CHAPTER III.—RESISTING AN OFFICER.
While Alex and Case stood, hesitating, on the little platform in front of the store, two men came rushing out with excitement showing in their faces.
“What’s the shooting, boys?” one of them asked.
“I haven’t any idea,” Alex replied. “We just came from that part of the country, and everything was quiet when we left.”
“It’s a sure thing,” one of the men, who seemed to be owner of the store, declared angrily, “that those river pirates have broken loose again.”
“I’m afraid so,” his companion answered.
“Do they give you much trouble?” asked Case.
“Trouble!” exclaimed the merchant. “They come here and strip my shelves. They bring a howling mob of river rats into the town and take everything they can get their hands on.”
“Why don’t you have them arrested?” asked Alex.
“Arrested!” exclaimed the other. “They’re here one night and the next night they’re hundreds of miles away, with a new coat of paint and a new name on their boat. Besides all that, you can’t get half the officers along here to take any action at all. You go to them and make a complaint and they’ll say that the robbery wasn’t committed in their county, or in their township, or in the state of Kentucky, or something of that kind! My honest opinion is that they’re afraid of the pirates.”
“Don’t put it too strong,” the other advised. “There’s some pretty good officers along the river. Besides, there’s the Government boats.”
“Yes, there’s the Government boats,” decided the merchant, “but the Government boats are as easy to keep track of as a white elephant would be in our main street. The river rats wait until Uncle Sam’s boats get out of sight before they attempt any mischief.”
During this conversation, the boys had been listening for more pistol shots from the direction in which the Rambler lay. They had little doubt that Clay and Jule were in trouble. They knew, too, that the Rambler was virtually helpless, so the boys had no chance whatever of escaping from any hostile boat. Directly Alex turned to the merchant and asked:
“Do you keep motor boat supplies?”
The merchant turned to his friend and indulged in a long, slow, insulting wink.
“So,” he said significantly, “you boys have a motor boat up the river?”
“Yes,” Case replied, “but the motors are out of order.”
“Is that where the shootin’ is?” asked the merchant.
“There was no shooting when we left,” Alex answered.
“Come, come, now!” the merchant advised. “You boys may as well tell me the truth. Was it one of them pirate boats that sent you here after motor supplies?”
“We have a motor boat of our own,” Alex answered angrily. “She is lying in an eddy on the other side of the bend, and we don’t dare to drift her down stream.”
“That’s too bad!” said the suspicious merchant with another long and insulting wink. “What is it you want in the way of supplies?”
“Spark plugs,” was the short answer.
“Well,” said the merchant, “extending a bony finger and poking Alex on the chest, “I keep a few spark plugs because there are a good many motor boats passing along the river.”
“Yes,” laughed the man who stood with him on the platform, “you keep spark plugs, but you take pretty good care not to sell them to men who will put them to unlawful use.”
“That’s the idea!” said the merchant.
“Will you sell us some?” asked Case indignantly.
“I might,” was the reply, “after a time. Just now, you see,” he went on, regarding his companion knowingly, “just now, we think we’d better hold you boys until we find out what all that shooting is about.”
“Hold us?” repeated Alex and Case in a breath.
“It’s just this way,” the merchant went on, “this man here is constable in this township. It was him I was giving the dig to a little while ago about the officers not being ready to take action.”
The officer turned back the lapel of his coat and ostentatiously displayed a brass badge.
“Yes,” he said, “I’m constable of this township, and old Bill, here, never gets tired of telling folks that the officers ain’t no account.”
The two men roared lustily, pounding each other on the shoulders, evidently regarding the whole affair as a good joke.
“Come,” Alex said, “will you sell me some spark plugs?”
“You can’t buy nothin’ just now,” the constable declared. “You’re both under arrest!”
“What for?” asked Case.
“We think,” the constable replied, “that the pirates sent you here to look over the town and see what they could get. That’s too thin, your talking about spark plugs. Why, every boat carries a lot of them.”
“If this man is a constable,” urged Alex, “why don’t he hasten over to the other side of the bend and find out what that shooting is about?”
“There,” snarled the constable, “now I know you’re in cahoots with a gang of river thieves. Old Bill, here, heard you try to get me to go right up there where they’re shooting, tried to get me to run my neck right into a noose!”
“They’re dangerous boys,” the merchant suggested. “Why don’t you look them over for weapons?”
By this time quite a crowd was collecting about the little store. The merchant and the constable were receiving all sorts of advice, and women and girls stood about with red hands rolled up in their aprons, watching the two suspects with frightened eyes.
“I reckon I’d better be seeing what they’ve got on,” the constable said with an important air. “They probably didn’t come down here without guns.”
As the constable stepped forward Alex and Case exchanged quick glances, each asking the other what ought to be done. They understood that arrest there meant confinement in a country jail for several days, perhaps weeks, before they could establish their identity.
They knew, too, that their assistance was needed on board the Rambler. The shooting had disclosed a situation anything but peaceful.
“Come on, now, boys!” the constable shouted “Let’s see what you’ve got in your pockets.”
“And don’t you try to hide nothing away from us, either,” the merchant added. “Turn your pockets wrong side out.”
“All right,” Alex said, so angry that his face was whiter than Case had ever seen him before. “We’ll show you what we’ve got in our pockets.”
As he spoke, he drew forth an automatic revolver and held it threateningly at the head of the constable. Case was not slow in following his example. The little crowd instantly scattered; some dashing around the corners of the store and others hiding behind barrels and boxes. The women present let out such screams as the boys had never heard before. The merchant and the constable both broke for the store door. Such a scattering the little town had never seen before that day.
In a second the constable opened the door of the store about six inches and peered out, shaking a rusty shotgun in one hand. The merchant stood behind him, looking out of the glass panel and showing an old army carbine.
“We’re armed! We’re armed!” called out the constable. “Don’t you try to come in here! You boys will get a life sentence for this!”
“This is highway robbery, and murder, and piracy!” shouted the merchant.
The boys backed away from the platform so as to be out of reach of any shot from the angle of the building and paused a second for consultation.
“We’ve got him buffaloed!” was Alex’s, first remark.
“Hadn’t we better be getting out?” Case asked. “I’ve a good mind to go in there and fill my pockets with spark plugs,” Alex declared.
“That would be a nice thing to do, wouldn’t it?” scoffed Case. “That would be larceny from a store in the daytime, and you can get fifteen years for that; and if you went into a store with a gun and put the keeper in peril of his life, you could get fifty or sixty years!”
“Then I won’t do it!” grinned Alex.
“It’s me for the Rambler!” Case declared. “It will take us until dark to get there now, and as soon as we turn our backs that bum constable will have a hundred men out after us.”
“And that means that we’ve got to hot-foot through the bushes!” Alex declared. “We can beat ’em if they don’t get dogs.”
The boys turned into the undergrowth and ran, tearing their clothes and scratching their hands on wild vines, and occasionally falling over a protruding tree-root. At one time they both lay in a heap at the foot of a beech tree, where they had fallen over a mass of vines. When they scrambled to their feet they heard shouts of laughter coming from a thicket not far away.
“Guess they’ve got us!” panted Alex.
“I guess they have!” Case agreed.
The next moment the brown barrel of a rifle was thrust out at the boys. The boys sat flat down on the ground and waited.
“That’s right!” the holder of the gun said, stepping out of the thicket. “Set right down and take things easy. If you try to unlimber any artillery, you’ll get the worst of it.”
The man was tall, bony, angular. His face was clean-shaven, showing high cheek bones, with prominent nose and a cleft chin. His hair was brown, his eyes blue, and the general expression of his face at that moment was humorous rather than threatening.
“What’s the idea?” Alex asked.
“You don’t look like a man capable of holding up two boys!” Case put in. “You look like a pretty decent chap.”
“If you’ve got any masked batteries with you,” the man said a smile showing on his rugged face, “just poke them out here, handle first, and then we’ll arrive at some understanding!”
The boys did as directed, although they would have made a fight for their weapons only for the indescribable air of friendliness about the man. They rose to their feet as they dropped their revolvers.
“Better put that gun down,” Alex advised. “You might get excited and let it go off.”
The man sat down on a fallen log and laid the gun across his knees.
“Where you boys from?” he asked.
The man’s voice and manner invited confidence, and the boys told him briefly the story of the Rambler, and of the shooting at the point where they had left her.
“I think you boys are all right,” the man said, and I think, too, that river pirates are making trouble for your friends.”
“Do you think they will follow us from the landing?” Case asked, anxiously. “They may shoot us from the bushes.”
The man pounded his thigh with one ponderous hand and laughed until the woods rang. The boys looked on in wonder.
“Follow you? I should say not,” he said in a moment. “Why that constable deputized me to come and take you prisoners. He’s helping old Bill barricade his store. Now we’ll see if we can find out what’s wrong with the Rambler.”