“Oh, cheer up!” Clay laughed, slapping the boy on the back. “We’ll find your money for you! Everything always comes out right with us! You know that yourself. Everything always comes out just as it should!”
“You know it!” Case cut in. “You know that we always find the right answer! Now, suppose we let this money and these inscriptions take care of themselves for the present, while we decide what to do to-night. It will be bright, from all appearances, so perhaps we’d better be on our way to the big noises of the Colorado.”
“I’m willing to go anywhere!” Alex complained. “I can never look myself in the face again! Think of losing fifty thousand dollars, when a five case note would look like unlimited wealth to me!”
“Here comes a fleet of river boats!” Clay shouted. “Look at the little, one-sided things! What they loaded with. Case?”
“I’m not a mind reader!” laughed the boy. “Looks, though, like they were loaded with merchandise. I suppose they’ve been lying in some cool cove all day, and will make good time to-night.”
The little steamers came slowly up to where the Rambler was anchored and passed on without giving the motor boat more attention than a close scrutiny from the decks. The sun was going down over the ranges to the west and dusk was settling over the valley of the Colorado.
The boys heard the rattle of spars and chains for some time after the little steamers had disappeared under the veil of the twilight, and now and then a black column of smoke from some stack proclaimed the activity of a fireman working down in a shallow hold.
After a short wait the Rambler was gotten under way, and the boys prepared for a wakeful night. They sat on the forward deck for a long time, talking over the strange events of the day, and then Alex was almost forced by his chums off to his bunk.
As the weary, discouraged lad turned into his bunk he heard noises on deck which set him to wondering what his chums were doing, but he was too sleepy to open his eyes. He turned his face to the wall and was soon asleep. Case and Clay sat well forward and did not hear the bump of a boat against the stern.
The dark figure on the aft deck was out of their sight.