“Then,” Alex suggested, “we’d better be getting the _Rambler_ into the
water and sailing away. If the officers should decide to hold us as
witnesses, we’ll have a fine time on the Columbia, I don’t think.”
“That is just what I have been telling Gran,” replied Clay, “but he
seems to think that he ought to part from us here. He says he has no
money to share the expense of the trip with us, and that he will not be
what they call a star boarder on South Halstead street, Chicago—one who
never misses a meal or pays a cent. I like his independence, but I’d
like better to have him with us. Suppose you go and talk it over with
the lad. He’s pretty blue over something this morning.”
“Perhaps he wants to get away from us because he thinks we will be
suspected of knowing something about this robbery and followed,”
suggested Alex, all his suspicions coming to the front once more.
“And perhaps he wants to get away because he knows that we’ll suspect
him of taking the films. We’ve just got to keep him with us, for a time,
anyway,” the boy added. “We’ll tie him down if necessary!”
“Well, the very best thing I can suggest at this time,” Clay decided,
“is to forget the films, and the train robbery, and the way the boy came
to us, and go on about having fun with the Columbia river. Doesn’t it
seem that way to you? To get away is surely the easiest way to escape
any trouble connected with the robbery. I’ll go and tell Case about it,
and we’ll just cut everything out but the fun we’re going to have on the
river.”
“All right!” Alex agreed. “There never was any photographs taken in the
pass, and there never was a train robbery at the summit of the Rocky
mountains, and no boy ever came to us out of a dark canyon at night! Say
but we’ll have a lot of forgetting to do!”
“And Gran is not to know a word of what we have been talking?”
“Not a single, solitary word! Didn’t we agree that there never was any
films, and that there never was a robbery, and that Gran came to us out
of the clouds, dressed in red and purple, with his pockets stuffed with
treasury notes? Trust me to forget it all when I’m talking with him.”
Clay went forward and drew Case aside, leaving Gran alone on the prow,
and Alex promptly engaged him in conversation. The stranger was still
insisting on leaving the party there, when Captain Joe, who had been
running about the car for some moments, uttered a growl and started off
on a run toward the cluster of houses nearest the river.
Alex called him back, but the dog seemed to have discovered a scent by
the side of the car that he wanted to follow. While the boys stood
talking the car bunted against the upright beam which terminated the
siding, and the Columbia river lay glistening not far distant.
“Glorious, eh?” shouted Alex. “Say, but we’re bound to have some great
old times on that little rivulet!”
Gran turned away his face and remained silent. Alex grinned at this
proof that the boy really wanted to go with them. If his inclination lay
that way, a little argument would do the rest, he thought.
“I’ve got to leave you here,” Gran said, with a sigh.
“No,” insisted Alex, “we’ve been talking it over, and have made up our
minds that we can’t spare you. There are lots of places, we are told,
where it takes four to run the boat. There are rapids and falls which
necessitate taking the boat out of the water and making a carry. I don’t
think you ought to quit us now.”
The stranger’s face brightened in an instant. Alex smiled again.
“Oh, if I can be of any use,” the boy began, “I’ll be glad to go, only I
have no money, and I thought—”
“Never mind that,” Alex replied. “You’re going with us, all right. Is it
a bargain? Sure you won’t leave us when we aren’t looking?” he added.
“We’ll need your help, you know, in lots of places.”
“Come on, now, and get ready to send the _Rambler_ into the water!”
cried Clay, springing to the floor of the car and then to the ground. “I
wish we could run this car into the river and float the boat off, but
that can’t be done, so I’ll have to go and get skids and rollers and men
to help. While I’m gone, you lads get breakfast ready, and we’ll take
our last meal in this elegant old private palace car!”
“I suppose we can go over to the store and get a few things to eat?”
questioned Alex. “We’ll have time for that, won’t we?” he added.
“Surely,” was the reply. “And have some coffee ready for me when I come
back. Perhaps you can get a mess of fish. There’s the greatest salmon
stream in the world, running along at your feet and making faces at you!
But you must hurry up and get the food out of the boxes, all ready to
carry down to the boat as soon as she is in the river.”
“I’ll get the breakfast,” Gran volunteered. “I used to know how to get
up a swell dinner out of a cold potato and a sausage. If I’ve got to go
down the river with you. I’ll work my passage as cook.”
Clay and Case looked up at Alex who stood grinning.
“It is all right,” the boy said. “I showed Gran that we would need his
help, and he is too much of a gentleman to quit us. Get a square meal,
now, Gran,” he continued, “and we’ll cut out the store and be getting
the provisions out of the boxes. I guess we’ve got enough bacon and
condensed milk here to feed an army for a month,” he added, ripping off
the cover of a box and poking at the contents.
So Gran hastened into the cabin, from which the agreeable odor of frying
bacon, bubbling coffee, and browning cakes soon came, making Case and
Alex, still working at the boxes, hungrier than ever.
Before Clay returned, the strange boy appeared in the cabin door waving
a pancake turner in his hand, a pleasant smile on his face.
The knowledge that he was really welcome to go with the boys and the
prospect of making himself useful, had acted like a tonic, and from that
moment he was, apparently, as full of life and as ready for any
adventure that might come his way as were the others.
At times, however, he seemed sad and depressed, seeking solitude and,
while always willing to do his share of the work, refusing to join in
the by-play which his friends often indulged in. At such times the boys
respected his mood and acted as if they did not notice it at all. From
these moods of dejection, however, he soon emerged as bright and,
apparently, as merry as the best of them.
“Dinner ready in the private diner!” he cried, swinging his turner at
the boys. “The cakes are hot, the coffee is strong enough to lift the
boat, and the bacon is crispy as a winter morning in little old
Chicago.”
“It takes a cook to praise his own work!” laughed Case.
Clay came in directly, while they were eating, and all agreed that
Gran’s description of his breakfast had been realistic. The men came
before long with their skids and rollers, and before noon the _Rambler_
was rocking in the waters of the lordly Columbia river.
“Our dream has come true!” Alex whispered to Clay, as the last load of
provisions was deposited on board and the men paid off. “We are at last
on the Columbia, hundreds and hundreds of miles from the ocean, with a
long ride before us. Isn’t it just glorious, old pal?”
“Glorious!” repeated the other. “It is more than glorious, and there
never was any pictures taken in the pass, there never was any train
robbery there, and Gran came to us without a suspicion clinging to him.”
“Right you are!” Alex approved, “still, for the last time, mind, I
really would like to know what became of those films, and if there were
any faces in the photographs that I did not see in the glow of the
fire.”
“That is your last guess,” laughed Clay. “We are not going to have
mysteries tagging after us on this trip, as we had on the voyage up the
Amazon. We’re going to hunt deer, and bear, and jaguars, and have the
time of our lives! And fish! Just wait until we begin to take those big
yellow salmon from the river! Just you wait!”
“There’s one thing we forgot,” Clay observed, as the boys put away the
provisions in the odd nooks provided for them and saw that the gasoline
tanks were full, the electric generator in good working order. “We never
went up to wish that gruff conductor good luck.”
“He is a gruff one, all right,” Alex cut in. “He did put on a lot of
authority when he first came up to us, didn’t he, now?” he continued.
“But he calmed down when we filled him up with cakes and coffee,” Case
observed. “He didn’t turn out so badly, after all. There’s many a gruff
person in the world who can be quelled by a little courtesy.”
“But you wanted to fight with him,” laughed Clay. “I saw that by the way
you looked at him. That would have spoiled everything.”
“Good luck to him, anyway,” Case commented. “He must have squared us in
connection with the robbery, for no one here has asked us a word about
it. He probably told the natives that we left with him long before the
robbery took place at the pass. Don’t you think so?”
“What robbery?” asked Alex with a giggle. “It has been discovered that
there wasn’t any robbery at the pass, and that there never was any—.
Well, what’s the use of talking about a thing that never took place. I
wonder if Clay brought any pie along in the boxes?”
“Pie in a box—all the way from Chicago!” snorted Case. “You must think
they _can_ pie up there. But, say, how would a pie go just now?”
“That’s all you know about the haunts and habits of pie!” exclaimed
Clay. “In Chicago they have a species of pie that lives in glass. When
you want a bite you make a blanket of flaky dough and take it out of the
glass can, and then exposure to heat brings it to life in the shape of
pie! What do you know about that? Pie that lives in a glass can!”
“Did you catch some of them?” asked Alex, “because if you did I want to
see one perform. Which box is he in? Hurry up, and I’ll make the flaky
dough blanket in time for supper. PIE!” he added, lifting his eyes
upward in a devotional attitude. “I adore pie!”
“You’ll find berry pie, and pumpkin pie, and mince pie, and apple pie
sleeping peacefully in one of the boxes,” Clay replied, much to the joy
of the others, who executed a fancy dance on the deck and then came back
to ask more questions about the haunts and habits of pie. Whether it
came out in broad daylight, or whether one had to set traps for it and
catch it during the dark hours of the night. Clay only laughed and
fished out a two-quart can of pumpkin, which he placed tenderly on the
table.
“Be careful with him,” he smiled. “He will bite if you don’t make the
dough blanket light and flaky. I have known children to need the care of
a physician after being bitten by a bad pie!”
“That will do for you!” Alex responded. “When we need any one to tell us
about the haunts and habits and preferences of pie we’ll let you know.”
At this latest mention of the word “pie” Captain Joe, who had been
sitting gravely on the prow of the motor boat, gave a sharp yelp and
came trotting into the cabin, his ears lifted—what there was of
them—expectantly, his tail trying to make a great circle in the air with
only a couple of inches of stub in sight. The boys laughed heartily.
“Do you recognize the word, Captain Joe?” asked Alex patting the white
bulldog on the head. “I believe you do, you old scamp. Now, what kind of
pie would you like for supper, old chap?” he added, talking to the dog
as if he understood every word that was said to him—which was a habit
the boys all had.
“I don’t think they grow pie where you came from,” Alex observed, in a
moment. “Where do you think this beastie came from, Gran?” he went on.
“Chicago?” was the brief answer. “He looks like Halstead street.”
“Alex stole him, or bought him, or abducted him, or shanghaied him, at
Para, down near the mouth of the Amazon,” Case put in, “and came near
getting his head knocked off. Let her go, Clay!”
This last was called out to the boy busy at the motors, and the next
moment the voyage had begun. The _Rambler’s_ nose was turned down the
Columbia!