CHAPTER VIII.—CAPTAIN JOE’S MESSAGE.
“Where do you think the bulldog came from?” asked Hank as, with Alex and Case, he stood watching the dog capering about in the joy of victory. “He seems to know you boys pretty well.”
“This dog,” Alex answered, “is the champion four-footed traveler of the world. He’s been on all the big rivers, and in all the big cities. He’s taken bites out of all the tribes on the face of the globe. He belongs on the Rambler with us.”
“Seems like a mighty pert dog?” admitted the mountaineer.
“You don’t have to guess again!” Case put in.
“Anyway, he done finished that hound in good shape,” Hank suggested.
He stooped as he spoke and took the end of a rope into his fingers.
“You see how it is,” he said, “the animal broke his leash and got away from the bunch sleuthing in the woods.”
“Then they won’t be able to find us?” asked Alex.
The bony mountaineer shook his head.
“They might as well look for a needle in a load of hay,” he said.
Alex now bent over and began talking gravely to the bulldog.
“Captain Joe,” he said, “why didn’t you follow me sooner? I might have been eaten alive at that landing. Next time, you come quicker.”
Captain Joe pointed his blood-stained nose in the direction of the river and whined softly.
“What’s that?” asked Alex.
The dog drew away from the boy and ran a few steps to the north and looked back.
“Look here!” Alex said, speaking excitedly to Case and the mountaineer, “the bulldog says there’s some of our friends over in the direction of the river.”
“I didn’t hear him talking,” laughed the mountaineer.
“That’s because you don’t know dog talk. Captain Joe has a language of his own,” laughed Case. “Great dog, that!”
“Anyway,” admitted the mountaineer, “he seems to understand what you say to him.”
“Oh, come on!” urged Alex. “Let’s don’t waste any more time standing here. There’s something wrong on board the Rambler, or Captain Joe wouldn’t be here.”
“The Rambler,” Case insisted, “is a long way upstream.”
“I guess Captain Joe knows where it is,” Alex replied. “You fellows come right along. I’m going to follow the dog.”
The boys used their searchlights freely now, and made considerable noise making their way through the thickets. After walking steadily for fifteen or twenty minutes, the bulldog darted on ahead and left them to make their way without his guidance.
Even while the three were discussing the disappearance of the dog, they heard him barking not far away, and then a voice they knew came to their ears. The dog’s bark took on a note of welcome.
“Hello, Alex! Hello, Case!” they heard Clay call. “Why don’t you come on out to the river?” “We’re moving as fast as we can,” Case called back. “This jungle is harder to work through than a Saturday night crowd on South Clark street. How did you come to be on shore?” he added.
By this time, the two boys and the mountaineer had gained the spot where Clay stood.
“What’s doing on the Rambler?” Case asked after the mountaineer had been presented to Clay.
“We have met the enemy and we are theirs!” said Clay dolefully.
In as few words as possible he told the story of the situation on the Rambler at the time he left it.
“And Jule is still there with those thieves?” asked Case.
“He is unless he’s made a dive for liberty,” replied Clay.
“You say the boat was drifting the last you saw of her?” asked Hank.
“Broadside downstream!” answered Clay.
“Well, then,” the mountaineer suggested, “we’d better be moving on down. Was she on this side of the river or the other?”
“Pretty close to the Kentucky shore,” answered the boy.
“Then you’re in luck!” the mountaineer laughed. “There’s a sand bar down here, just around the point, that will be sure to catch her. You may have my head for a football if we don’t see her wedged against that bar as soon as we come in sight of it.”
After half an hour’s difficult walking along the river bank, winding far into the river to escape coves, crossing little runs on fallen trees, they passed around the point of the bend and looked down a long sweep of river.
“Thunderation!” shouted the mountaineer.
“Now, what do you think of that?” demanded Clay.
“Rotten!” Alex and Case declared in a breath. What the boys saw was the Rambler lying at anchor, perhaps forty rods away with the Hawk bearing down upon her.
“It looks to me,” the mountaineer said, “as if those pirates were bound to have that boat.”
“And it looks to me,” Case put in, “as if they’re going to get her, too! They seem to have the top hand in this game.”
“I don’t know about that,” declared the mountaineer. “I don’t think we ought to let those brigands run away with that boat.”
“Well, then, suggest something!” urged Clay.
Before Hank could speak again, the Rambler’s anchor was hauled in and she was headed directly for the shore almost at the exact spot where the four stood. The Hawk steamed steadily after her.
“What’s she doing that for?” demanded Case.
“That boat of yours,” suggested the mountaineer, “will almost float in a heavy dew, while the Hawk as you call her requires a considerable depth of water.”
Clay nudged his companions and laughed.
“That’s shows that you’re not familiar with boating,” he said, in a moment. “That old barge out there will float in twenty-five inches of water, while the Rambler, sticking her keel down like a knife, requires at least thirty-five inches. I guess the truth of the matter is,” he added, “that the pirates on board the Rambler are coming this way in the hope of dodging the Hawk.”
“Why don’t they do a little shooting?” Case asked. “Those fellows aren’t usually so saving of their ammunition.”
“I guess the police boat isn’t far away,” suggested the mountaineer. “She may be just downstream, or just upstream, but they know she’s hereabouts, and there’d be plenty of shooting if they didn’t suspect her presence. Those fellows usually shoot to kill, too.”
The Rambler came in within a dozen feet of the shore and then turned prow down. The Hawk dropped down, too, edging in upon her every minute. The boys watched the maneuvers with anxious eyes.
“I hope they won’t get to shooting,” Clay said, “because Jule and Teddy must be still on board.”
“If those fellows on the Rambler knew the game they are playing,” Alex declared, “they would turn the motors on full speed and run away from that pirate. Perhaps they don’t know it, but our boat can go three miles while the other boat is traveling one.”
“Let’s go aboard and show them how to run it!” suggested Case.
The prow light was still burning on the Rambler, and the cabin was also brightly illuminated. Through the small window on the port side, they could see Jule busily engaged over the electric coils at the back of the cabin.
“I believe I can get on board that boat without being seen,” Alex declared, and before the others could offer a word of remonstrance, the little fellow was in the river swimming mostly under water toward the after deck of the motor boat. They saw him climb up on the deck and peer in at the window in the rear wall of the cabin.
“The little monkey!” chuckled Clay. “I don’t think I would have undertaken a game of that kind for a million dollars.”
“Well,” Case said excitedly, “we’re going to do exactly the same thing. Those fellows on board are so busy watching the pirates that they won’t see us, and the pirates are so busy watching the Rambler that they won’t see us. We’ve just got to get on board.”
The mountaineer threw himself at full length on the ground and laughed until his lean sides shook.
“And what will you do when you get on board?” he asked directly. “You’re the gamest lot of kids I ever saw.”
“About the first thing I do,” Case declared, “will be to get something to eat. I’ll just bet you a red apple that Alex has got his nose into the provision chest this minute.”
They all glanced toward the Rambler at mention of the boy and saw that the after deck was vacant.
“It’s a sure thing he’s got his nose into some kind of food if he’s inside the cabin,” Clay remarked.
“But, honest, now, boys,” the mountaineer asked, “what do you think of doing after you get on board? You can’t fight the pirates on your boat and the pirates on the Hawk too.”
“Why,” Clay said, “we’ll run away from that boat in a minute. In three seconds after we get our hands on the motors, we’ll be going so fast downstream that a bullet from the Hawk couldn’t catch us.”
“You kids certainly beat my time,” chuckled the mountaineer. “If I didn’t have plenty of business at that little aeroplane factory of mine up in the hills. I’d be tempted to go with you.”
“This man,” Case explained to Clay, “makes moonshine whiskey up in the hills. He calls his still an aeroplane factory because his product sends people up in the air.”
“It will send a man pretty high up in the air if he drinks enough of it,” the mountaineer chuckled.
“Why don’t you quit it and play fair with the Government?” asked Clay.
“Sho’, boys,” answered the mountaineer, “I wouldn’t enjoy life if it wasn’t for the skirmishes I have with the Government officers. Besides, there ain’t nothing else a man can do in this country. When a man can make a hundred dollars’ worth of moonshine out of ten dollars’ worth of corn, and do it with mighty little trouble, what’s the use of his coming down into the valley and shoveling coal into a steamer for a dollar and a half a day?”
The argument was never completed, for at that moment the boys saw the cabin door open and Teddy, standing erect in a boxing attitude, move out. He was getting to be quite a good-sized bear now, and he bulked fierce and heavy against the lights. At first, neither one of the river thieves on board the Rambler saw him.
In fact, the first indication Mike had of his presence was when he felt a sharp claw laid on the arm lying across the gunwale. He turned quickly, looked for one instant into the pig-like eyes of the bear, and with a cry which echoed down the river, sprang into the stream.
“I guess he thought the bear was going to eat him!” Case observed.
The mountaineer now lay rolling and tumbling on the bank of the river. The scene had opened so unexpectedly; the bear’s appearance had been so fierce and intimidating, that he had at first felt a little shiver of fear, but now he saw that the bear was merely performing tricks he had been taught While he chuckled, Gid also leaped into the river, and then he saw Case and Clay, followed by Captain Joe, swimming lustily toward the Rambler.