel post. Why, you boys can make a lost channel easier than you can find one.”
“But it wouldn’t be half so much fun,” Clay said, stepping into the rowboat. “We’re having lots of sport on the St. Lawrence all the same!”
As Clay was being rowed back to the Rambler, one of the sailors called his attention to three men standing on the shore of the river not far away from the intersecting stream. They stood looking down at the Rambler for a short time, and then disappeared around the angle of a bluff.
“Perhaps those men want to be taken off,” suggested the sailor.
“They need their heads taken off,” Clay observed. “I am certain from what I overheard that one of the men was with the outlaws down the stream. They left a timber raft here, as I believe, for the sole purpose of attacking us in the night and trying to get our motor boat away from us.”
“I should imagine from the build of the boat,” the other observed, “that they would have to do some pretty fast traveling if they caught the Rambler now that she is free. She must be a speedy boat.”
“She certainly is,” Clay replied. “She’s built like an ocean-going tug.”
After Clay landed on deck the boys held what they called a council of war. They were not exactly looking for trouble, still they did not like the idea of sailing off upstream and leaving the outlaws unpunished.
“They bunted into us,” Alex insisted, “and we ought to do something to them. If they take their boat and row down after the timber raft, I’d like to follow them in the Rambler and tip them over.”
The others felt in about the same way, but it was finally decided to go on up the river to Montreal, remain there for a couple of days, and so pass on to the great lakes.
“If we can keep Alex in the boat at Montreal, we’ll be doing a good job,” Jule said. “He’s been lost in about every city we’ve come to, and I think he ought to be locked in the cabin just as soon as we touch the pier. It isn’t safe to turn him loose at night.”
“All right,” Alex agreed, “you may lock me up any old night when I want to sleep. That will keep me from standing guard.”
The boys anchored in a cove that night, well out of the wash of passing steamers, and in the middle of the following afternoon, saw the spires of Montreal. They gazed at the great mountainous bluff which lies above and beyond the city with wondering eyes. There battles had been lost and won. The flags of France and Great Britain had in turn floated over the city from the heights they saw.
The boys decided that night to spend the whole of the following day in the historic city. They came to anchor in a slip some distance from the town itself, and, for a wonder, passed an undisturbed night.
Early the following morning Clay and Jule set out to view the sights, it being understood that Alex and Case were to have their freedom in the afternoon. At first the two boys kept to the river front, examining the vessels they saw, and wondering if their fate would ever lead them to all the countries the craft represented.
As they turned away from the water front, Jule lifted his face and sniffed the air enjoyably.
“Do you know,” he said, “this is the first place I’ve struck for several days where the scent of the lost channel hasn’t been in my nostrils.”
“You’ve got so you can smell the lost channel now, have you?” grinned Clay. “That may be a good thing for our future use.”
“I can’t smell the channel,” Jule replied, “but I can scent the danger of it. Say, boy,” he added, “We’re going to have trouble when we go back to dig up the Fontenelle charter.”
“We came out for adventure, didn’t we?” asked Clay.
“Oh, I’m not kicking,” Jule exclaimed. “If I get mine, you’ll get yours, too. The only way to have any fun in this world is to go where the fun is. You can’t meet with adventures by staying in bed at home.”
As the boys proceeded up the street, an officer in uniform standing on the corner beckoned to them.
“Say, boys,” he said, “do you know those two men just behind you?”
The boys turned and looked back.
There were many moving figures and faces in the street, but none which attracted the especial attention of the lads. They looked inquiringly at the policeman, who stood with a puzzled expression on his face.
“Which two men?” asked Jule.
“Why,” replied the officer, “the two men who have followed you for the last four blocks, stopping when you stopped and going on when you advanced. I came up the street on the other side just behind you, and couldn’t help observing what was going on.”
“Now,” said Clay, turning to Jule, “what do you think about having lost the scent of the lost channel?”
“I begin to smell it in the air right now,” was the reply.
The policeman looked at the two boys inquiringly.
“What do you know about the lost channel?” he asked.
“Not a thing!” replied Jule. “There isn’t any lost channel.”
“Then I’ve been hearing a lot about nothing lately,” smiled the officer. “Somehow, the newspapers have been full of it lately.”
“Did they say anything about that scrap we had on an island below Quebec?” asked Case. “We haven’t seen a paper lately.”
“They said something about four boys being attacked, down the river, and a great deal about a quest for a lost channel,” replied the policeman.
“And about a scrap in Quebec?” asked Jule.
“Sure,” said the officer. “That made half a column. Are you boys from the Rambler? If so, where is the boat?”
“We’re from the Rambler all right,” Clay replied, “and it looks as if some of our friends from down stream are still after us. Can you describe the men you saw following us? What do they look like?”
“Just tough riverside characters,” answered the officer. “That is how I came to notice them closely. Such people are rarely seen as far up in the city as this. They prefer the lower dives.”
“We had trouble with some men from a raft back here a little ways,” Jule explained, “and these may be the fellows. Anyway, we’re going to look out for ourselves and thank you very much for having called our attention to the incident. We’ll be careful.”
The policeman went down the street, swinging his club, and the boys turned and faced each other with questions in their eyes.
“What’s coming off here?” Jule asked.
“Seems to me like a game of tag,” Clay replied. “From the moment we left the deck of the Sybil, across the river from the egg-shaped peninsula near St. Luce, we have been It. Some one has been after us night and day. Now, what are we going to do about it?”
“I could tell you better if we knew whether the men referred to by the officers are the enemies of the Fontenelles or just plain river pirates seeking to seize the Rambler. What do you think?”
“So far as that is concerned,” Clay replied, “it makes but little difference. They all give us trouble, and I propose for once that we run away from them. I’m more in love with the river than the men we’re likely to meet on it, so we’ll get to the quiet spots.”
“Do you mean that we ought to go back to the Rambler right now and cut Montreal off our visiting list?” asked Jule.
“In my judgment, that is what we ought to do.”
Jule faced about instantly and started toward the river.
“Come on then!” he said. “I’m game for it!”
The boy had turned under the impulse of the moment without sensing that he was on a crowded pavement in the heart of a big city. As he swung about, he almost bumped noses with a pedestrian who, in company with another, had been walking only a couple of yards behind him.
The man was clothed in the garb of a waterside character, but it was very plain to the boy that the costume had been assumed for the purpose of disguise. His complexion was smooth and clear, his eyes keen and penetrating, and his whole manner and attitude proclaimed education and native refinement. For an instant Jule and the man stood looking each other squarely in the eyes.
“Step aside, lad, step aside,” said the disguised man, in a voice far from unpleasant. “Don’t be blocking the way.”
“Is this your street?” demanded Jule willing to continue the conversation in order that he might have a more prolonged view of the man opposite him. “If it is, you better take it with you when you go on.”
The man Jule was watching so closely seemed to understand that he was under suspicion, and, seizing his companion by the arm, the two passed on together, turning their heads now and then to watch the progress of the boys down the street.
“Did you see that?” asked Jule as the boys stepped along.
“Did I see what?” asked Clay. “I heard a voice, that’s all!”
“That was Sherlock Holmes in disguise. Did you catch on?”
“Not than I am aware of!” laughed Clay. “What about it?”
Jule explained what he had observed in the man against whom the pressure of the crowd had brought him, and Clay agreed that the man he had heard speak in a remarkably pleasant tone had not been following them by accident.
“Those two men,” he said, “are the fellows the policeman referred to.”
“But why should men like those be following us?” asked Jule. “Why, he looked like a banker, or a lawyer, or a preacher. And what did he have that kind of a rig on for? It’s mighty funny.”
“You may search me,” Clay answered. “The incident only confirms the opinion expressed not long ago that we ought to get out of this city immediately. Alex and Case can take their outing in some other town.”
The boys walked swiftly down the street for a couple of blocks, turned into a side thoroughfare, called a taxi, and were driven swiftly back along a parallel street for two blocks.
There they dismissed the cab, at the corner of the main street, and walked along looking for the two men they suspected of hostile intentions.
In the middle of the first block they came upon them, walking slowly, and peering to right and left, as if anxiously searching for some one.
“That settles it!” Clay said. “We’ll go back to the Rambler and disappear. Once we get started, there isn’t a boat on the river that can catch us. We’ll fool these fellows for once.”
When the story of the morning had been told to Alex and Case, they rather wanted to remain in the city, just “to get a line on the fellows,” as Alex explained, but they finally consented to an immediate departure.
That night the Rambler lay at anchor at the mouth of a small creek on the south side of the St. Lawrence river. Just above them lay a wooded island, occupied at this time by a colony of vacationists.
The Rambler had fought her way through the canal, and now lay only a short distance below the border of Lake St. Frances.
The boys built a roaring fire on shore and cooked supper there, but made no arrangements for sleeping out of doors. The blaze brought several people from a little settlement not far away, and the boys rather enjoyed their company. After a time Clay whispered to Jule:
“Stick your nose up in the air, kid, and see if you can get a scent of the lost channel in this crowd!”
“Nothing doing!” Jule answered with a grin.
“Now we’ll see whether there is or not,” Clay said.
He turned to an elderly gentleman who sat by his side and asked:
“I have heard that there is a lost channel on the American side just this side of Lake Ontario. Is that true?”
“Yes,” said the man with a smile, “and I have heard that there is a lost channel down below Quebec, too. And I read in the newspaper that you boys were in search of it. Is that so?”
Clay faced Jule with a smile on his face.
“Whatever we do,” he said, “we can’t escape the lost channel.”
“How did this channel get lost?” Alex asked with a whimsical smile.
“Well,” replied the other, “I don’t believe there is a lost channel. You may go down the St. Lawrence river, up one side and down the other—and I’ve been over every inch of it—and you can’t find any place for a lost channel, unless you locate it at a headland which was once an island. In that case, there might be a lost channel. But the charts of the river for two hundred years show no such change in conformation.”
“That seems to be conclusive,” Clay suggested.
“Conclusive? Of course it is, but you can’t make this man Fontenelle believe it. Now, look here, stranger,” he went on, “I’ve read what the newspapers say about you, and I know that you intend to go back there and look for that lost channel. Is that right?”
“It seems to me that the newspapers are advertising us pretty thoroughly,” Clay observed. “Every one seems to know all about us.”
“Of course!” assented the older man. “You boys and your boat are about as well known on this river, by reputation at least, as Lawyer Martin, and he’s been doing a heap of traveling up and down lately. Why, Lawyer Martin was right here the very day the Quebec newspapers printed the story that you boys were going to find the lost channel. He read the story and jumped.
“Yes, sir! He jumped like a man going to locate an oil claim. I rowed him out to the first steamer that came along, and heard him offer the captain a big wad of money if he would gain time on the trip to Quebec.”
“Do you think the story about the lost channel had anything to do with his sudden departure?” asked Clay.
“Yes, sir. Yes, sir,” was the reply. “He didn’t tell me what he suspected or feared, but he hurried away to find out what was going on just the same. And he hurried away right soon.”
“Is he in any way interested in the Fontenelle charter?” asked Clay.
“Interested?” repeated the other. “I should say he was! Why, he’s the lawyer for all of us fellows who will be turned off our farms if the charter should be found and sustained.”
“I see,” said Clay, “I see!”
“Now,” whispered Jule, giving Clay a nudge in the side, “we’ll find out who the disguised man was. It might have been this Lawyer Martin.”
“What kind of a looking man is Mr. Martin?” asked Clay.
“Mighty nice looking fellow,” was the reply. “Shows breeding and culture all the way through, just like a thoroughbred horse shows what he’s got in him. His face is as white as a woman’s and his eyes are as clear as a girl’s!
“He neither drinks nor smokes, and he is about the best play actor you ever saw on the stage. Put a river man’s rig on him and he looks like a river man.
“Dress him up like a preacher, and you’d think he had the bible by heart. He’s been in our schoolhouse many a time on his trips here, showing the boys and girls how to conduct a commencement exhibition. Oh, he’s mighty popular all along the river!”
Another nudge and whisper from Jule.
“Blonde or black?” the boy suggested.
“I think I know the man,” Clay went on, following the lead again. “He has very black eyes, hasn’t he? And a nose with a little hump on it, and a wide, straight mouth and thin lips.”
“No, sir. No, sir,” was the reply. “He’s got light hair and blue eyes, and a straight nose, and a mouth that isn’t wide nor straight. Mighty handsome man, is Lawyer Martin. We all like him up here!”
“And you will lose your farm if this charter is found and sustained?” asked Clay. “You and many of your neighbors?”
“That’s what they say,” replied the other, “though, of course, it will depend upon what young Fontenelle says about it.”
“The courts might not sustain the charter,” suggested Clay.
“Oh well, we’re not worrying about it,” was the reply. “We’re leaving the whole case to Lawyer Martin.”
As the night advanced the residents left the campfire and returned to their homes, while the boys sought their bunks on board the Rambler.
“What was it some one said about a small world?” asked Clay. “Who was it that said that a face once seen was sure to cross our paths in future years? Was it the same man who said that a note of music once struck revolves around the earth for countless millions of years, never ceasing, never reaching mortal ears, but making its way through space forever?”
“Hold on!” Alex cried. “Come down from the stars if you want to talk to us.”
“Well,” Clay went on, “every person we have met at our stopping-places has been seen or heard of at the next stopping-place. We meet a disguised man on the street at Montreal. We come to a campfire by the riverside, miles above the city, to learn why he was disguised, and why he was following us. As we have said several times lately, this is a pretty small world. The man you meet to-day may walk in your path forever!”
The boys were astir early in the morning. They cooked breakfast on the shore, watched by inquisitive boys and girls, and then proceeded upstream. They passed beautiful Lake St. Frances long before noon, and just as night fell tied up at a lower pier at Ogdensburg. As soon as supper had been eaten, Alex and Captain Joe started away together.
“Here, where are you boys going?” asked Clay. “I say boys because Captain Joe has more sense than Alex,” he added, turning to the others. “At least Captain Joe doesn’t get lost very often.”
“Right over here on the river front,” Alex replied, “is where the Rutland Transit Company boats dock. Those boats are fresh from Chicago, and I’m going over to see if I can get a drink of Lake Michigan water!”
“If you go over there with that dog,” Case declared, “the sailors will steal him. That dog is about as well known in Chicago as Carter H. Harrison. He’s had his picture in every one of the Chicago newspapers.”
“All right,” replied Alex. “If they catch him and take him back to Chicago, they’ll have to take me with him.”
The boy took his departure, accompanied by the dog, and the others sat down to a quiet evening in the cabin. They had had several pleasant days and many thrilling adventures on the St. Lawrence river.
There remained now only about a hundred miles of travel, Lake Ontario being only that distance away. But included in that hundred miles were all the beautiful islands, great and small, which have made the St. Lawrence river famous.
The pleasantest part of their trip was yet to come.
While the boys lay in the cabin, with the lights all out as usual, a heavy step sounded on the deck, and there came a sharp rap at the cabin door. The boys sprang out of their bunks instantly.
“What’s coming off now?” whispered Jule. “Anyway, this fellow has more manners than our other night visitors.”
Clay stepped to the door, searchlight in hand, and turned a circle of flame on the face of the newcomer. Then he dropped the electric and sprang forward. The boys were getting ready with their automatics when they heard his voice speaking in great excitement.
“Captain Joe!” he cried. “Captain Joe! Where the dickens did you come from? What are you doing at Ogdensburg?”
“I might ask the same question of you,” replied the hearty old ex-captain. “To tell you the truth, lad,” he went on, “I’ve been so lonesome ever since you boys left the South Branch that I’ve done quite a lot of traveling, for an old man. Several times I’ve been almost up with you but you always got away.”
“You never came all the way up here to visit us?” asked Case.
“To be honest about it, boys,” the ex-captain replied, “I just did that very thing. I’ve got a friend who is captain of the Rutland boat which arrived this evening, and I came on with him. Mighty fine trip we had, too. And how are you all, and where is Alex and my namesake?”
“You wouldn’t know Captain Joe,” laughed Clay. “He’s got to be the biggest, fiercest, wisest, pluckiest bulldog in the world.”
“And Teddy bear! You remember him of course,” Jule put in. “He ate up two pirates down the river, body and bones, and is so fat that we have to help him out of bed. Great bear, that!”
“Boys, boys,” warned Captain Joe. “Don’t exaggerate. I’ve always told you not to exaggerate. Do you think Captain Joe will know me?”
“Of course he will,” said Case. “Captain Joe never forgets a friend.”
“And now that you are here,” Clay put in, “you are going to remain with us while we go back down the St. Lawrence to St. Luce and return here. Then we’ll either ship the boat to Chicago or take her slowly up the lakes. Won’t that be a fine old trip?”
“It listens pretty good to me,” Captain Joe answered. “To be honest with you, boys,” he continued, “I’ve been wanting a trip on the Rambler, but I never felt like getting away until now.”
“You sailed on the St. Lawrence once a good many years ago, didn’t you, Captain Joe?” asked Jule.
“Did I?” asked Captain Joe extending his stubby forefinger by way of emphasis. “Did I sail on the St. Lawrence river? Boys, I know every inch of it, up one side and down the other and through the middle.”
“Then you’ll be a great help to us,” Clay suggested.
“Oh, you boys don’t need any help navigating a boat on any river,” Captain Joe asserted. “You boys are all right! But I was going to tell you about the St. Lawrence river.”
“A few years ago, there wasn’t an eddy, nor a swirl, nor an island, nor a channel, on the whole stream from Wolfe island to the waters of the Atlantic that I didn’t know all about. I’ve sailed her night and day and I could take a ship down the rapids now. Only the government won’t give me a license because I can read and write,” he added in a sarcastic tone.
“Well, Captain Joe, you’re just the identical man we’ve been looking for,” cried Clay. “Several hundred years ago an old Frenchman by the name of Cartier mislaid a channel down the river. Now we want you to help us find that channel!”
“Oh, you want to find a channel, do you?” laughed Captain Joe. “Well, now, I’ll tell you, boys, if that channel has been open at any time within the past hundred years, I can find it. Of course I wasn’t on the river as long ago as that, but my old dad was, and he taught me to read the St. Lawrence like a boy reads the stories of Captain Kidd.”
“That is fine!” the boys exclaimed in a breath.
Then Clay laughed and nudged his companions and said:
“Captain Joe, did you ever hear anybody say that this is a mighty small world? If so, do you think it’s true?”
“It is bigger than I have ever been able to get over,” replied Captain Joe, not understanding. “I’ve seen quite a lot of it, but not all.”
Then Clay told the captain of their adventures on the St. Lawrence, showing him the two mysterious communications, with the understanding that he was never to mention their existence to any one.
“And so there really is a lost channel?” asked Captain Joe.
“You bet there is! There is more than one lost channel. Go bite him doggie!”
The voice came from the doorway, and the next moment, Alex and Captain Joe, the bulldog, came tumbling into the room.
“Say, my namesake is getting to be some dog,” shouted the Captain, after the greetings were over. “He’s big enough to find a lost channel anywhere. And he looks fierce enough, too.”
“He’s always perfectly willing to do his share of the looking,” Alex grinned. “And we’re perfectly willing to give him a chance to help.”
“Then I’ll take him into partnership,” Captain Joe, the man, said, “and we’ll go out hunting for what you seek. If there is a lost channel anywhere it will go hard if we don’t find it!”