“Well, that rosin may be worth three or four thousand dollars,” Joe argued. “The bees aren’t worth half that. Besides, we’ve got to seize our chance while those pirates are away. Even if they came back we could still ship the bees. The chances are that they won’t trouble to dig into that rosin heap till they know we’re gone. If we ship the bees first and have to wait for the boat to come back, I don’t believe we’d ever get a chance at the rosin; but if we can get the rosin off now, I think we can be almost sure of getting away with both. Of course, it’s a chance. I’ll do whatever you-all think.”
They talked it over at great length, but Joe’s reasoning seemed sound. The rosin was too big a thing to risk losing.
“Another thing,” Joe added. “The river boats aren’t usually very heavily loaded when they come down-river at this time of year. There’s every chance that they can load our bees aboard somewhere, or part of them anyway, so that they can go with the rosin.”
“Suppose those pirates turned up just as we were carrying off the plunder!” Carl suggested.
“Nothing to do then but defend ourselves,” said Bob with determination. “We’re as many as they are, after all, and as well armed. I’d say, fight!”
“Fight it is!” Joe agreed. “But I hope it won’t come to that. I believe our luck will hold a little longer.”
“Well, there’s no time to lose in getting started. It’ll take us goodness knows how long to raft that stuff down the bayou in our flatboat. And the steamer’ll be back in two or three days,” said Bob.
“We can save some trouble by towing the barge as far as possible up the bayou,” Joe proposed. “Yes, we ought to start right away.”
Nothing else but this last, biggest chance of all was talked of during the rest of the morning and while they prepared and ate dinner. It was a risk; there was danger in it indeed. Nobody was disposed to back out, and yet they hesitated to start. However, after dinner the boys all went down to the river and, with immense labor, towed and poled the big barge up the bayou and moored it below the bee-yard. Beyond that the channel was too crooked and narrow for its passage.
This took them until nearly the middle of the afternoon, and then, without debate, they took the final plunge. Alice declined to be left alone at the cabin, so they all got into the flat boat and poled up the bayou until they reached the hiding-place of the treasure. Tying up the boat, they landed. With an ax Bob rapidly cut a clear path through the jungle, and they ripped away the covering of brush from the rosin heap.