The canoe came up alongside, and both the boys saw it plainly. In the bow was the sallow-faced man with whom Joe had spoken up the river. At the stern was a tall, heavily-built man, with long black hair, and a cruel, brutal face. Across his brow, exposed by the pushed-back hat, was a great blue-black mark or stain, probably made by the powder-marks of a gun fired too close to his face. It was the relic of some deadly brawl, no doubt, and Joe guessed that this must be the redoubtable Blue Bob himself. Both men had guns laid back against the seats, and both carried sheath-knives.
Bob looked at his cousin questioningly, and touched his rifle. Joe hesitated, lying with the powerful little rifle cuddled against his face and his finger on the trigger. He could easily have picked off both the men as they came up, but a boat-load of rosin did not seem worth two men’s lives. But more than that was at stake. It was a question of saving their own lives. In a fight their only chance would lie in shooting first.
He put his head close to his cousin’s ear and whispered:
“We’ll let them come aboard. The moment they’re on the deck we’ll draw a bead on them and make them drop their guns.”
The canoe ran alongside the houseboat, touching her at the end of the “dog-trot,” which now slanted so steeply that the lower rail almost dipped under water. Blue Bob stood up carefully in the canoe, gun in hand, and prepared to step aboard.
Bob and Joe had their sights on him. The river-man had one foot on the deck and the other still in the canoe, when Sam leaped up with a yell of absolute desperation, and seized the barrel of rosin that stood in the passage. With a violent swing he half hurled it, half rolled it. It went like an avalanche down the steep slope. It caught the pirate on the legs before he could dodge it. The flimsy rail crashed under the three-hundred pound weight. There was a yell, a curse, and canoe, barrel, and men collapsed into wreckage together.
“Whoop-ee! Dere dey go!” yelled Sam, wild with triumph.
Joe raised himself and caught a glimpse of the smashed canoe, of the men’s heads struggling in a seething mass of muddy water. And at that moment the houseboat floated clear, whether by the jar of the fracas or by the lightening of the barrel cast overboard. She ground slowly off the log, swung about and began to drift again.
“Lie down!” said Joe under his breath, pulling Bob back as he was about to jump to his feet.
It occurred to him that the river-men had seen only Sam, and would attribute the whole affair to negroes. He had expected the pirates to clamber aboard out of the water but a cautious peep showed them crawling ashore, dripping, only one of them still with a gun. Climbing out in the mud of the bank they both shook their fists toward the retreating houseboat, shouting threats and curses whose words were hardly distinguishable.