“Dey’re bound to cotch us anyways,” returned Sam pessimistically.
It was not so easy to take to the woods. The shores were flooded on both sides. Water stood among the trees wherever they looked; there was no place to land. To plunge into that snake-haunted lagoon, into possible quicksands, was worse than to face the guns of the river-men.
In spite of their weight on the steering-oar, the heavy craft wallowed from one side of the channel to the other, moving with maddening slowness. Joe craned his head around to look forward; he thought he saw drier ground ahead, and then the boat grounded heavily on a great sunken log.
“Help me shove her off!” he exclaimed. “Run forward, Sam. Get that other oar.”
There was another big sweep at the bow, which the negro hastened to secure. The boat, pivoting round on the current, drove further on the obstruction, and heeled so far over that the deck sloped at a sharp angle. Joe and Bob shoved furiously. But the craft still stuck, and, as they hung there helplessly, there was another shout behind, and they saw a canoe just poking around the bend of the bayou.
By instinct they all dropped flat where they stood.
“Crawl back into the cabin,” Joe whispered. “They mustn’t see us.”
The two boys wormed back, flat on their faces. Looking through the cabin they espied Sam also crawling toward them, his eyes rolling with fright. He too had seen the coming canoe. Joe gestured at him, and he lay down just inside the door leading to the “dog-trot.”
As yet they had evidently not been seen. Joe took a cautious peep at the approaching canoe. It was their own canoe, as he had guessed, and he was relieved to see that there were only two men in her. They were coming on carelessly, talking as they paddled. It appeared that they thought the houseboat had broken adrift by accident.
“Lucky she stuck here,” he heard one of them say. “I done told you-all that rope wouldn’t hold, noways.”