CHAPTER VIII.—DEPUTY KING GETS A BATH.
Alex was awakened by the little cabin clock striking midnight. He lay quiet for a moment without opening his eyes, for he was still very tired and sleepy, notwithstanding his unfortunate afternoon siesta. Presently he felt the cold nose of the bear brushing against the palm of one hand, which was hanging over the edge of the bunk.
As this was a trick often resorted to by the cub to attract attention when he was hungry, or wanted some one to play with, the boy took no special notice of it. Then a strange rustle and stir in the cabin came to his ears, a combination of sounds which proclaimed a hustling about of furniture and a tossing about of small articles.
At that he opened his eyes and sat up. Then he rubbed his sleepy eyes and stretched out a hand in the direction of the place where he always kept his automatic at night. The weapon was not there!
What he saw was King, the deputy sheriff, opening and closing the drawers under the bunks where Clay and Case slept. He was tumbling the contents of the drawers over the floor and frowning savagely as he turned the medley of furnishing goods with nervous hands.
Now, how came it that King was on board the Rambler? The deputy had left the boat for the purpose of pursuing the boy who had taken the money and the handbag from Josiah Trumbull. By this time he ought to be far into the mountainous district to the west. And what was he doing there? And where were Case and Clay, and Captain Joe?
These questions, and many others of a similar kind, came to the boy as he watched King throwing the boys’ shirts, collars, ties, underclothing, and toilet articles about. But no answers came, except that a low growl from the dog sounded from the open doorway. Turning, Alex saw that he was tied by a chain to the top bar of the deck railing.
Captain Joe was pulling at the chain, his red eyes were glaring angrily, and his capable teeth showed under his snarling lips.
Alex beckoned silently to the dog, and he pulled at his chain fiercely and set up a great barking. Then King looked at the dog and at the bunk where the astonished Alex sat, still motioning to the dog.
“Good morning!” the deputy said, with a smile which was not altogether hostile. “How do you find yourself this morning?”
“You’ve got your nerve!” Alex replied angrily.
“If I should lose my nerve,” the deputy returned, with a wink at the struggling dog, “I wouldn’t get any jobs! Nerve is an asset with me.”
“What are you doing here—nosing in those drawers?” asked the boy.
“Looking for the belt you picked up down below,” was the reply.
“I didn’t pick it up,” Alex answered, with a frown which did not at all improve his appearance. “I didn’t pick it up.”
“Your friend did, though, and gave it to you. Where is it?”
“I haven’t got it! Some one came on board and stole it.”
“That may be. Clay and Case said the same thing. Let the belt go. Where is the money?”
“Stolen,” answered Alex. “Carried off when the belt was taken.”
“See here,” King went on. “Your chums told me about that, and I do not believe it. No boy would go to sleep sitting up, with fifty thousand dollars in treasury notes in his lap. That’s too thin.”
“All right! You don’t have to believe it.”
“Besides, who is there that knows you have the money, except me and the two Mexicans? Don Durand ran away without waiting to see what became of the belt, so he doesn’t know, and the Mexicans, who do know, and who told me, have been in my company nearly ever since, so they didn’t get it. You may as well tell me the truth. It will save time.”
“I have told you the truth, but you may keep on mussing up things if you want to. You’ll get your pay for it some day!”
“No threats, please! I rather like you boys, and I’m sorry you got mixed up in this affair. I’ll do the best I can for you, but I must have that money! Also, I must have that belt. There are papers in it which I need in my business. Get up and get the money and belt!”
“If I could,” Alex replied, “I’d throw them overboard before I’d let you have even one look at them! Where are Clay and Case?” he added.
“I’m sorry for that, too,” King replied, “but I had to drop them off on a little sand heap not far away. They cut such annoying pranks that I had to do it. I have the boat anchored, you see, and you may run back and get them as soon as I get the money and the papers.”
“What papers?” asked Alex, innocently, as if he had never heard of the queer documents before. “What you talking about?”
“The papers that were in the handbag,” King replied, patiently.
“They were in the belt when it was stolen,” Alex answered, telling the exact truth, but saying nothing of the copies he had made, and which were at that moment in an inside pocket of his coat, hanging on the wall not far from his bunk.
“Oh, very well!” the deputy said, turning to his work again. “You lie right there while I search the boat from stem to stern. It may take a couple of days, but I’ll do it right while I am at it.”
Alex watched the deputy turning out drawers and poking under them, investigating the motor pit, and even moving the provision supply out of the storage compartments. Anxious as the boy was, it still amused him, for he knew what a hopeless search it was.
King seemed to think that Alex, deprived of his revolver, would not attempt interference with his search. He looked over at him now and then and occasionally spoke to Captain Joe, but for the most part he kept on with his work of searching the boat. This went on for two hours or more, until, in fact, a pearl flush crept into the sky.
During all this time the boy had been thinking fast. How was he to get rid of King? For all he knew, defeated in his search, as he was sure to be, the officer would run the boat up to Yuma and lock him up on charge of receiving and concealing stolen property. And, then, Clay and Case must be having rather a hard and anxious time of it down on the sand island where they had been landed, at the point of a gun, by the deputy.
Captain Joe seemed to have exhausted his rage, and was now showing his teeth only when King came near him. The dog seemed to think that if Alex could lie easily in his bunk and talk with the man who was searching the boat he had no cause to interfere! Besides, he was tied so securely that there was no hope at all of his getting free!
Whenever the boy moved uneasily on his bunk King gave an uneasy glance in that direction. Once Alex tried to get to a revolver which he knew to be in a cupboard near the rear of the cabin, but King ordered him to lie down again before his feet were off the bunk.
After a time, when there was more of pink than pearl in the eastern sky, Teddy climbed up to the bunk and lay down by the side of the boy. He was preparing to go to sleep when Alex began whispering in his ear:
“Take him, Teddy! Take him! Give him a bath!”
Ever since Teddy’s capture on the Columbia river trip the boys had made a playmate of him. He had been taught to play leap-frog, and to wrestle and box. While bathing from the boat the boys had taught him to follow them into the water, and even to trip and bunt those on deck into the river if they did not jump in quick enough to suit him.
Alex was now trying to revive the play spirit in the bear in the hope that he would attack King and try to push him into the river. Not understanding the game, the deputy would be apt to take alarm at such a rush as Teddy sometimes made and so give the boy a chance to arm himself.
The cub sat up on the bunk as Alex talked to him, but did not seem to understand what was wanted. He put his paws in boxing position as he had been taught to do, and invited Alex out on the floor to have a bout with him! But this did not help at all!
“Tip him over, Teddy! Tip him into the river!” Alex whispered.
Teddy paid no attention to the order, but continued to invite a boxing contest, much to the disappointment of the boy. While this was going on a long call from down the stream reached Alex’s ears. That was Clay or Case. They were getting tired of their enforced residence on the island and were asking how much longer it was to continue.
Teddy ruffled his ears at the sound of the familiar voices and King stood up to shout an answer back. It was a taunting answer, too, and the boy in the bunk came very near springing out and taking his chances in a hand-to-hand combat with an armed man!
The prow of the boat was up stream, as the anchor cable led from that part of the craft, so the aft deck was nearer to the island where the boys had been landed than the bow. Besides, the bulk of the cabin was between the deputy and the island. Desiring to urge upon Clay and Case the necessity of delivering the money and papers to him, King stepped up on the cabin roof and entered into conversation with them.
An hour before the deputy would not have done this, but now he was becoming a trifle disheartened. He had gone over the boat pretty well and had found no trace of what he sought. The stories told by the three boys agreed, and he began to wonder if they were not the truth. He was inclined to be friendly and, once convinced that the boys were not deceiving him, he would have treated them with every courtesy.
At last Teddy appeared to understand that it was to be a game of hide-and-seek in the water, and bounded off the bunk. King was standing on top of the cabin, making a trumpet of his hands, talking to the lads he had marooned down the river. That was an old pose. The boys had often stood erect on the roof and derided each other’s swimming efforts.
When the bear came out on the deck King looked down and yelled savagely at him. This was still a part of the game, too, for the lads often taunted the cub and then sprang away from him and plunged into the river! So, when the deputy called down at the bear, the bear sprang at the deputy, caught his sharp teeth into one trousers leg and promptly and deftly pushed and pulled him off the roof and into the river, where he rolled him under a couple of times and swam away, around to the other side of the boat.
Alex was out of his bunk the instant he heard the splash. King was spluttering out great threats when the boy ran on deck with the revolver he had taken from the cupboard.
“Taking an early bath?” shouted Alex derisively, as he showed his weapon. “Don’t come too close to the Rambler! You can’t come aboard.”
King came to the surface again and, ejecting muddy water from his mouth, shouted back.
“If you’ll assure me that the money is not there—”
Teddy swung around from the other side of the boat and ducked him.
Alex went to the motors and set them in motion. Then he called to the cub. Teddy was having the time of his life playing with the angry and half-drowned deputy, and did not respond.
Alex put the boat in motion and called back to the cub:
“Go it, old top! If you want to drown, stick out there!”
The boys had acquired such a habit of talking to the bear as if he were a human being that Teddy actually understood a good many things that were said to him. Still, it was not the words but the departure of the boat which now brought him away from the officer.
King followed the cub as he swam toward the boat. The boy motioned him to remain away, and added that if he wanted to save his strength he might as well head for the nearest shore, which was something like half a mile away at that point.
“But I can’t swim that far!” came back from the water.
Alex threw out a life preserver and shouted back:
“Float down, then, and kick in as you go along!”
King seized the life preserver and headed for the shore, while the boy devoted his energies to getting Teddy on board and running the boat at full speed down the river without hitting any of the shoal places shown by the ripples to be dangerous. In a very short time he came to the sand island where Clay and Case were.
He threw down the anchor, just below, and stood on the prow making faces at his chums until they threatened to maroon him the first chance they got! Captain Joe was now making a great clamor with his chain and Alex released him. The dog was instantly in the water, swimming to the boys, now wading out toward the Rambler.
“You’ll have to swim!” Alex shouted, in a moment. “I can’t come any closer to you, and we’ve lost the rowboat, as you know!”
“We can’t get any wetter than we did swimming over to the island,” Clay grumbled. “Where is that deputy from Phoenix?”
“Making for the shore!” laughed Alex. “Teddy Bear dumped him into the river and I sent him off with a life preserver.”
“I’d like to have sent him off with a sore head!” Case muttered, as he climbed up on the deck, his teeth chattering. “He sneaked on board from a passing boat and got the drop on us or we wouldn’t be here!”
“He thought he was in the line of duty,” Clay put in, “but it was rather tough on us. We never saw him until he had us covered!” Did he find anything he wanted on board?”
“Not a thing!” Alex replied. “All he got was a bath!”
“I’m going to buy a ton of honey and present it to Teddy, with a set of appreciative resolutions!” Clay declared, as he followed Case to the deck. “There never was a bear that had such sense!”
The sun came out hot and red, and the boys kept under the shelter of the cabin as much as possible that day, still they kept the motor boat running at good speed. They talked over the loss of the money many times but were unable to reach any logical solution of the puzzle.
That night they anchored within sight of Yuma, Arizona. Clay declared that Alex was too much of a sleepy head to be trusted to keep watch, and so resolved to stand guard until midnight and then awake Case.
But Case was not called, and at daylight Clay was nowhere to be found!