"Here is a fine shelter!" they heard Pick Loring exclaim. "They'll never spot the houseboat in such a cove as this."
"I believe you," answered Dan Baxter. "It is certainly a dandy hiding place."
"Those girls can't very well get ashore neither," said Hamp Gouch.
"If they tried it they would get into mud up to their waists."
"Is this Shaggam Creek—the place you spoke about?" asked Lew Flapp.
"Yes."
"You said there was an old man around here named Jake Shaggam."
"Yes, he lives in that tumble-down shanty over the hill. I don't think he will bother us."
"Does he live there alone?"
"Yes. He is a bachelor and don't like to go down to the village."
The girls heard this talk quite plainly, but presently Baxter, Flapp, and the two horse thieves withdrew to another part of the houseboat and they heard no more.