“We’ll overtake them; of course we will!” returned Joe, grimly. “Good thing we carried our guns ashore last night. How many cartridges have you?”
Their supply was short. Bob had nothing but the seven rounds in the magazine of his repeater. Joe had twelve shots in his magazine and a handful of loose cartridges in his pocket. Unfortunately Bob’s rifle was of a different caliber and would not take them.
“It’s enough, anyway,” said Bob. “I hope we don’t fire even all these. We’ll play those fellows at their own game—trail them, run them down, catch them unawares. I only wish we’d brought some grub ashore with us.”
“I kin soon shoot a rabbit or ketch a few catfish,” Sam suggested.
“No time for that now,” said Joe. “I think we ought to catch up with the raft within two or three hours if we start right off.”
Charged with grim determination they started down the river. By the time they had reached the first great curve the fog had lifted, and they crept cautiously around the bend. Nothing was in sight on the new reach ahead. Indeed they had expected nothing so soon, and they raced down a mile of channel, edged warily around the bend, and still found the river empty.
They began to feel faint from hunger, and while the white boys rowed they set Sam to troll a line over the stern for catfish. But he had no luck; he caught nothing. Another river reach still showed no trace of the raft. Opening into the river at frequent intervals were cross-channels, bayous, backwaters and creeks, screened with willow, curtained with bamboo-vine, misty with gray Spanish moss, but the boys kept to the main channel. Seven or eight miles went by. They rounded bend after bend, but sighted no larger living thing than a flock of wild ducks.
“I don’t see how she could have got very much farther than this,” said Bob, as he mopped his perspiring face. “Do you think those thieves could have burned her or cut her to pieces?”
“We’d surely have seen some floating wreckage. And burning would have left an awful smell of scorched wax and bees. No, I’ve been thinking that perhaps those fellows didn’t steal the raft at all—didn’t stay on it, I mean. They’d have been afraid of the bees, for one thing. I’ll bet they wouldn’t have stayed an hour on board for anything. I believe they may have simply taken all the loose articles they could lift, and then turned the raft loose to spite us, and probably she’s drifting down somewhere all by herself.”
“Dey’d shorely want all dat honey in de hives,” put in Sam. “It’s worf a heap of money.”