CHAPTER XVII.—THE TWO CLAIMANTS.
Sailing swiftly down the stream in the early morning, Alex was not at all in bad humor as he regarded the general situation. He figured that he could very readily elude the coal tow and return upstream to his chums. In fact, the portion of the incident which he regretted most was the loss of his fish.
“Now,” he pondered as he whirled the boat over towards the Indiana shore in order to find open water for his passage upstream, “I’ll have to go and hook another catfish before we can have breakfast.”
He chuckled softly to himself as he thought of the chums marooned on the shore of the little cove without a thing to eat. At the time of his sudden departure with the Rambler, no supplies of any kind had been carried ashore. He laughed as he thought of the rage of the boys.
“I’ll throw out a troll-line as I go up,” he mused, “and perhaps I’ll have a pickerel or something of that kind all ready for the hot stones when I get up to the cove.”
When within a short distance of the Indiana shore, the boy saw a long line of floats extending out from the bank, indicating the location of a fishing net. The boy sprang to the motors in the hope of saving the net by shutting off the power, but he was too late. In fact, his effort only made the meeting with the net more disastrous.
Running at full speed, the boat might have cut the net and passed on, but drifting with the current as she was when she came to it, something like two hundred feet of stout fibre were wound about the propeller, about the skag, and about the rudder and rudder-post, as the motors were reversed in an effort to back away.
As the boy leaned over the stern to ascertain the extent of the damage, the clatter of the motors died out and he knew that the clogging of the propellers had been responsible.
In a moment the Rambler was drifting aimlessly downstream, swinging this way and that with the current, spinning along broadside to the wash of the river oftener than in any other position.
“Now, I’m in a beautiful mess!” the boy declared. “I shall never be able to get that stuff out of the propeller without beaching the boat.”
As the boy was lifting a heavy oar in the hope of sending the motor boat over to the Indiana side of the river, he heard a slow, drawling hail from the mouth of a little creek some distance down.
“’Tend to your rudder!” shouted a hoarse voice. “You’ll go over the rapids in a heap if you keep on that way!”
“Propeller and rudder clogged!” shouted Alex. “Come on out and tow me in! You’ll be well paid for your work.”
The boy thought, in a moment, that the last sentence had been entirely superfluous, for their experience on the river had been that waterside characters were always too willing to assist any crippled boat. At all times their charges were exorbitant.
“All right!” the man called from the shore, and then the boy saw a small skiff shoot away from the side of a dilapidated-looking shanty boat which lay half hidden by a thicket at the mouth of the creek.
When the man in the skiff reached the Rambler, he rowed completely around her as if examining her good points. He was a long, lanky, sour-visaged individual with long black hair and beard. He was dressed in the homespun cotton so common with rivermen.
“Right pert boat you’ve got there,” he said, at last.
“Never mind the boat now,” Alex answered. “She’s drifting downstream every minute. Tow her to shore and help me to get this net out of the propeller.”
“So it’s a net in the propeller, is it?” snarled the man from the houseboat. “I hope you hain’t gone and took up my net.”
“Did you have a net out in the river?” asked the boy.
“I certainly did!” was the reply. “And if you’ve gone and cut it up, you’ll pay for it.”
Alex knew very well that the man from the houseboat had never owned a net of the value of the one he had destroyed, but he decided to have no words with the fellow until the Rambler was ready to proceed on her journey. He saw that the man was evidently seeking a quarrel.
“Yessir!” the riverman went on. “If you’ve gone and cut up my net you’ll pay me a good price for it. There’s too many of you sports romping up and down the river with your gasoline boats.”
“Time enough to talk about that when we get the boat over to the shore,” Alex declared. “I don’t want to drift downstream any farther.”
Scowling and complaining over the exertion required, the fellow finally managed to work the Rambler into the mouth of the creek where the houseboat lay. As Alex took in the situation at one quick glance, he saw two evil-faced fellows lounging on the deck of the houseboat.
“What you got, Mose?” one of them called out to the riverman.
“I’ve salvaged a motor boat!” was Mose’s reply.
“What’s the trouble with her?” was the next question.
“She’s got my net wound around her propeller!” answered Mose.
“Sho’,” returned the other. “That new net of yours that cost a hundred not a week ago?”
“Yessir, that same new net!” returned the riverman.
Alex saw that the men were preparing to make trouble for him. He knew that they could not collect a cent of salvage for towing his boat out of the stream. He was positive that the net did not belong to them. Houseboat people of their class consider themselves fortunate in the possession of ordinary fishing lines and spears.
However, he only smiled as they talked of their hundred-dollar net, and dropped over into the shallow water of the creek to inspect the damage done to the propeller and rudder.
So far as he could see, there was nothing broken. The net which was wound about everything at the stern of the boat seemed to him to make a bundle as large as a whiskey barrel. He took out his knife preparatory to cutting it away.
“Look here, you boy you!” shouted Mose. “Don’t you go to cuttin’ up that net. You just take your consarned old propeller and rudder off the stern so that we can unwind it.”
Alex knew that this would be impossible. His idea was to cut the net away, spring to the motors, and pass out of the reach of the houseboat men before they suspected what he was up to.
Therefore, he at once set to work with his knife and began slashing the strong threads of the net. The three men looked on angrily for an instant and then Mose said:
“I told you not to cut that net, boy!”
“I’m afraid there is no other way,” Alex answered very civilly.
“I hope you’ve got the money in your jeans to pay for it,” Mose shouted. “If you haven’t, I’ll just naturally have to take charge of that boat. I can’t afford to lose that net.”
“All right,” Alex replied, cutting industriously away at the obstruction, “my chums are up the river a short distance and they will be down here directly. Then we can talk about paying. We’ll fix you out all right as soon as they get here.”
“You better see that you do!” Mose responded angrily.
It took some time to cut away the great net, but the propeller and rudder and skag were free at last and then Alex climbed back on the deck.
“Here, you,” shouted Mose, presenting the muzzle of an old-fashioned double-barreled shotgun. “Don’t you go near those motors. I’ve been expecting you’d try to run away without paying your just debts.”
“No fear of my going away just yet,” Alex answered. “I’ve got to wait somewhere along here until my chums come.”
While Mose held the rusty old gun in a threatening manner, his two companions attached a heavy cable to the forward bitts of the Rambler and carried it ashore. After winding it around the trunk of a great tree, they returned to the houseboat and lay down on the forward deck to gaze impudently at the boy.
“Now, we’ll see if you make a sneak down the river!” Mose cried triumphantly. “The best way for you to get away from this creek is to lay down about a hundred and fifty dollars.”
“I didn’t know there was so much money in the world!” laughed Alex.
“If your chums don’t come in one hour,” Mose went on, “we’ll take possession of your boat. This man here,” pointing over his shoulder with his thumb, “is a constable! Ain’t you, Clint? And he can sell your boat right here on the river bank. Can’t you, Clint? We’ll see if these sports are coming down here and destroy our property without paying for it!”
In all his experience in river journeys, Alex had never been confronted by so puzzling a proposition. He knew that the rivermen had no claim upon him whatever, although he considered Mose entitled to some compensation for his friendly act. Still he realized that for the time being the fellows held the whip hand.
It happened that he had considerable money—two or three hundred dollars in his possession, having taken charge of the expense fund only a few days before. His inclination now was to pay the men the money demanded and get away. Then he reasoned that the exhibition of such a sum of money would only arouse the greed of the outlaws. That they would never let him depart with any money at all in his possession, he knew very well. It was a trying situation.
While he stood deliberating over the problem, a a loud hail came from upstream and turning he saw the coal tow sweeping down the river.
“Hold that boat!” shouted a harsh voice from one of the foremost barges. “Hold that boat ’till we get there.”
Scenting an additional profit in the arrival of the tow, Mose sprang into his skiff and rowed out. As the first barge came down, Alex saw two men spring into the skiff which was at once headed for the shore. The two men lounging on the houseboat at once sprang over to the deck of the Rambler, the man with the rusty shotgun keeping it in full view.
When the skiff reached the Rambler, the two men clambered on deck while Mose ran the skiff up into the creek. The two men were extremely well-dressed although their clothing showed connection with the water of the river and the smut of the coal barges. They were both very much excited, and the first thing one of them did was to shake his fist under Alex’s, nose.
“Now, you young thief!” he shouted. “We’ve got you at last!”
“No rough house, pardner!” exclaimed the houseboat man who held the gun. “No rough house here, because, you see, we’ve got a claim on this boy ourselves. He just destroyed a net worth a hundred dollars!”
“A hundred dollars!” snarled the whiskey boat man. “Do you know what he did to us?” he went on. “He stole this motor boat and sunk our steamer with it. He’s cost us more than twenty thousand dollars!”
Alex stood silent in the face of all these accusations. He had recognized the two men from the barge as men he had seen on the whiskey boat, and he knew that they would do their best to make him trouble. For a moment it seemed to him that the fate of the Rambler was sealed.
“What do you say to all this, boy?” asked the man with the gun.
Alex sat down dejectedly on the gunwale.
“I guess I’ll let you fellows fight it out between you,” he said.
“I can’t see as there’s anything to fight out!” one of the men from the whiskey boat shouted.
“This is our boat and we’re going to take it away! As for this boy, we’ll place him in the custody of the first United States marshal we come to!”
Once more the rusty barrel of the old shotgun in the hands of the houseboat man was hoisted to a threatening position.
“Don’t you forget,” the man said viciously, “that this boat busted our net. We don’t care whose boat it is, we’re going to hold it until we get paid for our property!”
“You talk like a fool!” shouted the man from the steamer.
“And you act like a fool!” insisted the other.
“I don’t believe you fellows ever owned any net!” the enraged outlaw shouted. “I’ve seen your old houseboat sneaking along the river here for months. You’re the kind of men who never have the price of a drink unless you can steal it. If you try to hold this boat, I’ll fill you both full of bullet holes!”
The eyes at the stock of the shotgun flashed wickedly, but the man’s voice was remarkably smooth as he said:
“If you move, either one of you, or try to get out a gun I’ll blow the tops of your heads off! You observe,” he went on, “that there are two barrels to this gun, and I’ll tell you right now that they’re both loaded with slugs.”
“This is nonsense!” roared the man from the steamer.
“That’s what I’ve been calculatin’,” replied the other.
Alex was thinking fast. It seemed to him at that time that it would be better to leave the Rambler in the hands of the houseboat men than in those of the men from the steamer.
The houseboat men would be satisfied with a small amount of money as soon as they discovered that they could get no more, while the other outlaws would insist on taking the Rambler for their alleged debt.
Taking this view of the situation, he turned to the man who was holding the shotgun.
“These two men,” he said, “are whiskey boat men. They have no more claim on this boat than you have.”