[Illustration: “Here you,” shouted Mose, “don’t you go near those
motors.”]
The River Motor Boat Boys on the Ohio
OR
The Three Blue Lights
By HARRY GORDON
Author of
“The River Motor Boat Boys on the St. Lawrence,”
“The River Motor Boat Boys on the Colorado,”
“The River Motor Boat Boys on the Mississippi,”
“The River Motor Boat Boys on the Amazon,”
“The River Motor Boat Boys on the Columbia.’
A. L. Burt Company
New York
Copyright, 1913
By A. L. Burt Company
THE SIX RIVER MOTOR BOYS ON THE OHIO
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I.—IN QUEST OF SPARK PLUGS.
II.—A “FRIENDLY” CAPTAIN.
III.—RESISTING AN OFFICER.
IV.—A DIVE FOR LIBERTY.
V.—CAPTAIN JOE ON SHORE.
VI.—JULE TURNS THE SWITCH.
VII.—THE TRAINING OF TEDDY.
VIII.—CAPTAIN JOE’S MESSAGE.
IX.—THE THREE BLUE LIGHTS.
X.—ANNIVERSARY OF A WRECK.
XI.—CATCHING BIG CATFISH.
XII.—THE GHOST OF THE MARY ANN.
XIII.—EXPLORING A LAGOON.
XIV.—CAPTAIN JOE HELPS SOME.
XV.—THE RAMBLER STRIKES BACK.
XVI.—THE COAL BARGES INTERVENE.
XVII.—THE TWO CLAIMANTS.
XVIII.—A FORBIDDEN SUBJECT.
XIX.—TEDDY MAKES A SENSATION.
XX.—THE PIRATES’ NEST.
XXI.—FATE TAKES A TRICK.
XXII.—THE NIGHT-RIDERS.
XXIII.—THE RAMBLER’S LIGHTS.
XXIV.—THE LIGHTS HELP SOME.
XXV.—GRATEFUL NIGHT-RIDERS.
CHAPTER I.—IN QUEST OF SPARK PLUGS.
“That Kentucky shore looks to me like good hunting.”
“What can you get over there?”
“’Possums, coons, rabbits and squirrels.”
“All right, we’ll go right now and get a coon.”
Cornelius Witters threw himself back on the gunwale and laughed and
shook until little wavelets sprang from the sides of the boat and
rippled away over the Ohio river.
“You’ll get lots of coons in the middle of the afternoon,” he said,
finally. “You have to get coons in the night.”
“Well, there’s another night coming, ain’t there?” suggested Alex
Smithwick. “We’re going to stay here in this eddy until morning, ain’t
we?”
“I guess we’ll have to stay till morning,” Jule Shafer cut in. “The
motor has gone wrong, and Clay doesn’t seem to know how to fix it.”
Clayton Emmett looked up from the motors with a very smutty face and
smiled at the last remark.
“I’ll tell you what it is, boys,” he said, “this motor can’t be put in
good shape until we get another consignment of spark plugs.”
The four boys, Clayton Emmett, Alex Smithwick, Jule Shafer and Cornelius
Witters, gathered about the motor, looking with disgust at its
motionless cranks. The boat had been turned into an eddy on the Kentucky
side of the Ohio river about noon, and Clay had been working at the
machinery ever since in the hope of getting farther down the river that
night.
“Well,” Case said, after a short silence, “some one must go out to
civilization and buy some spark plugs. How far do you think we’ll have
to go? Of course these little trading points on the river don’t keep
spark plugs. We’ll be lucky if we even get gasoline there.”
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” Clay suggested.
“We may be able to buy or borrow spark plugs from some passing launch or
steamer. There are store-boats on the Ohio, you know, and they may carry
all kinds of motor boat supplies.”
“Oh yes,” Alex grinned, “there are store-boats on the Ohio, and whiskey
boats, and show-boats, and house-boats, and about a thousand other kinds
of boats, but I don’t believe they carry such supplies as we want.”
“It’s just a chance,” Clay went on. “We may be able to get a supply from
some motor boat, but in the meantime we’d better be looking about in
other directions.”
“All right,” Case exclaimed, excitedly, “Alex and I will go out hunting
and steer toward any little river town we get wise to. We may find motor
supplies in any old shanty town.”
“All right,” Clay replied. “Go out and get a mess of squirrels or
rabbits while you’re hunting for a supply store.”
The motor boat _Rambler_ lay in an eddy on the Kentucky side of the Ohio
river, some distance below Louisville. The four owners had put the boat
into the river at Pittsburg, and were making their way to the
Mississippi at Cairo.
They had only recently returned from an extended trip up the St.
Lawrence river. From Ogdensburg they had followed the Great Lakes to
Chicago, which was their home. From Ogdensburg the motor boat had been
accompanied by the launch _Cartier_, which had been presented to Captain
Joe, one of their old-time friends, because of important services
rendered by the boys. Those who have read the previous books of this
series will understand the build and speed of the _Rambler_, and also
the affectionate relations existing between the four boys and Captain
Joe, an ex-sea, lake and river captain.
Captain Joe had been urged by the lads to accompany them on their trip
down the Ohio with his launch, but had objected, saying that the boys
would be sure to get into all kinds of scrapes, and that he did not care
to become responsible for the actions of a crew going about the world
looking for trouble!
The old captain, however, had a very alert and intelligent
representative on board the _Rambler_ in the person of Captain Joe, a
white bulldog of forbidding appearance. This dog had been purchased at
Para, Brazil, by Alex, and had often made himself useful during trying
situations on previous trips.
There was also another passenger on board the _Rambler_ whose name did
not appear on the crew list. This was Teddy, the quarter-grown grizzly
bear which Alex had rescued from a floating tree in the Columbia river,
near the source of that wonderful stream.
The bear and the dog were very good friends, playing together like
kittens. During their many river trips the boys had taught the bear to
box, wrestle and frisk about in the water. Captain Joe was always ready
for a tussle with the bear, and had a habit of following Alex
surreptitiously every time the boy left the boat.
The _Rambler_ was well supplied with provisions and ammunition of all
kinds, but, the supply of gasoline running low, the tanks being
well-nigh empty, and the spark plug badly worn, the boys had proposed
early in the day to merely drift down the river, keeping headway with
the sweep.
But a little experience of this mode of traveling on the great stream
had caused them to tie up in an eddy on the Kentucky side. It was
September, and the Ohio was alive with traffic of all kinds.
During the early part of the day they had passed several excursion
boats, gay with flags and music, almost a fleet of shanty-boats, and
innumerable packets, stern-wheelers and side-wheelers. Drifting with no
control to speak of, the _Rambler_ had several times come very near
collision with larger boats.
On the Ohio, as well as on the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence, the
traffic-men seem to have a great contempt for those who go about in
gasoline boats. Captains and pilots unite in making trouble for the
owners of such craft whenever it is possible to do so.
Once that forenoon the _Rambler_ had come very near destruction because
of a monstrous tow of coal barges moving down upon it. Later, the boys
had been annoyed and insulted by a gang of toughs who were lounging over
the railing of a whiskey boat which was passing up the river.
It was finally arranged that Alex and Case should go ashore and look
about for a place where supplies might be purchased. There were no
settlements in sight from the point where the _Rambler_ lay, but the
boys thought that, as she lay just above a great bend which swept around
a long peninsula, turning to the south at last, there might be business
places not far away which were not in view.
“And while you are gone,” Jule called out as the boys rowed ashore,
“catch a coon and half a dozen squirrels. I can make a squirrel pie that
will bring Captain Joe down from Chicago!”
“All right!” Alex called back. “We’ll bring game enough to last a week.
Get your fires all ready by dark.”
The shore on which the boys found themselves a few moments later was
wild and rocky. There were great oaks towering along the side hills and
immense trees of hickory, beech and walnut shut out the view on all
sides. There was also a heavy undergrowth.
“Where are you heading for?” asked Case, as Alex turned into a thicket
and went tramping through it with a great noise.
“I think,” Alex replied, “that we’d better keep off to the west and
south. I looked at a map of the river just before I left the boat, and
there’s a great bend here. We can walk across it in an hour or two, but
it would take half a day to float or row around it.”
“I see,” Case answered. “There may be a town in a nook around the bend.
That’s where they build towns in this country.”
The boys made good time for an hour or more, when they came out on the
bank of the river perhaps three miles from the boat, across the bend,
and ten or fifteen by way of the river. Just below them, hardly forty
rods from the point where they emerged from the underbrush, they saw a
little river settlement composed of half a dozen ramshackle houses, a
fishing dock, and one store building.
“There!” Alex said. “I’ll bet we find spark plugs there!”
“If we find as many spark plugs there as we didn’t find squirrels coming
through,” Case laughed, “It will take a long time to get our motor
started.”
“Oh, well,” Alex answered, “we didn’t look very hard for squirrels,
anyway. We’ll see what they’ve got here, and do our hunting on the way
back.”
“Clay may get what we want from some of the boats,” Case suggested.
“There are lots of boats on the river that ought to carry spark plugs.
It’s dollars to apples that every motor boat we’ve seen to-day carries
an extra supply.”
“That won’t do us any good,” Alex answered, “if they don’t show a
disposition to pass them around.”
“Do you know,” Case went on, “I’m afraid of some of those river boats.
There’s a tougher gang on some of them than you’ll find on Clark street.
They drink third-rail whiskey, made up in the mountains, and are ready
to do murder after a dozen doses of it.”
“Well,” Alex said, “we’ll just have to watch out, that’s all.”
“You remember that red, white and blue boat we saw yesterday?” Case went
on. “That was a gambling house proper. Just looking over the gunwale
into the cabin windows, I saw roulette wheels in operation and three
faro layouts crowded with excited gamblers.”
“Yes,” Alex assented, “and it looked to me like they were playing stud
poker out in the open. It’s a wonder the people along the river don’t
put dynamite under those boats some night.”
“I reckon,” Case suggested, “that the people along the river are more
afraid of the store-boats than they are of the gambling boats. These
store-boat men steal everything they can get their hands on. They have
been known to raid small towns, strip the shelves of the business
places, and even take valuable furniture and musical instruments from
the residences. When they get a boat load of this sort of plunder, they
take it down to New Orleans, where it is disposed of by men who make a
business of doing that sort of thing.”
Alex scratched his red head and wrinkled his freckled nose for a minute
and then turned to his chum with a grin on his face.
“If they try to get the _Rambler_,” he said, “don’t forget that we have
dynamite under the after deck near the gasoline tanks.”
“If they try to get the _Rambler_,” Case exclaimed, “they’ll do it while
we are away on shore, or asleep. These river rats are too cowardly to
put up an open fight. They do their work in the dark.”
“That’s one reason why I don’t like being away from the boat long at a
time,” Alex went on. “Clay and Jule would do anything any two boys could
do to protect our property, but, all the same, two boys wouldn’t cut
much ice with a gang of river pirates like I’ve seen on those boats.”
As the boy ceased speaking he laid an excited hand on Case’s shoulder
and turned his face in the direction from which they had come.
“Did you hear that?” he asked.
Case nodded and turned back to the east.
“It sounded like a gun,” he exclaimed. “I’m going back to the boat.”
Alex held him back and pointed toward the settlement below.
“We may as well see about the spark plugs,” he advised. “It won’t take
us very much longer. That noise may be only hunters, anyway.”
Trying their best to conceal their excitement, the boys moved down the
slope to the river bank and stopped on a level platform before the store
door. The shots were now coming in a volley.