CHAPTER II.—TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD.
When it became certain that Alex was not on board the Rambler, Clay and Case hustled the small rowboat which lay on the cabin roof into the river, threw in the oars, and cast off the rope.
If Alex was not on the boat, they reasoned, then he must have fallen into the water! It had been at least ten minutes since he had left them to visit the aft deck, and one might float a long way down stream in that time! The wonder was that he had not cried out when he fell!
Case rowed with all his strength, doubled by the excitement of the time, and Clay sat in the prow watching the river ahead. Now he thought he saw a head bobbing on the waves; now he called out that he had caught sight of the boy clinging to the shore; now he shuddered at sight of a clogging mass in the bottom of the stream.
They called out at the top of their lungs as the rowboat went swiftly down with the current, but there was no answering cry. Only when the bulk of the Rambler seemed indistinct and far away through the shimmering sunlight did they turn the prow up stream. Clay was the first to speak after that.
“I don’t believe he ever fell into the river!” he said. “Captain Joe would have heard the splash, even if we did not, and would surely have jumped in after the kid. Besides, Alex would have let out a yell if he had tumbled in, and we should have heard that. He never fell into the river, I tell you!”
“Then where did he go?” demanded Case. “I hope yon haven’t any idea that he went up in the air! Or that he’s hiding to bother us?”
This last sentence expressed a new hope. The boy might be hiding in some odd corner of the boat! They resolved to find out about that as soon as they got aboard again. If he was hiding, well!
They did not carry out the thought, for they were now near enough to the Rambler to see that she was slowly, jerkily moving toward the west shore.
“Did you pull up the anchor?” Clay demanded of Case.
“I should say not,” was the indignant reply. “What for should I do that, I should like to know? Sure you fastened the chain right?”
“Of course! The chain was all right when we left there.”
“Then why should she be moving toward the shore? She’s being towed, or I’m not an inch high! What do you know about that?”
The Rambler was indeed moving toward the west bank of the river! The motors were not in action, and yet she was moving, slowly yet steadily, to the west! In a moment, as they rowed nearer, they saw that she was drifting down toward them, but was, at the same time, being drawn in toward the bank. There was no one in sight on the deck or in the open cabin!
“This must be a fairy land!” Case grumbled. “There’s something uncanny in the very air! How do we know that we are in the Colorado river, anyway? We haven’t seen a ship, or a launch, or a rowboat, except our own, to-day! Things disappear from the cabin, Alex goes up in the air, and now the Rambler wiggles off without any motive power showing!”
“Look at Captain Joe!” shouted Clay. “Just look at the fool dog?”
Case continued to pull at the oars, anxious to gain the Rambler.
“What is he doing?” he asked, not turning around to see.
“He’s barking and snapping at something that doesn’t exist!” Clay replied. “He is fighting with the air—and getting the worst of it!”
“Keep your head, chum!” Case grinned. “Keep on trying to think! The worst is yet to come!”
“Turn around and look, if you don’t believe me,” Clay shouted.
Case turned about on his seat, letting the oars lie idle in the waves for a moment, and fixed his eyes on the deck of the Rambler, now not more than a hundred yards away. Captain Joe was barking like mad on the deck, advancing to the west rail, as if pursuing some one, and then retreating, as if being beaten back!
While the boys looked, he crossed the deck half a dozen times, snapping and snarling at something not in view from the small boat. Whenever he retreated he seemed to be cringing as from a blow! The boys looked on in wonder and fright. The dog was fighting the air!
“Not a thing in sight!” Case commented. “A boat sliding along with no one near her, and a dog barking at nothing at all. I give it up!”
“Let me row,” Clay suggested. “You must be getting tired.”
Case dropped off the seat backward and Clay took up the oars.
“Tell me what you see,” asked the latter, after rowing a moment.
“The dog has gone back to his corner,” Case reported, “and Teddy is doing the investigating. The Rambler is still jerking in shore, and there’s not a soul in sight! Ever hear of invisible men and things? Well, that’s just what we’re up against!”
“Alex is invisible, all right!” grunted Clay. “See him yet?”
Case did not answer. Instead he dropped into the seat beside Clay, almost overturning the frail boat before he succeeded in getting into action with one of the oars. It was a minute before he spoke in explanation of his conduct.
“Pull!” he cried. “Pull for your life! There’s some one at the prow of the boat, pushing her toward shore, and there’s men behind the sand dunes on the west bank, waiting for her to land! We’re up against a nest of pirates, I take it! Pull! We must get to the Rambler before it touches the bank, for the fellows there will swarm over her then.”
And the lads did pull, with all their might. The current of the Colorado is not strong there, and so they made good headway. When they came within fifty yards of the Rambler, she was within that distance of the shore. The men who had been hiding behind the hills a moment before now came out and called sharply to some one on or about the Rambler to make haste and bring her in. There was no verbal answer, but the boat moved faster toward the shore.
Dripping with perspiration, panting in the hot air, the boys put their strength to the oars and finally sprang over the railing just as two of the men entered the water to swim out. They did not draw back when they saw the boys aboard, but swam rapidly on.
“The motors!” shouted Clay. “Get them in motion!”
Case hastened to comply, and Clay dashed into the cabin and returned with a couple of automatic revolvers. Without speaking he fired a shot over the head of the nearest swimmer.
“Missed him!” cried Case. “Let me try one!”
“Get under motion!” insisted Clay. “When you get under way, drop down stream! We’ve got to find Alex, dead or alive!”
A rowboat now shot out from the shore, manned by two men. First the swimmers were picked up, and then the boat was headed for the Rambler.
“Keep off!” Clay called out. “I’ll shoot if you come nearer.”
“In the name of the law!” called one of the men in the boat.
“Never mind the law!” Clay answered. “If you don’t want to get bored through with a forty-five, keep away from the boat.”
“I’ve got to come aboard!” was the answer to this.
“And I’ve got to keep you from doing so!” Clay answered. “We are not interfering with you, or with the laws of Mexico, and we have no notion of spending a few months in a Mexican jail while you people dispose of our boat and our supplies. Keep off! I’ll shoot if you come a foot closer. What have you done with the boy you took off the Rambler?”
Case looked up from the motors with a hopeful smile. Perhaps that was the solution of the puzzle! These men might have in some way stolen the food and taken Alex away. This thought was more cheerful than the one that the boy had fallen into the river and been drowned.
The roar of the motors drowned the answer, if, indeed, any was made. As the propellers swung into motion two figures separated themselves from the prow of the boat, where they had been clinging, out of sight, and struck out toward shore. Clay called to them to stop, but they paid no attention to the command. Directly they were taken into the rowboat. Clay smiled as he took in the situation.
“It is easy now,” he shouted. “Those men were evidently diving and shifting the anchor shoreward, being unable to break the chain, and being afraid to go on board. Guess they know nothing about motors, or they’d have had the Rambler miles up stream long before this!”
The Rambler now struck out for the Gulf, traveling at a swift pace. If Alex had indeed fallen into the stream, they might yet be able to save his life, as he was a strong swimmer and resourceful. The men in the rowboat followed on, losing ground, but persistent. At last Clay halted the boat and called back to them:
“What do you people want of us?”
“Just a little talk,” was the reply, shouted over the water.
“You tried to steal the boat!” Case shouted back. “You’re thieves!”
“Not thieves! After thieves!” came the sharp reply.
“Are you officers?” demanded Clay.
“Officers! American officers!” was the unexpected reply.
“They’re faking!” Case cut in. “You saw how they tried to steal the Rambler! I’ve a notion to take a shot at them.”
Clay swung the Rambler in a circle and came close to the rowboat, an automatic ready for use. Case looked on with disapproval showing in his face.
“Now, what do you want?” Clay demanded, as one of the men arose in the boat. “I’m not running away from officers, if I know it, nor am I holding any extended talks with boat thieves. What do you want?”
“I want to come aboard,” was the stern reply.
The man who spoke was tall, slender, black of hair and eyes, and with a grace and freedom of movement which told of life in the open air. Clay rather liked his looks, and so consented for him to board the Rambler. Case stood by with a revolver to see that no rush was made as the other vaulted easily over the railing after scrambling lightly up the side of the motor boat. But there was no need of this, for the others sat stolidly at the oars, even backing off as the prow bumped the Rambler’s side.
The man who had boarded the Rambler stood for a moment with his hands outstretched, to show that his intentions were not hostile, and then gave a keen look about. It seemed to the boys that he took in every minute detail of the craft, from the bristling dog at the prow to the electric coil at the back of the cabin.
“I’m Joe King,” he finally said. “Joe King, of Arizona. Phoenix, Arizona, to be exact. I’m a deputy sheriff. Where’s the sawed-off kid who came aboard your boat just after dark last night?”
“No one came aboard last night,” answered Clay, half angrily.
“Short, light weight, freckled, red-headed, quick in his talk,” the deputy described. “Where is he? No foolishness, now. I want him.”
“You may have him if you can find him,” grinned Case. “We don’t know any such boy. If you’re lucky finding boys,” Case continued, “I wish you’d find Alex Smithwick! He evaporated half an hour ago.”
Joe King, of Phoenix, Arizona, looked at the two boys doubtfully. He seemed to think they were joking with him. Clay saw that he was not an enemy, and briefly told the story of Alex’s disappearance, also of the vanishing of the honey and cakes. King looked about the boat again.
“Isn’t he hidden somewhere?” he asked, with a sweep of the arm.
“There is no place he could hide,” Case answered. “You were on the shore with your men,” he resumed, “did you see any one leaving the boat?”
“We caught a view of the river only a few moments ago,” was the discouraging reply. “If he has been gone half an hour he might have gone away with a brass band without our knowing it. But here’s a bigger puzzle,” King continued, “and that is where did this Don Durand go to? He sure came on board your boat last night at dusk, while you lay farther down. If you find him, you’ll find the pancakes!”
“We never saw him!” Clay exclaimed. “He might have taken the food, but he couldn’t have taken Alex. What do you want of him, anyway?”
“Why,” was the unexpected reply, “this Don Durand stole a matter of fifty thousand dollars at Chicago. He is a much-wanted boy just at present. Ten thousand dollars reward, you know!”
“How did a boy manage to get hold of so much money?” asked Clay, his eyes large with astonishment.
“He was a bank errand boy,” answered King, “and walked off with a handbag a customer of the concern, one Josiah Trumbull—entrusted to his care. He has been chased all through the west, but has never been taken.”
“And he came on board the Rambler at dusk last night?” asked Case.
“So my men say. They were watching your boat at that time, thinking it might be the home of the thief. I have thoughts running in that direction right this minute! So you’d better give an account of yourself.”
Clay, seeing that the deputy was sincere and friendly, told the story of past and prospective trips. King listened with amused eyes.
“All right!” he said. “I’ve heard of you boys! You caught a robber up the Columbia and got a rich reward! Hope you’ll get another one right here. But this Don Durand is a clever chap, though only the size of a pint cup! He’s so small that he may be hiding here right now.”
“I’m glad he got something to eat!” Case exclaimed. “I’ll bet he was hungry! You don’t think he coaxed Alex off, do you?”
“Did he have an airship or a diving bell to take him off in?” laughed King. “He has the price of both, I take it, for the papers say he is carrying fifty thousand in gold notes around with him.”
“Alex might have found him out on the aft deck and chased him off, and then followed him,” Clay suggested. “Alex is a pretty good swimmer,” he added. “He wins medals in under-water endurance tests!”
“Now you’re beginning to think right!” King commented. “The boys may be on shore. If they are, my men will get them. And I reckon they’re putting up a fight right now,” he added. “Hear the shots?”
Puffs of smoke lifted over the hills, and then a rattling volley came from the mountain spur not far to the west.