Sailing swiftly down the stream in the early morning, Alex was not at
all in bad humor as he regarded the general situation. He figured that
he could very readily elude the coal tow and return upstream to his
chums. In fact, the portion of the incident which he regretted most was
the loss of his fish.
“Now,” he pondered as he whirled the boat over towards the Indiana shore
in order to find open water for his passage upstream, “I’ll have to go
and hook another catfish before we can have breakfast.”
He chuckled softly to himself as he thought of the chums marooned on the
shore of the little cove without a thing to eat. At the time of his
sudden departure with the _Rambler_, no supplies of any kind had been
carried ashore. He laughed as he thought of the rage of the boys.
“I’ll throw out a troll-line as I go up,” he mused, “and perhaps I’ll
have a pickerel or something of that kind all ready for the hot stones
when I get up to the cove.”
When within a short distance of the Indiana shore, the boy saw a long
line of floats extending out from the bank, indicating the location of a
fishing net. The boy sprang to the motors in the hope of saving the net
by shutting off the power, but he was too late. In fact, his effort only
made the meeting with the net more disastrous.
Running at full speed, the boat might have cut the net and passed on,
but drifting with the current as she was when she came to it, something
like two hundred feet of stout fibre were wound about the propeller,
about the skag, and about the rudder and rudder-post, as the motors were
reversed in an effort to back away.
As the boy leaned over the stern to ascertain the extent of the damage,
the clatter of the motors died out and he knew that the clogging of the
propellers had been responsible.
In a moment the _Rambler_ was drifting aimlessly downstream, swinging
this way and that with the current, spinning along broadside to the wash
of the river oftener than in any other position.
“Now, I’m in a beautiful mess!” the boy declared. “I shall never be able
to get that stuff out of the propeller without beaching the boat.”
As the boy was lifting a heavy oar in the hope of sending the motor boat
over to the Indiana side of the river, he heard a slow, drawling hail
from the mouth of a little creek some distance down.
“’Tend to your rudder!” shouted a hoarse voice. “You’ll go over the
rapids in a heap if you keep on that way!”
“Propeller and rudder clogged!” shouted Alex. “Come on out and tow me
in! You’ll be well paid for your work.”
The boy thought, in a moment, that the last sentence had been entirely
superfluous, for their experience on the river had been that waterside
characters were always too willing to assist any crippled boat. At all
times their charges were exorbitant.
“All right!” the man called from the shore, and then the boy saw a small
skiff shoot away from the side of a dilapidated-looking shanty boat
which lay half hidden by a thicket at the mouth of the creek.
When the man in the skiff reached the _Rambler_, he rowed completely
around her as if examining her good points. He was a long, lanky,
sour-visaged individual with long black hair and beard. He was dressed
in the homespun cotton so common with rivermen.
“Right pert boat you’ve got there,” he said, at last.
“Never mind the boat now,” Alex answered. “She’s drifting downstream
every minute. Tow her to shore and help me to get this net out of the
propeller.”
“So it’s a net in the propeller, is it?” snarled the man from the
houseboat. “I hope you hain’t gone and took up my net.”
“Did you have a net out in the river?” asked the boy.
“I certainly did!” was the reply. “And if you’ve gone and cut it up,
you’ll pay for it.”
Alex knew very well that the man from the houseboat had never owned a
net of the value of the one he had destroyed, but he decided to have no
words with the fellow until the _Rambler_ was ready to proceed on her
journey. He saw that the man was evidently seeking a quarrel.
“Yessir!” the riverman went on. “If you’ve gone and cut up my net you’ll
pay me a good price for it. There’s too many of you sports romping up
and down the river with your gasoline boats.”
“Time enough to talk about that when we get the boat over to the shore,”
Alex declared. “I don’t want to drift downstream any farther.”
Scowling and complaining over the exertion required, the fellow finally
managed to work the _Rambler_ into the mouth of the creek where the
houseboat lay. As Alex took in the situation at one quick glance, he saw
two evil-faced fellows lounging on the deck of the houseboat.
“What you got, Mose?” one of them called out to the riverman.
“I’ve salvaged a motor boat!” was Mose’s reply.
“What’s the trouble with her?” was the next question.
“She’s got my net wound around her propeller!” answered Mose.
“Sho’,” returned the other. “That new net of yours that cost a hundred
not a week ago?”
“Yessir, that same new net!” returned the riverman.
Alex saw that the men were preparing to make trouble for him. He knew
that they could not collect a cent of salvage for towing his boat out of
the stream. He was positive that the net did not belong to them.
Houseboat people of their class consider themselves fortunate in the
possession of ordinary fishing lines and spears.
However, he only smiled as they talked of their hundred-dollar net, and
dropped over into the shallow water of the creek to inspect the damage
done to the propeller and rudder.
So far as he could see, there was nothing broken. The net which was
wound about everything at the stern of the boat seemed to him to make a
bundle as large as a whiskey barrel. He took out his knife preparatory
to cutting it away.
“Look here, you boy you!” shouted Mose. “Don’t you go to cuttin’ up that
net. You just take your consarned old propeller and rudder off the stern
so that we can unwind it.”
Alex knew that this would be impossible. His idea was to cut the net
away, spring to the motors, and pass out of the reach of the houseboat
men before they suspected what he was up to.
Therefore, he at once set to work with his knife and began slashing the
strong threads of the net. The three men looked on angrily for an
instant and then Mose said:
“I told you not to cut that net, boy!”
“I’m afraid there is no other way,” Alex answered very civilly.
“I hope you’ve got the money in your jeans to pay for it,” Mose shouted.
“If you haven’t, I’ll just naturally have to take charge of that boat. I
can’t afford to lose that net.”
“All right,” Alex replied, cutting industriously away at the
obstruction, “my chums are up the river a short distance and they will
be down here directly. Then we can talk about paying. We’ll fix you out
all right as soon as they get here.”
“You better see that you do!” Mose responded angrily.
It took some time to cut away the great net, but the propeller and
rudder and skag were free at last and then Alex climbed back on the
deck.
“Here, you,” shouted Mose, presenting the muzzle of an old-fashioned
double-barreled shotgun. “Don’t you go near those motors. I’ve been
expecting you’d try to run away without paying your just debts.”
“No fear of my going away just yet,” Alex answered. “I’ve got to wait
somewhere along here until my chums come.”
While Mose held the rusty old gun in a threatening manner, his two
companions attached a heavy cable to the forward bitts of the _Rambler_
and carried it ashore. After winding it around the trunk of a great
tree, they returned to the houseboat and lay down on the forward deck to
gaze impudently at the boy.
“Now, we’ll see if you make a sneak down the river!” Mose cried
triumphantly. “The best way for you to get away from this creek is to
lay down about a hundred and fifty dollars.”
“I didn’t know there was so much money in the world!” laughed Alex.
“If your chums don’t come in one hour,” Mose went on, “we’ll take
possession of your boat. This man here,” pointing over his shoulder with
his thumb, “is a constable! Ain’t you, Clint? And he can sell your boat
right here on the river bank. Can’t you, Clint? We’ll see if these
sports are coming down here and destroy our property without paying for
it!”
In all his experience in river journeys, Alex had never been confronted
by so puzzling a proposition. He knew that the rivermen had no claim
upon him whatever, although he considered Mose entitled to some
compensation for his friendly act. Still he realized that for the time
being the fellows held the whip hand.
It happened that he had considerable money—two or three hundred dollars
in his possession, having taken charge of the expense fund only a few
days before. His inclination now was to pay the men the money demanded
and get away. Then he reasoned that the exhibition of such a sum of
money would only arouse the greed of the outlaws. That they would never
let him depart with any money at all in his possession, he knew very
well. It was a trying situation.
While he stood deliberating over the problem, a a loud hail came from
upstream and turning he saw the coal tow sweeping down the river.
“Hold that boat!” shouted a harsh voice from one of the foremost barges.
“Hold that boat ’till we get there.”
Scenting an additional profit in the arrival of the tow, Mose sprang
into his skiff and rowed out. As the first barge came down, Alex saw two
men spring into the skiff which was at once headed for the shore. The
two men lounging on the houseboat at once sprang over to the deck of the
_Rambler_, the man with the rusty shotgun keeping it in full view.
When the skiff reached the _Rambler_, the two men clambered on deck
while Mose ran the skiff up into the creek. The two men were extremely
well-dressed although their clothing showed connection with the water of
the river and the smut of the coal barges. They were both very much
excited, and the first thing one of them did was to shake his fist under
Alex’s, nose.
“Now, you young thief!” he shouted. “We’ve got you at last!”
“No rough house, pardner!” exclaimed the houseboat man who held the gun.
“No rough house here, because, you see, we’ve got a claim on this boy
ourselves. He just destroyed a net worth a hundred dollars!”
“A hundred dollars!” snarled the whiskey boat man. “Do you know what he
did to us?” he went on. “He stole this motor boat and sunk our steamer
with it. He’s cost us more than twenty thousand dollars!”
Alex stood silent in the face of all these accusations. He had
recognized the two men from the barge as men he had seen on the whiskey
boat, and he knew that they would do their best to make him trouble. For
a moment it seemed to him that the fate of the _Rambler_ was sealed.
“What do you say to all this, boy?” asked the man with the gun.
Alex sat down dejectedly on the gunwale.
“I guess I’ll let you fellows fight it out between you,” he said.
“I can’t see as there’s anything to fight out!” one of the men from the
whiskey boat shouted.
“This is our boat and we’re going to take it away! As for this boy,
we’ll place him in the custody of the first United States marshal we
come to!”
Once more the rusty barrel of the old shotgun in the hands of the
houseboat man was hoisted to a threatening position.
“Don’t you forget,” the man said viciously, “that this boat busted our
net. We don’t care whose boat it is, we’re going to hold it until we get
paid for our property!”
“You talk like a fool!” shouted the man from the steamer.
“And you act like a fool!” insisted the other.
“I don’t believe you fellows ever owned any net!” the enraged outlaw
shouted. “I’ve seen your old houseboat sneaking along the river here for
months. You’re the kind of men who never have the price of a drink
unless you can steal it. If you try to hold this boat, I’ll fill you
both full of bullet holes!”
The eyes at the stock of the shotgun flashed wickedly, but the man’s
voice was remarkably smooth as he said:
“If you move, either one of you, or try to get out a gun I’ll blow the
tops of your heads off! You observe,” he went on, “that there are two
barrels to this gun, and I’ll tell you right now that they’re both
loaded with slugs.”
“This is nonsense!” roared the man from the steamer.
“That’s what I’ve been calculatin’,” replied the other.
Alex was thinking fast. It seemed to him at that time that it would be
better to leave the _Rambler_ in the hands of the houseboat men than in
those of the men from the steamer.
The houseboat men would be satisfied with a small amount of money as
soon as they discovered that they could get no more, while the other
outlaws would insist on taking the _Rambler_ for their alleged debt.
Taking this view of the situation, he turned to the man who was holding
the shotgun.
“These two men,” he said, “are whiskey boat men. They have no more claim
on this boat than you have.”