“Clay is getting anxious!” Alex observed, as a red rocket went hissing
toward the stars. “He’s taken the right course to hurry us, at any
rate,” he added. “It is a good thing we brought those rockets along with
us. We may need them sometime worse than we do now.”
“How do you know how badly he needs them?” demanded Case. “You have been
away for hours, and it is more than an hour since I went into the forest
to search for you. A great deal may have happened in that time.”
“But Clay is safe enough,” Alex insisted. “If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t be
capable of sending up rockets. If any one had attacked him, or he had
met with a serious accident, he wouldn’t be doing that, would he?”
“I hope you are right,” Case replied.
“He’s just sending a notice, in red fire, to us that supper is ready and
waiting,” Alex laughed.
Captain Joe began to scurry on ahead, doubtless smelling the odor of
supper from the cabin, but Case hastened to order him back. At the same
time the boy shut off his searchlight and reloaded his automatic.
“It may be just as well to come up to the _Rambler_ quietly,” he
advised. “After all, we don’t know what is going on there. And I’m going
to see about that fish, too, unless there are loud cries for help from
the _Rambler_! I had a hard time catching that bird, and I’m not going
to lose a fish supper if I can help it. It may be done just right at
this minute. Who knows?”
“If we break our necks falling over these rocks, and drown in some of
these pools, and brain ourselves on a fallen log, and kill ourselves in
several other ways,” Alex grunted, “we won’t want any fish for supper.
This traveling in a desolate land in the night without a light is just
about the fiercest proposition I ever came across.”
Indeed it was slow work, and hard work, following the rugged, broken
river line, but the lads pressed sturdily forward, notwithstanding the
complaints of Alex and they soon came to a point from which the lights
of the _Rambler_ cabin struck out on their uneven pathway. The deck of
the motor boat was deserted, and there was no one in view in the cabin,
so far as the lads could see, through the two small windows on the shore
side.
Directly, however, they made out a figure moving about in the cabin,
evidently stooping low in search of something. Then the great prow lamp
was turned on and the deck, the bulk of the cabin, and the swift-running
river for many yards about were illuminated.
“There!” whispered Alex. “Didn’t I tell you he was safe and sound?
You’ve got to go some to get Clay into a mess he can’t get out of.”
As the boy spoke Clay appeared on deck with another rocket in his hand.
Case was about to call out to him not to waste it, but Alex motioned for
him to wait.
“Let’s see about the fish first,” he proposed, “and go on board with a
meal that will make him lick his chops like a hungry cat. Cooked fish
and bear steak will make him take notice, eh?”
“If you keep on talking slang,” Case reproved, “you’ll have to wash
dishes all the rest of the trip. I’m not going to warn you again!”
“I’d wash a bushel of dishes if only I might empty them first!”
exclaimed the boy, pressing one hand to the waistband of his torn
trousers. “There never was a boy so empty as I am right now!”
By this time the rocket was showering a brilliant red light in the sky,
and the boys were arrived at the place where the fish had been consigned
to Case’s rude oven. As the latter bent over to uncover the contents of
the pit Clay saw them from the deck and called out:
“The fish is here, piping hot on the stove. I was just telegraphing to
you about it Wait, now. I’ll throw the line across, and you can draw the
boat over. You don’t deserve any supper, but I’ll forgive you just this
once. I’ve got a lot to tell you.”
“Is that the cause of this Fourth-of-July celebration?” asked Alex. “If
I sent up rockets every time I had something to tell, there would be
something doing in the heavens every minute of the time.”
“That is no fairy tale!” Case agreed. “Only you know so many things to
tell that ain’t true!”
A slender line came whizzing through the air, secured to a small rock,
and Case caught it deftly and proceeded to draw in the heavy rope which
would bring the impromptu canoe to the shore. Captain Joe was first in
when the boat, if such it may be called, came to the water’s edge, and
Case signaled to Clay to pull him across.
“Why not let me in?” asked Alex.
“All right,” grinned Case, “you may go if you want a ducking. The dog
gave Clay a soaking this afternoon.”
So the canoe started off with Captain Joe as the only passenger. As if
to prove good character and make amends for the mishap of the afternoon,
he sat with dignity in the middle of the burned trough, and never
stirred until Clay assisted him to the deck of the _Rambler_.
Case and Alex were soon aboard. They halted at the door of the cabin,
anticipating a flood of questions, but none came. Clay said not a word
about the delay for an instant.
Then Alex turned his back, and the boy saw the ravages the grizzly had
made in the wardrobe of his friend. He said nothing, even then, but sat
back on the railing and held his sides. Indeed, Alex was pretty well
stripped. Captain Joe looked up into Alex’s face as if asking why he had
introduced a new style of dress into the wilderness.
“The grizzly did that, eh?” Clay asked, presently. “It is a wonder he
didn’t climb the tree after you?”
“Tried to,” replied the boy, looking Clay over as one looks over the
face of a fortune teller who has described an actual event in the past,
“tried to, but I dropped matches down on him. They burned his snoot, and
he quit. But how is it that you know about that? Did you follow Alex
into the wilderness? Who told you about the tree and the bear?”
“When you got the fish out of the oven,” asked Case, as soon as the
other had asked his questions, “didn’t you take a turn in the woods?”
“No,” replied Clay, with a quizzical smile, “I haven’t been into the
woods at all. Never went farther than the shore.”
“Then you must be Sherlock Holmes, Jr.,” insisted Alex. “The bear came
on the stage more than a mile from here, and you couldn’t have seen him
from this spot. What is there about me that tells you that I was treed
by a bear? Come, now, smarty, tell me!”
“Your clothes!” laughed Clay. “You have no idea that I would lay it to a
fish coming up out of the river and biting you, have you?”
“Smarty!” repeated Alex. “If you know so much about what took place in
the woods, tell me what has become of Gran. Come on, now.”
“Gran has gone over the rapids!” was Clay’s astonishing reply.
Case and Alex looked their amazement, but did not reply.
“He went past here in a boat, a boat that looked to me like the one we
lost, and—”
“Yes, he did!” Alex cut in. “I saw him out there in the woods. He was
standing under a tree, and there was a—”
“He must have had to hustle to get to the river before we did,” was all
Case said. The mystery was too deep to talk about.
“You remember the waterproof paper and envelopes we brought with us,”
Clay went on, glad that Alex had stopped short in his explanation, “well
it seems that he had some of both with him. How long he’s been carrying
them in anticipation of an emergency like this one, I don’t know, but it
seems that he had waterproof envelopes and paper with him when he left
the _Rambler_.
“Well, what’s the answer?” asked Alex fidgeting about.
“Slang!” cried Case. “I know who’ll wash dishes to-night!”
“Not very long ago,” Clay went on, taking a sheet of paper from his
pocket, “I saw a boat drifting down upon the _Rambler_. There were two
figures in it. One was rowing, evidently just to keep steerway, and the
other was laying on the bottom in the prow.
“When the boat came in the circle of the prow lamp, I saw that it was
the one that got away from us where we found Teddy, and also that the
figure in the prow was resting in a position which indicated an attempt
at hiding away from whoever might see the boat from the _Rambler_.
“Robin Hood, and Treasure Island, and Robinson Crusoe are dull history
compared to this voyage!” exclaimed Alex drawing closer. “A man hiding
in the prow of a stolen boat! Go on with the dream! You’ll wake up
directly and find the fish cold!”
“In a second,” Clay resumed, with a tolerant smile, “I saw that the
person in the prow was Gran, and that he was trying to signal to me. The
boat came along pretty fast, and I didn’t catch on to what he wanted
until it was close at hand. Then he lifted one hand up over the edge of
the boat and threw something up stream. The boat moved on down before
what had been tossed into the water came to the prow of the _Rambler_. I
reached down with our dipping net and got it. Here it is:
“‘Alex treed by a bear. Case approaching. You’ll hear from me later.
Keep your eyes open. Don’t lose the f——’
“That’s the end of it,” Clay went on. “Now, who’s ready to give the
answer? Who rowed Gran away? Why? What word had he started to write when
he stopped?”
“You’ve got me going!” Alex exclaimed. “I’m no mind reader!”
“What about it. Case?” asked Clay. “What’s your answer?”
“I’m just out of answers,” Case laughed, though there was a worried look
on his face. “Look here!” he went on, “we’ve been trying to escape the
mystery stunt ever since we returned from the Amazon. Now, suppose we
quit guessing and wait for the answer? No one knows a thing about that
boy, and that’s the answer, so far as I know what it is!”
Clay and Alex exchanged significant glances when Case was not looking in
their direction. They both had a suspicion as to what the word beginning
with “f” would have been had it been completed!
Their supposition that the word would have been “films” increased their
wonder and added to the mystery. To tell the truth, they had both
believed that, for some purpose of his own which he would be able to
explain satisfactorily later on, Gran, had removed the films from the
kodak, and now, if their suspicions were well founded, he was asking,
under strange circumstances, that they be well taken care of!
Case went into the cabin and found the fish safe under a tin, secured by
a heavy weight, on the table. Teddy was sniffing about, and Captain Joe
was reproving him for his inquisitiveness by biting at his inch or so of
tail.
“Now,” Alex said to Clay, “what about it? The message from Gran, the
message sent adrift in the river and caught by you, seems to indicate
that the boy never took the films—that he thinks we still have them in
our possession—that he considers them very important! If he didn’t take
them, who did? Say,” he went on, with a look into the cabin, where Case
was getting out dishes and fighting the bear cub to keep him off the
table, “isn’t it about time we annexed the wisdom of Case? The only
reason we had for keeping all this from him was that there would be no
talk about it which Gran might overhear.”
“Of course we’ll tell Case,” Clay replied, “but I thought that there
never were any films, never any robbery at the pass, never any
long-armed man talking with Gran in the cedar canyon!”
“All right!” grinned Alex, “I’ll tell Case, and then we’ll cut it all
out of the menu. We’ve got to do it in order to have any fun on the
Columbia river. But where will Gran end up if this thing keeps on?”
“That must go with all the rest,” Clay replied. “But Case is beckoning
us into the cabin and we’ll see about that fish. Of course I’m eager to
hear about the bear and the tree, but you can tell me about that after
we see what Case’s fish is like.”
The fish was excellent, and even Captain Joe and Teddy were given all
they wanted of it. Now and then, during the meal, the boys looked
gravely over to the place usually occupied by Gran, but nothing was said
of the boy’s strange departure until the fish had disappeared. Then Clay
told of the meeting in the cedar canyon, and of other strange actions on
the part of the absent boy with which the reader is already acquainted.
Case was loyal to the absent one, and all three boys decided to go down
the river slowly, in the hope that Gran would in some way escape from
his mysterious companion and return to his friends.
“But how did he get back to the river so quick?” asked Alex. “He was
away back there by the bear tree when I last saw him.”
“There is a bend in the river to the south,” Clay answered, “and the man
who took him out evidently had the boat hidden there. By going to the
shoreline at the bend he would save half the distance. I figured that
out before you boys came back.
“And then,” Clay went on, “you came out at the rapids, and so lost
considerable time. The question which puzzles me most is not how he got
out, but why he went away.”
“And in our boat!” exclaimed Case. “The thief must have been just below
us when the boat broke away. Well, we’ll get it back when we get hold of
the scamp. It may be days before we see Gran again, so there is no use
in asking each other questions. We’ve got to get the _Rambler_ around
the rapids in the morning, and I’m going to bed.”
“I move,” Alex added, rising, “that we anchor out in the river. We are
too close to shore. I don’t want any ruffian sneaking in on us in the
night.”
This was agreed to, and the anchor was lowered over a bar near the
middle of the stream. This precaution taken, the boys crept into their
bunks, but not for long. The mysteries of the night were not yet over.