“Where do you think the bulldog came from?” asked Hank as, with Alex and
Case, he stood watching the dog capering about in the joy of victory.
“He seems to know you boys pretty well.”
“This dog,” Alex answered, “is the champion four-footed traveler of the
world. He’s been on all the big rivers, and in all the big cities. He’s
taken bites out of all the tribes on the face of the globe. He belongs
on the _Rambler_ with us.”
“Seems like a mighty pert dog?” admitted the mountaineer.
“You don’t have to guess again!” Case put in.
“Anyway, he done finished that hound in good shape,” Hank suggested.
He stooped as he spoke and took the end of a rope into his fingers.
“You see how it is,” he said, “the animal broke his leash and got away
from the bunch sleuthing in the woods.”
“Then they won’t be able to find us?” asked Alex.
The bony mountaineer shook his head.
“They might as well look for a needle in a load of hay,” he said.
Alex now bent over and began talking gravely to the bulldog.
“Captain Joe,” he said, “why didn’t you follow me sooner? I might have
been eaten alive at that landing. Next time, you come quicker.”
Captain Joe pointed his blood-stained nose in the direction of the river
and whined softly.
“What’s that?” asked Alex.
The dog drew away from the boy and ran a few steps to the north and
looked back.
“Look here!” Alex said, speaking excitedly to Case and the mountaineer,
“the bulldog says there’s some of our friends over in the direction of
the river.”
“I didn’t hear him talking,” laughed the mountaineer.
“That’s because you don’t know dog talk. Captain Joe has a language of
his own,” laughed Case. “Great dog, that!”
“Anyway,” admitted the mountaineer, “he seems to understand what you say
to him.”
“Oh, come on!” urged Alex. “Let’s don’t waste any more time standing
here. There’s something wrong on board the _Rambler_, or Captain Joe
wouldn’t be here.”
“The _Rambler_,” Case insisted, “is a long way upstream.”
“I guess Captain Joe knows where it is,” Alex replied. “You fellows come
right along. I’m going to follow the dog.”
The boys used their searchlights freely now, and made considerable noise
making their way through the thickets. After walking steadily for
fifteen or twenty minutes, the bulldog darted on ahead and left them to
make their way without his guidance.
Even while the three were discussing the disappearance of the dog, they
heard him barking not far away, and then a voice they knew came to their
ears. The dog’s bark took on a note of welcome.
“Hello, Alex! Hello, Case!” they heard Clay call. “Why don’t you come on
out to the river?” “We’re moving as fast as we can,” Case called back.
“This jungle is harder to work through than a Saturday night crowd on
South Clark street. How did you come to be on shore?” he added.
By this time, the two boys and the mountaineer had gained the spot where
Clay stood.
“What’s doing on the _Rambler_?” Case asked after the mountaineer had
been presented to Clay.
“We have met the enemy and we are theirs!” said Clay dolefully.
In as few words as possible he told the story of the situation on the
_Rambler_ at the time he left it.
“And Jule is still there with those thieves?” asked Case.
“He is unless he’s made a dive for liberty,” replied Clay.
“You say the boat was drifting the last you saw of her?” asked Hank.
“Broadside downstream!” answered Clay.
“Well, then,” the mountaineer suggested, “we’d better be moving on down.
Was she on this side of the river or the other?”
“Pretty close to the Kentucky shore,” answered the boy.
“Then you’re in luck!” the mountaineer laughed. “There’s a sand bar down
here, just around the point, that will be sure to catch her. You may
have my head for a football if we don’t see her wedged against that bar
as soon as we come in sight of it.”
After half an hour’s difficult walking along the river bank, winding far
into the river to escape coves, crossing little runs on fallen trees,
they passed around the point of the bend and looked down a long sweep of
river.
“Thunderation!” shouted the mountaineer.
“Now, what do you think of that?” demanded Clay.
“Rotten!” Alex and Case declared in a breath. What the boys saw was the
_Rambler_ lying at anchor, perhaps forty rods away with the _Hawk_
bearing down upon her.
“It looks to me,” the mountaineer said, “as if those pirates were bound
to have that boat.”
“And it looks to me,” Case put in, “as if they’re going to get her, too!
They seem to have the top hand in this game.”
“I don’t know about that,” declared the mountaineer. “I don’t think we
ought to let those brigands run away with that boat.”
“Well, then, suggest something!” urged Clay.
Before Hank could speak again, the _Rambler_’s anchor was hauled in and
she was headed directly for the shore almost at the exact spot where the
four stood. The _Hawk_ steamed steadily after her.
“What’s she doing that for?” demanded Case.
“That boat of yours,” suggested the mountaineer, “will almost float in a
heavy dew, while the _Hawk_ as you call her requires a considerable
depth of water.”
Clay nudged his companions and laughed.
“That’s shows that you’re not familiar with boating,” he said, in a
moment. “That old barge out there will float in twenty-five inches of
water, while the _Rambler_, sticking her keel down like a knife,
requires at least thirty-five inches. I guess the truth of the matter
is,” he added, “that the pirates on board the _Rambler_ are coming this
way in the hope of dodging the _Hawk_.”
“Why don’t they do a little shooting?” Case asked. “Those fellows aren’t
usually so saving of their ammunition.”
“I guess the police boat isn’t far away,” suggested the mountaineer.
“She may be just downstream, or just upstream, but they know she’s
hereabouts, and there’d be plenty of shooting if they didn’t suspect her
presence. Those fellows usually shoot to kill, too.”
The _Rambler_ came in within a dozen feet of the shore and then turned
prow down. The _Hawk_ dropped down, too, edging in upon her every
minute. The boys watched the maneuvers with anxious eyes.
“I hope they won’t get to shooting,” Clay said, “because Jule and Teddy
must be still on board.”
“If those fellows on the _Rambler_ knew the game they are playing,” Alex
declared, “they would turn the motors on full speed and run away from
that pirate. Perhaps they don’t know it, but our boat can go three miles
while the other boat is traveling one.”
“Let’s go aboard and show them how to run it!” suggested Case.
The prow light was still burning on the _Rambler_, and the cabin was
also brightly illuminated. Through the small window on the port side,
they could see Jule busily engaged over the electric coils at the back
of the cabin.
“I believe I can get on board that boat without being seen,” Alex
declared, and before the others could offer a word of remonstrance, the
little fellow was in the river swimming mostly under water toward the
after deck of the motor boat. They saw him climb up on the deck and peer
in at the window in the rear wall of the cabin.
“The little monkey!” chuckled Clay. “I don’t think I would have
undertaken a game of that kind for a million dollars.”
“Well,” Case said excitedly, “we’re going to do exactly the same thing.
Those fellows on board are so busy watching the pirates that they won’t
see us, and the pirates are so busy watching the _Rambler_ that they
won’t see us. We’ve just got to get on board.”
The mountaineer threw himself at full length on the ground and laughed
until his lean sides shook.
“And what will you do when you get on board?” he asked directly. “You’re
the gamest lot of kids I ever saw.”
“About the first thing I do,” Case declared, “will be to get something
to eat. I’ll just bet you a red apple that Alex has got his nose into
the provision chest this minute.”
They all glanced toward the _Rambler_ at mention of the boy and saw that
the after deck was vacant.
“It’s a sure thing he’s got his nose into some kind of food if he’s
inside the cabin,” Clay remarked.
“But, honest, now, boys,” the mountaineer asked, “what do you think of
doing after you get on board? You can’t fight the pirates on your boat
and the pirates on the _Hawk_ too.”
“Why,” Clay said, “we’ll run away from that boat in a minute. In three
seconds after we get our hands on the motors, we’ll be going so fast
downstream that a bullet from the _Hawk_ couldn’t catch us.”
“You kids certainly beat my time,” chuckled the mountaineer. “If I
didn’t have plenty of business at that little aeroplane factory of mine
up in the hills. I’d be tempted to go with you.”
“This man,” Case explained to Clay, “makes moonshine whiskey up in the
hills. He calls his still an aeroplane factory because his product sends
people up in the air.”
“It will send a man pretty high up in the air if he drinks enough of
it,” the mountaineer chuckled.
“Why don’t you quit it and play fair with the Government?” asked Clay.
“Sho’, boys,” answered the mountaineer, “I wouldn’t enjoy life if it
wasn’t for the skirmishes I have with the Government officers. Besides,
there ain’t nothing else a man can do in this country. When a man can
make a hundred dollars’ worth of moonshine out of ten dollars’ worth of
corn, and do it with mighty little trouble, what’s the use of his coming
down into the valley and shoveling coal into a steamer for a dollar and
a half a day?”
The argument was never completed, for at that moment the boys saw the
cabin door open and Teddy, standing erect in a boxing attitude, move
out. He was getting to be quite a good-sized bear now, and he bulked
fierce and heavy against the lights. At first, neither one of the river
thieves on board the _Rambler_ saw him.
In fact, the first indication Mike had of his presence was when he felt
a sharp claw laid on the arm lying across the gunwale. He turned
quickly, looked for one instant into the pig-like eyes of the bear, and
with a cry which echoed down the river, sprang into the stream.
“I guess he thought the bear was going to eat him!” Case observed.
The mountaineer now lay rolling and tumbling on the bank of the river.
The scene had opened so unexpectedly; the bear’s appearance had been so
fierce and intimidating, that he had at first felt a little shiver of
fear, but now he saw that the bear was merely performing tricks he had
been taught While he chuckled, Gid also leaped into the river, and then
he saw Case and Clay, followed by Captain Joe, swimming lustily toward
the _Rambler_.