"There you are," said Dick, and paid him.
"Much obliged. Now I reckon I'll go home an' let you-uns fight it out," added Jake Shaggam, and tying up his rowboat he stalked off, just as if he had accomplished nothing out of the ordinary.
"We had better approach with caution," said Paul Livingstone. "Those horse thieves are desperate characters. They would not be above shooting us down rather than give up to the law."
In the meantime Baxter and Flapp were much disturbed by the condition of affairs on board the houseboat. Both Loring and Gouch had been drinking more or less all night and were in far from a sober condition.
"I don't mind a drink myself, but those chaps make me sick," growled
Dan Baxter.
"I guess we made a mistake to take them into our scheme," said Lew
Flapp. "Look how Gouch blabbed to that old man last night."
"Where are they now?"
"In the captain's stateroom opening a new bottle of liquor. Neither of them can stand up straight."
"For two pins I'd pitch them overboard. Where is Sculley?"
"He is with them, drinking hard, too."