After the departure from the Rambler of Clay and Alex, Captain Joe began exploring the little store rooms of the craft in search of cables and grappling hooks. He soon had quite a collection laying on the deck.
“What’s the idea, Captain Joe?” asked Case.
“Well, boys,” the captain replied, “you remember what the Quebec chief of police said regarding the Cartier and the perfectly good assortment of supplies lying at the bottom of the St. Lawrence river?”
“Sure, we remember that,” Case replied.
“And you remember what Clay said about having discovered the boat as we came in? Why, he told us right where it is.”
“Yes, he said he saw it on the bottom,” Jule interrupted.
“Now, I have an idea,” Captain Joe smiled, winking at the two boys, “that it would be all right for us to lift the launch while Clay is away. What do you say to that?”
“Great idea!” shouted Case.
“Then let’s get at it,” Jule suggested.
“The first thing to do,” Captain Joe said, “is to find out exactly where the Cartier lies.”
“Aw, I know that,” Jule said, “Clay told me about that. It’s right over there in about fifteen feet of water just below that submerged bar.”
“Fifteen feet with or without the tide?” asked Captain Joe.
“Fifteen feet with the tide out,” was the reply, “and the tide is out now, so we’d better be getting busy.”
They swung the Rambler over to the north side of the bar and anchored. From this new position, across the white surface of the bottom, they could see the trunk cabin of the Cartier sitting squarely up in the water. The boat had evidently dropped straight down when scuttled, and she now lay on an almost even keel with her nose pointing upstream.
“Now, I tell you, boys,” Captain Joe observed, “one of you must go down and attach a line to her forward towing bitts. I’d go down myself, understand, only I’m so big and clumsy that I might displace too much water in the stream. Who’ll go?”
“I’m the champion diver of the South Branch,” Jule cried, “and I’ll go down and have that line fast in about a second.”
“It’s a long dive,” warned Captain Joe.
“I’ve stood on my head in deeper water than that,” said the boy.
Case got out the rowboat and Jule was taken over to the place from which he was to dive. The end of the cable was passed to him and he dropped down. In a moment, he came climbing up the rope like a young monkey, shaking water over Case as he tumbled into the boat.
“Now get a-going,” he said, “and we’ll have this boat out of the mud before Clay and Alex return. I wonder what we’ll find on board of her.”
“You don’t expect to find a lost channel, do you? Or a casket of family jewels?” asked Case, with a wink.
“I was thinking,” Jule replied, “that we might find something to eat.”
The boys rowed back to the Rambler, clambered on board, and the motor boat was started forward, one end of the cable attached to her after deck cleats. She pulled steadily for a moment under full power, but the launch refused to move. She was evidently deeply imbedded in the bottom.
“I reckon we’ll have to go down and push,” Case grinned.
“You just wait, boys, and I’ll try it once more,” Captain Joe said.
The second attempt was successful, and the Cartier was drawn slowly, carefully, to the bar. When she left her original position on the bottom of the river, she listed to one side and so came in almost on her beam ends.
“I guess we’ve spilled some of her crockery,” Jule laughed as the boat showed one side of her hull. “Fontenelle may kick on our wearing out his furniture.”
“Oh, he’ll be glad enough to get his boat back,” Captain Joe remarked. “Now, we’ll see if we can pump her out.”
The launch now lay tipping only slightly on the bar, her keel having cut into the soft sand, with her gunwales two or three inches above the surface of the river. The cabin stood well out of the river, of course, but the great body of water in the cockpit and over the cabin floor held her down.
“Now we’ll see if we can’t pump her out,” Captain Joe said. “I don’t understand what sent her to the bottom. She looks to be as fit as a fiddle.”
“Perhaps we can tell that when we get the water out of her,” Case suggested. “There may be a big hole in her bottom.”
The Rambler’s pump was now put in operation, but the interior of the launch remained full of water. The river rushed in as fast as the pumps removed it, so the craft did not rise to the surface.
“You’ll have to get your feet wet again, Jule,” Case said. “Just drop over into the cockpit and see if you can see any hole in the bottom.”
Jule did as requested, floundering and splashing about in the water as though he considered the enterprise only a bit of fun.
“Nothing doing here!” he shouted back. “There’s no hole in the bottom that I can see. There may be one under the double floor in the cabin but I don’t believe it.”
“Look for the sea-cock,” cried Captain Joe, leaning over the gunwale of the Rambler. “It may have been opened. It ought to be right there in the cockpit close to the wall of the cabin.”
Jule felt around in the water for a time, ducked his head under in order to get closer to the bottom now and then and finally raised his dripping face with a shout.
“I’ve found it!” he cried. “The sea-cock was wide open and that’s what sunk the launch.”
“Wonder Fontenelle wouldn’t have investigated,” said Case.
“The launch was probably sunk in the night,” Captain Joe suggested, “when the members of the party were away. When they returned to the boat, of course, they had no grappling apparatus or anything to help raise her, and so they just went away and left her in the mud.”
“That’s probably it,” Case said, turning on the pump.
“Hold on,” Jule cried. “You wait till I get something to plug this sea-cock with. I can’t turn the valve. It’s rusty.”
The boy was given a basket of waste which had been used in cleaning the motors, and in a short time the sea-cock was securely plugged.
Then the pumps were set in motion again and in a very short time the Cartier was virtually free of water.
“That’s a mighty handsome boat,” Captain Joe observed as the launch lay on the surface. “If I had her down on the South Branch, I could have the time of my life every day in the week.”
The boys worked over the boat for some time drying off the woodwork and fixing the valve of the sea-cock so it would close.
“Of course, she won’t run now,” Captain Joe explained, “because the batteries and the magneto are soaked with water. We can transfer new apparatus from the Rambler and, as she has plenty of gasoline, she will go like a duck on a mill-pond.”
“I guess Clay will think we have been going some to get that boat off the bottom,” laughed Case.
Captain Joe looked at his watch, his face clouding as he did so.
“Why, look here,” he said. “We’ve been a long time on this job. It is after one o’clock.”
“We might have known that by the tide coming in,” Case said.
“I wasn’t thinking about the water,” the captain laughed. “I was thinking about Clay and Alex. Now, where do you suppose those two scamps are? They ought to have been here long ago.”
“Perhaps they’ve found the lost channel!” Jule put in.
“It is more likely they found a nest of outlaws they couldn’t get away from,” was Case’s idea of the situation. “I think we ought to do something about it right now,” he added.
“I am afraid,” Captain Joe said, poking a stubby finger into Case’s side, “that it takes you boys about half your time to find each other when you go off on these river trips. First one gets lost and then the other.”
“That’s all right,” Case replied, “but every time a fellow gets lost he butts into valuable information. Clay may pick up those Fontenelle diamonds while he’s gone, or find the lost charter.”
“It’s up to us to do something,” Jule insisted. “After dinner, we’ll go out on the peninsula and see what we can discover if Captain Joe will remain on the boat. We won’t be gone long.”
Dinner was hastily prepared and hastily eaten, and then Case and Jule rowed to the shore in the Rambler’s boat, the canoe having been left on the bank by Clay. The captain saw them disappear in the thicket and then sat down in the cabin to watch and wait.
In less than half an hour, he heard shouts on the shore, and then two figures came plunging down the high bank into the river some distance above the location of the Rambler.
The captain reached for his gun and stood waiting, fearful at first that a bold attempt to board the Rambler was being made, but as the two figures in the water came closer, he saw Case and Jule alternately swimming on the surface and diving. The reason for this apparently strange conduct on the part of the boys was soon discovered, for bullets began whistling about their heads and about the deck of the Rambler.
However, the swimmers reached the deck of the boat unharmed and dropped down behind the gunwales.
“Use your gun, Captain Joe!” Case panted. “Alex is back there in the woods trying to get to the river.”
When Clay heard the splash of water as the tin can disappeared from sight, he began wondering if what he had heard had reached the ears of the others. The lost channel was always in his mind, and he was wondering if the presence of a subterranean body of water there could have any connection with the channel which had disappeared as if by magic two or three hundred years before.
In order to settle the question as to what the outlaws knew concerning the water which must lie directly under their cave, he asked:
“Will some of you men give me a drink of water?”
“Aw, go take a drink out of the river,” was the reply he received.
“Gladly!” cried Clay. “Just untie my feet and I’ll show you how quickly I can get to the river.”
The men laughed heartily at what they considered a good joke and continued their preparations for leaving the cavern. In a short time the man believed by Clay to be Lawyer Martin made his appearance, and then the party started up the gully turning to the east and walking over the roughest territory Clay had yet seen in that vicinity. The leader of the party paused now and then to inspect the landscape and to listen for sounds from the west river.
“What were your friends doing this afternoon,” he asked presently. “They have dug up a new boat somewhere.”
“I don’t know,” replied Clay, stumbling over the ground with two husky guards close to his sides. “Was it my friends who were doing the shooting?” he added.
“Shooting?” the leader repeated in apparent amazement. “Did you hear any shooting? Which way did it come from?”
“From the west,” was the brief reply.
Clay’s escorts glanced at each other significantly, but said nothing. The boy was satisfied from the attitude of those about him that his chums had been attacked, but, as a matter of fact, he had heard no shooting, being at the time it took place in the cavern opening from the gully.
After what seemed to Clay to be an endless journey, the party came to the west shore of the east river. Here, in the glade to the north of the rocky ledge which they had followed, was a fairly comfortable camp with tents and bunks and plenty of cooking appurtenances.
Clay was pushed into a tent and his hands and feet bound again.
“We can’t take any chances on your jumping us in the night,” the leader said as he saw the ropes adjusted around the boy’s ankles and wrists. “If you only had a little sense, we might make you more comfortable.”
Time and again Clay had the name of Lawyer Martin on his lips. He was almost positive that the leader of the outlaws was the disguised man he had met in Montreal, the man of whom the farmer had spoken at the campfire. However, he conquered the inclination to address the fellow by the title which he believed to belong to him.
“If he really is Lawyer Martin,” the boy reasoned, “and I let him know that I know the truth, he’ll take good care that I never get out into the world again to tell of his connection with these outlaws.”
That night was a long one for the boy. One of the outlaws walked watchfully about the camp all night and another sat close by his bunk watching with unwearying eyes. It was plain that they considered his capture of great importance. He reasoned that it was because they had failed in any attack that might have been made on his chums, and had not succeeded in securing the map they sought.
He did not know whether Alex had escaped the clutches of the ruffians or not, but he believed that if the boy really had been taken prisoner he would have been brought to the camp he himself occupied.
The camp was astir at daybreak, when most of the outlaws disappeared from view, going in every direction except across the river. Clay would have given a good deal for exact information regarding their plans for the day, but he could only surmise that all their energies would be directed toward the destruction of the Rambler and the driving away of his chums.
While he lay pondering over the possibilities of the day, the leader of the party came to his side.
“How do you feel this morning, my boy?” he asked lightly.
“I feel like I’d like to stretch my legs a little,” was the reply.
“If I gave you the privilege,” asked the other, “will you promise to make no attempt to escape?”
“I’m not making any promises,” Clay replied, “so I suppose I’ll have to remain where I am.”
“But you can’t get away,” the leader insisted.
“How do you know I can’t get away?” replied Clay, laughing up into the man’s face.
“Because we’ve got you tied hard and fast,” was the reply.
“I’ve read in the papers,” the leader went on, “about this Captain Joe bulldog of yours and this Teddy bear cub doing wonderful things in the way of helping you boys out of trouble, but they are up against the impossible here.”
“I’m sorry,” Clay said with a shrug of the shoulders, “but you know just as well as I do that no game is ever played out as it should be until the last card is on the table.”
The leader smiled whimsically and turned away. After talking for some moments with the only man present in the camp, he turned to the west and disappeared. Then the man he had last talked with approached the boy.
“What do you want for breakfast?” he asked.
“Pie!” roared Clay. “Green apple pie, red apple pie, dried apple pie, and pie pie. And if you’ve got any chicken pie, that will come in all right later on.”
“Your troubles don’t seem to affect your appetite, kid,” laughed the man whom Clay discovered to be the cook of the camp. “You’re a jolly kind of a fellow, anyway, and I’m going to give you the best there is in the larder.”
In half an hour a really good breakfast of ham and eggs, potatoes, bread and butter, and coffee was served to the boy. He ate heartily, of course, as most boys will under any circumstances, talking with the cook as the meal proceeded.
Directly the leader came to the edge of the little glade and beckoned to the cook. The latter looked from his employer to the boy and back again. The leader beckoned imperatively, and the cook left the tent and approached him. Together they stepped away into the edge of the thicket and engaged in an animated conversation.
Clay heard the leader ask if the ropes which held his hands and feet were still in place, and heard the cook reply that he supposed they were as he had not examined them.
“Just for the fun of the thing, now,” Clay mused, “I’ll find out whether that chap is right.”
He pulled away at the cords on his wrist, but for a long time was unable to move them beyond the limit of the motion which had enabled him to use a fork at his breakfast.
“I wonder,” he thought, “why they didn’t give me a knife to eat that ham with. Never mind, I can make a knife of my own.”
He set his elbow against an earthen plate which lay on the ground, breaking it into several pieces. The largest fragment, he got into his mouth and began to saw his wrist ropes against it. The strands of the rope soon gave way and the boy’s hands were free. It took him but a moment to untie the cords which held his ankles.
Thus released, he listened for a moment to make sure that the two men in the edge of the thicket were not observing him. All was still in that direction and he finally ventured to the opening of the tent and looked out. The two men were nowhere in sight.
“Now or never,” thought the boy. “While those fellows are cooking up some scheme for the destruction of the Rambler, I’ll make a quiet sneak. The peninsula must be crowded with outlaws, all in search of a lost channel, and so I’ll have to take to the river.”
The boy was out of the glade in an instant, crouching low, of course, but making good time until he reached the margin of the river. Hoping to see a boat, he paused there a moment and looked about. As he did so, the roar of the falls which had obstructed the progress of the Rambler on her first trip to that vicinity, reached his ears and he knew that a boat would be practically useless, as it would never live through the falling water. The only thing for him to do, seemed to be to take to the water and keep as much out of sight as possible under the bank.
He sprang in and struck out down stream wondering if he could pass the falls without returning to the shore. After swimming a few strokes, he heard a shout from the bank and saw the leader and the cook hastening toward the river. The current was strong there just above the falls and the boy was an excellent swimmer, so the men did not decrease the distance between themselves and their quarry.
“If you don’t stop, we’ll shoot!” the cook cried.
“And shoot to kill!” came the voice of the leader.
For a moment Clay swam on blindly under a rain of bullets but he had no idea whatever of voluntarily returning to the shore. The leaden pellets splashed into the water all about him for a time but presently as the men got better range, they began making closer acquaintance.
The roar of the falls was now almost deafening. The boy could hear a torrent of water pouring down upon broken rocks. He knew now that it would be impossible for him to negotiate the falls by way of the river. He must swim to the shore and pass around the danger point. This would subject him to the direct fire of his pursuers.
At last, almost hopeless, he dived into the water to escape the rain of bullets. To his surprise, he did not come to the surface again when he used his strength in that direction.
Either his body had lost its buoyancy or the water was pulling him down. He seemed to be in a whirlpool. The force of the water drew at his arms and his legs and clutched him about the chest. Around and around he whirled, until he grew dizzy with the motion and his lungs seemed bursting for want of air.
Then, almost unconscious, he knew that he was being drawn through an opening into which the water poured with awful force. He knew that he was being tossed to and fro in something like a basin or pool a moment later, and felt the fresh air creeping into his lungs.
The water where he lay did not seem to be more than three or four feet deep but the current was swift and steady. There was no light anywhere. The boy groped forward with his hands outstretched until he came to what seemed to be a ledge of rock. There, exhausted and almost unconscious from his exertions, he dropped down and his mind became a blank.
When he returned to consciousness, a single shaft of light penetrating the darkness of the place showed him to be in a cavern the dimensions of which he had no means of knowing. The ledge upon which he had fallen lay a yard or so above the surface of an underground stream. He could see the light glancing on the water and hear the roar of the whirlpool which had brought him into this subterranean place.
“I’ve found the lost channel, I guess,” he thought bitterly, “and I guess there’ll be two of us lost—a lost river and a lost boy.”
After a time, he felt his way along the ledge only to find that it came to an abrupt termination against a shoulder of rock.
When Case and Jule gained the deck of the Rambler, crying that Alex was back in the forest pursued by the outlaws, Captain Joe laid out a choice assortment of automatic revolvers along the deck behind the starboard gunwale. The dripping boys crouched down and waited.
“He wasn’t very far behind us,” Case said directly.
“Yes,” Jule put in. “He ought to be here before long.”
Captain Joe, watching the boys whimsically, pushed the revolvers around so they would be within easy reach. The deck looked like an armory.
“You outrun him, did you, lads?” the old captain asked.
“We wanted to stay back and come in with him,” Case explained, “but he wouldn’t have it. He said that if we separated and ran in different directions, one party would be pretty sure to get in, while we might all be captured if we stuck together. He was right, of course, but we hated to leave him. He ought to be here in a minute or two.”
“Did he say where Clay was?” asked Captain Joe.
“We didn’t have much chance to talk with him,” Case answered. “The outlaws were swarming over the peninsula, and kept us ducking and dodging most of the time. There must be a dozen or more toughs in there.”
There was no more firing from the shore for a time, and those on board the Rambler hoped that Alex had succeeded in eluding his pursuers.
Presently the bushes at the margin of the stream parted and a face looked out—a heavy bearded face with fierce eyes.
“Good evening, pard!” Jule called out. “Come aboard!”
The fellow disappeared without making any reply.
“That settles it!” Case exclaimed. “We won’t see Alex right away. The outlaws haven’t caught him, and so they are watching along the shore in the hopes of picking him up when he leaves the thicket. I’d like to throw a stick of dynamite in there and blow up the whole outfit.”
The supposition that Alex would not be seen at that time proved to be incorrect, however, for a shout was now heard from the launch, and Alex was seen waving a cap from the cockpit.
The cap soon disappeared from sight, however, for bullets began dropping down from the shore. On the Rambler, the boys were behind the heavy gunwales, and Alex was hidden by the cockpit walls so, beyond splintering the railings and making havoc in the finely-decorated cabin of the launch, the bullets did no damage.
“Now, how do you think that little customer got out to the launch without getting perforated?” asked Case.
“He swam out, of course,” replied Jule, “—he just ducked under and swam out. I wish we could get him on board the Rambler.”
“Now, that tow-line,” Case said, “is too long. The boy can’t swim under water all that distance. Can’t we pull the launch up?”
“Nothing in the world to prevent it,” said Captain Joe. “If we can get the end of the line into the cabin, the launch will come up like a duck. Then Alex can come aboard without much danger.”
This plan was adopted. The Cartier was easily drawn up to the stern of the Rambler and Alex stepped aboard.
In a moment he was lying behind the gunwale with the others.
“Where did you say Clay was?” asked Captain Joe.
“I haven’t seen him for a long time,” was the reply. “We saw that wharf rat, Max, in the forest and I started away to follow him. At that time Clay was coming toward the boat. I thought he might be here.”
“And so Max has shown up again, has he?” cried Case. “We’ll have to land that boy where he won’t be so active.”
While the boys were discussing the situation a grating, flopping sound was heard in the cabin, and Jule rushed in just in time to see the cable which had held the Cartier to the Rambler drawing through the open window. In the excitement of getting Alex on board, the boys had neglected to secure the line and the launch was now dropping down stream.
Jule sprang for the end of the line, but did not reach it. It dropped down to the after deck and was drawn into the water.
“That’s a nice thing!” shouted the boy, rushing to the motors. “Now we’ve got to go down and catch that boat!”
It was some moments before the anchor could be lifted and the Rambler turned and sent down stream, so the Cartier was halfway to the little bay running in behind the Peninsula before the boys caught up with her.
“She won’t get away again,” Captain Joe declared shortening up the line and making it fast to the after deck cleats of the motor boat. “We haven’t got any time to go chasing runaway launches!”
As the old captain spoke, Case laid a hand on his arm and pointed to the projection on the peninsula behind which Captain Joe had listened on the night he had left the Rambler during his watch.
“There’s a blaze over there,” the boy said. “They must have a lot of men here to keep a force over there and another one between the two rivers.”
“Young man,” Captain Joe replied, “the man who is responsible for this whole mix-up is over there on the point, with a band of cutthroats.”
“Why don’t they go up and help the others?” asked Jule.
“It’s just this way,” Captain Joe replied, “we disappointed them very much when we got the Cartier out of the water. That rascal on the point wanted to have the pleasure of raising the boat himself.”
“Then why didn’t he do it?” asked Alex. “He had time enough before we got here.”
“I don’t know why he didn’t,” answered the captain, “but he didn’t, and now he’s sore because we got to it first. It seems to me that he might have ordered his wrecking apparatus here and got the boat out before we arrived.”
“What do you think he wants of the launch?” Case asked. “According to all accounts, he’s rich enough to buy a dozen.”
“I can tell you about that,” Captain Joe replied with a grin. “You remember when I stood watch one night, and you all said I looked sleepy the next day. Well, that night, I paddled over to the point and heard what those people were talking about. There is something on board the Cartier they want. I couldn’t understand exactly what they said about it, but it is something in some way connected with a safe.”
“The safe on the wall in the lost channel!” laughed Alex. “They think Fontenelle knows how to get to the safe if he can only get to the lost channel first.”
“Well, we got to the launch first, anyway,” Jule suggested. “And it strikes me that we’d better go aboard and look her over. Did you see anything remarkable when you were there, Alex?” he added.
“Didn’t see a thing,” was the reply. “I flopped out of the water into the cockpit and never even looked inside the cabin. I wish now that I had.”
“Come on, then, let’s you and I take a look through the cabin while Captain Joe and Case run the Rambler back to her old position,” Jule suggested.
The two boys sprang down into the cockpit, paused a moment to get their balance and opened the cabin door. As they did so, a scrambling noise was heard inside, and both were knocked nearly off their feet as a body launched against them, turned to the railing and shot over into the river.
From his position on the deck where he had been thrown by the impact of the collision, Alex looked up at Jule with a whimsical smile on his face.
“Did you see that?” he asked.
“I felt it,” Jule replied, rubbing his head.
“What did it feel like?” asked Alex
“Like a battering ram,” was the reply.
“Well,” Alex said, “it might have been a battering ram, but it looked to me like Max, and it’s dollars to apples that he caused the Cartier to start downstream. A few pulls from the water would have started the line running out.”
“That’s just it!” Jule exclaimed. “That’s exactly the idea!”
Captain Joe now leaned over the gunwale of the Rambler and cried out:
“Which one of you boys fell overboard?”
“That was Max,” Alex replied. “He’s been here in the cabin of the launch for nobody knows how long, ransacking the lockers and destroying papers. He must have come aboard about as soon as it was lifted out of the water. The scamp certainly keeps busy, anyway.”
Captain Joe passed over to the launch, and a long search was made through the owner’s secretary and the drawers and boxes containing documents. The papers were wet, of course, and many of them were badly torn, but the purport of each was by no means doubtful. The great mass consisted of bills, newspaper clippings, personal letters and the hundred and one memoranda made by the captain and owner of a pleasure launch.
“I guess we’ll have to give it up,” the captain said, after a time. “There’s one good thing about it, and that is that Max didn’t meet with any more success than we did.”
“How do you know?” asked Case.
“Because,” answered the Captain, “he would have been off the boat before we ever got to it.”
“Perhaps he wasn’t here as long as you think he was,” Alex put in. “Clay and I saw him up in the woods when we first went ashore.”
The papers were spread out neatly and left to dry, and everything in the drenched cabin placed in as good shape as possible. Then the boys all returned to the Rambler, now nearing her old position in the west river.
Much to the surprise of all on board, there were no signs of the outlaws when the boat came to her old anchorage. Night was falling and there were no indications of hostile influences anywhere. Before darkness settled down over the scene, the boys drew the Rambler a little farther up the stream and prepared to pass a watchful and anxious night.
Alex proposed that he go ashore with the bulldog and make an effort to find Clay, but the proposition was instantly vetoed by the others.
“You’ll get lost yourself,” Case declared, “and we’d have two boys to look up instead of one. I think we’d better all stay on the boat.”
“And that’s good sense, too,” Captain Joe put in. “Clay knows where we are, and he’ll come to us if he can get away. If he doesn’t come during the night, we’ll get out after him in the morning.”
“He may be waiting for darkness,” Case suggested. “In that case, he ought to be here soon. He must be hungry.”
“He surely will, and we’ll keep supper waiting for him in this cabin all night,” said Alex “When the outlaws had me pinched, they didn’t give me anything to eat. I’ll get even for that!”
The night passed slowly, drearily, and Clay did not come. As the reader understands, all through the dark hours, the boy lay bound in a tent not far from the west shore of the east river.
Shortly after daylight, breakfast being over, the boys began planning for a visit to the shore.
The canoe and the rowboat were both on the bank still in plain sight.
“You swim over and get the boats, Jule,” Case said. “You haven’t had as many open air baths as we have since we started on this trip.”
“Now, boys,” interposed Captain Joe, “I wouldn’t touch those boats if I were you. If there are any outlaws in those woods at all, they’re watching those boats. The first boy that swims up to one of them will be captured.”
“Then we’ve all got to swim,” declared Case ruefully.
“We’re getting used to it this time,” cried Alex
“I don’t believe there’s any one over there,” Jule said. “They wouldn’t keep still so long.”
“I notice that you don’t get your head up above the gunwale very often,” Alex laughed.
“Look here, boys,” Captain Joe said, pointing out of the cabin window. “Here’s a place where the river widens without any good excuse for doing so. I talked to Clay about that, and his idea was that an underground stream runs in in this vicinity. Now, your eyes are better than mine. Look upstream and see if you can observe any current which might be made by the flowing in of a subterranean river.”
“You’re all right, Captain Joe,” Case exclaimed. “You can’t forget that lost channel any more than we can.”
“I don’t know whether there’s a lost channel or not,” the captain replied, “but I do know that there’s a fresh supply of water coming into this stream right about here.”
Case took a field glass and looked up the stream.
“There surely is a current starting in close to that bank,” he finally said. “I can see sticks and bubbles popping up from the bottom. There’s a spring there, all right.”
Alex took the glass and studied the river for a long time. Then he seized Captain Joe by the shoulder and pointed.
“Say,” he said, “there’s a nude body coming up out of that eddy Case saw. You can see it under the water, drifting down this way.”
The boy dropped the glass clattering on the deck and sprang into the water.
“Here, here, boy! Come back!” cried Captain Joe.
“It’s Clay!” shouted Jule. “Can’t you see it’s Clay!”
In a moment, Jule was in the water, too, and both boys were diving after the figure they had seen in the eddy.
They caught it in a moment, and managed to get it to the boat. Captain Joe and Case supplied ropes, and in an incredibly short space of time, Clay lay stretched out on the deck.
“He’s dead!” cried Alex “I just know he’s dead!”
“They stripped him of his clothes and threw him in!” wailed Jule.
An instant after being laid on the deck, however, Clay opened his eyes and smiled up into the faces of his friends.
“He’ll be saying, ‘Where am I?’ in a minute!” Alex cried, dancing joyfully about the prostrate figure. “That is the usual thing in stories, you know. He’ll have to say, ‘Where am I?’ and I’ll have to tell him that he mustn’t talk. Look at him grin.”
“What gets me,” Captain Joe said, lifting the boy into a sitting position, “is how you came up from the bottom of the river without ever diving down to it. It looks uncanny.”
“The lost channel!” answered Clay weakly.
“You found it, did you?” asked Alex.
“Boys, boys,” said Captain Joe, “never mind the lost channel until we get this boy dressed and fed up.”
The processes suggested by the captain were quickly accomplished, and in a short time, Clay sat in the cabin telling of the adventures of the morning. The boys listened wide-eyed.
“Now let me get this thing right,” Captain Joe said. “You went into a whirlpool above the falls and came out into a cavern?”
“That’s just it, exactly,” Clay replied, still weak from his exertions. “I landed on a ledge, where I lay unconscious for a few moments and then followed down the channel of the underground river. There is plenty of room in the cavern,” he continued, “and plenty of fresh air, but the place is shy on light. I fell many times in the darkness.”
“I thought it wasn’t safe for me to be in there!” grinned Alex.
“I thought it wasn’t safe for me be in there!” Clay replied with a wink, “and so I made my way out as swiftly as I could. At this end of the channel, the water runs out just below the surface of the west river, and I thought I’d better reduce my weight as much as possible before going through the opening, so I took off my clothes and was pushed out by the current.”
“Looked mighty funny to see you come floating out of the river without ever having gone in!” laughed Jule.
“Now, boys,” said Captain Joe, after the boys had discussed all phases of the situation, “let’s size this thing up together. In the first place, Clay has undoubtedly discovered the lost channel.”
“It might have been found years ago,” Clay said, “if the men who tried to describe it had only said that it was a subterranean stream.”
“And now, the question is,” went on the captain, “whether the charter and the family jewels are anywhere in the cavern through which the lost stream runs.”
“It seemed to me,” Clay broke in, “that the cavern was big enough to hold a small sized city. It is just the kind of a place where one would naturally hide valuables.”
“It seems to me,” Alex complained, “that the hardest part of our job is still to come, even if we have discovered the lost channel. We can’t go up there and dive through the whirlpool, as Clay did, because the outlaws would perforate us before we got anywhere near the falls.”
“I’ve been thinking of that,” Clay said, “and I believe there is a way to get into the cavern without getting wet. When I lay in the cavern, high up on the ridge, before being taken to the shore, the men with me emptied several tin cans of food and pitched them into a corner of the cavern. One of the cans was sent along with a kick, and I heard a splash of water when it fell.”
“Je-rusalem!” cried Alex. “Show me where that cavern is, and I’ll take a rope and go through the opening where the can fell!”
“What would these fellows on shore be doing all the time you were reaching the cavern?” asked Case.
“I am certain,” Clay went on, “that there is an opening from the floor of the cavern to the chamber in which the lost river runs, for when I came down, I saw a blur of light about halfway through the journey.”
“That settles that part of it, then,” Captain Joe said. “We’ll have to wait for a suitable opportunity and get into the chamber by way of the cave. And now,” he continued, “I propose that we move out to the bay or the St. Lawrence, where we won’t be under the guns of the enemy, and cook several square meals. Honest, boys,” he went on, “I’ve been so worried lately, that I’ve almost lost my appetite.”
“Yes,” Case laughed, “I notice you consumed only half a dozen of those Bismark pancakes for breakfast.”
The Rambler was dropped down to the bay with the launch still by her side, and, once out of rifle shot, the boys enjoyed the freedom of the deck.
“Now, we’ll stay here until night,” Captain Joe said, “and then we’ll see what we can do towards finding that cavern and dropping down into the lost channel. We ought to explore it in one night with the help of our searchlights.”
The plan mapped out by the captain was successfully carried out. Leaving Jule on board the Rambler, the other members of the party crept cautiously ashore that night, and were led directly to the cavern by Clay. They were not disturbed during the journey. Off to the east, they saw the reflection of a campfire and the sound of many voices showed the boys that the outlaws were not at all anxious to conceal their presence.
The opening leading from the cavern to the channel of the stream was large enough for even Captain Joe to pass through with comfort. Directly under the opening was a ledge of rock and here the boys landed. Almost at the point of entry they saw marks on the wall which indicated that at some distant time an inscription had been carved there.
“We can’t read the words,” Clay said, flashing his searchlight over the wall, “but at least it tells us that this is somewhere near the scene of the old-time operations.”
Alex, who had been poking about around an angle of rock, now gave a great shout of delight which called the boys to his side.
“There’s your old safe!” he cried, pointing up to a niche in the wall, “and it’s dollars to doughnuts that the lost charter and the jewels are inside of it!”
It was the work of only a few moments to bring the safe down from the ledge of rock to where the boys stood. It was merely a box of steel, not more than a foot in diameter each way, and was evidently constructed with thin walls for its weight was not great. However, it was tightly closed and the boys could see no means by which it might be opened. There was not even a keyhole or a button.
“We’ll take it back to the Rambler,” Captain Joe said. “Perhaps we can find a way to open it there.”
“We’ll find a way to open it,” Alex exclaimed, “when we get hold of the document Max was looking for in the cabin of the Cartier.”
“Good idea!” Captain Joe replied. “If you wait long enough, you’ll always find something like intelligence in the head of a boy!”
When the party returned to the cabin, daylight was just showing in the east and the noisy revel of those at the campfire had ceased.
“I tell you what it is,” Captain Joe exclaimed, “those fellows have given up chasing us for the reason that they have arrived at the conclusion that we don’t know any more about the lost channel than they do. At first, they doubtless thought the map might direct us to it, but now they have given up that idea, and are satisfied to let us hunt for the lost charter if we want to.”
“Yes, but they are still watching us, all the same,” Clay replied, “expecting to take the proceeds of the discovery away from us if we are lucky enough to find what both parties are seeking for.”
This explanation of Captain Joe’s seemed to be the correct one, for the boys were not molested while on their way to the Rambler with the steel box. Having secured the box, the question now was how to get it open, so nearly all that day, they searched among the papers in the cabin of the Cartier for some clue to the mystery. Before night it was found in a bundle of old papers stowed away in a secret draw at the bottom of the owner’s secretary, where it had lain for a long time.
“This is easy,” Clay said holding the paper up between his thumb and fingers. “The box is only an old French puzzle box. Press on the upper right hand front corner and a button will show. Press the button and the box will open, and there you are.”
“What the dickens do you think the Fontenelles left this paper laying around in a place like this for?” asked Case. “Do you suppose they knew what it was?”
“Of course they knew,” Clay answered, “and the paper was brought along so that the box might be opened as soon as found.”
Although the hinges and lock of the steel box were rusted, it was opened with little difficulty and there were the family jewels and the lost charter! In spite of difficulties, the boys had succeeded in their quest. The search of more than three hundred years was ended!
When the Rambler and the Cartier started away toward Quebec, they left the men who had opposed them still on the peninsula. Reaching the city, they lost no time in communicating the result of their expedition to the Fontenelles. It is needless to say that the latter were overjoyed at the recovery of the charter and the jewels.
At the close of the interview between the elder Fontenelle and Clay, the former wrote a check for ten thousand dollars and passed it over to the boy. Clay smiled as he passed it back.
“You remember,” he said, “that we recovered the Cartier, and that we searched her papers pretty thoroughly to discover the secret of the steel box. Well, Captain Joe, our old friend from Chicago, has conceived a great liking for the boat, and if you can induce your son to give us the launch, and also to make no trouble for the poor people who will suffer under this charter, we shall consider ourselves amply repaid for all our trouble. It has been a pleasant excursion, anyway.”
“So far as the boat is concerned,” the old man Fontenelle replied, “you are entitled to it as salvage. Besides, now that the charter and the jewels have been discovered, through your agency, the Cartier will no longer be elaborate enough for my son. He will have a handsome yacht built, anyway, so you may as well take the launch. So far as making trouble for those who have occupied our lands for years goes, no one shall suffer except those who combined their wealth to obstruct us.
“And so you see,” he continued, “that the check is yours after all.”
And the old gentleman would not accept “No.” for an answer.
“One thing I should like to know,” Clay said, before leaving Mr. Fontenelle, “and that concerns the mysterious map we received and the manner in which it came into our possession.”
“I can set you right on that point,” the old man said. “The man who gave you the map and who was drowned that same night was long in our employ. He finally became angry at some fancied slight and disappeared taking with him valuable papers. It is believed that the crude map delivered to you was among the papers he took. At any rate, on the day before you saw him, he expressed to a relative remorse at what he had done and promised to restore the papers. How he came to deliver the map to you, knowing the Cartier as well as he did, is something which will never be known.”
The boys left Quebec the next morning without waiting for the return of the men who were still looking for the lost channel on Cartier island. Therefore they never saw either Lawyer Martin or Max again, but they read later in the news dispatches of Max being sentenced to the penitentiary for highway robbery.
The boys went over the old ground on the river again to Ogdensburg, where the Cartier was fully equipped with new electrical apparatus and then the two started away on their long journey up the lakes.
Captain Joe, was, of course, overjoyed at becoming the owner of the launch, which is now one of the show vessels on the South Branch.
Captain Joe, the bulldog, and Teddy when in Chicago alternate between the Rambler and the Cartier, having a welcome on either boat.
The boys were not content to remain long on the South Branch. In fact, within a few days, they fitted the Rambler out for a trip down the Ohio river. What occurred during this trip will be related in the next volume of this series entitled: The Six River Motor Boat Boys on the Ohio; or, the Three Blue Lights.