DODGING A POLICE BOAT
"You little coon!" Clay gasped.
"Hurrah for Mose!" cried Alex.
"If you'll come down here I'll hug you!" shouted Gregg.
"How did you ever think of it?" Case called out.
Mose, now the happiest little negro boy in the United States, sat
astride of his limb and grinned until it seemed that the top of his
head would drop off backward!
In the meantime, the river pirate had remained unnoticed on the deck,
the rope so deftly dropped by Mose still around his neck. Case finally
bent over him.
"Why!" he exclaimed, shrinking back. "The man is dead!"
"Dead!" echoed Clay. "What killed him?"
Then they all bent over the still figure for a closer examination.
Just as Case had declared, the robber was dead. His neck had been
broken by the rope when Mose had drawn him off his feet! Alex. looked
up at the boy.
"You must have a good pull in your arms!" he cried. "How did you
manage to swing him up? You're a wonder, Mose!"
Mose only grinned in reply, but Clay explained the matter by saying
that the boy had thrown the rope over a limb higher up and used that
as a pulley.
"Still," he added, "it took a lot of muscle to jerk that heavy man off
his feet. I didn't think the boy had it in him."
Then came the question as to what disposition should be made of the
body. There was no hard ground near at hand so that a decent grave
could be prepared. There were marshy knolls, it is true, but any
excavation made there would instantly fill with water.
"Well," Gregg said, "the best we can do is to bury him in the water. I
don't mean in the lagoon or in the river, but in a grave which will
fill with water. There he will at least be out of the reach of
reptiles and wild animals when the water subsides."
"But how are we ever going to get out there and dig a grave?" asked
Jule, who was not inclined to waste much effort on the body of a man
who, in life, would have robbed, perhaps murdered, them!
"With your permission," Gregg said, "we'll take the body out and bury
it. I haven't much use for men of his type, but he's dead, and that
settles all accounts!"
"We may be able to get a couple of birds for supper while we are
away," suggested Eddie Butler. "We have been so busy lately, that we
haven't eaten, or provided anything to eat! I'm empty clear to my
toes!"
"And I'll catch a fish off the boat!" Jule volunteered. "I saw some
big ones jumping up not long ago! They've been driven out of their
nests by the flood."
So Gregg and his friends went away in the rowboat to bury the outlaw
and get a couple of ducks for supper, while Jule and Alex. angled over
the stern of the boat for a fish. The first rush of the flood was
past, but the water was still high. There was a strong current rushing
past the stern of the _Rambler_, and this indicated that there must be
a channel open to the main river not far below.
The boys caught a great catfish and two awkward-looking buffalo-fish
and turned them loose in the stream before they succeeded in getting
anything they wanted for supper. Then they caught a dozen perch of
good size and proceeded to clean them.
By the time the fish were ready for the pan Gregg and his friends were
back from their expedition with half a dozen fat ducks, already
dressed.
"We'll have some for breakfast, and some for dinner!" Eddie declared.
"I feel now as if I'd never get enough to fill me up again!"
Something long and twisting dropped on the man's shoulders and fell
off to the deck.
"Holy smoke!" he shouted. "Look at the snake!"
A shout from up the tree told of the trick Mose had played on the man,
and the rope was coiled away. In a short time Mose came sliding down
the trunk.
"He smells supper!" explained Clay. "I've a notion to set Captain Joe
on him!"
"Dat dog don't bite dis coon!" Mose replied. "Ah'm in lub wid dat
dog!"
Captain Joe and Teddy came forward and looked the three visitors over
approvingly.
"That bear would make a good meal!" Gregg declared, with a wink at
Case.
Mose's eyes stuck out for a minute, and then he tickled his own chin
and gave out a sound like a goat.
"B-a-a-a-a-a-a! B-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a!" he bleated.
"What's the matter with the coon?" asked Gregg, with a look of
surprise.
"He's telling us to get wise to the alfalfa!" Jule cut in. "Alex.
don't know how to translate so white men can understand."
"You'll both wash dishes for a month!" roared Clay, doubled over with
laughter. "We make that a penalty for talking slang," he explained,
turning to Gregg.
"But I don't understand yet," the other went on. "What is the matter
with the boy? Has he turned himself into a billy goat?"
"He's suggesting that you mow the lawn!" Case explained. "He doesn't
like the fire-escapes!"
Clay roared and pointed to the beards worn by the three, and then they
understood and joined in the laugh until the swamp echoed back the
sounds.
"You'll all have to wash dishes, I take it!" Gregg declared.
"That's about the way it usually turns out, when one starts talking
slang," Clay explained. "We're all so full of it that it just bubbles
out."
"It is fine that we have something to be jolly over," Gregg hastened
to say, "for the prospects of getting out of here are not alluring."
"Wouldn't be no fun if everything went right!" Alex. insisted. "We
have the most sport when we're lost, or stolen, or strayed away. Now,
you watch me cook these ducks."
The boy got out a baking pan standing on three short legs. The bottom
was double so as to prevent burning. Then he put two fat ducks inside,
secured the cover, and removed what seemed to Gregg to be the whole
top of the stove.
The short legs of the pan rested on the red-hot coals in the firebox,
while the cover was always within reach. As soon as the ducks, which
had previously been hastily parboiled, began to simmer and send forth
appetizing odors, the boy watched them every minute, turning and
basting until they were a beautiful golden brown.
In the meantime coffee had been made and the fish fried on the
electric coil.
"I presume you'll want hot biscuits for supper, too?" asked Clay.
The visitors were too busy with the game to do more than shake their
heads.
"We usually have three kinds of meat, fish, baked potatoes, pancakes,
light bread, pie, honey, and three or four vegetables on the side,"
Alex. explained, with a wink at Mose, who sat in a corner next to the
deck with Joe and Teddy watching the meat disappearing from a
"drumstick" he was busily engaged on.
"An' possum pie!" the little negro boy added, licking his chops.
"Sure! I forgot the possum pie!" Alex. declared. "Excuse me!"
"Certainly!" laughed Gregg, "and we'll excuse you, too, for all future
products of the imagination! The twenty course dinners at the La Salle
haven't got anything on this little banquet! For my part, I don't care
whether we ever get out of here, now, or not."
"Some day," Alex. observed, "I'll show you how to cook a steak a la
brigand! After you eat one of them you'll go hungry for a week before
you'll touch anything else!"
"You may lead me to one of them any time you see fit!" Eddie laughed.
The river was still roaring and foaming about the _Rambler_, caught in
the narrow space between the two cypress trees. Just where the boat
lay the current turned away to the east, that is the current of the
lagoon. The Mississippi was, of course, across the inundated spit of
land which lay on the west shore of the river and on the east side of
the bayou or lagoon.
Just as the boys finished their somewhat delayed supper the lights of
a steamer showed up the stream. It passed the mouth of the bayou and
hugged the opposite shore of the Mississippi for a time, then headed
for the west shore.
"That's strange!" Case exclaimed. "She sees our lights, but what is
she coming over to this side for?"
The mystery became more of a mystery still when, reaching the west
side, the steamer turned prow up stream and started to breast the
flood, still carrying great masses of wreckage down stream. She made
her way up to the mouth of the bayou and stopped, her propellers going
just fast enough to keep from dropping back.
"If I'm not mistaken," Gregg suggested, "that is a boat carrying
officers on a hunt for the escaped convicts. Can't we get out of here
before they reach us?"
"Why should we run away from them?" asked Clay, suspiciously.
"Because they will mistake us for convicts," replied Gregg. "An
officer in a position to abuse his authority always does so. Many of
the man-hunters along the river are little better than the men they
hunt. Some of them are worse. This, of course, does not apply to the
sheriffs and deputies of the counties touching the river, but to hired
detectives and gunmen who come here to make a living hunting others."
"You must be sore on the police," Alex. exploded. "I've got a lot of
friends on the Chicago police force. They're good fellows, at that!"
"All right!" Gregg assented. "There are a lot of good men there. But
if you want to remain here and permit those ruffians to overrun your
boat, insult you, and hold you prisoners until you can get to some
town where identification is possible, you can do so. We can stand it
if you can."
"There may be some sense in what he says," Clay urged, "and if we
could get out of the trap we are in and make the propellers go, I'd be
willing to go on down the river and let the officers have the whole
country to themselves."
"Can't we follow this bayou current and get out on the river below
them?" asked Jule.
Clay said no; Gregg and his chums said yes.
"The water has been cutting a channel for a long time," Gregg
explained. "It needed only a slight push to send the remaining bank
down. There are few obstructions in the new channel, as I figure it
out, and I believe we would go through like a top once we got started.
And we'd better hurry, if we are going to do anything, for, of course,
they have seen your lights. They wouldn't have stopped here if they
hadn't."
"But the propellers!" urged Clay. "They're broken."
In a moment one of the men had his clothes off to the undersuit and
was diving down at the stern of the _Rambler_. He remained under the
water so long that the boys began to fear that he had met with some
accident, or been attacked by a snake or an alligator. He came up
smiling, however.
"Only clogged!" he cried. "You, Gregg and Eddie, get axes and chop the
east tree down! The boat will then swing away from the other. You must
make the cut down in the water, then we'll have to lift the prow over
the stump."
The plan suggested proved successful, and the _Rambler_, under power,
and trailing the mattresses, was soon feeling her way down the new
channel. Then excitement was observed on the steamer, and she was
headed about for the main stream again. It looked like a race was on!