Alice, flushed with excitement, was in the stern beside Uncle Louis, and she was half laughing, and almost crying.
“Oh, boys!” she gasped. “Are you both all right? Of course you knew I’d come. What’s the matter with the bees?”
“I got this motor-boat and a posse as soon as I could,” said Carl. “We went down to Old Dick’s place and found you’d gone, and the cabin was all torn down. Didn’t know what to do; finally guessed you must have gone down the river somewhere. We heard the shooting away back, and put on steam. But say, what’s the matter with the apiary? Robbing?”
“Rather!” said Bob. “We’ve got to stop it. That pirate gang got away into the woods. Any use going after them? And old Blue Bob’s drowned. Went under the raft and never came up.”
“Well, that’s mighty good riddance,” said Uncle Louis. “That man’s been a plague all long the river. Not much use trying to catch the others. We’d never find them in the swamps. We’ll smash their boat, and maybe they won’t trouble these parts any more.”
“Don’t smash that boat,” said Bob. “Let me make a smoke-boat of it. We’ve got to subdue those bees right away, or they’ll rob one another all to pieces.”
On this ingenious suggestion they filled the outlaws’ boat with leaves and damp wood, and set it on fire. It produced an immense volume of choking smoke, and, towing it to the windward side of the raft, they fastened it alongside.
Under that choking smother the war in the air suddenly stopped. The bees made in a panic for their own hives, and in a few minutes Bob was able to board the raft. Securing a bee-veil, gloves, and a smoker, he went up and down the rows, puffing smoke into all the entrances, and drenching the hives with water.
“That’ll keep ’em quiet for the rest of the day, I think,” he said. “And we ought to have ’em ashore by to-night.”
They had, in fact, gone below the point on the river where they had intended to unload the cargo. Two miles still farther down, however, there was a steamboat landing, a small settlement, and a road that led out to the railway, five miles to the west. There was scarcely any danger of a fresh attack by the discomfited pirates, but the motor-boat stayed with them as they floated down to this point. It was well that it did so, for it took the united efforts of the six men to bring the big raft to a halt and moor it at the landing.