“Perhaps they’ve gone for good!” she exclaimed. “Or maybe they’ve started on one of their plundering expeditions. All that shooting and burning was just to terrorize us—to keep us intimidated till they get back.”
“The boat’ll leave the barge here to-day, if she’s on time,” said Joe. “What luck if they didn’t get back till we had the bees all moved, and they’d come back to find the place empty!”
“Too good to be true!” Bob commented. “I’d give a good deal to have them stay away for a week just now. But we don’t know that they’ve really gone anywhere. They may have got back to their camp through some other channel in the swamps—most likely they have.”
At any rate, that day passed without any attack, and late in the afternoon the steamboat did come up the river, and left the great, flat-bottomed barge moored to a tree at the mouth of the bayou. The barge would easily carry the whole apiary. The bees would have to be taken down to it by means of their own flatboat, a dozen at a time, but there was no hurry about beginning this task. The steamer would not be back for four days, and the bees must not be kept shut up in the hives an hour longer than necessary. The loading could be done in a single day, and it would be time enough to begin in two or three days more.
It would be a simple matter, provided they were not molested in the operation, and the problem of whether their enemies had really gone away temporarily was a most important one. It grew to weigh upon them so heavily that they decided at last to solve it; and Joe, Bob, and Sam started in the boat upon a reconnoitering trip up the bayou.
Half a mile from the apiary they turned aside into the smaller channel they had followed before, and within another half-mile they came in sight of the camping-ground of the pirates that they had seen from a distance. Nobody was in sight; and they ventured to land with great precaution and with weapons ready.
But the camp was really deserted. There had been no fire for at least twenty-four hours, and not a particle of any sort of outfit was left about the palmetto shelter.
“Looks as if they’re really gone,” said Bob delightedly.
“Whar you reckon dey’ve left dat old houseboat?” queried Sam. “You reckon dey ever got it back?”
“You can bet they did!” Joe returned. “I expect it’s hidden somewhere in these swamps. Maybe that’s where the gang has gone, in fact.”