"I'll do it. But I don't want them fellers on the houseboat to see me."
"Why not?"
"Cos Pick Loring and Hamp Gouch thinks I am their friend. Ef they knowed as how I give 'em away they'd plug me full o' lead."
"Then the two horse thieves are with Baxter and Flapp," said Songbird. "If we bag the lot we'll be killing two birds with one stone, as the saying goes."
"Come on!" cried Paul Livingstone. "I want to get those two horse thieves by all means. Why, there is a reward of one thousand dollars for their capture, dead or alive."
"By golly, I'se out fo' dat reward!" came from Aleck, and he pulled out a horse pistol which he was carrying. "Jess let me see dem willains." And he flourished the weapon wildly.
The steam tug was led up the creek by Jake Shaggam for a distance of two miles.
"See that air turn yonder?" he said.
"Yes," said Captain Carson.
"Thet houseboat is behind the trees and bushes around the p'int. Now whar's the five dollars?"