“Don't you fret about that; he'll come,” said Booge, grinning. “He's got my address and number scratched on his face, and I'd ought to clear out right now, but you see how I've got to help you out when trouble comes. You 're like a child, Peter. You and Buddy would do for twins. When old kazoozer comes back he'll bring a wagonload of sheriffs and a cannon or something. What would you do if you come to me with a peaceable court order, and got throwed all over a toy wagon?”
“If he can shoot, I can shoot,” said Peter. “I bet! And get Buddy shot all full of holes? We've got to skedaddle and scoot and vamoose,—listen!”
In the silence that followed they could hear voices—a number of voices—and Buddy crept to Peter's side and clung to his knee, frightened by the tense expression on the two uncles' faces. Peter stood with one hand resting on the table and the other clutching Buddy's arm. Suddenly he put out his free hand and grasped his shot-gun. Booge jerked it away from him and slid it under the bunk.
“You idiot!” he said. “What good would that do you? Listen—have you got any place you can take the kid to if you get away from here?”
“I've got a sister up near town—”
“All right! Now, I'm going to sing, and whilst I sing you get Buddy's duds on, and your own, and be ready to skin out the back door with him. I can hold off any constable that ever was—long enough to give you a start, anyway—and then you've got to look out for yourself.”
Peter hurried Buddy into his outer coat and hat, and Booge searched the breadbox for portable food, as he sang in his deepest bass. He crowded some cold corn cake into Peter's pocket, and some into his own as he sang, and as his song ended he whispered: “Hurry now! I'm goin' to put out this lamp in a minute, and when it's out you slide out of that back door—quick, you understand?” He let his voice rise to his falsetto. “Sing it again, Uncle Booge!” he cried, imitating Buddy's voice. “No, Buddy's got to go to sleep now,” he growled and the next instant the shanty-boat's interior was dark. “Scoot!” he whispered, and Peter opened the rear door of the cabin and stepped out upon the small rear deck. He stood an instant listening and dropped to the ice, sliding in behind the willows, and the next moment he was around the protecting point, and hurrying down the slough on the snow-covered ice, with Buddy held tight in his arms. He heard Booge throw open the other door of the boat and begin a noisy confab with the men on the shore. Booge was bluffing—telling them they had lost their way, that they had come to the wrong boat, that there was no boy there. Peter had crossed the slough and was on the island that separated it from the river when he saw the light flash up in the shanty-boat window. He slipped in among the island willows and crouched there, listening, but he heard nothing for he was too distant from the boat to hear what went on inside, and he pushed deeper into the willows and sat there shivering and waiting.
It was an hour later, perhaps, when he heard Booge's voice boom out, deep and cheerful, repeating one song until his words died away in the distance:
Go tell the little baby, the baby, the baby,
Go tell the little baby we won't be back to-day;
Go tell the little baby, the baby, the baby,
Go tell the little baby they're takin' Booge away.
“Come now, Buddy,” said Peter, “we can go back to the boat. Uncle Booge says there ain't nobody there now.”