CHAPTER XV.—THE RAMBLER STRIKES BACK.
“Just let me get up on the prow with a gun!” Alex exclaimed, pulling himself out of a puddle of water on the deck. “I want to get a couple of shots at those devils on board that steamer!”
“What did they do to you?” asked Case.
“They didn’t do nothing to me, only choked me nearly to death with the collar of my own shirt,” said the boy, “but I heard them planning to leave us lying at the bottom of the lagoon and steal the boat.”
“That’s what they’re here for!” Clay answered. “When you see a whiskey boat on any river, you may make up your mind that the men on board will commit murder if they find it necessary.”
“If we don’t get more speed on,” Case exclaimed, pulling Alex away as he made a dash for the prow, “they’ll beat us to the entrance to the lagoon now.”
Clay rushed back to the motors to see if another ounce of power could not be turned on while Jule seized the lines and headed the boat off on the port side.
“They’ll come in from the river side,” he said to Case, “and we may slip through between their prow and the little bend which tops the lagoon on the north side.”
The Rambler was moving much faster than the steamer, but the latter had several rods the start. As they raced desperately for the narrow strip of water between the two arms of the island it was an open question as to which would win.
“I just believe she’s going to get there first!” Jule said drawing still farther away to port. “Can’t you make her go any faster, Clay?”
“Every pound of power is on!” Clay replied. “You boys would better be getting your guns ready. If we come together they may try to board us. If you shoot, shoot to some purpose.”
“We ain’t a-going to come together!” Jule whispered to Alex, who now occupied a position at his side. “At least, we’re not going to come together so they can jump over on our deck.”
“What are you going to do?” Alex asked. “Look here!” Jule queried. “The Rambler’s sides and prow are braced with steel, aren’t they?”
“You know it!” Alex answered with a chuckle as he began to understand the purpose of his chum.
“Well, then,” Jule declared, “I’m going to ram her! If that steamer gets her nose in our way, I’m going to send the Rambler plumb through her. I wonder how they’ll like that?”
“If you do,” Alex advised, “reverse the minute you strike. If you don’t, you are likely to get wedged into any hole you may make.”
“I tell you I’m going to send the Rambler clear through her!” insisted Jule. “I’m going to bang her with all the force of the motors.”
“Go to it!” Alex exclaimed. “I’m game for any racket of that kind. Only don’t you say anything to Clay about it. He’d be afraid of breaking the motors or something.”
The Rambler was now almost to the entrance. The steamer was still moving upstream. As the boys looked the prow of the whiskey boat turned almost directly into the path which the motor boat must follow in order to leave the lagoon.
Jeers of triumph arose from the cabin deck of the steamer as those on board took in the significance of the situation. They now considered it certain that the Rambler would soon be at their mercy, blocked beyond the possibility of escape in the lagoon.
Jule at the helm of the motor boat, however, had a very different idea as to how the scene ought to terminate. In a second the great steamer, lumbering and loosely built, lay broadside to the oncoming Rambler. Clay gave a cry of warning as the boy swirled the boat so as to strike the steamer amidships, but Jule held on to his course.
Before Clay could utter another cry of warning, the steel prow of the Rambler crashed into the steamer about a third back from the prow!
It seemed for a moment as if Jule’s prediction that he would go clear through the lumbering old steamer was to be fulfilled, for the steel prow cut into the thin sides of the steamer as a knife cuts into cheese. The shock was terrific.
The boys were knocked off their feet, and Jule found himself rolling on the deck with the tiller ropes still grasped in his hands!
Shouts of rage and alarm came from the sinking boat, and there was an immediate rush for the railing overlooking the motor boat. The steamer was still staggering under the impact of the blow, and those on board were reeling like drunken men.
Clay’s first act was to reverse the motors. Much to his delight and surprise, the Rambler backed slowly out of the cavity she had cut into the side of the steamer. The side wall of the ponderous old boat had been shattered into bits many feet on either side of the actual cut!
As the Rambler backed away, the steamer began drifting downstream, moving as chance would have it, toward the main channel of the river instead of toward the lagoon. The boys saw at once that she was filling with water, and would probably sink where she lay. They saw, too, that men with pistols in their hands were threatening them from the cabin deck of the steamer.
With fear and trembling Clay set the motors going again, wondering whether they had been injured in the collision so as to render the Rambler unmanageable. The motors responded nobly, however, and in a moment the boys had the satisfaction of seeing her glide past the dipping prow of the steamer.
It was dark as ink over the surface of the river, and Alex turned on the lights as the Rambler rounded the sinking saloon boat and swept on downstream. Once well under way, Clay walked up to the prow and looked it over.
“Any harm done?” called Jule.
“No harm that paint and putty won’t repair,” answered Clay. “That is, not here,” he added. “Some of you boys would better look into the cabin.”
The cabin certainly was in a mess. Alex’s cherished catfish lay rolling on the floor, with Teddy shambling back and forth after it. Many of the lockers had been burst open, and a heap of broken crockery lay on the floor not far from the electric coils. The glass panel in the cabin door was shattered, and the coal stove, which had been used in lower latitudes to keep the boys warm, lay on its side.
“Everything’s all right in here!” Alex cried sticking his freckled nose through the sash formerly occupied by the glass panel. “Nothing wrong in here at all, except that the stove is tipped over, and the dishes are all broken, and our expensive wardrobes are rolling in the dirt, and Teddy’s eating up my catfish. Oh, we’re all right in here!”
Clay left the prow and looked through into the cabin.
“We ought to charge this to Jule!” he said with a laugh.
“All right!” said Jule. “I wouldn’t have missed that for a thousand dollars. Do you think I sunk that boat?”
“You certainly did!” answered Clay. “The last I saw of her as we came around the bend her cabin lights were shining mighty low.”
“And now,” Case complained, “they’ll be sending word on down the river to have us arrested for piracy on the high seas.”
“Don’t you ever think they will!” Alex put in. “I don’t believe there’s a man on board that boat that dare step foot either into Indiana or Kentucky. They sell drugged moonshine whiskey, and they rob every man that comes on board, so it’s a sure thing that there’s a warrant for them in every town along the river.”
“I didn’t think you had it in you, Jule!” Clay laughed.
“What’s the answer?” Jule questioned.
“I didn’t think you had the nerve to ram a boat the size of that one. It was a desperate thing to do.”
“Huh!” grinned Jule. “I guess if I hadn’t rammed her, we’d be packed like sardines in some dirty old steamer hold now.”
“And that’s no dream!” Alex shouted.
With her prow light burning brightly, the Rambler proceeded slowly down the river. In a few moments they came to four great coal barges stranded on a sand bar. As they glided by a man in a rowboat shot out into the circle of light and called out:
“What’s the trouble up the river, boys?”
“Oh,” Alex answered, “a saloon boat ran into something and broke in two. I guess she’s sinking.”
“I thought I heard a crash of some kind,” answered the stranger. “Anybody likely to get drowned?”
“I hope so!” Clay answered. “That’s one of the meanest outlaw boats on the river. I was glad to see her going down.”
“Indeed it is,” agreed the other. “I saw the men on board of her getting the bargemen drunk. You see the result here. Hundreds of tons of perfectly good coal wasted.”
“Suppose we run into a cove here, or up against one of those barges,” Jule whispered, “and see if this man knows anything about the three blue lights.”
The Rambler was steered under the lee of the lower barge downstream from the sand bar and the stranger rowed alongside.
Clay was about to question him regarding the phenomenon, now twice witnessed, when the hum of low voices came from the shore. The boy listened intently and the next moment the heavy tramping of horses’ feet came to his ears. Directly the sharp whinny of a restive horse cut the still air!