“It’s help! It’s friends!” Joe exclaimed. “Carl’s been in time.”
In the uproar of the bees Blue Bob must have heard nothing. But his comrades in the boat saw and heard the launch immediately. There was a momentary staring and consultation; then Candler stood up in the boat and fired two shots into the nearest beehives, and a third bullet at the boys’ boat. It clipped the water and glanced humming away, and the pirates rowed breakneck for shore, ran the boat heavily aground, and plunged into the swamp.
Blue Bob seemed to see the motor-boat then for the first time. He shouted once after his companions, glanced again up the river, and then started for the forward end of the raft, almost obscured by the flying bees. He turned round half-blindly, and seemed to totter.
“He’s badly stung. He’ll go overboard!” Joe exclaimed.
“We must take him off. Maybe he can’t swim,” his cousin agreed, and they rowed hard toward the raft. But they had not covered half the distance when the pirate either fell or leaped into the river, and the yellow water closed over him. The boys drove the boat up to the outside of the circle of bees, and hung on their oars, waiting for him to come up. A minute or two passed. The raft floated slowly on.
“I believe he went right under the raft,” Bob muttered.
Finally a battered felt hat drifted out behind the logs, but nothing more. The boys circled the raft, but there was no sign of the river pirate.
“Gone to the bottom!” said Joe; and the boys were still rowing about, rather horror-stricken at their enemy’s sudden end, when the motor-boat rushed up.
“Too late for the fight?” shouted the young fellow at the wheel, whom they recognized as having been at Magnolia Landing. Carl was just behind him; among the others Bob caught sight of the face of Uncle Louis, and there were three other armed men in the boat.
“Yes, the fighting’s over. Did you come too, Uncle Louis?” cried Joe. “Why, Alice! What are you doing here?”