“What do they smuggle?” demanded Tom with some scorn.
“I don’t know. He did not seem very clear about it.”
“Just the same,” Tom observed, sinking his paddle again in the water, “there may be trouble in the air.”
“Trouble on the river, I guess you mean,” giggled Helen.
But she giggled because she was excited and nervous. She was quite as alarmed as Tom was over the possibility that Chess and Ruth had got into some difficulty on the King of the Pipes’ island.
CHAPTER XXIII
TROUBLE ENOUGH
Returning to Ruth Fielding in the cavern: Although her heart beat rapidly and she really was fearful, she showed little perturbation in her countenance and manner after she had talked with Charley Pond, if that was the real name of the King of the Pipes.