COMMONPLACE, AFTER ALL
"Can that be Alex. moving the _Rambler_?" asked Case, as the motors
sputtered out their insistent clamor. "I don't believe he has had time
to get on board yet."
"Well, Captain Joe has, anyway!" Jule declared, as a sharp bark came
from the craft, which now seemed to be turning around. "That's the
Captain's voice, all right."
Standing high on the levee, with the lights of the city growing below
them, the lads watched the _Rambler_ for a moment and then started on
a run up the stream toward a small landing that was not far from the
camp-fire.
"If Alex. wasn't on board," Case reasoned, "Captain Joe wouldn't be
there. If Alex. is running the boat up to that landing, it is safe for
us to go there."
The _Rambler_ did tie up at the landing, and then the boys saw that
the rowboat they had missed was tied to her stern. The willow
mattresses were also still hanging on to the cords to which they had
been tied. The men at the fire started up toward the landing as the
boys reached it, but, much to the surprise of the lads, they did not
attempt to go on board. In a moment Clay, Alex. and Mose showed their
faces on deck.
"Come aboard!" shouted Alex. "I've arranged a surprise party for you
here."
"What is Chet doing on there?" demanded Case. "I thought we left him
with his new friends, the thieves, in that old house in the city."
"This is no time for story-telling!" said another voice on board, and
the man who had been known as Red, the Robber, came out of the cabin
and sat down, calmly, on the gunwale. The boys on shore were, by this
time, prepared for almost anything. When they reached the deck, Red
waved a farewell to the men on the levee and the boat whirled down
toward the Gulf of Mexico.
"You see," Alex. grinned, "we don't know where we are going, but we
are on our way."
"I know!" Clay insisted, "we are going to complete our trip to the
Gulf of Mexico. We've had all the mystery we need on this voyage, and
the next one that starts anything in that line will be banished to one
of the mattresses!"
"All right," Alex. retorted. "We don't care about knowing what this
all means! I reckon it is too commonplace to refer to again."
He grinned at Red and Chet as he spoke, and they both laughed back at
him.
"We have with us to-night," Alex. went on, in a very good imitation of
the after-dinner orator, "Red, the Robber! His specialty is taking
boats away from boys and sneaking off down the river with them--until
some one gets the drop on him!
"We also have with us," he continued, "Chester Vinton, the waif who
was rescued from a barren island in the Mississippi with a hundred
thousand dollars' worth of diamonds in his possession! He will soon do
his stunt of telling how he found them in a piece of pie at a Rock
Island restaurant.
"This wonderful Chet is also the last word in friendship. When he sees
boys who have befriended him, it is his habit to turn them over to
thieves, who lock them up--not in anger, but to protect them from
other naughty boys!"
Instead of showing anger at this blunt talk, Red and Chet sat down on
the gunwale and laughed until the river echoed back their voices. Clay
also seemed much amused.
"What's the answer?" demanded Case, turning to Chet.
"Now you boys just wait a short time," Red observed, "and you'll know
all about it. I would tell you right now, only I see how hungry you
all are. And, seeing that I have a monster beefsteak in the cabin,
with ducks ready to roast, and eggs ready to fry, why, it seems like
we ought to eat before we mix with any long yarns!"
So Case and Alex. took to the cabin, and the odors of steak and coffee
and roasting duck soon filled the boat. While the good things were
cooking the _Rambler_ dropped down to a wharf where a tank wagon of
gasoline awaited them, and there, also, loads of provisions of all
kinds were put on board.
And the strangest part of it all was that there was nothing to pay!
Red appeared to have temporary charge of the boat, and the bills
seemed to have all been paid in advance. They were headed down stream
when breakfast was eaten.
"We ought to reach the Gulf in three or four weeks, if we hurry!" Red
observed, as he carved the ducks. "That is, if we hurry in the right
way!"
"I thought it would take until spring," Chet broke in. "I hoped so!"
Alex. regarded the two with a whimsical smile on his freckled face.
"How long will it be before you'll both disappear?" he asked.
"Never again!" laughed Chet. "Say, boys, I did make a quick get-away a
couple of times? What? I hated to go, but I just had to."
"Yes, and you prevented Case and I making one at the house in the
city," Alex. said.
"It is all as simple as twice two," Red observed, sitting back from
the table. "The robbery at Rock Island was planned and carried out by
Sam, the outlaw who assisted me in the capture of the _Rambler_. I
knew that at the time I was with him--at the time I let him go--or
when you boys did, rather."
"But why didn't you pinch him?" demanded Alex. "There's a reward."
"Because I hadn't then discovered the goods which had been taken. He
was going to take me to them, I being a possible purchaser!"
"Well, of all the nerve!" Jule cut in. "Just think of that, now!"
"Were they in that old house on the bayou?" asked Alex.
"Some of them were. As soon as I got off your boat I wired back to
have the place surrounded and searched. They found all the silks and
furs there! You boys did a good job for me when you permitted
yourselves to be trapped."
"It was Captain Joe and Mose who did the good job when they got us
out!" Jule said.
"Did you find Sam again?" asked Case, in a moment. "He was a corker!"
"You boys found him in the swamp," Red replied soberly, "and Mose
executed the sentence of the law upon him--hanged him by the neck!"
"So you are a detective?" asked Case. "Why didn't you say so?"
"I am not," was the reply. "I am the owner of the warehouse that was
robbed, and I set out to get the goods back, that is all."
"But you asked us to take Chet on down the river when he had the
diamonds in his clothes!" Alex. exclaimed. "What about that? It was a
funny stunt."
"Of course I didn't know that he had the diamonds," added Red, now to
be known as Mr. George Redmond. "He told me about his having had them
when I told him that Sam was dead, that was last night, in New
Orleans. Then he told me that he had taken the diamonds from Sam
because he wanted to restore them to me, but had promised Sam that he
would never reveal his, Sam's, connection with the crime. Of course
Sam never knew positively that the boy had stolen the diamonds, but he
suspected."
"And sent this riverman, Gid Brent, on board at Cairo to see if the
boy was there?"
"Yes, he did that. By that time I was satisfied that the boy had been
in on the robbery--that he had been forced to enter the building by
way of a window and open the door for the thieves to enter.
"I knew that the boy would tell the whole story to me if I could get
him away from the robbers, and not scare him half to death by putting
him in jail. So I followed him along down the river. As the robbers
were making their way down toward New Orleans, too, I was doing a
pretty good job following him--and especially as the robbers were
after him, too. They believed, all but Sam, he had taken the diamonds,
you see.
"They got him last night and searched him, but found nothing. Then
they told him that if he would get Alex. and Case into their hands
they would let him go. So Chet did that very thing, and now the two
boys are witnesses that the robbers admitted to them that they were in
on the robbery!
"When they let Chet go he made for the _Rambler_ on a run, and found
me on the way. All the people who were in the old house are under
arrest. And the diamonds are up at Memphis in the deposit vault, and
all is well."
"How do you know that?" demanded Clay.
"Why, we opened the box, the cashier and I," was the reply. "I knew
they were there before I knew that Chet had ever had them. My one
great difficulty was to get hold of the boy after he ran off at
Memphis! Your boat was watched all the way down, you know, of course."
Then Clay told of his talk with the sheriff, and they all laughed at
the idea that they had not seen through it all long before.
"If Chet had kept to boats I could have found him," Red went on, "but
he rode on wreckage, and that made it difficult. I might have saved
you boys and Chet some of this mystery talk if I had told you about it
when I had Alex. in the cabin of my boat, after I knew where the
diamonds were, but I thought I would let it work out for itself,
especially as I was having the time of my life."
"I suppose those three mechanics were detectives, too?" asked Case.
"They were just what they represented themselves to be," was the
reply, "and they got good positions at Vicksburg. They are expecting
to meet you down the river, in a houseboat of their own. I saw them
soon after they left you."
"I don't wonder the robbers wanted to get hold of Chet," laughed Alex.
"They must have been red-headed when they found that the diamonds had
been stolen from them!"
"Yes, they were," replied Chet, "but they didn't suspect me, at first.
The man Brent, who came on board the _Rambler_ at Cairo, would have
killed me had he found me there. I was afraid he would, so I took to
the river."
"And you took to the river again the night you threw the bag back on
deck, too."
"Yes, I got pretty cold, too. I knew where the bag was, in the cabin,
all the time, and I thought the diamonds were in it. Believing it
would be safe, I did not take it and run away, as I had threatened to
do, but when the cashier and another came on the boat I did take it
and skip. When I found that the diamonds were not there I threw the
bag back just to let you know I was wise to the game," he added.
"It is a commonplace story, after all, when you come to get it all
told," said Mr. Redmond. "If it has spoiled your river trip I'm sorry
for it!"
"We wouldn't have had any fun only for that!" cried Alex.
"Well," Clay cut in, "now we'll go down the river and have fun! We'll
spend two months or more on the way to the Gulf, and then we'll put
the motor boat on board a ship and sail her around to some point where
we can get into the St. Lawrence river. The St. Lawrence comes next,
you know."
"Why not put her on a gondola car again and take her as near to the
headwaters of the St. Lawrence as we can?" asked Case. "I'd rather
float down than sail up, any day."
"We will decide that when we get done here," Clay answered.
Those were two golden months for the boys, and Mr. Redmond seemed to
enjoy the outing fully as much as any of them. They fished and hunted
and loafed in the numerous passages of the delta of the Mississippi,
and built roaring fires on the knolls, when they found them, and lived
the care-free lives boys enjoy so much.
And then they were off for Chicago, and from there to the headwaters
of the St. Lawrence. Their adventures on this noble river will be
found in the next volume of this series; entitled:
"The Six River Motor Boys on the St. Lawrence; or, the Lost Channel."
THE END.