"We are at a place called Shaggam Creek," said Dora. "That is worth remembering."
"If only we could get some sort of a message to the Rover boys and the others," sighed Nellie. "Dora, can't we manage it somehow?"
"Perhaps we can—anyway, it won't do any harm to write out a message or two, so as to have them ready to send off if the opportunity shows itself."
Paper and pencils were handy, and the cousins set to work to write out half a dozen messages.
"We can set them floating on the river if nothing more," said Nellie.
"Somebody might pick one up and act on it."
The hours slipped by, and from the quietness on board the girls guessed that some of their abductors had left the houseboat.
This was true. Baxter and Flapp had gone off, in company with Pick Loring, to send a message to Mrs. Stanhope and to Mrs. Laning, stating that Dora and Nellie were well and that they would be returned unharmed to their parents providing the sum of sixty thousand dollars be forwarded to a certain small place in the mountain inside of ten days.
"If you do not send the money the girls will suffer," the message concluded. "Beware of false dealings, or it may cost them their lives!"
"That ought to fetch the money," said Dan Baxter, after the business was concluded.
"If they can raise that amount," answered Loring. "Of course you know more about how they are fixed than I do."