Among the River Pirates: A Skippy Dare Mystery Story

A SKIPPY DARE MYSTERY STORY
BY HUGH LLOYD Author of The Hal Keen Mystery Stories
ILLUSTRATED BY SEYMOUR FOGEL
GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
Copyright, 1934, by GROSSET & DUNLAP, Inc. All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America
The shabby old motor boat moved slowly up the river towing an equally shabby old barge. Dilapidated and unpainted as the hull was, the engine was well muffled—suspiciously well muffled—and the disreputable looking craft moved through the water with all the noiseless dignity of a yacht.
A ferry-boat paused midway of the long tow rope and its commuters, crowded on the forward deck, watched this slow-moving procession with some show of annoyance. Not a few impatient remarks rose loud and clear above the hum of the restless crowd, directed at the head of a man seated in the stern of the boat, calmly puffing on a pipe. Aft on the barge, a young boy was wrestling heroically with the tiller, trying to keep the lumbering hulk head on.
Slowly they crawled upstream. On their left was the precipitous Jersey shore, and on their right the towering buildings of the great city. Over the water the late afternoon sun spread a warm, mellow glow and touched with gold the myriad windows of the clustering skyscrapers across the river.
The man knocked out his pipe with calm deliberation and turned his wide, gray eyes to the lofty Palisades, now bathed in a dazzling crimson. Then slowly his glance wandered back to where the shimmering light fell across the little shanty on the barge and picked out in hold relief the incongruously new and shining letters, Minnie M. Baxter .
A smile lighted up his lined, weary features, a smile of pride in ownership.
“She ain’t so bad fer the old battle-axe that she is, hey Skippy?” he called to the boy.
The boy’s tousled head appeared from around the battered cabin.