Just then Matt Coyle’s hoarse voice was heard calling warningly to them. “Don’t come no nigher,” it said. “If you think that we are sich fules as to go down to Injun Lake when we want to stay here, you are the biggest kind of fules yourselves. I’ll break the head of the fust one of you that comes within reach.”
“Matt has crawled back to the stern of his scow, and is standing there with his paddle in his hand,” said Arthur, who could see every move the robber made. “I wonder if he thinks that we are ‘fules’ enough to give him battle before Mr. Swan comes up to help us.”
That was just what Matt was looking for, and he did not know what to make of it when the skiff dashed by his scow, keeping so far beyond reach that he could not have touched any of her crew with his paddle if he had tried, and deliberately placed herself across his path. Then his eyes were opened to the details of the plan that had been laid to entrap him, and the promptness with which he went to work to extricate himself was surprising. He said a few words in a low tone to his boys, then put his own paddle into the water, and the scow shot ahead with greatly increased speed, never swerving from her original course by so much as a hair’s breadth.
“Does the old villain mean to run us down, or does he intend to come alongside and capture us and the skiff?” said Roy, who was alarmed as well as amazed by the squatter’s offensive tactics. “Back water, Joe, while I give way. It looks as though we had got to run now.”
The scow was so close to them that they had no time to get out of her way. They saw at a glance that all they could reasonably hope to accomplish was to turn their boat slightly, so that if the scow struck her at all, it would be a glancing blow. But they had miscalculated the speed of Matt’s clumsy looking craft. She seemed to glide over the top of the water instead of passing through it, as other boats do. On she came with terrific force, and although Joe and Roy worked hard to slip out of her way, she struck the skiff fairly in the side, ripping off two of her planks, smashing in as many more, and making a hole that Mars could have crawled through with all ease. At the same instant darkness settled down over the scene as if by magic. Arthur Hastings had been knocked off his perch on the stern locker, and he and the jack-lamp went into the pond together.
“Whoop-ee!” yelled Matt, triumphantly. “Will you git outen our road the next time you see us comin’? Take that fur your imperdence in gittin’ before your betters,” he added, making a vicious blow with his paddle at the place where he had last seen Joe Wayring’s head.
Joe’s head was not there now, however, for he had been sharp enough to put it somewhere else; but Matt was speedily made aware that the boy was not far away, for as the blade of his paddle whistled harmlessly through the air, he received a punch in the ribs with an oar that brought from him a yell of pain, and came very near sending him into the water. At the same moment, a howl of agony from the unlucky Jake announced that Roy was taking a hand in the rumpus.
The fight that followed was a very short one, but it was warm while it lasted, and gave Matt and his boys some idea of what a couple of brave young fellows could do when they were cornered. Joe, while defending himself against the muscular squatter, managed to get in several good blows; Roy pounded Sam to his heart’s content, Jake having dropped out of the contest at the very beginning of it; and Arthur clung to the side of the skiff and called lustily for Mr. Swan.
“I’m coming,” replied the guide, who was doing all he could to bring himself alongside the scow. “Keep them there just a minute longer.”
Roy and Joe would have obeyed if they could; but when Matt heard Mr. Swan’s voice sounding so close to him, he pushed his piratical craft away from the skiff, and the darkness shut him out from view. When the guide arrived a few minutes later, he found the boys supporting themselves by holding fast to the sides of their boat, which was full of water. They had relieved her of their weight just in time to keep her from going to the bottom of the pond. She would not sink now, for she had no cargo aboard to speak of, and besides, the air that was imprisoned in the lockers assisted in keeping her afloat.