The poor girls were utterly disheartened and dropped back on the seats in something close to a faint.
"This is a mess," growled Dan Baxter. "Have you any idea who that was that called from the shore?"
"Some kind of a watchman," answered Loring. "We have got to get out of this neighborhood in railroad time or the jig's up," he added.
"Well, I'm willing."
It did not take long to catch up to the houseboat, which was drifting down the river in the fashion it had pursued before being towed by the Lunch. Flapp and Hamp Gouch were waiting impatiently on the deck.
"Got 'em?" asked Lew Flapp.
"Yes, but we had no time to spare," returned Dan Baxter. "Two minutes more and they would have been ashore."
"After this maybe we had better stand guard over them, Baxter."
"Just what I have been thinking."
Once alongside of the houseboat, the two girls were forced on board once more and taken to the stateroom next to that which they had before occupied.