When Alex and Case awoke at daylight and discovered Clay’s absence, they
began a search of the shore with their glass, supposing that he had gone
into the city for supplies. Then Alex discovered the remains of Tom’s
supper, and Case came across the clothing taken off by the lad. The
clothes were still wet.
“There’s something queer been going on here!” Case exclaimed. “Clay had
a visitor who swam out to the boat last night!”
“And the guest had supper here!” Alex contributed. “And Clay must have
gone away with him. Wonder he wouldn’t have awakened us before leaving
the boat!”
While the boys cooked breakfast, discussing the remarkable disappearance
of Clay as they did so, a boat bumped against the prow of the _Rambler_
and a voice called out:
“Hello, there! Where’s my rowboat?”
Alex, leaning over the railing, saw a swarthy face looking up at him.
The fellow seemed to be angry for he was swearing and gesticulating
wildly.
“If you think I’ve got your boat you may search me!” the boy said.
“But you got it last night!” insisted the other. “You rented it for an
hour and never brought it back. What have you done with it?”
“Guess again!” Alex replied. “I slept all night. Never saw your old
boat. It was some one else who rented it.”
“Well, the boy who got it said he wanted to bring a friend off this
boat, and that he would return it before midnight.”
“You’ve been buncoed!” Alex laughed.
“Wait a minute,” Case broke in. “There may be something to this. You say
a boy got a boat of you to row out to the _Rambler_?” he asked of the
man, now getting ready to board the boat and make physical trouble for
the boys.
“That’s what I said. Where is that boy now?” “What sort of a looking boy
was it?” asked Case, patiently.
“A little bit of a chap. He was wet as a rat, and said he had swum off
this boat and wanted to row out to bring a friend off.”
“Well, did you watch him after he left with the boat?”
“Yes, and he came out here; and then another boy got into the boat with
him and they rowed ashore. I want my boat or good pay for it—right now!”
“If you come up here with your threats,” Alex declared, “you’ll get a
rap over the head—and I’ll set the dog on you!”
“I’ll have you all arrested!” shouted the other. “I want my boat.”
“Sing it!” chuckled Alex. “You might make a fine song with that ‘I want
my boat’ story of yours. Have you looked along the river bank for it?
The boy might have left it there.”
“I have not,” was the reply. “It is up to you to return it, and not my
place to look for it. That boat was worth $50 of any man’s money.”
“Will you wait a moment, please?” Case asked of the boatman, as he drew
Alex to one side. “I may want to go to shore with you before long.”
The other nodded and stood angrily in his boat, waiting.
“Now,” Case explained to Alex, “there is no need of making an enemy of
this man with your impudent talk. He is probably right. Some one swam
out here, had supper, swam back and got a boat, and took Clay to the
shore. Now, who could it have been? This beats me?”
“Couldn’t have been Don, could it?” asked Alex, doubtfully.
“I’m all at sea,” Case replied. “I don’t understand how Don could have
got up to Yuma, and yet I’m half inclined to believe that it was he who
took the money, though why he should have done so without letting us
know is more than I can figure out.”
“There’s no head or tail to this business,” Alex declared. “We’re all
mixed up with other folks’ troubles, just as we were on the Amazon and
Columbia river trips! Are you going ashore with this man?”
“Of course. I’ve got to find out, if I can, where Clay went.”
“Of course we’ve got to do that.” Alex agreed, “but don’t you go to
mixing with any one else!
Bring Clay aboard and we’ll fly up the river like little birds! I don’t
want to see any one else for a month! The river and the mountains and
the canyons will do for mine!”
“That’s just the way I feel about it,” Case replied. “I’m tired of
mixing in affairs that don’t concern me. I want to get up the river and
be let alone. I hope Don will find his money, but I’m not going to
bother my head any more about it.”
“That’s me!” Alex agreed. “You go ashore and get Clay. He’s not far off.
Take Captain Joe with you. He will follow the boy’s track from the place
where he landed. And when you get Clay, make a run for the _Rambler_!
Don’t stop, even to pick up money, until you get on board, then we’ll
shoot up stream like a shark after a pig! No more of this for me.”
So, after further talk, Case went ashore with the boatman, and Alex got
out his automatic and sat watching the river bank. Teddy stood up on his
hind legs and invited the boy to a boxing match, but he was too blue and
too anxious to play with the cub.
“I wonder if Don did get that money?” he thought, over and over again as
he sat watching the shore. “If he did, why didn’t he let me know that he
was taking it?”
He could find no answers to his questions, so he studied the shore of
the river where the town loomed up and wished from the bottom of his
heart that his friends were on board, and that the _Rambler_ was a
hundred miles away from King, Don, and all the rest! Then he heard a
hail from the river and ran to the prow.
A small boat lay rocking in the current, and out of it looked the
grinning face of Don Durand! Alex almost dropped over the side in his
amazement. Now that the boy was before his eyes, however, he was
unaffectedly glad to see him.
He tossed down a rope end so Don could secure his boat to the rail of
the _Rambler_ and, later, gave him a helping hand. When Don gained the
deck he received a cordial greeting.
“Can you get me out of sight, quickly?” the boy asked. “King is in Yuma,
‘and he’s goin’ to get me if I don’t watch out!’”
“Of course I’ll help you,” Alex answered. “I don’t like your ways, but
I’m sore on King. He came on board and mussed up the furniture and tied
up the dog, and marooned Clay and Case on a desert island!”
“That must have been nice!” Don grinned, going to a heap of pancakes
which had been cooked for breakfast and left to grow cold because of the
excitement of the time. “I’m going to eat these few dozen pancakes while
you converse!” he added. “Why don’t you like my ways?”
“Eat away!” Alex returned. “You’re always hungry when you come on board
the _Rambler_. “I’ll get you coffee in a short time.”
“There’s nothing to eat in the desert,” Don said, stuffing his mouth
with cakes. “Besides, I’m going to board with you all the way up the
Colorado, so I may as well begin now to make you acquainted with my
appetite. But you didn’t tell me why you don’t like my ways.”
“Why didn’t you let us know you took the money?” asked Alex, at a
venture, almost trembling as he awaited a reply.
“Didn’t you get my receipt for it?” asked Don. “It was on the silk
wrapper. I wrote in there! Where is the wrapper?”
Alex took the silk from a pocket and examined it. Surely enough, there,
on the edge, were the words: “Received contents. Don.”
“Why, you old fraud!” shouted Alex, overjoyed at the discovery. “You old
river thief! Why didn’t you wake us up and tell us you were after the
money? You’ve made us a lot of trouble!”
Don grinned and continued his work on the cakes, and Alex finally put
the coffee pot over the coils and made him a cup of hot drink while he
told of running across the point and floating down to the _Rambler_ on a
plank he found in the water. Alex grabbed him, then, and demanded to
know where the money was.
“Let go!” yelled Don. “I’ve got it in my belt, and I didn’t want any one
but you to know I took it because I didn’t want the others to know where
it was, if anybody should come on board and ask about it, and, then,” he
went on, with a sly wink, “I made the receipt a little blind because I
wanted to teach you not to go to sleep with fifty thousand dollars in
gold notes lying in your lap! That was careless of you!”
“The notes were in the silk covering, in my pocket,” insisted the boy.
“Well, perhaps they were, at one time, but Teddy was about to
investigate the package when I crawled up out of the water, off the
plank I’d floated down on! Now, tell me about King coming on board, and
what he did and said.”
“He must have landed on the _Rambler_ from a small boat dropped off a
river steamer,” Alex answered, still so pleased with the news that the
money was safe that he could hardly talk straight, “and he came in the
night.”
“And no one saw him? What about the dog’s giving an alarm?”
“We have figured that out. King had been on board before, and had been
treated kindly, so the dog probably thought he had a right to come back.
But he insulted Captain Joe, after he got on the deck, for he tied him
up. He won’t get on here again right away. Joe will eat him up if he
tries to.”
Then the boy told of the manner in which Teddy had gotten rid of the
unwelcome visitor, and Don began to make inquiries for Case and Clay.
Alex had to tell him about that, too, and Don looked frightened at the
recital.
“The boatman said it was a little bit of a fellow?” he asked. “Then that
was my brother, Tom! I was to meet him here, after King got out of the
way. Now, where do you think they are?”
“I don’t try to think any more,” was the reply.
“I believe I know where they went,” Don burst out, in a moment. “They
went to the basement of an old house owned by my uncle, and something
has happened to them to prevent their coming back.”
“If you know where they went, suppose you go bring them back.”
“And run plump into King! Not for mine. You go! I’ll tell you where the
house is, and you can go and bring them back.”
“If King hasn’t arrested them, perhaps I can,” Alex added. “He may have
caught them, you know. Well, where do I go? I’ll make a bluff at finding
the boys, and then we’ll go on up the river. Trouble is too thick down
in this country! Show me where the house is.”
“You see that old tumble-down structure on the river bank, just a little
below the city?” asked Don. “Well, that’s it.”
“What would they go there for?” demanded the other. “More mystery!”
“They will tell you that! Now, while you are gone, I’ll fry more cakes
and get a good breakfast. I’m going up the Colorado with you, you know,
and I may as well begin to make myself useful.”
“You say it well!” returned Alex, but he did not appear to be much
annoyed at the thought of taking on this agreeable passenger.
Alex descended into the rowboat and cast off. Then he stood up,
excitedly, and pointed to the old building Don had designated.
“What’s the matter with the old barn?” he called out. “Get the glass and
look at it. It seems to me to be tumbling into the river.”
“It surely is!” Don cried, looking through the glass. “There’s been
something exciting going on there, and the old house is sliding into the
water. I guess I’d better go ashore with you!”
“No you don’t!” the boy answered. “You’re going to guard the boat while
I find out about this. If King comes on board, set Teddy at him!”
“No one will pick money off me while I’m asleep!” roared Don.
Alex made good time to the shore, but when he reached the little pier
which ran out just south of the junction of the Colorado and Gila rivers
he found a crowd ahead of him. The old house was just below, and the
creaking of parting timbers told of rapid disintegration.
“What is the trouble?” he asked of the first man he met after landing.
“Why, the old Durand place is tumbling down,” was the reply, “going into
the river! It is believed that large sums of money are hidden in the old
miser’s den, and the people are flocking here to see if they can snatch
some of it. Doesn’t look now as if any one would get it!”
“Some of the folks here may be after money,” another on-looker cut in,
“but most of them are watching to see if the boys get out alive. They
say there are two young boys locked up in an iron room down there.”
“How do you know that?” demanded Alex, his heart in his throat.
Before the other could answer the question Case came running up.
“Clay and another boy are in there!” he cried, wringing Alex’s hand.
“They are locked in a deep cellar, with water pouring in on them! If
they don’t drown, the falling walls will kill them!”
“How do you know they are in there?” Alex asked, hoping to find the
story told by the on-looker and by Case an uncertain one, after all.
“King came for help to get them out, when he found the cellar was
filling with water,” Case answered. “He said he had arrested them and
put them in the den for safe keeping. He admitted that his act of
authority might be the death of the boys, and he would have been lynched
if he hadn’t run away. How are we ever going to get them out?”
While they stood there in an excited, anxious group Don came panting up,
wet from a swim from the _Rambler_. Alex began grumbling because the
boat had been left alone, but Don stopped him.
“I heard what they are saying about the iron room,” Don said, “and the
boys being locked in there! I used to know the location of the spring
that opened that door from the cellar, but I can’t think of it now. If I
only could!” he cried beating his forehead with his fists.
The old house was tumbling fast. The thin bank which ran along the river
side was now caving, and the ground around the structure, which was
considerably lower than the surface of the river, was being flooded.
Captain Joe pulled at Alex’s leg, drawing him toward the house!
“I’m going in there to try to find the spring,” Don said, but as the
three lads started for the crumbling old house the officious crowd
seized and drew them back!