On his way back to the _Rambler_ after his rather remarkable
conversation with the old merchant, Alex met Clay and the old man’s son
hastening toward the store.
“It’s all right!” Clay announced to the boy. “They’ve just got in a big
stock of gasoline, and we’ll fill all the tanks and buy a few red cans
on the side.”
“And for the love of Mike,” Alex interposed, “buy about a peck of spark
plugs. And say,” he called out as Clay mounted the little platform in
front of the place of business, “buy a couple of fish lines that would
bring a freight car out of the water, and the right kind of hooks to go
with them.”
“What’s the idea?” Clay called back.
“Well, you just bring the hooks and lines and I’ll show you where the
idea is,” replied the boy.
When Alex reached the deck of the _Rambler_ he found Case and Jule busy
over a great stack of pancakes. One was spreading them thick with honey
and the other was making them more eatable by the use of bacon gravy.
Eggs were frying in the skillet over the stove and a great pot of coffee
was simmering on the electric coils.
“Whew!” shouted the boy, sticking his nose into the cabin, “you fellows
smell good in here.”
“Yes,” Case laughed, “and you took good care that you didn’t help
produce the fragrance which pervades this apartment.”
“I got supper last night,” pleaded Alex.
“That’s all right,” Jule cut in, “it was your turn to get breakfast this
morning, too. You know what we all agreed to when we left Chicago on the
first trip. The boy that talked slang had to cook the meals and wash the
dishes.”
“Aw, when did I talk slang?” demanded Alex.
“You’ve been talking slang for a week!” Case declared.
“What’d I say?” demanded Alex, scornfully.
“You said one of those river pirates was balmy in the head,” answered
Jule. “You’re always making some break like that. If I had a twirler
like that you carry around with you, and couldn’t keep it under any
better control than you do yours, I’d throw the belt off the wheels.”
“I know who’ll cook meals and wash dishes now,” laughed Alex. “When it
comes to talking slang, you’ve got me backed up on a blind siding with
my fires drawn.”
“Go to it, boys!” roared Case. “Go to it. Get it all off your chests,
and I won’t have to do any work for a month.”
Alex was soon busy at the breakfast table, and when Clay returned with a
great load of gasoline and provisions from the store, everything was
neatly cleared away in the little cabin.
“There!” Clay said, throwing a great package at Alex’s, head, “there’s
your fish line and your fish hooks, and for fear you’d want to use the
coal stove or one of the motors for a sinker, I brought along a section
of railroad iron. I guess that’ll hold your line.”
As the boy spoke, he threw about four inches of steel railway iron down
on the deck with a great thud.
“What did that old gentleman at the store say to you about the three
blue lights?” asked Alex, as Clay prepared to get the boat under way.
“Did he have a ghost story to spin?”
“He didn’t say a word to me about the three blue lights,” Clay replied.
“We didn’t have any time to talk about such things, and we haven’t any
time now, so you fellows just get up here and help fill these tanks.”
All four boys were busy in a moment and young Groger from the store
assisted materially in getting the gasoline on board.
In less than an hour all was ready for departure. The young merchant
shook the boys heartily by the hand and asked them to call if they
returned home by way of the river.
“Oh, we’ll come back all right,” Alex called out. “At least, I’m coming
back. I’m bound to know something more about those three blue lights.
I’m the original mystery investigator!”
“So father told you about that, did he?” queried young Groger.
“Of course, he did!” Alex replied. “He couldn’t talk about anything
else. He seemed to be glad that Clay and Jule saw the three blue lights.
I guess he’s got an idea that the people around here think he’s been
talking about something that never existed.”
“I’m afraid he is,” replied the young man. “He’s always talking about
the three blue lights and the wreck of the _Mary Ann_, and the
explosion, and all that, but he’s the only one about here who ever saw
the lights or heard the explosion.”
“Well, you’re mistaken there!” replied Alex. “Clay saw them last night
and Jule saw them, and all four of us heard the explosion.”
Watching the young man’s face closely as he stepped ashore, Clay thought
that he saw a sudden pallor come over it. The son was evidently as fully
superstitious as his father.
“Now, what did the old merchant tell you about the three blue lights?”
demanded Jule, as the boat swung off down the river.
In as few words as possible Alex explained the mystery of the three blue
lights according to the aged merchant’s theory.
“Well,” Jule said, after a moment’s thought, “the three blue lights did
bob up out of the river. There wasn’t anything there to keep them
floating down with the current, or to sustain them on the surface. And,”
he went on, “there wasn’t anything there to cause an explosion.”
“Ho!” Alex scorned. “You’ll be saying next, that you believe in the
ghost story! Now, just to show you that there’s nothing to it,” he
continued, “I move that we come back up the river after a time and find
out where those blue lights come from, and where they go to.”
“What do you say to that, Clay?” asked Jule.
“You needn’t ask me whether I’m interested or not,” Clay replied. “I’ve
been thinking about those three blue lights a whole lot. I don’t believe
in ghosts, or superstitions of any kind, but I do believe that there is
something significant about those lights.”
“Then it’s settled that we’ll return and investigate?” Alex asked.
The boys all replied in the affirmative and then Alex opened the package
Clay had brought him and unrolled his fish lines, which looked more like
cables than anything else. Case and Jule laughed until they found it
necessary to hold their sides.
Clay looked on with an amused expression on his face. He knew that Alex
usually had a pretty good reason for anything he did, and was expecting
something novel and original. He was not disappointed.
Paying no attention whatever to the jeers of his chums, Alex bent the
great hooks to the cable-like line, took a turn with each around the
section of railroad iron, and moved the whole contraption to the stern.
“Now, you fellows help me to get these lines in right,” he commanded.
“It wants one boy to a line so they won’t get tangled when I dump this
sinker in. Hurry up now, we want this fish.”
“Sinker?” repeated Jule. “I thought your idea was to build a submarine
railroad.”
“Fish!” laughed Case. “What kind of fish do you expect to catch with
that layout? That won’t catch fish!”
“Huh!” answered Alex. “If I had a book containing all you boys don’t
know about catching fish, I’d have to rent the Coliseum in Chicago to
put it in. You boys mean well, but you’re ignorant.”
“Where’re you going to put this fish after you get it?” demanded Jule,
snickering. “We haven’t got any contract for feeding any state troops,
have we? What do you want a big fish for, anyway?”
Alex merely thrust his hands inside the waist band of his trousers and
grinned.
“I’ve got plenty of storage room,” he finally declared.
“Honest, now, Alex,” Clay asked, “what kind of a fish do you expect to
catch?”
“Catfish!” was the short reply.
“Wow!” exclaimed Jule. “I wouldn’t eat a catfish any quicker than I
would eat a cat.”
“What are you putting all that weight on the lines for?” asked Case.
“It’ll sink the hooks into the mud about a foot,” Jule put in.
“Sure it will!” continued Case. “And catfish are never found at the
bottom of the river. They call them catfish because they climb up on
things.”
“You’re the wise little fisher boy,” laughed Alex. “A catfish couldn’t
climb to the surface of the river if they had an electric elevator. They
live in the mud and eat in the mud. After they get a square meal, they
stretch out on a bed of silt like a cat on a sitting room floor. Now get
these lines over and I’ll show you what a real catfish looks like.”
The boys took the lines into their hands and leaned over the stern. Alex
with the iron poised in air stopped suddenly and laid it down on deck.
“I guess I need a little instruction myself,” he said. “You can’t catch
catfish by trolling for them. You’ve got to let the line lay wiggling
from a weight in the mud of the river.”
The boy rushed back to the motors, shut off the power, and then dropped
the anchor.
“Now, boys,” he said, “if you’ll all get back into the cabin and remain
quiet, I’ll coax a catfish two feet long out of the river.”
“You have my sympathy,” Case answered, “and I’ll help you all I can.
I’ll go back into the cabin and make a noise like a dish of cream.”
Regarding Case’s offer as light and trifling, Alex got his lines into
the water and sat down to await results.
“I don’t know,” he said after a while, “but I ought to have waited until
we came under that wooded island just ahead. Catfish have a way of
hovering in the mud around the towheads.”
“We can drop down if you think best,” Clay proposed.
“Just you wait a minute!” Alex exclaimed all excitement, “I’ve got a
bite right now. Two bites!” he yelled the next moment. “Both lines are
running out! Catch one, quick!”
The boy’s announcement that the lines were moving out brought his three
chums instantly to the front. Case and Jule both grabbed for the same
line, with the result that the tops of their heads came together with a
thud and the line continued to wiggle along the deck. Clay stepped on
the moving line and Alex seized it.
The boy now held a line in each hand and was drawn tightly against the
after gunwale.
“Hold on, Alex, hold on!” shouted Case.
“Pull ’em in, pull ’em in!” yelled Jule.
“You bet I’ll hold on!” panted Alex. “Why don’t you boys catch on to the
line?”
The boy sprang for the lines again, but their fingers met only the bare
deck. Alex, hanging on like grim death, stood for a moment with his feet
braced against the gunwale and then went head-first into the river.
“Great spoons!” Jule exclaimed. “Talk about catfish! I’ll bet he’s got a
team of wild colts at the end of those lines!”
Alex, hanging to the lines, went bobbing down the stream.