“Come on and hunt pirates,” he said. “The good cruiser Haddon P. Rogers is going to hit a new trail—up-river this time. Come on along.”
Billy Getz escorted him aboard the Haddon P. Rogers and led him straight to the Sheriff on the upper deck.
“Sheriff,” he said, “we’ve got ’em now! This time we’ve got ’em sure. Here’s Gubb, the famous P. Gubb, detective, and after many solicitations he has consented to accompany us. We will have the pirate craft ere we return. P. Gubb never fails.”
The Sheriff smiled good-naturedly.
“Always kidding, ain’t you, Billy,” he said.
The boat started. She steamed slowly up the river, the members of the posse on the upper deck on either side, scanning the shores carefully. Occasionally the ferry-boat backed and ran closer to shore to permit a nearer inspection of some skiff or to view some log left on the shore by the last flood. Billy Getz, standing beside the Sheriff and P. Gubb, called their attention to every shadow and lump on the shore. The boat proceeded on her slow course and reached the channel between an island and the Illinois shore. The wooded bank of the island rose directly from the water, some of the water-elms dipping their roots into the river. There was no place where a boat could be hidden, and the ferry steamed slowly along. Billy Getz poked solemn-faced fun at Mr. Gubb in the most serious manner, and Mr. Gubb was sternly haughty, knowing he was being made sport of. His eyes rested with bird-like intensity on the wooded shore of the island.
“Now, this combination of paper-hanging and detecting has its advantages,” said Billy Getz, with a wink at the Sheriff. “When a man—”
Philo Gubb was not hearing him.
“The remarkableness of the similarity of nature to art is quite often remarkable to observe,” he said to the Sheriff, “and is seeming to grow more so now and then from time to time. That piece of section of woods right there is so naturally grown you might say it was torn right off a roll of Dietz’s 7462 Bessie John.”
He stopped short.